The Occupying force is still set up in Chapman Park and Lownsdale Square, settling in for what looks to be a couple of soggy days. There are still several dozen tents set up and, as of 10am today, a couple people waving signs and getting an occasional honk from traffic. Taking in the scene, I immediately wondered: What happens if Occupy Portland stops being an Occupy protest and starts becoming a homeless encampment? I could see that being a distinct possibility if the parks remain okay to legally sleep in for the next couple weeks.
I was up in Seattle this weekend and stopped by their protest. It’s a bit different—smaller, but also more visible. They’ve set up camp right in the middle of Seattle’s commercial core, surrounded by Nordstrom’s shoppers. Seattle’s mayor says he supports the protest, but there have been bizarre crackdowns on umbrellas and drivers who honk in support.
Anyway, today is the most imperialist of holidays: Columbus Day! A Columbus Day Convergence is slated to start at noon across the river at NE 8th and Oregon, with some activities (open mic, free chili) and an eventual march at 6pm in support of indigenous rights.
Over at the main Occupy site, the big debate is over whether the protesters should open up Main Street, the currently barricaded block between the two parks where the elk statue is. The city and police have been asking Occupy to open up the block to traffic since Friday and I ran into police Captain Sara Westbrook doing the rounds at the protest and trying to meet with organizers to get them to open up the thoroughfare. But so far, no dice. The street remains lined with barricades and soaked cardboard protest signs
The thing that sucks most about being stuck in Portland is that your inside a giant homeless camp.
I support them on the issues, but how dumb is it to indefinitely move into a tent with no exit strategy?
a) Their goals aren’t all that clear
b) Local officials have no power to meet those goals (i.e. regulate wall street, create income equality)
c) Even if there was movement towards meeting those goals, it would clearly take much longer than you are willing to live outside.
C’mon, Sarah — you can do better than this. The Mercury was doing pretty good with the onsite reporting until they took the rest of the weekend off and left things to the mainstream media. Given the number of people hanging out there with laptops and other technology (did you poke your head inside the media tents?), I’m guessing this is not going to go away anytime soon, rain or no.
What happens if Occupy Portland stops being an Occupy protest and starts becoming a homeless encampment? The big debate is whether to open up Main St.? Wow — how far off the mark can you go? Where are the interviews with protesters that might answer Blabby’s question? Where are the real issues? How’s this for a goal: “No exceptions to the Volcker rule”. (section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that was passed by Congress to halt the reckless behavior that led to the economic collapse. Financial regulators have proposed weakening the act by allowing broad exceptions to the ban on proprietary trading (trading for their own profit).
Blabby is correct.
No, they sit there and arrange weekly marches on the Fed building, like has been evfective elsewhere.
Sometimes the goal is to stand up and voice your objections. The fact that so many have congregated, kept it peaceful, and persisted has a pretty powerful message to me. I’m inspired to consider what actions in my life, small though they may be, can create change.
I’d like to know how many of these protesters have actually voted in any election. In my opinion if you don’t vote then you have no right to complain. Go home and vote in every election. That’s what true democracy looks like.
I was down there today and the issue of the homeless/drug activity is going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later. I have no intention of setting up and supporting a downtown dignity village. I will support an occupation.
My feeling is, its growing past its intention and most of the homeless/drug addicts/mentally ill aren’t doing any work.
At about 4 in the afternoon the trash man came to load his truck, a homeless, filthy 20ish person
sat right on the sidewalk at sanitation and picked his toenails! Seriously, this cant go on like this..
but it will work itself out im sure…
Ah, Blabby, we meet again – http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
a) The goal is pretty clear – to provide a constant demonstration that we are tired of a plutocratic government – both locally and nationally.
b) The demonstration is for both the local and national level. There are DEFINITELY things local officials can do to help stop the monetary influence on local politics (Columbia River Crossing for example!). Local officials can also take that money (our money) and invest more of it into the larger percentage, the larger good of the people – schools, creating jobs, stopping the Portland homeless epidemic, ect. ect. ect.
As far as the national level – we are a part of a NATIONAL movement. There are other cities that this is going on – over 600. So the more cities this is in, the more unified the call for the change on the national level is. For instance, when the civil rights movement was going on in cities all over the country, would we have said – “Local officials here in Portland have no power in meeting goals of helping the civil rights movement on a national level”? This type of statement is not constructive, nor is it true. Recent American history has shown that multiple local demonstrations do in fact alter national policies.
c) Watch us.
Personal note: Blabby – please come downtown and talk to some of the people there and stop listening to the media on how we have no agenda. There is an agenda. Also, even though you and I seem to not see eye to eye on some issues, I feel like there is substantial common ground that is far more important for people like us to connect on. This goes for a lot of us out there. This is not a Democratic and Republican issue – this is a what we do for the common good of the mass percentage of our countrymen and women issue.
@PDXGoosh “a) The goal is pretty… Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!”
I wanted to learn the meaning of insidious because I wanted to make sure I had the right word to describe the 99% protests. See Fyodor Dostoyevky’s, “The Possessed/Demons” for more. Vacuous also comes to mind.
“The thing that sucks most about being stuck in Portland is that YOUR inside a giant homeless camp.”
grammar correction: YOU’RE.
You’re welcomed.
I’m sure there are voters there.
And they voted for the ones now in power that got us here.
On the question of voting, I’m pretty sure that people are so upset because they voted against this shit as much as they could, and yet it still happened. Or, they were led to believe that something was or wasn’t going to happen based on the way they were voting, and it didn’t help. They write to their reps in congress and it doesn’t change anything.
People are upset because it feels like we have no voice, and even when we are heard, we’re ignored. And it has created a plethora of social problems.
Barfolomew – What does ‘zzzzzzz’ mean? Are you also tired of the plutocratic government?
As far as your wanna be vocab lesson – I do not think that nation wide protests have harmful effects or are treacherous. Who does? You?
You and Blabby should get together and have a dinner party and complain about how protests have never helped our country. Meanwhile, the rest of the country will remember how protests and social movements have helped many things – such as slavery, voting rights, civil rights, worker’s rights, ect ect ect. This Occupy Movement is an extension of all of these other movements. If our country is to be ‘liberty and justice for all’, then we need to continue to move in a positive direction by way of social movements.
Insidious? – pfffffffffff. Go back to grammar school. And while you’re there, take a history class.