YSR
22nd November 2011, 04:26
Here in Minneapolis, the Occupy movement is moving beyond just taking a plaza. It's cold as hell here, so people have been thinking for weeks about what we're going to do next. Also, on a political level, there's been a series of critiques from folks I respect about the unfocused nature of the Occupy protests. The language that we're moving into the class right now is really resonant, people are really excited about the ideas of the 99% and "occupying" but we don't offer much in terms of concrete proposals about how to make life better.
Over the past two weeks, we've occupied two foreclosed houses. The first, in a predominantly black working class neighborhood, has been quite successful. I have yet to visit there, but as I understand it the single mother who owns and lives there the place invited the OccupyMPLS to hold her place down against the banks. A second occupation was attempted this past weekend, at a house where the owner had been out of the house for some time due to the foreclosure process. I was at this occupation for much of it and was excited by the way people were able to move beyond the vagueness of the plaza and towards action. Unfortunately, the cops busted in yesterday and evicted the occupiers and boarded up the house (which we had been able to stop on Saturday night using mass direct unplanned home defense.)
Continued conversations are happening about how we can step our game up and move on to larger things. A consistent theme has been that we should take a large, government-owned building as a space from which to operate. I understand that a community center in South Minneapolis was taken in a similar fashion in the 70s, so there's some precedent for this here. In the IWW, we've been trying to shop around the theme Occupy Your Job, but have not encountered a lot of clear success in terms of actions yet. People are very receptive to that message, we just haven't been able to turn it into something concrete yet.
How are other occupations moving things forward and deepening their praxis? We may have a unique or reasonably uncommon situation here in that we've faced almost no repression outside of the typical banality of evil cop stuff. This is clearly a deliberate strategy by the Republican sheriff (who technically runs the plaza we're occupying) and the Democratic city, who are hoping that time and the cold wear us out. So for the Minneapolis occupation, the fight to hold the plaza has been less of an inspiring and unifying idea than in spots like NYC. Have other folks started moving the occupation into neighborhoods and jobs yet? If so, what kinds of actions and responses have you had?
Over the past two weeks, we've occupied two foreclosed houses. The first, in a predominantly black working class neighborhood, has been quite successful. I have yet to visit there, but as I understand it the single mother who owns and lives there the place invited the OccupyMPLS to hold her place down against the banks. A second occupation was attempted this past weekend, at a house where the owner had been out of the house for some time due to the foreclosure process. I was at this occupation for much of it and was excited by the way people were able to move beyond the vagueness of the plaza and towards action. Unfortunately, the cops busted in yesterday and evicted the occupiers and boarded up the house (which we had been able to stop on Saturday night using mass direct unplanned home defense.)
Continued conversations are happening about how we can step our game up and move on to larger things. A consistent theme has been that we should take a large, government-owned building as a space from which to operate. I understand that a community center in South Minneapolis was taken in a similar fashion in the 70s, so there's some precedent for this here. In the IWW, we've been trying to shop around the theme Occupy Your Job, but have not encountered a lot of clear success in terms of actions yet. People are very receptive to that message, we just haven't been able to turn it into something concrete yet.
How are other occupations moving things forward and deepening their praxis? We may have a unique or reasonably uncommon situation here in that we've faced almost no repression outside of the typical banality of evil cop stuff. This is clearly a deliberate strategy by the Republican sheriff (who technically runs the plaza we're occupying) and the Democratic city, who are hoping that time and the cold wear us out. So for the Minneapolis occupation, the fight to hold the plaza has been less of an inspiring and unifying idea than in spots like NYC. Have other folks started moving the occupation into neighborhoods and jobs yet? If so, what kinds of actions and responses have you had?