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| Tear down of the Occupy Oakland encampment. (Photo: Reuters) |
In New York City, at the very heart of the Occupy Movement, Mayor Bloomberg ordered the dismantling of the original Occupy Wall Street camp located in Zuccotti Park, and a judge has ruled that protesters may return to the park, but that their constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely do not extend to bringing tents, blankets, and sleeping bags in order to live in the public space around the clock.
With the Department of Homeland Security providing strategic support for these coordinated efforts at shutting down Occupy camps, many strong First Amendment advocates have leapt to the conclusion that the federal government has now conspired with city officials to squelch the civil rights of the economic injustice protesters. In the wake of increasing issues with crime (including a murder in Oakland, for example) and sanitation around the camps, I view the actions of city officials against the camps more as follow-through on their commitments to ensuring the safety and security of the public in general.
As I said in a post two weeks ago, the Occupy encampments were initially constructed on the firm ground of high-visibility protests that served to raise awareness and ire about economic injustice in America. In the absence of unified leadership though, and without the development and promotion of meaningful corollary resistance tactics, the encampments and to some extent the entire Occupy Movement are slowly hedging toward a cliff of irrelevance.
Some efforts are underway to establish new forms of protest against economic injustice, like the recent National Bank Transfer day, and there is a search for new venues for organization and demonstration, which includes college campuses. These additional tactics are steps in the right direction, but they are still missing the type of coordination and publicity that has helped other broad social just crusades sustain themselves.
Organizers and leaders of the OWS movement would do well to review the development of the gay rights movement in recent years and examine how various advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD have coordinated their efforts with non-profit organizations, businesses, the media, lawmakers, and cultural influencers to make meaningful progress toward their goals. A multi-pronged approach, targeted not just at raising public awareness but also at impacting corporate profits and federal legislation, is essential for economic justice to develop.
What local mayors and police forces are doing is ugly and uncomfortable, but they are not attempting to destroy the entire Occupy Movement. In fact, they may be doing the overall movement a favor by euthanizing a singular element of the protests that may have already outlived its usefulness and forcing the movement to diversify its tactics more quickly. If Occupy is intended to produce meaningful change, the movement must be about more than just its symbolic encampments.
As I said in a post two weeks ago, the Occupy encampments were initially constructed on the firm ground of high-visibility protests that served to raise awareness and ire about economic injustice in America. In the absence of unified leadership though, and without the development and promotion of meaningful corollary resistance tactics, the encampments and to some extent the entire Occupy Movement are slowly hedging toward a cliff of irrelevance.
Some efforts are underway to establish new forms of protest against economic injustice, like the recent National Bank Transfer day, and there is a search for new venues for organization and demonstration, which includes college campuses. These additional tactics are steps in the right direction, but they are still missing the type of coordination and publicity that has helped other broad social just crusades sustain themselves.
Organizers and leaders of the OWS movement would do well to review the development of the gay rights movement in recent years and examine how various advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD have coordinated their efforts with non-profit organizations, businesses, the media, lawmakers, and cultural influencers to make meaningful progress toward their goals. A multi-pronged approach, targeted not just at raising public awareness but also at impacting corporate profits and federal legislation, is essential for economic justice to develop.
What local mayors and police forces are doing is ugly and uncomfortable, but they are not attempting to destroy the entire Occupy Movement. In fact, they may be doing the overall movement a favor by euthanizing a singular element of the protests that may have already outlived its usefulness and forcing the movement to diversify its tactics more quickly. If Occupy is intended to produce meaningful change, the movement must be about more than just its symbolic encampments.
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