This year's Living Liberally celebration is coming up on May 10th, and it has me reflecting on what my favorite Living Liberally moment was from 2012.
Although there are many of them, I have to say that my experiences at the OWS Drinking Liberally chapter at Zuccotti Park easily take the cake. Moreover, I found OWS Drinking Liberally on the whole to be indicative of both what is best about Living Liberally, and Occupy Wall Street itself.
It was a perfect match. OWS is an idea, one whose time has come and which never could be evicted. And this is precisely why OWS is made manifest through so many cultural formats, which are so naturally able to express a central idea like this one.
Living Liberally is a platform to celebrate liberal culture, which finds direct alignment in the Occupy idea. Namely, that our political structures should serve us, the people — all of us.
This is why I am so proud to have been able to contribute to both OWS and LL by hosting a few of those fantastic OWS Drinking Liberally’s.
Zuccotti Park was still first getting off the ground, and we were able to provide as inviting a format as possible for like-minded new-comers to learn about Occupy. This was crucial then, and there remains a need for more of these kind of endeavors today. The Occupy movement is so innovative and different that it can be very difficult to understand and intimidating to approach, which is why being able to experience it in a shared cultural setting like OWS Drinking Liberally was such a perfect way for so many to be introduced.
The OWS Drinking Liberally crew proved to be a perfect part of the solution for this at the most crucial of times last Fall, and I particularly relished being able to take so many amazing and influential liberals across the street and give them their first tour of ‘Liberty Square’.
So if you can make it to New York City on May 10th, come join us in celebrating this and all of the other ways that Living Liberally has touched the core of American society!
The 2012 Living Liberally celebration will not be one to miss, and there couldn’t be a better time to show your support for this increasingly impactful cultural fixture in contemporary America.
