Occupy the Mall is probably one of the better approaches because Malls are spaces where people socialize but they are never places for politics. We found that out with arrests during the early days of the Iraq War.
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I first got this idea in July 1969, and it led to a case that the ACLU appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. At the time Sears was the main store in the Mall in question, and they were so bothered by the case that they sent their own attorney to Bloomington to 'aid' the local States Attorney in prosecuting it.
At the time important things were happening in Cairo, Illinois, and we (SDS) had objected to the local paper that they were not giving those events the coverage they should. Jan & another woman went to the paper's office and argued with the Editor. When they got no satisfaction, as we knew they would not, and we had a fairly elaborate process planned out. First there was to be a demo in frnt of the Newpaper in downtown Bloomington, with a leaflet to pass out. Then, seven people were to go to the Mall and attempt to distribute the same leaflet there (in the open corridors and spaces, not entering any of the stores). The seven were arrested and charged with trespassing.
The issue, then, was exactly the issue which a number of Occupations are raising, concerning public space. The Mall is private property, but both the corridors of the Mall (it was a closed mall) and its parking spaces are identical in function to the city streets and sidewalks prior to the arrival of Malls. Put another way, Malls were/are a sort of privatization of public space, walling sidewalks away from public use. That seriously handicaps one form of agitation and mobilizing used in the past. (I think in earlier posts I have described the way the CP was first organized in Minneapolis, as told to me by the former CP member who as a youth had ‘organized’ Mineapolis for the CP.) If we can’t leaflet in the Malls, and if we can’t go door-to-door in some neighborhoods or most apartment buildings, we are rather effectively cut off from out constituency as it were. Our voice is muffled. We have to some how fight to free our voice. I had other ideas at the time on how to follow up on that first effort to crack the Mall, but that was in ’69; SDS was falling apart, we had to focus on the November Moratorium; Fred Hampton and other Panthers murdered; various frustrations of early 1970, the Kent State Affair and though demos continued more numerously than in the past in the next year, the press & TV stopped covering them and we didn’t have the internet to keep us in touch with things. The ‘60s were dead though the corpse remained quite active for a few years. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the decades thinking of various possibilities for yet cracking the Malls if and when ‘The Movement’ once again raised its mighty head. We shall see. Obviously the Occupy actions have raised new possibilities that I never considered. Ah yes. We shall see.
Carrol