Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Peter Lemkin]

We're Still Here
This is what a holiday looks like at Occupy Washington D.C.,
By Crystal Zevon

While many occupations - from New York and Boston to Oakland and Los Angeles - have been shut down, the two Washington D.C. occupations seem to just keep going. We've been occupying Freedom Plaza for 78 days now. In one sense, we've relaxed. We no longer have our bags packed with the expectation that we're going to be evicted any minute (even though we could be). I wish I could say that what appears to be acceptance of Washington D.C. occupations by the powers that be makes life in a tent community easy, but occupying is hard work. As one sign outside a tent on Freedom Plaza reads, "I had a job. Now I have an occupation."

I've been an activist all my life, and occupying is definitely harder than any job I've ever had, in the movement or otherwise. Just the housekeeping part of keeping a community together is a fulltime job; forget about keeping up with the minute-by-minute changes that take place in the D.C. political scene every day. Whether it's the National Defense Authorization Act, Bradley Manning's hearing, housing foreclosures or Canter's fund raising dinner, there is always something going on that requires us to be focused on organizing actions and developing strategies, going to yet another meeting, finding a place with WiFi to do research for a mic check… the list goes on.

We're tired, and we get wet and cold. Sharing portapotties, walking 13 blocks to the showers the CWA lets us use and brushing our teeth and spitting into a soggy paper coffee cup takes its toll. Even though we've been told by visiting occupiers from all over the country that we have the model occupy kitchen, we still have to stand in line for dinner and then eat outside (although we just put up two gigantic army tents and will soon be able to eat inside). We gripe and disagree, and sometimes it's hard to show up for G.A. especially if you know there's a major issue in camp… say… we're drinking more coffee than we can afford and someone's going to propose limiting the hours coffee is available… OMG… that's gonna take at least 45 minutes to reach consensus on. But, we show up and listen to everyone who has an opinion or proposal and, eventually, we do reach consensus. Most often, whatever gets decided turns out to be the right thing.

So, between mic checking Carl Levin and John McCain for the hideous provisions they wrote into the NDAA, doing the camp dishes, joining our neighbors at Occupy D.C. for an action at the White House and mopping up the river running through your tent from the rain storm the night before, who has time for a Teach-In or a reading group? I am heartened to say, it seems like a lot of us do. Not all, to be sure. There are those who are here for a party, or a free meal, but we deal with that, too.

Yesterday afternoon, a group of young Palestinian students attending schools and universities in the U.S. (funded by Project Hope) held a Teach-In on Freedom Plaza. The level of knowledge and understanding among the occupiers ranged from none to vast. While one young woman described her dismay at how many Americans don't seem to even know of the existence of Palestine, in fact, often mistake it for Pakistan, these remarkable young people were not there to criticize the overall lack of knowledge by Americans; they were there to educate and enlighten by sharing their personal stories. Some of the occupiers questions were based on years of study, while others betrayed total ignorance. They responded to them all with equal respect and attention, welcoming the fact that we were there to learn.