What’s Progressive About Camping in Public Places?

[alp227]

Randy Shaw, Beyondchron.org

Occupy Wall Street’s seizure of a private park within steps of the New York Stock Exchange was brilliant. And the setting up of temporary encampments in other cities as a show of solidarity and as recruitment/organizing centers also made sense. But after the camping strategy got Occupy on the national map, what is progressive or strategically savvy about insisting on permanent campgrounds in public spaces? It's not as if camping is necessary to remind people about the federal government’s failure to address homelessness – nobody walking through the nation’s major cities can escape this fact. And this message could be sent through a single tent and accompanying information table. Occupy is about more than increased homelessness, and these battles over public camping divert attention from the movement's goals by pitting city officials against campers while Wall Street and big banks remain out of view. And as progressives criticize the privatization of urban land, turning public spaces over to a small number of campers is hardly “progressive.”

full: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9738

[Fumesucker]

1. What's progressive is shutting up and letting the politicians do politics..

After all, they are specialists and know more about government than the ordinary citizen.

:shrug:

[dtexdem]

2. Why attack what has worked?

Criticizing the success and dedication of occupiers is not at all progressive.

unrec

[Warpy]

3. Yes, of course progressives should just shut up and eat the shit sandwiches

that have so generously been bestowed upon them by their elected representatives.

After all, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Only through our collective obedience can we ever hope to achieve any of our ideals.




And, for the OP, :sarcasm:

[Speck Tater]

4. They should be occupying the front steps of the stock exchange, not camping out in some park.

What they started out doing made a great deal of sense. What they are evolving into makes no sense at all.

[Warpy]

6. They are continuing to evolve

Capturing and holding turf is not the point, as you'd know if you'd been following it closely.

They are now showing up at foreclosure auctions and fouling them up. They are joining with labor unions in strikes.

Besides, they'd have been nothing but bloody stains on the pavement had they come anywhere near the NYSE. Instead, they chose a privately held park and managed to educate a whole country.

That is damned special.

[AmericaIsGreat]

7. Great idea

Then they get kicked out and pepper sprayed in about 30 seconds.

Wherever allows them to stay the longest while getting exposure is the best place. They'd be run out from the steps of the stock exchange immediately. That would make no sense.

[kestrel91316]

9. I think we all know they'd be shot as terrorists for doing that. And yes,

I am serious.

[Newest Reality]

5. Exposure and

awareness!

That's only the first step in an effort to counter the mass-hallucination that is the LSD of mass media and state propaganda. Physical bodies occupying actual coordinates in space-time can be a visceral counterpoint to the hyper-reality of the corporate-crafted Simulation.

What other response, at this juncture, is possible in that respect? There have been many progressives working with and within the behemoth of the MIC for decades. While they are to be admired and thanked, the frustration of struggling with an evolving, increasingly aggressive and coercive neo-liberal agenda is not yielding progressive results, as anyone with eyes can see.

For that matter, why do progressives post here? Are we simply here to commiserate and preach to the choir? I wouldn't be here if I felt that our communication and expression, as well as our camaraderie, was merely an exercise in abstraction. While merely talking without action may actually be dis-empowering, that would only be the case if ideas and influence had no impact whatsoever. We tend to inform each other here and then inspect and discuss the information.

Everything we create and use starts with ideas. Where we live, our cities, these computers we are using did not just appear out of nowhere. We might want to be mindful of where ideas start and how they can eventually blossom into social and physical reality.

The idea of Occupy is taking shape and patience and support are a way to gain some form of momentum and have more of something tangible rather than more of the same, encroaching imprisonment in the dominant ideology of control.

[saras]

8. Putting civil rights clearly above property rights. That's enough reason for me, never mind OWS

When we respond to the phrase "property rights" the same way we'd respond to the phrase "white man's rights", then we can move on.