It's getting cold out there and the women and men who are out in the cold putting even their lives on the line for the future of our country need your help. Support your local campers. It's the least you can do.
OK, I admit that I'm at least a small time hoarder but I come by it naturally. You see my parents had just married at the beginning to the Great Depression which went straight into the shortages caused by WWII. To them recycling meant that they patched and mended and using things until they couldn't be used for anything anymore. They didn't throw much away at all and there were no thrift stores to donate used goods to anyway. Like many of their generation they never really trusted government and were always looking over their shoulder expecting the economy to go to crap again. So they tended to put things asside for a "rainy day" and so do I.
Let there be no mistake, no revisions of history. Times were tough, really tough then, especially in the South, and there was NO social safety net. My father had a very low social security number. His generation put the social safety programs together so that our generation wouldn't have to go though what they did. How soon we forgot at our own peril.
It's a rainy day both literally here in the NW and economically everywhere else in the country. No it won't be snowing here tonight but it's windy, wet and miserable and hypothermia is quite possible when you aren't prepared.
I went to my storage unit and bagged up spare blankets, coats, caps, long johns and sweaters, which to my surprise filled 5 tall kitchen plastic trash bags. I included several backpacks, tarps, and 300ft of rope, folding camp chairs, plastic storage boxes and other miscellaneous camping stuff and delivered it to Occupy Olympia.
I once read that the weight of a single snowflake put an end to Hitlers empirical ambitions. Think about that. The microscopic weight of the first snowflake that landed on an unprepared German soldier's summer weight uniform outside of Moscow ultimately ended the Russian campaign. The Germans were routed and over a million men were lost. The author concluded that Germany was so weakened that it wouldn't have recovered and that defeat was inevitable.
Now I'm no historian. I'm know there was more to ending the war but the author has a point. People who are prepared and supplied can winter camp successfully in the harshest of conditions or a single snowflake can signal the end of a mighty army that isn't prepared. There were fewer today in Olympia following last nights wind and rain than in yesterday's sunshine but around a 100 were dug-in and pledged to carry on.
There is no doubt that the numbers of campers will decrease during the winter. Some occupations will be abandoned at least until spring and others will find more sheltered locations. In many localities those in power are counting on the weather to do what the police haven't been able to do, completely disrupt the movement. I strongly suspect that is the plan here in Olympia where we have state permission to use the park but there is no doubt that they would like to see us go away but if our people are properly supplied then they won't get the satisfaction of seeing them tuck their tails and leave.
The women and men, mostly young, who are braving the weather to fight for justice and fairness need our help especially and desperately in the North East where there is a forecast of up to 10 inches of snow tonight. If you have things put away for a "rainy day" I suggest that its right here and right now.
You know that Snuggy you bought that sounded like a great idea but you never use. It would help somebody through the snow. Blankets, hats, gloves, used tarps, even boxes of trash bags which make good improvised rain ponchos, windbreakers and ground cloths. Clean dry socks and underwear are greatly needed. That ratty coat in the back of your closet might save someones life.
Personally I get really tired of the solicitations for money. Sure everybody can use money but I strongly suspect that we can outfit our own army out of things that are just laying around without spending another cent and to me it's more personal. I'll sleep better knowing the brave soles who are protesting in my name are warmer.
Way back in the "olden" days when I learned to type on a manual typewriter which most of you have probably never seen we had a practice line that went something like this. "Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country." So if I may paraphrase--Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their campers.
Local contacts:
Occupy Olympia
Occupy Seattle