Forum Post: A solution for the winter: #OccupySubway
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 10:53 p.m. EST by precipice
(220)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Quite possibly, blankets won't be enough in the winter. To keep the movement going, I propose operation #OccupySubway.
Don't obstruct people who need to get to work. You'll be alienating them. And we'll need all the support we can get during the winter months.
I agree. The subways are probably the only viable place to go when freezing weather comes, but thousands of protesters crammed into one station will shut it down, alienate many who currently are sympathetic to the movement, and certainly result in the police hauling all protesters away.
The best plan may be to diperse the protest to subway stations throughout NYC. Many small groups of protesters, enough to be noticed at every station, but no so many as to shut down any one station. That should avoid alienating our public support without losing our momentum.
A lot of people seem to be having trouble understanding that a few thousand people in the streets isn't going to change a damn thing unless you can get all those people going to work in the morning on your side. "Those people" are literally the 99% and the protesters are a fraction of that claiming to represent them.
When you see people on their way to work in the morning, say hi or shake their hand and ask them to come back when they're done with work.
A lot of people seem to be having trouble understanding that we need drastic action. We need to get everyone involved, and if individuals are still selfishly going to work to save themselves while letting others do the hard work, then we'll never win. According to a recent poll, 7/10 New Yorkers SUPPORT OccupyWallSt. I want to see 7/10 New Yorkers on the streets.
If you want 7/10 New Yorkers in the street show them a cause... I often wondered how many would show if occupy started a charity for the local mission and invited new yorkers to come listen and take up donations for one of the decent shelters?
this is a great idea. we should offer ny'ers more ways to participate.
get the owners of this site to say something about it.
We have every right to be selfish. I like my job and I want to continue doing it and advancing in my budding career as a creative professional. I work hard and I am good at my job, please don't insult me for doing it.
Nobody is insulting people who have jobs.
read the next comment by precipice. I am a Hamster? I am insulted. It is also condescending in tone.
Well a lot of people here wouldn't be considered the sharpest tools in the shed. A LOT.
I'm glad you have a job and I'm glad you like it. It's not capitalism or jobs or corporations that are inherently bad, it's how a particular industry is being run that is the problem.
The people of OWS want you to earn more than you do now like you should be, instead of the wealth being concentrated at the very top.
agreed, I was just pointing out that I was being insulted.
Okay, let me explain to you. We're like animals in a pet shop. We're staging a breakout of the shop - out of the whole damn system - into the wild. And you're the hamster who says you don't want to participate because you got to run on your wheel.
You're the one who feels like an animal in a pet shop. I'm succeeding. If you intentionally try to get me fired then there is absolutely no way that I will ever support this movement. By interfering with people who are trying to work, you're threatening them and their families. You will become a much bigger and more immediate problem to those people than any bank. Discrediting "the movement" will be very simple for your opponents if you start intentionally trying to cost other people money and get other people fired.
People care too much about their jobs. Hope your job cares about you just as much..
For you to impose your value system on somebody else and try to force them out of work because you don't value employment is hardly any different than an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian trying to impose his value system on you.
Well let’s see. If I run on my wheel and it feeds my family and keeps them clothed and under shelter; is that so wrong to want to stay and run on my wheel? Or would it be better to throw caution to the wind and hope we can make it without my income and in the winter of a park in NY?
maybe you have never had a job that you actually liked, I'm sorry. You have every right to protest but if you clog up the subway, which my post was in reference to, you turn civil disobedience into civil disruption.
Unless you guys got a huge donation of hand sanitizer, please don't shake my hand.
I think J. Kunstler probably said it best in his recent column:
"...The weather may determine the mood of the OWS crowd. If they don't go apeshit in the next two weeks, my guess is that the nation will hunker down into a dire, melancholy holiday season followed by a desperate winter leading to a raucous spring of political transformation - not necessarily of the best kind...."
It's going to be like Valley Forge, and we'll come out of it leaner, tougher, and ready to fuck shit up.
I like this
Jamming the subway system may be counter productive. Making people angry is a sure fire way to alienate enough people that they will demand the city remove you forcefully.
too many ppl are focusing on "jamming the system." of course there is a chance it is counter-productive. I wrote that already, noting we should avoid doing it if possible (but that it may not be entirely a bad thing).
Yea - have even less people working. God damnit these suggestions are so stupid and haven't been given a second of thought. NEXT!
Well said. lol
it is easy to criticize. suggest a better idea, if you can.
i see two options really.
Let the movement die , and go home.
We'll see about that, and when this is over, you and me got a score to settle.
Pretty tough talk
You can live underground like a rat
99% of Americans are living the rat race already.
Really ? lol You gonna come occupy my house ?
When the revolution is over and the world is changed for the better, people will ask "Where were you when it happened?" You can tell them for yourself.
I was at work or at home with my family.
Maybe if you behave, your boss will give you a doggy bone or promotion? We're working to make sure no one will ever have to work in misery like that.
You stayed with the women and children, while the real men went out to build a better future. To each his own.
Misery? Who said I was miserable? Just because you hate your job doesn't mean everyone else does. And what is a real man like you doing down there? Drumming?
Okay, so maybe you've got it good. Congrats on having good luck, or rather - playing the system well. Most people don't or have principles on not participiating with banks to scam poor people into taking on more debt.
Now, what about your friends? Do they have jobs they love? How about your kids? Will they have jobs they love? Or your family or parents that got laid off? Will they have jobs they love? Or your future self, when you get laid off?
Everyone I know is doing great, but calling us suckers for taking care of ourselves and our families doesn't help the cause. What do you do for a living?
"The ultimate goal though is not to obstruct, but to provide a warm place for protesters - and to keep this once-in-a-lifetime movement alive. "
...
"Although the goal is not to obstruct daily commutes, I don't think this is necessarily that bad if it happens by chance. It is important to realize that it is these employees who are keeping the banks and corps well-greased and running, inadvertently harming the rest of the world quite frankly. Especially so in NYC, where the largest banks are based. In the end, we are working to build a better world."
Please let me know if I'm reading this correctly: You want to jam the subways to that people who DO have jobs cannot get to their jobs. This way, there can be even more jobless people?
Wow, that is a great idea... Then there can be even less people with jobs Then there can be even less tax revenue (since the top 5% pay more in federal income tax than the bottom 95% combined) Then there can be even less people supporting the social welfare initiatives Then there can be more people below the poverty line without necessary mean for sustinance (remember, you just made all these people lose their jobs) Then there can be even more chaos and upheaval Then there can be even more people protesting the way society works and has always worked Then there can be even more complaints without any more solutions
If this is your "better world," you're well on your way to achieving it. Congrats!
lol. that's one way of seeing it. but, i have to say this. It is very easy for those people with jobs to forget about "the rest of us," believing that perhaps they're well on their way. That they're no longer part of the 99%, but closer to the 1% as they begin clawing their way up the corporate ladder. It is a mere illusion called "empowerment," a mangagement buzzword used to help control the masses from realizing that we are all still modern day slaves.
Most people are already below the poverty line, or will live in economic misery for the rest of their lives if things continue. The government is ineffective, and that is why social welfare isn't working - it is not because there are not enough people working to give income taxes. It is because the government is printing money out of thin air to bail out banks, and devaluing our currencies.
Quite simply, if all of us refuse to work for greedy banks & corrupt corporations, then the world would be better for it. And now is definitely a time to consider the masses and the greater good. Consider your friends who weren't so lucky to have gotten a job, or consider your children to who you will leave this world.
In any case, as I wrote - obstructing commute is not the primary goal. If we can avoid it, let's try to.
so the 9 people who have jobs should stop working for the 1 who doesnt, the 1 who if they're like you, probably don't deserve to have a job.
I hate to repeat myself, but again jobs are an illusion. You have no power. And you have your statistics backwards. It's more like the 1 who is working should stop so that the 9 who either aren't working or have miserable jobs will have a better future. What sort of future do you leave to your kids when the government can be purchased by millions in donations from corporations?
Let me get this straight. Everyone should go on strike until a group of people who won't even state their demands coherently can be appeased?
As a New Yorker, may I just say: Please think before you suggest such idiotic and potentially catastrophic things! People use the subway for more than just commuting, and the commuters do more than work only for corporations.
Some things are just worth fighting for.
And some people are too lazy to do anything but spout vague and tired aphorisms. How incredibly selfish and shortsighted - and yet so predictable - that you're willing to risk other people's livelihoods for your own behalf.
What absurd trolly melodrama.
Want to clarify where that comment was directed?
People think so small - forget about your $8/hour minimum wage job. Not to mention, your livelihoods are already over and you are only clinging on to what little is left. This is a once in a generation movement. We need people to open their eyes and not let this opportunity pass.
There is plenty of room at the Times Square subway convergence.
Interesting idea.
They tried some protests in the subways in san francisco. They had major problems - the subways shut down the cell phones. But if they were just occupying wall street subways, maybe it would be different/okay. Just might affect the poor more than the rich.
How about occupy the dallas fed?
Occupy Hawaii. lol
Sounds like a plan
u just need generators you will never get in the subway but godbless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zj_9lTp-2k
rage against the Corporate machine
Parody on housing bubble crisis!
Great
Outdoor heaters and insulated sleeping bags can help. If there's a will there's a way!
Hope ur right!
please please don't do that!!! I have to actually use the subway.
so that you can get to work and please your boss for $15 an hour?
There is a revolution taking place - possibly one of the greatest in our history. A stanford professor compared it to the civil rights movement.
You are making presumptions and you are insulting me. There is no place for that here.
What if I was to say I worked for a non profit called Green Map, would that change your mind.
I don't mean to insult merely awaken, my apologies. Nice on the Green Map.
well hopefully you will allow my point of view to awaken you.
God will help people with good humanterian cause, don't give up I will be among you too. We love you all. God Bless all of you for standing up for poor people in this great nation of ours.
Not the best suggestion IMO, like others said, this will cause frustration and alienation. People need to join willingly, need to act willingly, not have this forced on them everyday they head to work - with that said, I'd gladly join you all, but I live in the south... and, well, ya know.
Some people need saving. They can't do it themselves.
This is one of the worst ideas I have ever seen put forth.
For the time being, you may have the sympathy of many people in this city.
But .... if you start screwing with their ability to commute to work or get around this city, you will become the most hated people in this city.
New Yorkers can put up with a lot of shit .... but don't ever screw with their ability to get around. They will turn on you and hate you.
What they need are bivouac sacks: http://tinyurl.com/3bp4hqp
They will be like George Washington crossing the Delaware (25 Dec 1776) and the revolutionary troops camping out.
Sounds.like.you should have started this in April
Sounds.like it's.gonna.stink.down.there
No thanks
you may have to fight the homeless for all the good sleeping spots
Five Dollar Footlongs Are Great!
God will help people with good humanterian cause, don't give up I will be among you too. We love you all. God Bless all of you for standing up for poor people in this great nation of ours.
God will help people with good humanterian cause, don't give up I will be among you too. We love you all. God Bless all of you for standing up for poor people in this great nation of ours.
Yeah ! Outstanding