Lose the Tents , regain the Dialogue.

I say, time to loose the tents. The whole conversation has turned into one about the right to camp. Big Red Herring. We don’t need tents to speak. We don’t even need civil disobedience to protest. We have a right to protest.

Let’s get back to the Economic Justice issues at hand. Why not declare an area of the City/Town (certain blocks, a square, a street) for each week (or days), put it out on the net and let people show up, from 7AM to 7PM, everyday. A moveable Rave, Pedestrian Protest, large, small, huge, legal, clean, lively, ordinary, pedestrian pedestrians, walking, talking, raving, singing, stewing ideas, relentlessly, changing form and place every few days (or week).. ceaselessly. Everywhere. Let everyone add their hours to the group as they are able. I tell you, it will grow. Let the Press keep up, if they can!

Time to re-conceive the form of this Occupy Protest. The ball is in our court. Let’s be smart and not get all blocked up with unfocused conflict. We don’t need it. We ARE the 99%! Let’s Occupy the here, now, all over America.

Susan Miletich

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Posted in reply to the post by Up&Up:

I say, time to loose the tents. The whole conversation has turned into one about the right to camp. Big Red Herring. We don’t need tents to speak. We don’t even need civil disobedience to protest. We have a right to protest.

Let’s get back to the Economic Justice issues at hand. Why not declare an area of the City/Town (certain blocks, a square, a street) for each week (or days), put it out on the net and let people show up, from 7AM to 7PM, everyday. A moveable Rave, Pedestrian Protest, large, small, huge, legal, clean, lively, ordinary, pedestrian pedestrians, walking, talking, raving, singing, stewing ideas, relentlessly, changing form and place every few days (or week).. ceaselessly. Everywhere. Let everyone add their hours to the group as they are able. I tell you, it will grow. Let the Press keep up, if they can!

Time to re-conceive the form of this Occupy Protest. The ball is in our court. Let’s be smart and not get all blocked up with unfocused conflict. We don’t need it. We ARE the 99%! Let’s Occupy the here, now, all over America.

Susan Miletich

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That is a very reasonable suggestion which would not have surfaced without the occupations with tents that began the dialog in the US in NY inspired by encampments in city centers of North Africa, the middle east -- and Latin America way before a critical mass in this country woke up. We are in the belly of the empire -- the predator beast with the less than 1% wealthy powerful head bent on destruction for profit. Our silence is detrimental to the survival of the planet. Laws put into place by the elite to keep citizens from expressing dissent will need to be broken.

"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?" - Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

It's an occupation designed to make it less easy for people to just go about doing "business as usual". Tents are just a human necessity to assist those making a presence for all of us, i.e., the occupation, non stop.

The irony is, here in Santa Rosa, where they limited the permitting of tents to just about 50 (vs the 100 or so there) - is that the homeless rushed to get the permits. Where will you tell them to go now? There are not enough shelters. They are the bottom 5% or so. Yes, we are all at different levels in the 99%. I do not camp as I live nearby, but support those who do. It's not bothering me at all that there is an occupation w/ tents going on a few blocks from my home at city hall. If you have great ideas for how to better mobilize the people - come on down. Come and use the human microphone. They have a general assembly, I believe, at approx. 4PM everyday (maybe 3:30?) I can't get there everyday, as my level of personhood in the 99% is the only employed one in the house trying to keep the house and all the bills paid w/ food on the table.

Since no one else has fallen on the persnickety sword, I will.

"Loose the tents", means the opposite of what I think you meant Up&Up/Susan. I think you meant, "Lose the tents", as in, get rid of them.

Loose the tents, means setting them free, from captivity as it were, allowing them to cavort and proliferate willy nilly wherever they may.

That would be one of my recommendations to Occupy Santa Rosa!

[The thread title has now been changed - Barry]

But I don't think it's what you're advocating.

The clearing out of the camps may prove an unintentional boon to the Occupy movement by eliminating the difficulties of camping out through the winter.

One of the most important things the Occupations have done is create safe places for people to gather and speak. But people don't need to camp out in the cold and rain to do this. They just need a park. Hyde Park in London and Washington Square Park in New York City are two famous examples of gathering places where people have been expressing their political views for a century, both individually and collectively. The Occupiers can turn public parks in every town and city in the country into a Hyde Park.

There's no question that occupying near the seats of financial power has sent a powerful message and given the movement huge media visibility. Plus people living onsite have given us an inspiring demonstration of participatory democracy and built enormous solidarity. But what the movement may lose in giving up some of the encampments it can gain in an increase in number of locations and participants.

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Posted in reply to the post by Up&Up:

I say, time to loose the tents. The whole conversation has turned into one about the right to camp. Big Red Herring. We don’t need tents to speak. We don’t even need civil disobedience to protest. We have a right to protest.

