Excerpts from;
Occupy Bloomington: 10.11.11, end of second full day: Leaderless self-organization
This was Tuesday evening, only 48 hours from Sunday evening, when the occupation began, and already, it was obvious that a differentiated physical organization had sprung up. As I walked in, I saw tents on one side, the General Assembly (billed for 6 p.m., I was there just before 7 p.m.) in the middle, with kitchen beyond that.
The General Assembly, currently held once a day at 6 p.m., should be for keeping people informed (including Working Group reports), a place to bring up new ideas, and needs, including the need for new working groups, and possibly, a category called “Other Business” which can include criticism, suggestions, discussions of various kinds, generally at the end. Working groups include those for Food, Arts and Activities, Media, Legal, Donations, Outreach, Sanitation, First Aid, Bathrooms...
the homeless, whose park this was, don’t participate in in the General Assemblies. They have at least blankets, and sometimes stay in a tent, if its occupant has gone home for the night. They brought a couch yesterday that folds into a bed. They have been occupying the park without notice for a long time. Jim: “I think it’s going to be a mutually beneficial relationship. We should as a movement be highlighting the conditions of poverty and what happens if you do lose your job and your unemployment runs out. What happens in that situation?” So what happens when Occupation Bloomington needs to find a bigger home? Will it be “allowed” to migrate, or to establish a second camp, say, on the lawn of the courthouse? What happened when Boston Occupation tried to do that does not augur well. What happens to the Occupation Movement as a whole as it spreads from block to block within towns and cities? A “token” encampment is one thing, but a horizontal liberation of what was originally a commons, the land underneath our feet, is entirely another. This may be where the line is drawn in the sand. This may be where an entirely other kind of understanding will be needed by all of us, protestors, police, mayors, the 1%. We are one, we have always been one.
