Occupy Politics/Occupy the Burbs coverage

It's a MAIN STREET movement. (Natick MA 11/2011)

This is a new thread (instead of cramming more and more into old ones) for coverage on "phase 2" of Occupy tactics (engaging politics) and a running list of press coverage of MA Burb'ish Occupations.

(click here for other posts on this blog re: Occupy)

*****

"In Needham - activists see a need to bring Occupy movement to the suburbs" - The Boston Globe

In Needham - activists see a need to bring Occupy movement to the suburbs - The Boston Globe:
'via Blog this'

The sign by the front door of Artie Crocker’s Needham home bore a plain message: “I am the 99 percent.’’

At 52, the graphic designer and engineer still lives in the town where he was born and raised. He has two grown daughters, an aging cat, and a growing sense that somehow the America around him is just not right anymore.

Like others in support of Occupy protests on Wall Street and elsewhere around the globe, Crocker feels that America’s richest 1 percent have benefited fabulously in recent years while the other 99 percent have seen their wages and living standards stagnate.

“I saw what was going on on Wall Street and then I heard it was going on in Boston and I said, ‘I just can’t sit here and do nothing. I just can’t do it,’ ’’ Crocker said during a lull in the action at his home Sunday night.

There, crammed on green floral-patterned couches and folding chairs in the small living room were about 30 like-minded men and women from Boston’s suburbs who wanted to help keep the message of the Occupy protest in Boston and all around the nation alive - without having to actually camp out downtown.

The gathering was a pilot meeting, Crocker explained, for an expansion of the downtown-centered protests against big-money influence in politics to the suburbs.

Occupy Needham / Occupy the Burbs Pilot Meeting

(UPDATE: Press Coverage links are now in their own post, for clarity's sake)
On Oct 23, at Artie's home in Needham, 30 people from all over the metrowest suburbs came for a standing room only meeting to discuss how we can support the Occupy Boston movement--from our own communities.  Following are the notes from the meeting: 
---------------------------------
Let's keep the momentum going!

Meeting notes from last night are after the flip.  You can find one of the handouts from last night here.  

Why We #Occupy (the Burbs).

Here's why:

(1)   Our ECONOMY is working only for a very privileged few (the 1%. If you make less than $320,000, you are in the bottom 99%)

(2)  And our POLITICAL SYSTEM has been hijacked, because of the corrupting influence of $$$$ and the faulty premise that ‘MONEY = SPEECH’.  Therefore, POLITICS AS USUAL cannot solve the problem of our broken economy.  POLITICS AS USUAL can only be be fought by a POPULAR MOVEMENT--a large and loud enough demand from the public that cannot be ignored because it is so large and loud.  


(3)  These are facts we all know, have known.  Many people and groups have been working on changing this for a long time (e.g., Common Cause has been talking about “The Other 98%” for a while).  HOWEVER, OCCUPY has been the first movement to successfully break thru the clutter and seize NATIONAL ATTENTION to these problems. (Polling shows broad support for Occupy)



(4)  Because of this broad buy-in/attention to the OCCUPY movement, WE HAVE THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY SINCE THE 60s to demand and GET systemic changes. These changes will ONLY happen with broad support; without broad popular demand for change, THE CORRUPTED SYSTEM WILL CONTINUE AS USUAL (see #2 above).



(5)  Therefore, for the Occupy movement to succeed in creating the political will to effect the massive changes we need, it is IMPERATIVE that the Middle-Class, Suburbs, and people who do not normally “get involved in politics” BUY-IN/SUPPORT the Occupy movement and message. (it’s also imperative that poorer, urban communities and communities of color are involved, but that’s not Needham)

(6)  THE RISK/DANGERS:  

**	The Occupy movement, with the passing of time, runs risk of fading from public attention, or perhaps worse, becoming painted in a distasteful light that turns the “mainstream” (white, suburban middle class) against the movement.  If that happens, we will have LOST/SQUANDERED a very rare opportunity to change the system.
Those w/vested interests* in maintaining the status quo are desperate to smear Occupy as hippies, hypocrites, mooches, suckers, racists...	*or have been convinced by the 1% to fight against their interests

(7)  However, with GOOD GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING, we can productively (not reactively) BUILD and SPREAD the movement--ON OUR TERMS, THE TERMS OF THE 99%.  That is why we are here tonight:  

____________________________________________

TO BRAINSTORM HOW WE CAN HELP

- build broad support for and

- spread the movement,

and then

GO OUT AND DO IT.

__________________________________________

Framing Occupy Wall Street - Lakoff

[WeCanOccupy and Occupy the Burbs's attempts to frame our efforts (pdf)]


(Below is an excerpt from George Lakoff: A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street)

A Moral Focus for Occupy Wall Street

I think it is a good thing that the occupation movement is not making specific policy demands. If it did, the movement would become about those demands. If the demands were not met, the movement would be seen as having failed.

We Love America. We're Here to Fix It

It seems to me that the OWS movement is moral in nature, that occupiers want the country to change its moral focus. It is easy to find useful policies; hundreds have been suggested. It is harder to find a moral focus and stick to it. If the movement is to frame itself, it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a particular agenda or list of policy demands. If the moral focus of America changes, new people will be elected and the policies will follow. Without a change of moral focus, the conservative worldview that has brought us to the present disastrous and dangerous moment will continue to prevail.

Occupy Wall Street : "What's it all about?"

in a nutshell

I've posted this before. This is what the teaparty is angry about (but don't realize it),
too. It's what everyone should be angry about. 

It's About an Economy that has Screwed the Middle Class and Poor for 30 years. It's About a Political System that has been Corrupted by Big Money Controlling Policy

The 99%: Occupy and You (and Me)

Faces of the 99%: whether we know it or not, we've all got skin in this game. #Occupy

This entry is on how/if the #OCCUPY movement is relevant to non-hippie-radicals who are non-college-students and Not Camping in Dewey Square (short answer: Yes). On hands-on/nuts-bolts ORIENTATION/information: "#OccupyBoston: a beginner's guide by a beginner."   On the POLITICAL aims/critiques: "Occupy Wall Street : "What's it all about?" .

I've been thinking a lot about the Occupy movement and what it means and what it can/might become. Polling indicates that there is widespread support for the movement right now (more polling). This makes a lot of sense to me; the message at the heart of the movement--that our economy is broken and serves the interest of a very few with money to rig the political system--is a true fact that indeed affects almost all Americans (99%!).

But as the #Occupy protests (encampments on Wall Street, Dewey Square in Boston and all across the nation) go on longer, public opinion may not stay with the movement. Because the central message IS so important and real (and resonant), it matters whether or not Occupy can sustain (indeed, build on) support.

#OccupyBoston: a beginner's guide by a beginner

who is this all about? all of us.

Occupy Wall Street doesn't need a manifesto; the message is as clear as a bell:

Wall St. broke the economy, badly; we're all still suffering for it.

Wall St never got held responsible for it, and now they're using their power and their money to stop us from fixing the mess.

They broke the economy and then they ate the political system.

So not only do we have a broken economy, we do not have a way to fix the broken economy.

--Rachel Maddow on her 10/12/11 show(lead-in to interview with Ron Suskind)

Some quick notes of my personal observations/thoughts about Occupy Boston, with a specific eye toward orienting anyone who hasn't been down to Occupy Boston yet. I've not been to the Occupy site too much; I went for the first time during the day on Oct. 11 and during the evening General Assembly on Oct. 12 for about an hour from 8-9PM. [UPDATE: I've added a separate new post on Occupy, re: the political implications] [UPDATE: another Needhamite writes a great piece on #Occupy, with lots of orientation for the Occupy Beginner.]