We are slowly shifting our focus away from the sidewalk bordering the Capitol grounds. This seems to be a healthy development. Simply on a practical level there are fewer new people we are going to reach there at this point and as I have mentioned before, it takes up a great deal of our energy to maintain the 24/7 nature of the occupation on a sidewalk. We have two possible sites to set up real camps. Both are private property and both require some level of rent but given how we lack numbers to take a public space and hold it those concessions may be necessary. We have an anonymous donor willing to foot the bill for the site that seems preferable to most people so I am increasingly getting the feeling that within a couple weeks we could have an infrastructure set up there. We already have access to a parking lot within 40 yards of that spot where we have a storage pod set up so it seems things are lining up pretty nicely for a change.
The fact that we continue to maintain the Raleigh branch of the Occupation Movement and it continues to develop does not go unnoticed. In truth, we have been noticed from the beginning of our sidewalk occupation. A couple days after we started occupying a camera appeared on top of the Wells Fargo building nearby pointed right at us. There was also a recent news story that covered that our mayor elect, Nancy McFarlane, met with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week up in New York City in an hour long sit down. The article put the length of the sit down this way:
McFarlane took a tour of City Hall and got insights from Bloomberg in a session that turned into a lot more than the quick meet-and-greet she expected.
The article describes the many things they talked about but issues surrounding the Occupy Movement was not mentioned. Bloomberg did apparently encourage her to call anytime to talk or get advice. We already know cities have been coordinating in their crackdowns of occupations. It feels like meetings like that can lay the ground work for those sorts of communications in the future. The Raleigh Occupation doesn’t have the muscle to force McFarlane to make truly tough decisions as of yet, but when the times comes, I imagine Bloomberg would like to be in the loop. Perhaps the meeting instead was just as innocuous as the article made it sound. Consider me a skeptic.
We have also drawn the attention of an ally who dubbed themselves “Occupy the Hood”. They had their first meeting last week and invited the Raleigh Occupation to join them so we could all connect. It was a fantastic first meeting and around 20 from the Raleigh Occupation met with about 20 from Occupy the Hood. Their goal is to reach out to minority communities to spread the messages of occupation generally and as it relates to them. Up to now the Raleigh Occupation has been a very white group. We had already discussed trying to change that with better outreach so when Occupy the Hood contacted us we were thrilled. The meeting mainly focused on our groups brainstorming on how we could help each other build a stronger movement in Raleigh.
There are many reasons minority communities in Raleigh have not been enthusiastic about the Occupation movement, though I don’t claim to know them all. One aspect is just information. As I mentioned we have not done a good job of getting the word out. I still run into people, black, white, latino, or otherwise who don’t even know the Occupation Movement is under way at all. Another aspect is the notion that middle class white America only started caring about these sorts of income inequality issues once it started hurting them and that is a largely correct observation. Minority communities have been dealing with those inequalities forever. I can understand how some minorities feel jaded or cynical to the idea that they should suddenly come running to help the Occupation Movement just because some middle class white people were finally seriously affected.
And then along those same lines many of these minority communities who were already struggling before the latest financial crash, have been affected even more severely by the latest developments than the rest of us. Being already stretched thin makes it unrealistic to devote resources and time to the movement when things have gotten even worse. The reality is though ultimately we must all unite. One way to encourage that process is for Occupy Raleigh to show them that we can make a real and practical difference in their lives. Our brainstorming at that meeting came up with some interesting ideas on how to do that.
One I am excited about taken from examples around the country is the Occupy Homes efforts. We have a member of Occupy Raleigh who is heavily involved in anti-mortgage fraud and who is in touch with a variety of home owners. I think its only a matter of time before we have one who is interested in fighting an impending foreclosure by a bank by having people occupy their home to try to force the banks to back off or refinance under fair terms. Putting our own skin in the game to protect a minority persons home in a poor community, whether we succeed or get arrested trying, I think would be a powerful statement to the community where the home is. Standing by the home owner and their neighbors to resist fascist style state oppression is how you build trust. Actions that carry such powerful meaning, like trying to keep someone in their home, is how we win allies in minority communities. Talk is cheap. They expect and deserve action.
While we continue to develop our outreach and direct action strategies we did have some effective advertisement at this weekends Raleigh Christmas Parade. Karen is our superstar when it comes to making sure we have an abundance of fliers and she came through as usual. We had over 3,000 fliers at the start of the morning and had less than 1,000 left by the time the parade was over. We also went out into one of the main intersections once the parade had ended and did some chants until the police forced us to clear out. We had considered more intrusive actions but did not feel we had the numbers to pull it off when the time came.
Wells Fargo gave us a nice little target with which to make a point as they had hired a plane to fly around the area in circles with a banner informing everyone that Wachovia had been bought by Wells Fargo. It was nice to be able to point to that and yell to the crowd that they paid for that. The largest inescapable irony for me though was watching the parade itself. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Christmas has become primarily a celebration of consumerism but there is nothing like a parade to drive that home. Float after float of paid advertising rolled by covered in Christmas decorations. The marching bands were great but it was still jarring to see some off the props their dancers carried were wrapped presents. There were fancy old-timey cars and motorcycles. The local media stations had their floats. The most jarring moment was a float that had a headboard like structure on the back with the words, “Will work for Santa” written on it. I can’t say for certain if its intent was a flat out depraved sleight to people who hold up “Will work for food” signs or not, but I could write a whole Diary entry on just how wrong that one moment was.
Thousands of people were there for the parade. I had no idea it was so popular. Try to rally people to come stand to try to change the world for the better, you get a few hundred at best. Put on a celebration of consumerism and it draws thousands. All the while I had to keep reminding myself that the supposed symbol for this celebration was Jesus Christ, a staunch pauper and anti-capitalist. The level of cognitive dissonance we have reached is truly astounding. At some point it dawned on me that Occupy Raleigh had fed and clothed more homeless than that entire celebration of Jesus and I made sure to yell that out a few times once the parade was ending and we began drawing more attention to ourselves.
While winter brings harsher environmental elements for occupations to deal with it also brings a (sadly only seasonal) moral voice into the mainstream media whose purported values are closely in line with the Occupation Movement. Chris Hedges is right when he describes how the Christian Church establishment has largely sold out to corporate forces but they have yet to flat out erase the words of Jesus from their Bibles that expose the gross hypocrisy of their stance. From its true nature Christianity should be a huge supporter of the Occupation Movement and we should take full advantage of this season to reinforce that notion with the churches and more importantly their congregations. We need to start forcing the cognizant dissonance to the forefront and force people to confront their purported beliefs with the choices they make.
I am not a Christian and I have overall pretty negative views of organized religions but I am a fan of the overall message of the New Testament which is actually pretty easy to sum up in one word; Love. Love your family. Love your neighbors. Love the poor. Love the sick. Love the weakest among us. Love yourself. The favorite insult directed at Raleigh Occupants is “Dirty Hippie.” Probability tells me that most of the time this insult is coming from Christians. Philosophically speaking Jesus was a dirty hippie. We need to start reminding people of that.
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