Occupy: Phase Two

 From OWS

There comes a time when the Occupy camps have to step back and reconsider their tactics.  With the police sending the homeless, the drug addicts and mentally ill to the camps the Occupiers have come to see the sense of community has all the challenges of being a community.  In the early stages there were families among the residents but they cleared out as things got more complicated and the children exposed to other, less desirable, elements of the movement.

Pressure to close OWS Camps

This nexus was bound to come about. OWS has built a great community but with all the problems of community. As the homeless, the mentally ill and police drifted into the camps the fact is OWS was not fully prepared to deal with the problems people bring with them. It's really okay though.

We can consider a restructur­e of the movement. Move, cooperativ­ely, out of the camps. Clean up as we go to minimize any damage done. Take with us the lessons of long term occupation­. Get to know the community resources better so that in the coming spring/sum­mer we can come at this again with a better organizati­on.

It would be a good time to productive­ly keep the discussion going, by way of an on-line Occupy, perhaps. Come back at this in the spring with a general strike, marches and more occupy. We need a cooperativ­e police discussion and a better community mic system. GA's need to be more accessible­... and so forth. Removing our camps lets the world seem "normal" for those craving some form of normal. It does not mean anything is normal however. The life of this movement is the continuati­on of protest... full on, non-violen­t protest and a discussion about the problems of keeping a camp safe for all and a ways to keep the agitators within the rules of non-violen­ce.

Anyway, this would hone the process, make us more prepared; it is a form of guerrilla protest. 

There is also that problem of holding on to the values that brought on the movement.  For a look at that I recommend the following link.

Controlling the Asshole Problem