11-15-11 Occupy

Over the past three days, various Occupy groups have been forced with political and police pressure to be shut down and closed.  The police of course are just following directions from the politicians who were elected by the people.  Sorry, but that’s a bunch of crap.

We all know that big business contr9olls politics, from the smallest political seat of county judge to the Presidency.  So these politicians are following the orders of their donors and not of the people.  While I have no doubt that there are a percentage of people who want to see the Occupy movement shut down, it is not the majority of people.  In fact there is not a majority of people in favor of the Occupy movement and that I put the blame squarely on the heads of the movement.

As with each positive and negative incident related to the Occupy movement, they fail to respond, especially on the positive aspects such as the 4 plus billion dollars transferred out of the big banks over the past month.  Therefore, the continued lack of and decreasing support for the movement is no one’s fault but occupy.

While I agree with Mayor Bloomberg that the Occupy tent cities have become a health hazard, I do not agree with his actions.  Nor do I agree with occupy’s continued lack of pro-active measures to avoid what is currently happening.

The Occupy movement needs to step up and create a higherarchy that is com0pletely inclusive and creates a working cooperative group that allows for self policing, cleaning/sanitation and improvements to the areas in which they occupy.  In other words, take away all negative arguments that the politicians are using to shut the tent cities down.

I realize that there will always be negative issues that arise from such an event, but by having a proactive group established, their ability to deal with the negative aspects quickly will cut down the negative press.

A case in point:  On Saturday, I had agreed to meet a reporter for a follow up interview about my homelessness. While I waited for him at the Austin Occupy location, I witnessed a very heated argument between those who consider themselves die hard Occupiers and those they saw as free loaders.

This argument which leads to verbal assaults, tears and way too much screaming carried on for 20 minutes.  Because their 2was no hierarchy established, anyone and everyone was allowed to yell and scream their thoughts.  If a group had been established, they could have addressed the issue before it became a yelling match.  Instead, the 20 minutes of verbal exchange resulted in nothing being changed or accomplished, except that the amount of anger towards each party increased more than it needed to.

While there are many in the occupy movement that feel any form of government should not exist, the reality is, there must be something or total anarchy will exist.  To change government you must do two things; work from within and from the outside of the establishment.  Clearly Occupy’s continued “occupying” is not enough to make the change.  Thus the need fo4r a political extension of the movement needs to exist.

The value and concept of the Occupy movement must NOT die.  But it does have to grow and grow much faster then it currently is.