Is the Occupy Wall Street movement fetishizing the spaces that they occupy? Are they defining the movement based on place rather than the many, many other powerful elements and symbols the movement has developed as it has birthed and evolved?

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Is the Occupy Wall Street movement fetishizing the spaces that they occupy? Are they defining the movement based on place rather than the many, many other powerful elements and symbols the movement has developed as it has birthed and evolved?

At almost all the occupied territories I've visited the words fetishize or fetishizing have been used. 

The dictionary definition of fetishizing is " Have an excessive and irrational commitment to (something)."

It's not a word that one encounters in ordinary conversation, but it seems to be routinely used in general assemblies and conversations  among people in the Occupy Wall Street locales. I've heard it repeatedly used at almost all of the occupied territories I've visited. 

A number of anarchist blogs talk about "fetishizing" non-violence, using the term to attack the idea of non-violence as an unreasonable obsession. It seems that if you use the word fetishize to attack an idea you don't have to engage in supported or reasoned argument against the idea. 

On the other hand, the word is used here, in an Occupy Toronto interview with Justin Podur uses the word in a different way. 

"A lesson from other movements is that you don't want to fetishize how to do things. The only things non-negotiable are the main, basic principles. And how you fulfill those and what methods and tactics you use are up for grabs."

So I ask the question, "Is the Occupy Wall Street Movement fetishizing the occupying of public squares, parks and plazas?"

There's no doubt that the occupation of highly visible, central locales can be very effective in terms of visibility and getting media coverage. And staying in one central place is creating community and a new way, even a new paradigm of relating, of taking care of each other. 

But today, there's news that last night, riot-gear clad police cleared Occupy Atlanta from Woodruff Park, using an 11 PM curfew ordinance as an excuse. 

Friday night, when I was attending the general assembly at Occupy Philly, there was animated discussion of whether or not to move across the street to another area, because the city had construction under contract for part of the area where Occupy Philly is currently occupying. 

It may be that the location of the occupation is a key factor in making an occupation successful. 

Or, it could be that that what are most important elements are: 

-the direct actions that come from occupied territories, 

-the community that is built and maintained, 

-the relationships developed.

-the positions that are established by General Assemblies, 

-the connections to the community.

I raise this question knowing that one of the best ways to get new participants in the occupy movement is to be assaulted by violent police. 

Still, it seems that the heads of cities across the US-- mayors, city managers, city councils, police chiefs-- are using strategies to freeze out the northern occupied territories and arrest and remove people from the southern, warmer occupied territories. 

What's the alternative to fetishizing locale? Some cold weather occupied territories are already doing it-- finding indoor places to stay-- warehouses, large, un-used indoor facilities, churches. 

I don't have all the answers, just the question. But perhaps the thing to do is to find sleeping quarters , at least for the winter, and to shift strategy to a total free-speech oriented occupation of public places-- which will be harder for police and municipal leaders to defend tearing down. 

Perhaps the de-fetishizing of occupy locales is a bad idea. But perhaps, by de-fetishing the physical locales and instead focusing on all the other actions, characteristics and strengths of the embryonic Occupy Wall Street movement the movement can be liberated to an even more powerful range of options on how to operate.

Another way to think about it is that if the physical locale is de-fetishized, then, when police clear or harass an area, occupiers can brush it off-- use the harassment for media exposure first, then move somewhere else and step up the really important actions, discussions and community building-- a kind of Jiu Jitsu that makes the movement stronger when it is attacked. 

 Occupy DC Currently Occupies McPherson Square-- Fronting on K Street It's a beautiful local, with soft grass ground for occupiers to sleep on and just a few blocks from the White House. 

Occupy Washington DC, at Liberty Plaza: Tahrir Square in, English, translates for Freedom or Liberty Square. So the locale is symbolic and also very close to the White House, across the street from the Commerce Building and just a few blocks from the US Chamber of Commerce-- a defender of big corporations and an almost daily target of Occupier protesters. 

How would a non-locale Occupy Wall Street look?

People sleeping in warehouses, churches, community centers" 

The places might change on a regular basis. It might mean that occupiers stay three days in a church, then five days at a community center, then a month at a warehouse, or an emptied outdoor community swimming pool. 

In Occupy Augusta, they occupiers face a right wing controlled situation. So they meet 6-9 PM on weekdays and 3-6 PM on weekends. Sure it would be better if there were a permanent, 24 hour presence, but SOME presence is better than none. 

If people don't sleep in the public park or square then challenges to curfews based on first amendment rights will be far more robust. 

Bottom line, I am not saying to stop camping in central, downtown, high-visibility locales. I'm saying don't make those places defining, required elements of the occupy movement.  Explore alternate ways to enable the occupy movement to maintain its identity in places where camping in public places does not work. Develop new ways to occupy the country, the city, the county, the planet, in ways that raise awareness and visibility, that allow for continuing development of democracy, continuing actions, including marches, civil resistance and civil disobedience, as well as local Occupy newspapers, websites, and streaming videos. 

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

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Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

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