A golden opportunity...

[Tinoire]

There's more and more of this going on. Increasing socialist/commie involvement at occupy movements. Think we need more lots more of this as many protesters, based on twitter, facebook traffic & a few other things, are almost there, if not already there. I strongly believe the time to get out there & be involved is now - even, despite any reservations that this could all fail. Also, I apologize for not being around much right now.


anselmcantaur Norman Bethune
Communist Manifesto Teach-In @ #OccupyChicago - Video: bit.ly/nFFbhH #ndp #ows #occupytoronto
8 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

keithmr81 Keith Rosenthal
by Catherina_Guate
Video: Several hundred people participate in discussion of "Communist Manifesto" at #OccupyChi - 10/16/11 - tumblr.com/ZN5ScxAoefqw
24 minutes ago

Communist Manifesto Teach-In @ Occupy Chi

[meganmonkey]

This is great to see. Wow, Occupy Chicago has changed a lot since I was there. I wonder how the rest of this conversation went.

Thanks for the link. You know I agree fully as far as this being an opportunity. I can't wait to get to NYC (prob this Sunday-Wed or Thurs of next week).

[Tinoire]

It's not just Chicago, check this out

coalition_unwilling (1000+ posts)

The Democratic Party (as a party) runs the very real risk of

experiencing the same fate as the Whigs (forerunners to the Repukes) in the 1850s: splintering along sectional and\or ideolgoical grounds. In the four days I have spent at Occupy Los Angeles (in true-blue California), I heard not one word of support for Obama or the Democratic Party (or for the Repukes either). There was more support at OLA for the Revolutionary Communist Party, for God's sake, judging from foot traffic at the RCP's booth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com...ss=439x2132328

I'm seeing lots of comments, in various places, along these lines. When I have time, I skim through RevLeft. Back in #occupy planning days, an organizer posted in their open forum, asking for support. That post was met with hoots of laughter and derision. In the last 2 weeks, I've seen a ton of comments from members that they're out there now to help steer this thing in the right (well left) direction.

This just came out today http://info.publicintelligence.net/N...onymousICS.pdf & protesters learned, from a pdf of a test the Army gives soldiers, that they fall in the category of low-level terrorists. All this is just building solidarity and prompting people to ask a hell of a lot of questions.

On twitter, people are blocking Libs who try to proselytize, or suck your time with lib garbage, from their feeds. The whole picture gets more encouraging everyday.

Another note, there's a lot of disappointment with union leadership, especially people like Trumka and Samuelson. Same with the leadership of the first union that endorsed #occupywallstreet (TWU Local 100). They're all trying to steer this thing to supporting poor misunderstood Barack and focus on short-term job gains within the system. When it comes to MoveOn, the attitude is sheer disgust. Yep, more encouraging everyday.

[blindpig]

UE is getting involved, I hope the Occupiers have the sense to differentiate.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/United...E/116339108590

[curt_b]

Spent some time at Occupy Cincinnati this past weekend. It's very small and very young. Most of what I observed was concern about the process and logistics of camping there. There were 15-20 tents (no idea how many people are there over night, but the cops have been giving out about 20 citations most nights at 10 PM when the park closes). There was a max of 75 people at any one time in the afternoons.

There was a major blow-up among the Occupiers with a group of campers claiming to be more committed than the people who don't stay overnight, and thus feel they should have more power in making decisions. I left before the General Assembly was to address the issue, but one guy I've seen around, and who has been down there as often as is possible for him, walked out after telling the angry campers that he has a job and two kids.

The Occupiers joined an annual march held by the Homeless Coalition and swelled it's numbers to about double most years, maybe 100-125 total marchers. They've also done marches around the city, but they are so small that I'm not sure how tactically sound they are.

Their current public fight is against the trespassing citations they've been getting. The filed a Federal lawsuit yesterday and are getting some media coverage talking about free speech and right to assemble.

The good news is that there is a handful of young organizers who have a class analysis, and experience in working class organizing hanging around. One them is fresh from UE Warehouse Worker campaign (visit BP's link for info). I talked to her for sometime, and I get the feeling that they are hanging back, giving the process a nudge now and then, but feel the time may come (not will come) when it has more of a working class dimension.

[meganmonkey]

Curt, thanks for checking in! It sounds like Cincy is in a similar place that Chicago was when I was there a couple weeks ago. I hope the UE woman sticks around and keeps throwing her 2 cents in.

I'm almost hoping that, over the next few months (assuming this keeps going) there is some organization on a national level and decisions about focusing on maybe 6 or 8 big cities rather than 100, it's so spread out at this point and each site is developing differently, I don't think ultimately that is a good thing.