"It's not about about Main Street, it's about Wall Street"
"The 1% don't use Main Street"
"The Chapman Park Occupation and the G.A. are two different movements
"The Occupation is Protest; the street closure is Activism"
"If Occupy Wall Street is about poverty ~ then why waste taxpayer money"?
These are examples of what should be said at the General Assembly meetings.
Of the #OccupyPortland, one thing can be said: open-proposal General Assembly meetings are dangerous in the hands of a divided organization ~ especially one with no particular task to achieve. It appears the movement, consisting of camped tents and core services of a loose knit community in Chapman Square is quite different from the volatile, rambunctious congregation that has taken over the 1100 block of SW Main Street following the end of Saturday's Portland Marathon. Although both groups attend the G.A. meetings, not all opinions are consistent with one another. In fact, the division over whether to re-open Main Street to the city as opposed to 'keeping it' has been one of two major issues that has bogged the functions of the G.A. (General Assembly) since the street was taken Saturday night.
Initially, the G.A. had been held in Lownsdale Square, across Main street from Chapman Square. Lownsdale Square was the rental of Portland Marathon (P.M.), and going into last weekend organizers for #OccupyPortland contacted P.M. to inquire about sharing use of the park. The request was answered with a frosty 'no'. It seemed that during one of the preceding Portland Marathons, an Obama booster group had shared use of the park with P.M., promising to respect the condition, as it was P.M.s deposit who was forfeit. And forfeit they did, costing P.M. nearly four times in penalties. The organization almost collapsed, and when they where able to solidify funding to assure the following years' race, the committee vowed to never actually 'use' the Square in which they rented, indefinitely. So, it was no surprise that even though many of P.M.'s participants rallied the organization for support, Lownsdale Park was not to be occupied.
Thankfully, Portland Mayor Sam Adams stepped to the plate for Portland's 99% by solving the issue in one fell swoop: #OccupyPorland may have The City's blessing by camping Chapman Square. The city of Portland Parks would incur the costs for wear to the turf, though they were concerned for minimizing the damage under a prolonged Occupancy. Following the Marathon's exit, plans were quickly made to occupy Lownsdale Square once Portland Marathon was cleared by City park officials.
Portland's 99% had closed the holiday weekend with news reports of nothing but unity, cooperation, and incredibly useful techniques in communicating and functioning as a leaderless unit. In fact, it was widely reported that Portland had lead the entire County in astute, logical communication techniques born from PSU students, using hand signs that everyone in the entire meeting may use to silently and quickly give opinions or signal for direct response. These stories generated praise in the National Press.
It seemed that these two forces - the rebellious take over of Main Street as a meet place for G.A.s, and the too-easy to use communication system, had collided in way of an information overload. Since it was so easy for someone to voice an opinion, proposal after proposal was introduced with no conscience effort on the body to recriminate egotism. People were truly trying to solve the issue of the closed street - should they continue to corridor off Main Street to all thru traffic, or should the 99% allow it to be re-opened for an increasingly long list of reasonable concerns? Though the concerns voiced up to that point had included such important issues as Emergency Services, these were not enough to sway a crowd of 1,600 people, when it seemed half wanted the meeting to be over so they could go back to camp and eat, while the remainder stuck around simply because they occupied Main Street, anyway. The deadlock was further muddled because people who voiced their opinions and 'proposed' alternatives that could appease both groups and solve the issues were instead crucified because they proffered a proposal that many seemed to like and support, but only further divided the consenus: Abandon the street or hold it indefinitely.
Here's one crux to the matter: the 99% are out in numbers because of poverty. Even though it had been mentioned during every G.A. that Tri-Met and Emergency services would have to be re-rerouted, the decision was to remain in 'contact and in negotiation' with the authorities, but to continue to occupy Main Street. It's quite apparent that occupying the street is going to cost taxpayers money - money that is most definitely NOT going to come from the 1%, nor will it come from Wall Street. The very people that are occupying are going to incur the costs for blocking the street. Is this really how Portland wants to show the Country the way to rally against Corporate spending, by doing exactly what Corporations do, burn money?
Here's another point: The 99% who occupy the 1100 block of Main may represent the interests of their brethren, but the people who NEED the street, not to protest, but to commute, need the street more than OccupyPortland. This 99% - who happen to have jobs - are the actual 99%, and these taxpayers outnumber the hundred or so Activists occupying a busy causeway in downtown Portland.
This is all aside from the fact that the authorities, who have maintained pleasant negotiations concerning the street, have signaled as of Tuesday October 11 that Main Street does not belong to the People's 99%, it in fact belongs to the city, and the Police will be forced to remove Occupiers. As of the close of Tuesday's General Assembly , the consensus was that time remained to further debate the issue at the next G.A. meeting the following day. It was a decision not to decide.
This can destroy every single fiber of goodwill this movement has recently earned, in the media, and in general focus. Many real taxpayer citizens did not want to take part in this protest, initially. But when the past weekend spurred a vast array of committees and service tents, the whole feeling of good, kind, wholesomeness kicked in and everyone got on their devices, said 'Oh, how neat', and more people, real people, came. Remember why people came - because it wasn't stupid, because, initially on Columbus Day Weekend the protest didn't cost anyone any money. It was a protest; it was not activism.
But Tuesday morning bore a whole new animal, and the one's who occupy Chapman Square seem to understand that. Some people believe that the G.A.s are mostly populated with outsiders whose opinions are not quite in line with the Occupation. It is fact that many of the Camp's Service's members, leaders and committee members do not even attend the G.A.s solely because they are such a headache of confusion and agitation. It was also quoted that nothing of interest ever gets done during these meetings.
So, who are the real people attending the G.A.s? Tuesday's meeting included a Steve Jobs look a-like who frequently ranted ' I propose, I propose', when another tiresome proposal was introduced, and would then burst into manical laughter. Many thought it disturbing at first, but as the 7:00 meeting wore on to 9:30, others actually seemed to somewhat relate to his eccentricism.
It's the opinion of this author that the Facilitators of #OccupyPortland see to it that public expense is kept to zero, or the next best thing to it, so as not to cost our very own percentage a dime, or even a paycheck.