Let’s get back to the Economic Justice issues at hand. Why not declare an area of the City/Town (certain blocks, a square, a street) for each week (or days), put it out on the net and let people show up, from 7AM to 7PM, everyday. A moveable Rave, Pedestrian Protest, large, small, huge, legal, clean, lively, ordinary, pedestrian pedestrians, walking, talking, raving, singing, stewing ideas, relentlessly, changing form and place every few days (or week).. ceaselessly. Everywhere. Let everyone add their hours to the group as they are able. I tell you, it will grow. Let the Press keep up, if they can!

Time to re-conceive the form of this Occupy Protest. The ball is in our court. Let’s be smart and not get all blocked up with unfocused conflict. We don’t need it. We ARE the 99%! Let’s Occupy the here, now, all over America.

Susan Miletich

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Posted in reply to the post by "Mad" Miles:

Loose the tents, means setting them free, from captivity as it were, allowing them to cavort and proliferate willy nilly wherever they may. But I don't think it's what you're advocating.

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Usually "it's" and "loose" seem jarring when misused, but I liked it in her case. I didn't envision cavorting tents, though - I saw it more in the sense of "loose the hounds!!"

I say loose the tents is exactly appropriate, done by way of every parking lot of the major hardware stores in the area, buying up all the aluminum extension ladders; one ladder makes two from each, two wheelbarrow tires, a length of pipe, all-thread through the two nuts and four washers through the end-rung makes a very light portable platform like a horizontal handtruck, a shelter can easily be arranged on, and is very easily ported about. Now here's the clinch, they get insured at replacement value and you now have insurance company's coming after the cops for confiscation. In the mean time you end up with a portable village.

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Posted in reply to the post by Up&Up:

I say, time to loose the tents. The whole conversation has turned into one about the right to camp. Big Red Herring. We don’t need tents to speak. We don’t even need civil disobedience to protest. We have a right to protest.

Let’s get back to the Economic Justice issues at hand. Why not declare an area of the City/Town (certain blocks, a square, a street) for each week (or days), put it out on the net and let people show up, from 7AM to 7PM, everyday. A moveable Rave, Pedestrian Protest, large, small, huge, legal, clean, lively, ordinary, pedestrian pedestrians, walking, talking, raving, singing, stewing ideas, relentlessly, changing form and place every few days (or week).. ceaselessly. Everywhere. Let everyone add their hours to the group as they are able. I tell you, it will grow. Let the Press keep up, if they can!

Time to re-conceive the form of this Occupy Protest. The ball is in our court. Let’s be smart and not get all blocked up with unfocused conflict. We don’t need it. We ARE the 99%! Let’s Occupy the here, now, all over America.

Susan Miletich

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

Usually "it's" and "loose" seem jarring when misused, but I liked it in her case. I didn't envision cavorting tents, though - I saw it more in the sense of "loose the hounds!!"

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Thanks guys for the erudite feedback.
UC Students got creative
when their Occupy encampment was dispersed. They returned on Thursday and set up tents in the AIR, floating high about the vacated encampment grounds with helium ballons attached. Perfect.
Powerful non-violent symbol, no confrontation, point made.
This thing is morphing. A good thing.
Good job, I say!

They literally "loosed" the tents, but still kept them on a tether.

Podfish, it appears you think I misused, "it's". Perhaps I'm being overly defensive. (What a shock!? In an internet discussion!? How unusual!!!) If my interpretation is correct, read again what I wrote. I meant and wrote the contraction for "it is", i.e. it's. "its" would be possessive, which is not what I meant.

I know! Sooo persnickety. I'm no grammarian, but I am certified to teach English. If there were any jobs...

I'm still looking for the grammarian who can explain why all past tense verbs now require an "ed" ending, when I don't recall them that way prior to the early 80's. And how, "concerning", became a word. Among a few other peeves.

I love the FB meme about how people find the proper use of your, you're and yore, they're, their and there a turn on. So far it hasn't gotten me any dates...

Maybe someone should put these questions on an Occupy! GA agenda and get on the stack to present their question? Facilitator!?

Mic Check!!

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Posted in reply to the post by "Mad" Miles:

Podfish, it appears you think I misused, "it's". Perhaps I'm being overly defensive

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oops, sorry; I didn't pay attention to the context when I chose my examples. I just find the incorrect choice between "it's" and "its" to be the most prevalent punctuation fail. You're far more consistent a writer than I am; I tend to get quite sloppy, though I'm sure no-one's noticed...


but now that I'm thinking about it, a comma before the quoted "it's" ??

Yo Podpoisson!

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't think your inclusion of, "it's", was snark, given our mutual track record, but I wasn't completely sure. Now I am. And relieved.

As for my intentional violation of the rules about comma use and quotation marks, I've never cared for the standard rules. They seem irrational and awkward to me. But that's not unusual for many rules.

I read an article sometime in the last year in which I discovered I'm not alone. That what I've been doing for years, is actually an insurgent rule violation which others have independently come to see as better usage.

Did that make me feel really good and a smarty pants? You betcha!

https://www.slate.com/articles/life/...nctuation.html

And how 'bout OSR! The cops were loosed to lose the tents yet permitted tents are still loose and not lost. But are we losing the First Amendment in the process? Loose the protests! With enough people, we can't lose!

Ennit?