I’ve been watching OWS since Day 1. I’ve followed it as it’s unfolded all around the world. This also means that — in-between being impressed at the scale and tenacity of the thing — I’ve seen a steady stream of kids getting pepper sprayed and — in the latest video to make the rounds — beaten.

I don’t want to see that anymore. I’m a tough guy, but — if I had a choice — I’d rather not see a group of people who refuse to publicly define themselves continue to get hurt or arrested for something as intellectually reasonable as pointing out the unfairness of income inequality and — as Matt Taibbi put it — the way in which some people cheat.

Since I can’t do a mic. check at every Occupy camp, here are three things I want to say to those in Occupy camps across the planet:

1. Be Safe. There was a rape at Occupy Glasgow and a rape at Zuccotti Park. That shouldn’t happen outside an Occupy camp and it shouldn’t happen inside one. There is — as the editor of Mother Jones tweeted as she visited the camp — a tent set up at Zuccotti designed to be a ‘safe space’ for women 24/7, and though I don’t know how it works, I hope it does work.

I mentioned this as a one of many possible concerns the administration at Harvard might have in shutting down the yard to ID only to someone online — don’t forget: someone died at Occupy Vancouver and someone did OD at Occupy Boston (thankfully, non-fatally) — and got accosted — complete with a condescending “Wow” — for trying to “mansplain” it.

As someone who self-identifies as — amongst many other things — a feminist — let me just say it again: be safe, okay? (I think that’s a fairly gender neutral statement, no?)

2. Be Smart. Kids recently set up an Occupy Harvard, my adopted — and — for a time — very real home. And though the ‘living document’ on the official tumblr makes sense, watching some of the tweets unfold was exacerbating. As an example of one, @MWeisner22 wrote: “There is a wall here bigger than this harvard yard fence. It’s a wall of privilege, classism, and ignorance.”

Right — because how dare FDR launch the New Deal and try and lift millions out of poverty. How dare Louis Brandeis file a “Brandeis Brief” to fight against the idea that women required special laws of their own. How dare Teddy Roosevelt meet with Booker T. Washington or fight for Jane Addams. How dare James Agee write Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. How dare Samantha Power write A Problem from Hell. How dare the Boston Public Library be designed the way it is. How dare RFK care about the plight of South Africans. How dare 1L students dedicate their time to free clinics. How dare Russ Feinfold vote against the Patriot Act. How dare Elizabeth Warren write The Two-Income Trap. How dare 1,043 of 1,664 freshmen require financial aid. I mean — don’t they know there’s ignorance and privilege afoot?

And so on. You get the idea.

While I was tracking this, Greg Mitchell wrote, “Significant debate right now at Occupy Oakland GA over accepting violence as part of the movement.”

That measure was voted down, but it was startling (someone asking about kidnapping and torturing the families of corporate executives? Really?), emphasizes this point — Be smart. — and brings me to my next point:

3. Get Wonky. Chilean students came up with an entire education program of their own and had a national vote on it. The vote didn’t count, but they were able to pull it off with startling numbers. That’s an example of a specific policy proposal that attacks a key element of Chilean income inequality in a successful way: if this many people can vote, the message implies, what if the government backed it? Why isn’t the government backing it?

We recently had ‘Bank Transfer Day,’ whereby people were encouraged to move their money to a Credit Union, and — based on accounts from The Credit Union Times — a good amount of people did. OWS amplified that message, and that was a good thing. It would be nice to see more of this.

OWS now has a ‘spokes committee.’ It’d be nice to hear more from it, as it might not be the most productive thing in the world to see something entropy out of control.

  4:03 pm  |   November 10 2011   |  25 notes