[OccupyComms] [Occupy London] Excellent article on US Occupy

[Mark Barrett]

Thanks for this Saskia - excellent.

"Occupy is very odd right now. The people who have stayed are the
cream of the crap, and the brilliant. The rank-and-file in between are
at home."

What a quote!


"The big question for Occupy is how it can build a dual system of
power, as Egyptian activists did over years with revitalised labour
organising, a national anti-police brutality movement and politicised
youth and women in micro-enterprises that populate urban areas. This
requires organisation, but it also gets back to the question of space.
Alienation, fragmentation and suspicion is so pervasive in US society
that people need secure areas where they can take the time to share
stories, to listen and debate, create bonds, forge trust and take
action.

The places where Americans can and do gather in large numbers, such as
parks, squares, factories, shopping centres, the workplace, stadiums,
schools and places of worship are almost all privatised and subject to
strict legal and physical regulation. Nonetheless, Occupy's future
success is based on finding forms of space where it can reproduce
itself."

Cheers

Mark

> Hiya
>
> highly recommend this read from Arun Gupta, a co-founder of The
> Indypendent and The Occupied Wall Street Journal. He covers the Occupy
> movement nationwide for Salon.
>
> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/2012521151225452634.html
>
> Saskia
>
> --