Occupy Protesters Hold ‘Spring Training’ at Zuccotti Park (w/video)

[ellisonz]

April 9, 2012, 3:27 pm
By COLIN MOYNIHAN

About 100 people were gathered inside Zuccotti Park on Friday as Zak Solomon stood on a granite bench and offered instruction on protest tactics with names like “Melt,” “Wall,” and “The People’s Gong.”

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Last fall, Occupy Wall Street protesters exceeded their most ambitious aims, establishing an encampment in Zuccotti Park that became a model for more than 100 others across the country and making financial inequity part of the national dialogue. The group has been mainly quiet during the winter and their movement has faded from the headlines, but organizers are planning a springtime resurgence that they hope will be launched by marches and other actions scheduled for May 1.

To prepare, organizers have held weekly practice sessions, called “spring training,” inside Zuccotti Park, where participants learn about the gong and other tactics, some of them adapted from a British activist group called the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.

Over the course of an hour on Friday, protesters practiced several tactics, including “hup,” which involves a knot of people jumping up and down (and can be used to coalesce a scattered group) and “melt,” in which protesters drift to the ground (used for a ”die-in” or to de-escalate a confrontation).

More: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/occupy-wall-street-spring-training/?partner=rss&emc=rss">NY Times Story

[No Elephants]

1. Solidarity. I better google to see what is happening in Boston.

Lest we forget, though, the original plans were for a long term occupation of Washington, D.C., starting in Freedom Square on October 6, 2011, which I believe was the tenth anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan. That was a very well planned occupation, with a website set up well in advance, etc.

I don't remember the names of everyone involved, but I do remember Chris Hedgs.

The OWS people jumped the gun by a few weeks, starting in September. However, leaders of the D.C. occupation took it in stride and Hedges made an appearance at OWS in Manhattan. IIRC, he even got arrested there.

We will never know how things would have gone if the Wall Streeters had allowed the D.C.ers to take the lead. Maybe nothing, maybe something even better. We will never know how history was altered.

[No Elephants]

2. P.S. The original movement, October , 2011 is occupying D.C. now!

Found the link to the October 6, 2011 movement's website. http://october2011.org/

The occupation began on March 30 and will end April 30.

I did not hear anything about it, though. Yet another reason media stink.

I will start a thread on it, just in case someone else has not heard about it and wants to go.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. I'm worried about what's happening in DC because it's been mostly quiet and

I didn't hear any talk about anypony cancelling the April convergence.

Of course I've been so preoccupied lately that I haven't had time to
ramp up my personal involvement in occupie.



If you see any articles like the one I posted on the two groups agreeing to merge, send em along... did you see the article I posted on how October 2011's encampment is preparing to decamp for McP?? I posted it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2482138

[No Elephants]

5. Yes, I had seen it. Thanks. Will either post or pm if I see other merger stories.

I don't hold out a lot of hope for my stumbling on them, though.

If you really want stories on that topic, you may want to go ahead and google.

But, if I do see any, I will give you a head's up.

[KoKo]

3. K&R!

:kick: