[GPSCC-chat] Fwd: Just Keep Occupying...Rotate...Show Up! There Every Week or Every Day

[jgshurt69 at aol.com]

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From: jgshurt69 <jgshurt69 at aol.com>
To: gpsmc-d <gpsmc-d at cagreens.org>
Sent: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 6:10 pm
Subject: Fwd: Just Keep Occupying...Rotate...Show Up! There Every Week 
or Every Day


-----Original Message-----From: jgshurt69 <jgshurt69 at aol.com>To: 
ftprairiedog <ftprairiedog at gmail.com>; cmarcopulos 
<cmarcopulos at gmail.com>; pat1936 <pat1936 at gmail.com>Sent: Fri, Oct 28, 
2011 6:10 pmSubject: Just Keep Occupying...Rotate...Show Up! There 
Every Week or Every Day-----Original Message-----From: Janet Weil 
<janet.weil13 at gmail.com>To: Susan Harman <susanharman1 at gmail.com>Cc: 
Barbara Commins <bcommins1 at gmail.com>; Dolores Perez Priem 
<DoloresMP at aol.com>; Karen Nyhus <karennyhus at earthlink.net>; jgshurt69 
<jgshurt69 at aol.com>; Hedi at mcn.org Saraf <Hedi at mcn.org>; Patricia Gray 
<pat1936 at gmail.com>; monacereghino at comcast.net Cereghino 
<monacereghino at comcast.net>; mlyon01 at comcast.net Lyon 
<mlyon01 at comcast.net>; Jim Dorenkott <jimdorenkott2 at yahoo.com>; 
miller.sharon8282 at gmail.com Miller <miller.sharon8282 at gmail.com>; 
barry at hermansons.com Hermanson <barry at hermansons.com>; 
lyfong at pacbell.net F <lyfong at pacbell.net>; Bob71947 Gorringe 
<bob71947 at aol.com>; fidelity.limo <fidelity.limo at gmail.com>; eric6992 
<eric6992 at yahoo.com>; Richard Becker <rbecker17 at yahoo.com>; mwkathi 
<mwkathi at gmail.com>; Karen Melander Magoon <karenmmagoon at gmail.com>; 
Tanya Dennis <tanyaddennis at yahoo.com>; artpersyko at gmail.com persyko 
<artpersyko at gmail.com>Sent: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 1:50 pmSubject: Re: 
[Activists] Occupy the Winter of Our DiscontentI recommend our email 
communications should be restricted to meetings announcements and other 
short, practical details.I am really not interested in reading people's 
long effusions and opinions, or getting long articles, often by writers 
whose work I read/listen to anyway.Sorry to sound grumpy folks, but I 
receive many dozens of emails as a CODEPINK staffer and a human being 
on many lists, including David Swanson's. I'm sure you all get a LOT of 
emails too.The more real work we are doing, the fewer and shorter 
emails we will send out.We need to talk face to face if we are doing 
real work.JanetOn Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Susan Harman 
<susanharman1 at gmail.com> wrote:Can someone PLEASE make us a listserve 
so we don't have to copy and paste for every email? I don't know 
how...SusanBegin forwarded message:From: David Swanson 
<david at davidswanson.org>Date: October 28, 2011 1:31:55 PM PDTTo: Susan 
Harman <susanharman1 at gmail.com>Cc: activists at lists.mayfirst.orgSubject: 
[Activists] Occupy the Winter of Our DiscontentReply-To: 
david at davidswanson.orgOccupy the Winter of Our DiscontentBy David 
Swansonhttp://warisacrime.org/content/occupy-winter-our-discontentCan 
occupations survive a winter of global weirding, escalated police 
brutality, and the corporate media's venom? Should they?In some parts 
of the country there will be no cold weather. In others, police abuses 
will result in larger occupations, not smaller. And it's certainly 
possible that for the first time in recent years an independent 
progressive populist campaign will survive the enmity of the corporate 
media.In other cases, the cold, the communications assaults, fatigue, 
and the difficulties encountered by activist camps that also become 
homes for the homeless and the mentally ill may begin to erode the 
usefulness of encampments.What to do?Here's one activist's 
recommendations:Above all: stay! Continue to hold public space! Grow, 
and rotate people. No single person need stay forever. But the 99% of 
the 99% that cheers from the sidelines needs to get into the squares 
and parks. We don't need emails or phone calls or checks or pizzas so 
much as we need live bodies!In particular, return wherever police have 
sought to deprive us of our First Amendment rights. Those abuses cannot 
be tolerated or our rights will come under greater assault everywhere 
else. We must occupy precisely where we are told we cannot. The way to 
do this while keeping the conversation focused on what motivated us in 
