Occupy Minneapolis Protesters Arbitrarily Evicted From Hennepin County Property

As city and county officials act across the country as part of a coordinated nationwide attack on the Occupy Movement, Occupy Minneapolis has also been experiencing the effects.

Since the Occupation of The People's Plaza (formerly the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza) began on October 7, people occupying the Plaza have periodically been "trespassed" by Plaza Security, under the authority of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners. Being "trespassed" means that the individual given the ticket is not allowed on the property for a determined number of days-- typically 365. Occupiers have been trespassed for a variety of incidents including fighting and public sex -- although some of those charges are currently being contested. Recently, however, the incidents leading to many Occupiers' trespass citations are of a increasingly questionable and arbitrary nature.

The night of November 19th, two Occupiers were issued trespass citations allegedly for fighting-- while the Occupiers in question were arguably not guilty of the stated offense. At least one of the Occupiers' involvement in the incident appears to have been peaceful in nature, in an attempt to break up an occurring altercation. After repeatedly avoiding answering clarifying questions regarding the reason for the trespass notice, one Plaza Security officer finally -- and seemingly reluctantly -- delivered the official cause: "We went and reviewed video, and clearly identified you as an aggressor on the tape." However, a few minutes later, the same officer told Jennifer that she was not acting aggressively when he explained, "I don't have to, but I'm going to tell you anyway, you were the only one out of all of these ones that were trespassed that was not being aggressive. You were actually trying to disengage the situation... and thank you for that. "

As is clear in the footage of the security guard attempting to explain the arbitrary and arguably unnecessary trespass notice that Jennifer was issued, the orders to find any and all reasons to evict protesters from occupations are clearly coming from a larger institutional force. While our local law enforcement has been generally respectful and non-violent toward our movement, it's become apparent that having them on our side doesn't mean that forces beyond our jurisdiction are equally as willing to protect our First Amendment rights. The fight to defend our own Constitutional Right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances remains one we must continue to fight vigilantly.

Vicious criticism of OWS.

[Posted earlier here in a serif font, if that's your pleasure.] Occupy Wall Street has slid down to its fulcrum, their methods now at violent disfavor with the police who are forcibly, almost perniciously clearing them out of the primary occupation zones. [Although I find it interesting that in the view of the public, police forces are curiously detached from the executive government that we've elected, as if they were the law unto themselves. Someone should acknowledge they aren't.] I was reading Warren's post and I saw the rebellious spirit accreting the movement came out of constructing the framework: (1) Where and how do we protest? (2) Whose opinions and goals are valid, and get to represent OWS?

Disappointed Italian nun says:
"[Occupy's] not hurting the big banks,
but... small business owners"

As to the first question, one of the main complaints against the Occupy movement is that their presence sullies a once beautiful park or main street, that they bring crime and drive off those good people the customers. Obviously this is to be ignored. Protest is inherently unproductive in the economic sense; because of the desire to see large corporations maimed or killed, "protest" is inherently anti-productive anti-productive in the Occupy sense. This anti-productivity has so far only been referenced to the allegedly hurt small businesses because, unfortunately for the protesters, for the malcontent, a corporation is a fungus with a pervasive mycelium reaching across the continent, the sea, the internet and our lives; if they are driven out of one place, they find more favorable conditions in other states and countries. They are considered people under the law but they cannot be detained, made to answer for their crimes or executed as they are already "headless".

Although I might be getting ahead of myself, since I'm not in fact sure that reducing corporate influence is one of the goals of occupation, or that it has goals and is not merely a vehicle for people's thoughts. A cursory glance at the OccupyMN website, About >> Demands, produces a list of worthy goals:

Ending war is our one demand.

Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.

Ending police intimidation is our one demand.

Ending corporate censorship is our one demand.

Ending capital punishment is our one demand.

Ending political corruption is our one demand.

Ending joblessness is our one demand.

Ending poverty is our one demand.

Ending health-profiteering is our one demand.

Ending American imperialism is our one demand.

Ending the modern gilded age is our one demand.

I started salivating like any good liberal until their disclaimer that this was not an "official" list of demands. [For more information, I was told to click a broken link.] But it was obvious the author of the web page had some idea of what needed to be done or what direction within a mere week of the protest starting, and that this information still stands in spite of the inevitable formation of factions within the group. This is where occupation is losing its effectiveness: instead of going the obvious route and adopting these demands as their standards, the protest element has been mired in that wishy-washy inclusivity of people and issues and direct democracy that resembles the nucleation of a party and the continuation of party politics instead of the focused and limited-run movement I should think that most people signed-up for.

My proposition on how "Occupy" should evolve is two-fold: the occupations should republicanize, modernizing the relationship between state protests past the Articles of Confederation, and then pick a centralized position which ties all these leftist themes together into a nice little soundbite. [It feels good to get this off my chest.] No longer will just any old fool be able to speak for the 99%, rather, the directives of a national movement can co-opt the support of the 99% in a triumphant direction. For example, adopt the slogan:

Kill corporate personhood and favoritism.

Which comfortably ties in many of the aforementioned concepts together [health-profiteering! imperialism! income distribution!], one of many and any slogan or trademarks that could be decided upon by a centralized administration, which could rally supporters around a message, distribute money more efficiently, even disassociate those members who are maligned to the group. It must be done if Occupy hopes to scale any further after overcoming recent setbacks.

Occupy Everywhere

By now most readers of ethecofem have heard of #OccupyWallStreet.  The protest is on its 11th day, and protesters have been occupying Wall Street and marching around the city, as well as camping out at Liberty Plaza -- otherwise known as Zuccotti Park -- to engage in a peaceful, non-violent protest of, generally, money in politics, the financial system, and the corruption of politics in America, as well as corporate greed in general.  The mainstream media largely ignored the protest for the first few days, until the NYPD, as expected, turned unnecessarily violent toward protesters.  The goals are varied and not yet as focused as many are hoping, but I'm of the opinion personally that merely occupying Wall Street is a worthy enough goal, and I'm pretty fed up with the so-called progressives who are whining about how the movement is just a bunch of spoiled hippies.  

Many cities across the world are participating in this protest, including Minneapolis.  I attended a meetup this afternoon with some other folks in the city who are interested in starting our own protest here.  It was a fairly well-attended meetup, especially considering how last-minute the planning for it was.  There were probably at least twenty of us gathered in a park in Minneapolis, just brainstorming and going over logistics, with a goal to meet again later in the week to finalize the details before the occupation of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis begins on October 7th.  Why the Fed, and not the Capitol building in St. Paul?  That's what everyone's been asking, but there are a lot of benefits to having this begin at the Fed: Minneapolis has city-wide wifi, which will help the live stream we've got planned; Minneapolis is a bigger city than St. Paul; no one likes St. Paul.  Okay, that last reason is purely my own, but the point is essentially that the Federal Reserve's policies are obviously part of the huge problem we're facing, and Minneapolis is quite simply just better equipped to handle such a protest that has the potential to be pretty big.  

I've got a lot of work to do now, doing things like begging my friends who work in local media to say some stuff about us, so please, if you're in the area, tell your friends about the planned protest on October 7th, beginning at 9:00am.  If you're not from the area, please check to see if your city or town has a protest planned, as well, and consider helping in any way that you can.  You can find a list of Twitter handles for current protests across the Unites States here.  For more information about the upcoming OccupyMN, please go to the website where all of the relevant information will be posted as soon as it's acquired, at OccupyMN.org.