Forum Post: A Public Work-In?

I am in LA and have not joined in the protests for my own reasons, but I sympathize with them. I was reading that some are tracing OWS to the Situationist International and the 1968 Paris Student Riots. Being a fan of the book 'Lipstick Traces', I thought I might have something to offer from it.

One of the Situationist sayings was 'Beneath the paving stones, a forest', which (I believe) was encouraging people to look underneath the modern structure of things to a more natural, less convoluted world. Through the OWS lens I thought it could be applied to how convoluted and obtuse the laws in this country are. To start a business and hire workers practically requires a legal team. I feel like the complexity of the law is just as serious as poor design of law, because it is hard to get public support for reform of any aspect of it when it is inaccessible to the common man. So my sign was going to read 'Beneath the economy, a fair transaction'. What I mean is that there is work to be done and people willing to do it, but the complex nature of doing business and bad motives on each side (each side wants to get rich instead of being content with survival), makes even the most simple transactions prohibitively expensive.

I think one tactic OWS could use would be to stage a 'Public Work-In'. In which volunteer workers would train others and use donated materials to do things like paint street curbs and fill in pot-holes and plant gardens in vacant lots and do errands for senior citizens.

I would attend something like this. It would accomplish 4 things:

1. Show those who disparage the movement that OWS is not lazy hippies but people willing to work.
2. Highlight the fact that there is work to do and there should be some way to work out a system that gets it done efficiently. There was an article in the LA times that it was estimated that it would cost $100,000 to fix the lawn that the Occupiers were sleeping on. Which is a perfect example of how ridiculously overpriced basic work is when the government gets involved.
3. Shame the government, who will likely be against the idea because it could be a liability for them. Essentiall saying that they would rather you protest than work. which highlights more flaws in the system.
4. Provide eduational and work experience for the protesters

hope this doesn't go over too bad. thanks if you made it this far