This was posted on the Occupy Portland Facebook page a bit ago-the camp is being evicted tonight and tensions are obviously high. Like other Occupy encampments, they have become the focal point for many of the ills that have resulted from the dysfunction of our system. I have been tremendously impressed with the level of dialogue and communication that has gone on between the Occupiers and city officials, as well as police. This particular Occupier does a really good job in conveying their frustrations and hopes at this critical moment in the effort:
What I'd love to see tonight: A majority of people come together to peacefully make just two demands of this Mayor, this city, and our local media - and they go something like this:
"Ok, we will peacefully pack up and leave these parks tonight. We are rebooting - we're going to create Occupy 2.0. And we will be organized, cohesive, sending out regular, clear messages to the public, engaging in direct actions, and strategically connecting with our sisters and brothers across this country and around this world - holding the physical and psychic space for the reclamation of our rights, our government, our systems, our dignity, ourselves. We thank this city and our Mayor for everything you've done to support Occupy Portland. We know the camp has failed in some ways, but, we reject your attempts to make this solely an OP failure. This is a city, state, and national failure. This is a travesty. We will leave peaceably, on the following condition: The city, the Mayor, AND the Portland Business Association work with all relevant local nonprofits and interested occupiers to create a real plan to help our houseless, drug and alcohol addicted and mentally ill populations. You work with us to create a plan to carry on the work we were not prepared for, but we have, to the best of our ability, undertaken. We create this plan, it is shared widely, and this city, this state, our businesses, take these needs seriously. We start changing our world by changing it at home. By changing our attitudes, and our notions of participation.
Demand #2: To the local media - you have done us a great disservice. In keeping with the corporatized, sanitized, travesty of a mainstream media machine, you have chosen to focus on the most vulnerable elements of a movement that is the first thing in most of our lifetimes that actually has the chance to CHANGE OUR WORLD. You have ridiculed us. You have painted us almost solely in a bad light. While we admit that key mistakes were made along the way while working with strangers at warp speed, YOU, local media, caused this fragile, beautiful, amazing spark of hope a good measure of harm. You choose surface over substance, ugliness over the fact that - through Occupy Portland - people from all over this state, from all walks of life, from completely different experiences and economic backgrounds, have met one another, shared coffee and lunch and conversation on corners and in living rooms - disparate people, come together over a common hope and goal - to restore our world and to create systems that make sense for us all. To defiantly hold our goverment and corporations accountable. To turn the tide so that we ALL have reason to hope for a better future. THIS IS WHY WE ARE HERE. THIS is why we hold this space for you. And we ask you to do your due diligence, and dig deeper and tell the REAL story behind Occupy Portland, and Occupy Everywhere. If you don't we will. And we are. We will change this world, our governments, and our systems, with or without you. We urge you to join this call for a global paradigm shift, a nonviolent revolution - a reclamation of our humanity on a mass scale. Join us, media, Mayor, and people of Portland. We've a long road ahead. And we need you.
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