the first place (the need to obey majority demands, to tax the rich, to 
prosecute the biggest criminals, to end the wars, to move the spending  
 from the military to human needs) is this. We demand the right to 
petition our governments for a redress of grievances.That is the First 
Amendment right that is under assault.The strength of the Declaration 
of Independence was the great number of grievances against King George. 
We have a great number of grievances as well, and if CNN doesn't have 
time for them, well, it can lengthen its sound bytes. Our demands are 
not going to shrink except by being satisfied.Encampments can, with 
some difficulty, serve as bases for nonviolent action and as community 
gathering places and providers of community services. If done right, 
aiding the homeless, the hungry, and those in need of medical care can 
strengthen occupations that may very well turn out to be permanent.But 
the dominant focus should be on nonviolent resistance. Let's not just 
do theater or spectacle. Let's not just get in the way of commuters and 
others in the 99%. Let's get out of the streets and into the suites. 
Let's shut down offices.And, while the focus on the government's 
funders, handlers, and lobbyists is very useful, I'd like to see more 
focus on government. I do not mean working with or through government. 
I mean resisting it, interfering with it, preventing its operations, 
shutting it down. The 1% is represented, and the rest of us are not. 
Let's put a halt to those operations and insist on representative 
ones.If occupations end anywhere, they should not be ended by police or 
the media but by a transition to other tactics that appear more useful 
in that time and place, and those other tools should be up and running 
first before any occupation is phased out.Here are some ideas that are 
being tried or could be:Start a weekly event, ideally on a weekday, 
that includes a march or demonstration, a nonviolent resistance action, 
and a community gathering in a public space. Make this weekly action 
huge before considering whether to end the permanent occupation. 
Consider targeting warm buildings for nonviolent resistance.Occupy 
empty buildings as bases for the winter. Find a building owner who 
wants construction work done in exchange for occupation. Or just squat 
in buildings that are empty. Or find one of those many people who 
support us but will not join us who can donate the use of a building or 
a house, or who can cover the rent. We need to continue building 
community. Our strength comes from it.Plan bus tours from city to city, 
rolling occupations with big events at every stop.Plan people's 
conventions, regionally and nationally and internationally. This will 
involve something else that's critical at the level of the local Occupy 
event: choosing representatives. We must figure out, as many are 
figuring out, how to delegate responsibilities without losing 
democratic control.Plan huge events for the spring, including the start 
of an International Spring of Occupations.Make plans for OccupyTampa 
and OccupyCharlotte for the times of the two national conventions of 
the two political parties of the 1%.Do not go electoral. Do not go 
lobbyist. Do not divert money or time into campaigns. Do not spend your 
days drafting legislation or emailing congress members. Plenty of other 
people will do that stuff no matter what, and they will do it better if 
you're doing the more fundamental work of cultural change. Instead, put 
your skills into communications, education, outreach, inspiration, and 
organizing.The best way to improve the elections is to improve the 
society. The best way to destroy the society is to focus too heavily on 
elections. The rational choice between two bums who are both worse than 
the two who were offered up in the previous election cannot possibly be 
rational.We have larger work to do. It may take a long time. That 
should not affect our level of dedication. But when there is a moment 
of growing momentum, we must seize that moment to press forward with 
everything we've got.-- David Swanson is the author of "War Is A 
Lie" JOIN HIM IN DC OCTOBER 6TH 
AT http://october2011.orghttp://rootsaction.orghttp://warisacrime.orghttp
://davidswanson.orghttp://facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319ht
tp://twitter.com/davidcnswanson__________________________________________
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