Occupy-Links
- [occupy-amherst] List Serve- This public list is used to share minutes, ideas, and proposals for Occupy Amherst. To subscribe to [occupy-amherst], send a message from your e-mail account to: occupy-amherst-subscribe (at) lists.riseup.net (To unsubscribe from [occupy-amherst], send a message from your e-mail account to: occupy-amherst-unsubscribe (at) lists.riseup.net)
- Occupy Amherst Facebook Page - Like our Facebook page for another way to stay up to date!
- Occupy the Airwaves blog – companion to the weekly show at 10am Sundays on Valley Free Radio 103.3FM and rebroadcast Wednesdays.
- OccupyUMass.com - The website of people at UMass Amherst who are organizing for economic justice at UMass as part of the broader occupy movement.
- OccupyNorthampton says (1/8/12)”We currently have GA every week from 4-5 Fri, Sat, Sun (at varying places, so people need to check on where they are that week) and a weekly protest from 5-7 PM Friday in front of Bank of America near Thorne’s in downtown Northampton.” It also has a Facebook page.
- Occupy Franklin County
- Occupy Berkshires
- Occupy Turners Falls – Facebook page
- OccupyWesternMass – OccupyWesternMass.net is intended to facilitate communication, networking, and cross pollination between the various occupy movements across Western Mass. Share our stories, share our struggle! The site has videos from Amherst, UMass, and Hampshire College. OWM also has a Facebook page.
- Occupy Western Mass General Assembly – Facebook page
- InterOccupy.org provides channels of communications between GAs, Work Groups and Occupiers across the Occupy movement.
- Occupy Together can let you find Occupy groups all over the place!
- OccupyWallSt.org - The unofficial, de facto resource for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
- OWS working group on Corporations are not People and Money Is Not Speech – good compilation of proposed amendments, etc.
- OccuCards are 4 x 6? glossy info cards that are beautifully designed and cover a wide range of topics including corporate personhood, banking fraud, single-payer healthcare, and more.
- NYCGA.cc - The official website of New York City’s General Assembly. Check it out for official statements and documents produced by the NYCGA, as well as a live feed of Liberty Square.
- We Are the 99 Percent - A powerful blog for personal stories of people who support the Occupy Wall Street movement.
- The Albert Einstein Institution, a nonprofit organization advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world. Gene Sharp has lots of material on this website.
Hi, I’m from Occupy Portland and I’m giving you the tactic we inadvertently discovered that allows an occupation to effectively resist eviction. This isn’t just a theory, we did it and it works. The media failed to report this though, just reporting that we were forced out of a park, never mentioning that we re-took it later that evening, and the police gave up trying to force us out. I’ve gone in depth on the military theory behind this, but it wasn’t purposely done, it was spontaneously discovered. You can skip all the theory if you want and just read the end which gives a blueprint of this (extremely simple) tactic.
The Portland Occupation stumbled upon a tactical innovation regarding occupying public spaces. This evolution in tactics was spontaneous, and went unreported in the media. Six days ago we took a park and were driven out of it by riot police; that much made the news. What the media didn’t report is that we re-took the park later that same evening, and the police realized that it would be senseless to attempt to clear it again, so they packed up their military weaponry and left. Occupy Portland has developed a tactic to keep a park when the police decide to enforce an eviction.
The tactical evolution that evolved relies on two military tactics that are thousands of years old- the tactical superiority of light infantry over heavy infantry, and the tactical superiority of the retreat over the advance.
Heavy infantry is a group of soldiers marching in a column or a phalanx that are armed with weaponry for hand to hand, close quarters combat. Heavy infantry function as a unit, not individual soldiers. Their operational strength is dependent upon maintaining the integrity of that unit. Riot police are heavy infantry. They will always form a line and advance as a unit.
Light infantry are armed with ranged weapons for assault from a distance. Light infantry operate as individuals that are free to roam at a distance and fire upon the opposition with ranged weapons. Cops firing tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, bean bag rounds, etc. are light infantry. They remain to the rear of the phalanx of riot cops (heavy infantry) and depend upon the riot cops maintaining a secure front and flanks to provide them a secure area of operations.
Protestors function fluidly as either light or heavy infantry. Their mass, because it is lacking in organization, functions as a phalanx having no flanks or rear. Lack of organization gives that mass the option of moving in whichever direction it feels like, at any given time. If protesters all move to the right of the phalanx, the entire group and supporting officers has to shift to that flank. While the protestors can retreat quickly, that phalanx can only advance as fast as their light infantry, supporting staff can follow and maintain a secure rear (if the mass of protestors were to run to the next block over and quickly loop around to the rear of the riot cops, the organization of the cops would be reduced to chaos). If that phalanx cannot assemble with a front to oppose protestors, they are useless. The integrity of that tactic is compromised. When that phalanx is compromised, and unable to maintain internal organization, the cops revert to individuals engaging in acts of brutality, which eventually winds up on the evening news and they lose the battle regardless of whether they clear the park or not.
Because of the lack of organization of a crowd of protestors, light infantry cops firing tear gas, etc. has little effect because it just serves to disorganize a group that relies upon disorganization in the first place. All it really does is disorganize the riot cops, who then resort to brutality.
