Jen and I have had a number of conversations about what we are enjoying about Occupy Los Angeles and also things that are worrying us. The big worry is the energy fizzling out quickly even though we know so many people who already work so hard, and do an amazing job, at Living Wall Street Free.
The thing we kept coming back to was how to use the protest site as a place where longer-term strategies for Living Wall Street Free can be developed and advocated.
I think one of the challenges of keeping personal fires stoked and the media interested is to:
1) Make the protest site a place of inspiration and a place people actually want to go to repeatedly.
2) Make the protest site something people want to take pictures of and spread the word about.
3) Make the protest site an incubator for "living differently" where long term strategies for Living Wall Street Free are shared.
I'll throw out some ideas that are just rolling around in my head. Many of these could be pulled off with one folding table so they wouldn't be "spectacles" attracting police attention but they would be compelling enough for people to come down to check things out, encourage repeat visits and be cool and substantive enough to warrant positive media attention.
- Readings
- Performances
- Composting workshops
- Signmaking workshops
- Electronics "Fix it" and home repair workshops.
- Solar power technology intros
- "Make your holiday gifts this year!" advocacy and workshops.
- Free Store site - people bring stuff they don't want and trade it for stuff they do want.
- Free bike bepair kiosk
- Side Streets woodworking bus. http://sidestreet.org/
- Getting the Time Bank involved http://www.echoparktimebank.com/echoparktimebank/Home.html
- Getting the http://neighborgoods.net/ people to come down and extol the virtues of sharing things instead of buying them.
Let's Go!!!!
OCCUPY WALL STREET! OCCUPY LOS ANGELES!