James
On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 11:12 AM, James Leveque <jamespl79 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just finished watching the debate, which was great, and I wanted to add
> what I think is a practical question about this repeated idea of Space. I
> used to know a bunch of Christian lefties (I'll forego explaining in what
> context because it's a long story) and By God if the phrase Space/Sacred
> Space/Political Space/Safe Space didn't pop up every fifteen seconds in
> conversation. It was really about structuring the ground you happen to stand
> on at that moment to mirror your own selves. Consequently, the phrase gets a
> lot of eye rolling from me. I got a bit of that from Lennard and Harris,
> talking about occupying spaces, and activists spending a lot of time running
> the space and being willing to get arrested defending that space. Bless 'em,
> but when I heard that I wondered if there wasn't a little fetishism
> happening? Zuccotti Park as a Symbol (maybe even a code, despite Lennard's
> comments) of communal society, resistance, etc. If this is the case - and
> maybe it's not, because I don't live in NY and haven't been there - then I
> see a couple of issues. One is that it seems to be based on much more
> militant politics, but sacrifices the militantly. Occupying a park is not
> the same as occupying a factory floor or government building, and I think
> that fact at least partially accounts for Bloomberg's indulgence. The
> concept of space in this case has been abstracted to mean Physical Space as
> an end in itself; victory is moment by moment, i.e., now I have succeeded
> because I occupy this Space, now I haven't because I don't occupy this
> Space. If that's the case, then Zuccotti Park itself begins to take on a
> really idealized character, becoming the measure of success and vindication.
> And I think Doug alluded to this in his comments about Spain - if you're not
> holding the space, then the movement fizzles. Given that the big question
> right now is whether or not the winter or the cops will finally clear out
> the park, I wonder if OWS needs to engage a little bit in a killing of its
> idols in order to survive. Not voluntarily leave, but openly recognize that
> this isn't about occupying space for the sake of occupying space. Harris
> mentioned a couple times about Occupy Everywhere, which could be a start,
> but it's so unspecific that it leaves open the possibility of devolving into
> Occupy Facebook and Occupy Your Kitchen (actually I just checked, there is
> an Occupy Facebook group)?
>
> James
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 1:46 AM, <dndlllio at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Zuccotti Park. It’s a public space; we were the public; the public
>> shouldn’t have to ask permission to engage in peaceful political assembly in
>> its own park; so we didn’t. By doing so we not only acted in the way we felt
>> was right, we aimed to set an example to others: to begin to reclaim
>> communal resources that have been appropriated for purposes of private
>> profit to once again serve for communal use—as in a truly free society, they
>> would be—and to set an example of what genuine communal use might actually
>> be like. For those who desire to create a society based on the principle of
>> human freedom, direct action is simply the defiant insistence on acting as
>> if one is already free
>
>
>