Their lack of weaponry on the part of the protestors grants them the luxury of opposing riot cops at close quarters, or remaining at long range in a refusal to engage the heavy infantry riot police at all. They have the advantage of the retreat, they can quickly move away, or in any direction, and the heavy infantry riot cops lack the swiftness to respond.
So far, all the occupations have, in a grave tactical error, agreed to engage the riot cops when they march in to clear parks. This has been a show of bravado that has the tactical benefits of providing media coverage of the brutal methods of police and the benefit of draining the resources of the oppressor by forcing them to incur the expense of arresting and prosecuting people for trivial offenses.
Now, to move on to the actual application of these tactical principles (that evolved by accident rather than conscious thought), we can refer to the taking of Shemansky park on the 4th. We occupied the park and set up a few tents and facilities to serve food and coffee. The police soon declared an emergency closure of the park and came out in force, with full riot gear and all the weaponry. The line of riot cops soon forced us out of the park, so someone decided that we ought to march to City Hall. It was about 9 pm on a Saturday night, so City Hall was closed, but we marched there anyway, 800 of us blocking traffic the whole way. Once there, the riot cops once again lined up to disperse the crowd. However, since City Hall was closed, there was no point in staying there anyway, someone had the idea to march down to the area of town where all the clubs were, so we took off marching again. The riot cops were trailing behind us, as was the truck with the giant speakers on the top repeatedly announcing “This street is open to traffic, individuals blocking traffic will be subject to arrest . . .”. Announcing this repeatedly was useless. One principle of non-violent resistance is this- one person has to walk on the sidewalk, 500 people can walk wherever they please. The riots cops had no place to form a phalanx, so they were crippled.
Since we had no clear destination, the police were unable to get ahead of us and set up roadblocks. They were helpless to do anything but trail along as an escort to the march. The only other response they could have had was for the riot cops to charge into the marching crowd and attempt to disperse it by brutality, which would have been mayhem that could have only resulted in a PR loss by the police department as the images of beatings and brutality hit the airwaves the next day.
The march, having no clear destination, marched wherever it willed through the downtown area, blocking traffic and light rail at will and growing larger as onlookers joined in. One of the participants of the march had a three wheeled bike with a loud amplifier hooked up to batteries with which to hook up an ipod and blast party music the whole time. This kept the atmosphere enthusiastic and energized and served to motivate onlookers to join.
The ability of music to raise morale can’t be understated. Slayer, Metallica, etc. wouldn’t be good music for this because it would induce aggression. Rhythmic music that’s usually danced to or played in clubs works best. If a DJ would play it as the ball drops on New Year ‘s Eve, then it’s perfect.
After marching for 3-4 hours, we eventually found ourselves a block away from the park that we’d been forced out of, so we took it again. The riot police lined up and prepared to take the park again, but the attempt was called off and the police just left. They realized that they would have to go through the standard military procedure of clearing the park inch by inch, only to have us go back out into the streets and march again while they, one more time, trailed along helplessly- their entourage functioning as a part of the march, creating an even larger disruption to traffic (the marchers covered a city block, the trailing police took up another city block, effectively doubling the size of the obstruction to traffic).
To sum up- When the cops come to clear the park, don’t resist. As they are preparing for their military maneuver and use of force that the Occupiers cannot reasonably be expected to resist, the occupiers should be packing up their tents and baggage and loading them into wagons, bicycles, backpacks, etc.
Force the cops to clear the park inch by inch, but try to avoid arrest in so doing. Once they have cleared the park, rouse the crowd through loud amplification announcing that you intend to march (any destination, or no destination, will do). Get the music blaring and then march aimlessly, blocking traffic the whole way, for hours. The crowd will be energized and willing to march for a long time, being spurred on by energetic music, chants,the comradery, and the euphoric feeling of power inherent in defying the throngs of heavily armed cops trailing helplessly behind).
The police will eventually trim down their entourage because they realize that they are helpless. Eventually, work your way back to the park. Or, if the police have fenced off the park, head to another park. If the police force you out, march again and they will be forced to follow. Eventually, they will inevitably come to the realization that they would rather have you in a park than disrupting traffic.
The police have no response to this tactic, other than resorting to brutality. And if they do that, whether they clear the park or not, we win.
What if the corporations through a party and 99% of the people didn’t show up? “Boycott Black Friday”. This is a way of making our voices heard. What big business cares about most is their bottom line. They are dependent upon it and they need you more then you need them. If you would sacrifice this moment of getting a price discount you can show them that we have the strength to create the change we want to see. They will believe in you and your wishes will start to be heard. It is time for change in this country and it won’t happen if we don’t take action. The only reason big business is running things is because we let them. It is time to assert our will. Would you take this opportunity to take this step of solidarity and pass it on to others to do the same. We will have bigger and better ideas of what we can do in the future. But for now this is at least a step that can be taken. In our desire for change and our will to make it happen this world will become a better place.
The general community really has no cognizance of the “W”(s) which totally justify this movement. It is believed that the following will help bring-up to speed…those newbies:
#1.)Banking & Fed Reserve, The “creating of money by Debt” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU&feature=share
2.)Enough, Mike Malory
http://current.com/community/93526454_mike-malloy-why-occupy-wall-street-weve-had-enough.htm?xid=RSSfeed&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
#3.)Melt Down..4part series: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/
Best Wishes to All Jack