Here are a couple of neat things about the protests.
- A few weeks ago there were some anti-Semitic protesters, but afterwards more protesters celebrated the feast of tabernacles.[1][2][3][4]
- A woman was raped at Occupy Cleveland. There have been sexual assaults in Occupy Oakland and Occupy Seattle. Occupy Baltimore passed out a memo that said the following:
The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse "are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee," which will investigate and "supply the abuser with counseling resources."
The directive also says, in part, "Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities."
This seemed to many people to discourage women to report sexual assault to someone who can actually do something like the police.[5]
The Occupy Baltimore has revised their memo, but have not leaked it to the media yet.[7]
- A veteran of the Iraq war is working to develop homemade gas masks and body armor for the Occupy Oakland protesters.[6]
Update: 10/29/11 5:05pm
I have been watching a lot of these movements closely and there have been a lot of accusations regarding activities at these occupations that are not always people who are a part of the movement but opportunists.
ReplyDeleteThings like these memos are also decided at a General Assembly in which consensus or at least 90% have to agree. One block can stop a proposal. I think the connection to the tea parties formation is a good one. the narratives spoken against both movements are also similar.
Occupy Baltimore has also amended its policies on that, I haven't seen the form but the General assembly notes include another accepted policy on Tuesday. (www.occupybmore.org) These groups also develop work groups and security work groups as they get larger, these groups do go to the authorities (generally) on these issues. some police departments have been refusing to provide security with out paying fees even when there is generally a cop on duty at these spaces (Occupy Nashville).
Thanks for the update on the Occupy Baltimore policy.
ReplyDeleteI loved the description that Occupy LA gave itself. Honestly to understand these groups, I need to do a lot more reading. The Tea Party is simplifying, but that took a lot of reading to get a handle on the diversity. The average protester doesn't know that most of this extreme stuff is going on.
Well, anything that happens that there needs to be a decision on goes before the entire group. Yea many of these groups are very diverse even including some tea partiers who felt their voice was not being heard. Although they function on anarchist theory (general assembly etc) they are not all anarchists. the "extreme stuff is also not as common as I have seen people (news) trying to assert. I would like to compare the city crime rate to the rate of incidence in the occupy groups. It is also hard to compare tea partiers with a group that actually occupies a space for a long period of time. Ive been posting stuff like mad to FB.
ReplyDeleteResistance is actually one of the areas I study as a folklorist. fun times.