This new year will make or break Occupy, I think. The tent camps were very effective at creating initial awareness and community building. Some, however, envision the communes as ends in themselves: permanent anarchist communities that…create national change as well as local? We are only four months into the creation of the Occupy organism. Occupy will evolve with time or disappear. The culture and philosophy of Occupy has been driven thus far by the urban, anarchist commune camps. It is crucial that we expand our Occupy community; involve and enpassion Middle America, as well as the diverse communities both rural and urban that comprise the authentic 99%.
The majority of the 99% desire a movement offering more than marching, camping and expressing outrage. We are all outraged. Unless rage is transformed into positive action, it will destroy the soul. Efforts must be made to allow the majority who cannot attend meetings regularly in the flesh to participate electronically. Voting should become a more reliable indicator of the peoples' will than the wild, random, and open to abuse method now in use at the communes. Occupy must bring together, electronically connect, the believer, the interested, and the skeptic. We must be able to teach. We must show respect to our brothers and sisters. What we do NOT need now are activists who shout at people rather than talk to them.
Occupy is, I believe, the Republic's last hope. We must be prepared to examine all political and economic alternatives with open minds, freed of ideology and preconceptions. Occupy is challenged by the 99% to build a more equitable and democratic society. Fighting over camping sites is a waste of precious energy. Ever hardening power structures must be brushed aside. All of this must be guided by compassion, for it is through compassion that we will find our solutions.
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