![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Occupy Minnesota
Oct. 7th, 2011 09:39 pmToday was the first day for Occupy Minnesota (on Facebook here and on Twitter at @OccupyMN), which was held in a plaza in downtown Minneapolis, in front of the Hennepin County Government Building.
I headed there after work, about five o'clock, but people had been there all day. It was clear that there has been some planning put into the gathering, and that many of the decisions of the New York group have been put into practice here. The event is livestreamed. I talked to a woman at one of the organizing tables, who said there has been a good crowd all day, ebbing and flowing, of course, with the work day, but people do plan to stay there all night. The crowd used another trick from the Occupy Wall Street group: to enable people in the back to hear, the crowd repeats the speaker's words, phrase by phrase, so that the speech ripples out from the center to the outskirts. It makes it feel much more participatory and active instead of passive when you participate in passing on the message. The signs were interesting, and there was a steady trickle of people passing around leaflets. Representatives of various organizations spoke: a spoken word poet, a representative of the Lakota tribe, a couple of representatives from the nurses' union, representatives from welfare representatives, student groups, LGBT groups, antiwar group, etc.
I sat for awhile, interspersed with moving around to look at the signs. The mood is upbeat. The whole experience made me feel somewhat hopeful, more than I have for many a long day. Maybe since Obama's election.
Of course, it's just a gathering of people in protest, but the movement is picking up steam all around the country. Who knows where it will lead? At least the powers that be are starting to pay attention, which is more than they have been doing for months now.
Once again, here is that moving Tumblr feed We are the 99 percent. If someone asks you what's this all about, send 'em to look at this.
 |
I headed there after work, about five o'clock, but people had been there all day. It was clear that there has been some planning put into the gathering, and that many of the decisions of the New York group have been put into practice here. The event is livestreamed. I talked to a woman at one of the organizing tables, who said there has been a good crowd all day, ebbing and flowing, of course, with the work day, but people do plan to stay there all night. The crowd used another trick from the Occupy Wall Street group: to enable people in the back to hear, the crowd repeats the speaker's words, phrase by phrase, so that the speech ripples out from the center to the outskirts. It makes it feel much more participatory and active instead of passive when you participate in passing on the message. The signs were interesting, and there was a steady trickle of people passing around leaflets. Representatives of various organizations spoke: a spoken word poet, a representative of the Lakota tribe, a couple of representatives from the nurses' union, representatives from welfare representatives, student groups, LGBT groups, antiwar group, etc.
I sat for awhile, interspersed with moving around to look at the signs. The mood is upbeat. The whole experience made me feel somewhat hopeful, more than I have for many a long day. Maybe since Obama's election.
Of course, it's just a gathering of people in protest, but the movement is picking up steam all around the country. Who knows where it will lead? At least the powers that be are starting to pay attention, which is more than they have been doing for months now.
 |
Once again, here is that moving Tumblr feed We are the 99 percent. If someone asks you what's this all about, send 'em to look at this.