Nobody likes to draw the short straw, but isn’t that already our lot living in Colorado Springs? Yeah, it’s easy to protest Wall Street from the safety of a provincial backwater, our city even backed us with a permit, but is that really grabbing the imperial bull by the horns? The Occupy Movement has spotlighted how the world’s 99% are oppressed by the ruling elite. It made more clear how true democracy is undermined by their military-industrial-corporate-banking complex. Now, doesn’t a major chunk of that alliance operate right where we live? Think. It ain’t banking or industry, and the corporations here orbit around the headliner of that lineup, the military, our city’s dominant export. Yes, criticizing the military in a military town is not popular. Do you think the Wall Street protesters were a welcome sight to Manhattan’s bankers? You can call to “End the Fed” online, or protest anything in the world from a digital soapbox, but a public demonstration is limited to what’s in your local vicinity, especially if you mean to OCCUPY IT. Look on this as a curse or a blessing: The Zuccotti Park activists get to target sharkskin-suited traders, we’re up against men with guns. But what are you going to do, cheerlead the OWS front in NY, or hold up your end of the fight?
It’s clear to me now that for all of this time you’ve been selectively using principles when it’s favorable to you to censor opinions that you do not agree with. This blog post is utter hypocrisy. You adopted the St. Paul principles in order to quell criticism of yourself, then you want to criticize the tactics and targets adopted by other protesters. That is in direct violation of the St. Paul principles, but I guess you can just throw those to the side when it is convenient for your argument.
Not only did the other occupy protesters break away from you for your selective moderation of opposing viewpoints, they broke away from you because they saw enough banking and industry to protest to get their message across without protesting everything like you do. Do you think that their tactics aren’t covered under your SPP oath, or do you think that you can selectively be part of a group that took an SPP oath and then go home to blog about things and undermine that oath in your other life?
David, when and if other protesters choose to do ANYTHING, will be a time to consider that criticism is inappropriate. The above paragraph is MY OPINION, that’s all, about a direction I favor for Occupy. The above is not saying that OCS shouldn’t target financial issues, which it continues to do, but that its focus should not be fearful to confront the military.
I’m personally encouraged by all the renewed energy shown online, and when it evolves into something tangible, other than pure counter-protest or heckling, that’s when the local movement is going to move forward. Hopefully the haters will show themselves to be fellow activists. As yet evidence is to the contrary.
Show up, do something. Until that happens, you are inactivists, and my opinion of you here is purely in defense of attacks against my involvement with OCS.
David I can’t even remember the last time I saw you in person, so it’s easy to understand why your categorization of “selective moderation” is pure innuendo. For the same reason, you also have no idea that most also stopped attending when you did. That meme from critics who have no first person account. It’s a fiction created by people who tired of Occupy and want to use me as their excuse. The eviction scattered everybody, and Raven’s Facebook purge ended the veto power the speak-no-evils had over those of us wanting to be more active. All of OCS actions since Christmas have been group decisions, but no one among the internet whisperers even knows that.
I assure you I am getting damn tired of people blaming me for their lack of stamina, focus, or courage. I’m not divisive, I have high expectations. To Raven’s vindictive whisper campaign I stayed silent for too long, and as a result, people believed the untruths, that I’m in charge and that I dictate everything. What a laugh. I act, and others around me act, and we discuss what actions to take and we act.
Getting past your blanket complaint about my voice being louder than yours: Do you disagree with what I’ve expressed above? How? What suggestions are you putting on the table?