[Street] [Ob-media] The Meaning of Last Night and Next Steps

Ravi Mishra ravi at occupyboston.org
Fri Dec 9 16:45:38 EST 2011


Hi all,

I think there are a lot of great points here, especially Sage's point about
strategy. I hope this discussion can be driven by strategy, not dogma.
Further, the engineer in me wants conclusions to be empirically based and
assumptions to be stated explicitly. *The non-bolded is summary of this
thread so far, the bold is my contribution.*

I want to summarize so far what's been said (so I can be sure I'm
understanding correctly). Brian (supported by others in subsequent emails)
strongly believes camp should not have been deconstructed, and that we
should focus the majority of our energy on protecting our sacred space.
Knowing him, I can extend this to a standoff with the police, linking arms,
and other stuff that path entails. This line of thinking states that
packing up is giving in to the powers that be and implies this is a show of
weakness that reflects poorly on us.

Anna (supported by others) responds with some important facts - tents were
taken down autonomously by individuals who apparently had some right over
them. She elaborated on some problems within camp and why people might have
been interested in decamping when the order came in. There was also some
sentiment that decamping voluntarily would be a symbolically wise move, but
the underlying reasoning was not mentioned in this email (though hinted at
by John Ford's proposal last night).

In regard to our scenario, we should ask ourselves - what does one more
round of mass arrests get us compared to other responses? To try to
analyze, I'd like to propose a criteria by which can analyze (by no means
the only one, but perhaps one that gets less weight than it should): *(public)
expectation.*
*
*
*The thinking here is that one major consideration of how the public
perceives events is how it compares to their expectations. For example, if
a march is expected (by the median/mean member of the public) to draw 1,000
supporters and it draws 1,000, the "average" person doesn't care.
(Obviously, this is oversimplifying, but I hope you get the point).*
*
*
*How does it apply to us? Maybe going the traditional "defend" route
depends on whether we can substantially exceed the public's expectations.
If we get an average or expected number of people to show up and arrests,
the story will likely not have much of an impact because of the vast
precedent of raids and arrests. *
*
*
*What do people think of this method of analysis? My first stab is that we
won't be able to exceed expectations, so we should strongly consider
alternatives to the typical "defend" route. I certainly think that showing
that we're having fun and can acknowledge the obvious (that we're going to
get raided) won't make us look weak in my non OB friends' eyes but will
actually make us look smart. I must say, I feel I'd be able to recruit
friends easier if we did a "dance party" type thing than if we did the
typical "defend" thing. But this is just one opinion (that is very loosely
held) - what do you guys think?*

--
Ravi



On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Allison Nevitt <asnevitt at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure how anything I said equated to "dancing and demonstrating in
> the street is all that holding out means"
>
> I meant that holding out means not dissembling the camp. (I get the
> protection of expensive equipment, but feel that it should still be left
> looking like an encampment that the police must forcibly dissemble
> themselves.)
>
>
>  - Allison
>  <http://BostonLyme.blogspot.com>
> circles knitting <http://www.circlesknitting.com/>
> UnaMuses <http://www.unaspenser.com/> (still under construction, this is
> a consolidation of my writings. Still migrating work over. Thank you for
> your patience.)
> Roslinhood <http://roslinhood.org> - for residents of micro-neighborhoods
> in Roslindale
> Jubilee Massachusetts <http://jubileema.org/>- breaking the chains of debt<http://www.dailykos.com/user/UnaSpenser>
> Una at DailyKos <http://www.dailykos.com/user/UnaSpenser><http://bostonlyme.blogspot.com/>
>
> <http://kossacksnetworking.ning.com>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Anna Aizman <anna at occupyboston.org> wrote:
>
>> If dancing and demonstrating in the street is all that holding out means,
>> according to Alex and Allison, then we should definitely do it.
>
>
>
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