Thanks to all of you on the ground and fighting out there! I envy your achievements and appreciate your sacrifice. I look forward to all the recommended posts about this movement, particularly by MoT and other well knowns. Your dedication motivates me to do what I can in our local movement and to do more, if only to contribute ideas which prompted me to blast this out before going home for the night.
So, anyway, I suppose this is already happening to some extent, between the sit-ins, marches and stuff, but the events of today made me think of something. I'm all for the old saying, "United we stand, Divided we fall," and the actions of the aforementioned have demonstrated how important that is to our success.
Follow me below for another tactic.
There's also, "divide and conquer," which may be necessary, not as a campaign strategy, but for smaller battles, like simply spreading the message.
Disclaimer: Please forgive my military jargon as I'm not advocating for militant actions or violence, I've just been in the Army too long and read too many field manuals. But I have to admit the inspiration came partly from thinking about revolutionary guerilla tactics against the British Army.
Back on point, spreading the message. Obviously, OWS has done a phenomenal job of getting the word out already, with the movement spreading worldwide, but it's also ran into some resistance, especially today.
What if, in addition to our permanent occupations, we coordinated some momentary occupations, like a peaceful flash mob? The reason I thought about this was because of the eviction today, but also because some of our occupations (Search: Occupy Lincoln) are relatively small. I'm sure you'd have to be sleeping to completely miss what's going on, but isn't that what got us into this pickle in the first place? Whether it was people not voting due to apathy or in protest or not paying attention to the actual actions of our representatives.
Please allow me to delineate. The small groups of 25-30 people, depending on how many letters you're trying to spell, would organize (practice), scout an area to appear at an appointed time, then form up (preferably against a backround like a wall depending on who you want to see it) spelling OCCUPY WALL STREET in human form (google: human letters), do a mic check, and have each group shout their message in succession.
In my mind, it would go something like this:
MIC CHECK
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
OCCUPY...LINCOLN
WE...ARE...THE 99%!
Maybe 10 times? Maybe throw in a GO...HUSKERS (or whatever relevant local phrase) for good cheer at the end? Maybe wear OWS T-Shirts during or after to spread the word further and pass out flyers/pamphlets?
I'm thinking this would just help spread the word, momentarily, without some problems of the occupation. Sure, I suppose there could still be some arrests for, even momentarily, blocking the sidewalk etc, but maybe not? Malls, sidewalks, banks anyone? It may help more people feel a part of it if they're too busy working to actually come to the bigger protests.
I'm so excited to try this and thought about waiting until I could, you know, actually organize it, post a bunch of fancy photos and videos, but I just thought I'd submit since it could take me weeks what I'm sure many of you could accomplish right away.
Anyway, thanks for listening.