XPost: talk.politics.misc, talk.politics.libertarian, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.politics.radical-left, alt.society.anarchy   
   From: etacx18@etaoin.com   
      
   [ I would put 'saved' in quotes because as far as I know   
   Occupy Wall Street has not been in need of salvation; it   
   was just out of the view of the mainstream media because   
   its activities weren't scandalous enough to compete with   
   urgent material like the vacuous election campaign or   
   the escapades of people famous for being famous. But the   
   story is an interesting overview of the development of   
   an ideology and its associated practices. ]   
      
   How Sandy Saved Occupy   
      
      [35]Sharon Lerner   
      
      November 27, 2012   
      
      The protest movement's disaster-relief efforts have helped it connect   
      with the "99 percent" it had trouble reaching in its Zuccotti Park   
      days.   
      
      How did we get here? This is the question occupying "occupiers," as   
      they call themselves, at their first post-Sandy community-wide meeting.   
      On this cold November night just before Thanksgiving, "here" is the St.   
      Jacobi Lutheran church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where at least 300   
      Occupy Sandy volunteers have crammed into the pews. But "here" is also   
      the uneasy juncture of political protest and disaster relief where this   
      newly formed organization finds itself.   
      
      Occupy Sandy's story began in the hours just after the superstorm hit,   
      when "a few of us occupiers were just texting each other at like 2 a.m.   
      seeing how we could help," recalls Bre Lembitz. A lanky 22-year-old   
      whose blond curls are shaved close on one side of her head, Lambitz   
      suggested bringing meals to the shore, and "everyone was totally down   
      to do relief work." So the next morning, she and a few others from   
      Occupy Wall Street created an Occupy Sandy [42]Twitter account and   
      [43]Facebook page, and headed down to Breezy Point with hot food,   
      though they didn't mention their affiliation to the residents of the   
      relatively conservative[44] community at the time. "It felt like people   
      might not trust us to eat the food," says Lambitz. "It was about   
      helping the people--not pushing Occupy values."   
      
      Four adrenaline- and caffeine-fueled weeks later, while the question of   
      how the Occupy movement's founding values jive with relief work is   
      still a matter of debate, there is no question how much the mammoth,   
      headless, volunteer-run disaster-relief organization has helped people.   
      Since those first days, Occupy Sandy has cooked and distributed between   
      10,000 and 15,000 meals each day; enlisted more than 7,000 volunteers;   
      created three major distribution hubs from which it dispatches both   
      workers and supplies; and established dozens of recovery sites in New   
      York and New Jersey. Perhaps most stunning, the group has raised more   
      than $600,000 in [45]cash for its efforts and received more than   
      $700,000 in supplies donated through repurposed online [46]wedding   
      registries.   
      
      In a strange way, the storm has helped the Occupy movement, too,   
      providing the insistently non-hierarchical, tech-savvy network of   
      protesters with an opportunity to demonstrate the values it sometimes   
      struggled to articulate during its Zuccotti Park chapter. When it was   
      centered on inequality in broad, theoretical terms, OWS failed to   
      connect with many of the "99 percent" it aimed to represent,   
      particularly the kinds of folks who live in Gerritsen Beach, Staten   
      Island, and the other working-class areas that are now ground zero for   
      Occupy Sandy.   
      
      Post-storm, the Occupy movement finds itself in a position many in   
      these neighborhoods might find more palatable. "They're channeling all   
      their energy into something tangible," says Susan Healey, a 54-year-old   
      social worker from Bay Ridge who volunteers with the group but didn't   
      consider herself an "occupier" back in the Zuccotti days. Necessities   
      and the ability to quickly dispatch volunteers to where they're needed   
      most are apparently worth a thousand banners.   
      
      The Occupy movement is also easier to understand in motion. During the   
      encampment, OWS was standing against something--albeit something as   
      widely disregarded as corporate greed. Now, the group is standing for   
      something--or, rather, running, digging, cooking, cleaning, hoisting,   
      and organizing for something--and much of the effort clearly stems from   
      unassailable generosity and altruism. The good they're doing seems to   
      have answered any remaining questions about what occupiers meant by   
      standing up for the "99 percent." It's also a rebuke to those who   
      dismissed occupiers as lazy, unemployed kids: Yes, many of the   
      volunteers are young, pierced, and tattooed, but, clearly, slackers   
      they are not.   
      
      By effectively blowing away the polite outer layer that usually masks   
      the extremity of inequality, the storm handed inequality activists an   
      almost eerily perfect illustration of exactly what they see as wrong   
      with our world. New York's and New Jersey's shoreline communities span   
      the economic spectrum, from the fanciest beach resorts to low-income   
      public housing and year-round bungalows. In Far Rockaway, for instance,   
      where Occupy Sandy is still handing out food and clothes, more than a   
      quarter of residents have an income of less than $15,000 a year.   
      Similarly, Coney Island, where Occupy volunteers are working out of a   
      church on Neptune Avenue, is one of the [47]poorest neighborhoods in   
      New York City. Just a mile or two [48]down the beach, houses can cost   
      many millions of dollars. While residents with means have been able to   
      pay for the supplies and help they needed, replace what was ruined,   
      and, most important, get out of the most affected areas when necessary,   
      a huge swath of have-nots was cast into a struggle for survival.   
      
      After the first few days, when disaster had just struck (and volunteers   
      found themselves helping a range of people that included a former Wall   
      Street banker who chuckled at the irony of the encounter before   
      offering them the gas from his three flooded cars), Occupy Sandy has   
      focused mostly on the neediest--the "10 percent," perhaps, whose basic   
      needs have gone [49]unmet by many larger, official disaster-relief   
      agencies. On many occasions, the volunteer group has had [50]more boots   
      on the ground in disadvantaged neighborhoods than FEMA, the Red Cross,   
      and other more mainstream groups.   
      
      A year or so ago, Occupy Wall Streeters might have predicted the   
      fall-out from a major natural disaster would take the route it did,   
      wreaking its worst devastation on the poorest. But it's one thing to   
      speculate and quite another, many are finding, to witness such   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)