Forum Post: how we are handling sanitation and some other issues
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 4, 2011, 3:28 a.m. EST by ramous
(765)
from Wabash, IN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
we are taking all of it home for disposal. (ok, we are running shifts at our local camp, 8 hours in the park, 8 hours home, 8 hours work. meaning jobs and family to feed.) We bring in 5 gallon bucket for ourself only, use, take home at end of day. all our trash goes home with us. We didn't do that right away, but we have some hikers and that's their motto. They brought the good tents!!! and the sterno stoves! and jesus, folding solar panels to charge their cell phones! and folding water buckets and everything, they know how to camp. So in each bucket is some of that blue porta potty chemical so it doesnt smell and you put the lid on to take it home, and flush it down when you get there. We are not advocating any violence, and we stay within the area they want us in. Because we arent going to block any roads. Now, we are keeping other people from using the park, but the city is ok with that as long as we do everything else they ask us. We don't have around the clock police watching us, we have bike cops that come over about once every half hour to check on us, stand and talk a while, then go on, and the car patrols go by frequently.
We hold signs, we dont do any drumming. This makes our neighbors happy. some come down to bring us stuff like hot coffee and find out what we're doing and what we think about the violence. we say that's not us, there are radical fringes in the movement and we are sorry for them, but we wont let it happen here. Two weeks ago the mayor came by with two detectives (you could tell they were) and talked to us a while. He just wanted to be sure we weren't nuts or idiots or anarchists. We told him that if our camp got co-opted by violent types that we'd go home and he could have at them. so he said we could keep staying and see how it goes and we have been able to work everything out. The police chief has been down too, but mostly because there are some events scheduled in the park in December for christmas. So we are working those out.
-All- the people in our community are 99%. We've been working hard to get them to see that, and its starting to sink in.
This week, the owner of a nearby bagel shop started bringing over old bagels that they'd have to throw away. We're starting to get honks and waves from drivers who drive by us every day.
The local news comes around but we aren't doing anything interesting except holding signs or drinking coffee or playing angry birds. If they ask to interview we keep it short and to the point.
So we're keeping it really low key but visible and every couple of days we get one or two more interested.
We're only two little town blocks from the 'main street' bank corner, two banks there. So we're close enough to be obvious to them.
Food we are getting more and more donations, mostly from nearby restaurants getting rid of at the end of the night.
sounds pleasant
The gripe is that the government is corrupt by means of corporations that are greedy, and that we as a country of people are suffering for it and that it hasn't stopped yet (fannie mae bailouts now) and that we wont ever be out from under the massive debt they have put on our backs through this complicit corruption. What we are hoping is that Occupy will develop its ideas to present for positive change, through this and other kinds of dialogue. We fear that might not happen, because we see the special interest fringe groups coming in louder with more force and more money, but even if it does not happen, I hope I have helped awaken some who were sleeping to the fact that the government and their economic powers have sold them out and will have made them poor for generations to come unless we can get them to stop very very soon, this selling out our futures and our children's futures.
Where are you at? Not NY I assume. Sounds like you're doing it right.
no, about 200000 pop smallish city that has a good sense of community to it still. I think community is where we need to push the message because antagonizing the majority will alienate them against the message. We can't be 99% until we ARE 99%.
I agree. Antagonizing the majority will kill this movement. I think OWS needs to rethink this plan and take it to a different level. Move past Zuccotti, especially in light of the California fiasco.
You need to HAVE a plan first. There is nothing to rethink. You must acknowledge this or you will continue to be ridiculed. I am saying this as a person who likes the energy in the movement, but is dismayed at the target (business) and DELIBERATE lack of focus. Think about your problem. Unless you think business should be government you need to be targeting government to get rid of business from its halls!
well, also I came here from the Tea Party, because they pretty much are against same things (government corrupted by corporation money) and they have a plan to work within the system to make the changes. But media make them 'racist' like media make OWS 'smelly hippies', so I dont know how much change they can make working in the system now. I feel stronger than that, stronger about the corruption than just waiting to vote. A few people will make OWS into being seen as an anarchist violent group now, so I don't know if we need third movement maybe.
Don't be ashamed of your Tea Party roots! If the energy of the two combined they would be an unstoppable force! One being a watchdog against the government while the other being a watchdog over corporate and special interest influence. If people could just get passed the whole political party thing and realize that the constitution itself is being brushed aside....
There's still the question in my mind of what the OWS organizers want, but it's a movement ripe for shaping to the demise of government corruption while removing the financial power corporations have seized over the decades.
Im not ashamed of tea party, and you're right, if we got their organizational skills and ows passion together, the change would be a shitstorm for the corrupt.
Good. You've got interested, civil people in your camp. Now what?
What's your gripe? What's the proposed solution? Are you just a bunch of mad campers or are you actually trying to present specific ideas to improve this country? Sitting around holding signs, playing Angry Birds, and getting free food seems...well, juvenile. You should be the masters of your destiny, but right now you have no destiny. Just a protest.