Occupying And Transforming Space

If Occupy Main Street, that is, the suburban manifestation of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is going to gather any momentum, it is going to have to do so by occupying space, fast and furiously. Occupying space, and sharing it with the 99 percent may be the uppermost concern of the movement, as it is for  Americans, as fighting evictions and avoiding foreclosures become more and more commonplace. 

What has happened to protesters every step of the way since OWS launched in New York City in September has helped to shape a natural priority of concerns. The evictions of the Occupy protest camps in New York City, New York; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere around the country, left people frustrated and homeless, but working doubly hard to find more space – for all those who have been evicted and are under threat of losing homes.

Every reaction by authorities to stop the movement’s progress has helped to lay bare for all Americans the work that needs to get done. It is time to reclaim America, and reshape it. In the process, one can only hope Americans come to realize the 99 percent is not just a select, courageous minority, not just Time Magazine's elected person of the year, but the individual staring back in the mirror.

Thanks to the mayors that evicted the Occupy protest camps, the cause of Americans with foreclosed homes is now a major cause for us. Where you pinch the movement, it only grows.

The denial of space by authorities in New York and elsewhere aims to deny the right of free speech and assembly to individuals in the Occupy Movement. It’s also emblematic of what is happening around the country as banks attempt to steal homes out from under families who can’t afford to pay mortgages. The Occupy Movement will find more space because that space is everywhere.

We need to stop thinking of walls that enclose space as unbreakable, and begin to view boundaries in general, as permeable. This applies to walls around living spaces, but also to every other kind of delineation that separates people from people, from their rights and from opportunities.

Instead of thinking that owning a home in the Hamptons is the coolest thing, we need to start thinking that sharing our homes with someone who needs it is the coolest thing. We need to get over our neurotic attachment to what is ours. We put up walls made of brick and mortar and assume the air we’ve captured belongs to us. That’s just stupid. Our attitude should be that it belongs to everybody.

More foreclosures are taking place every week, and homelessness is becoming a way of life for more Americans every day. If we don’t prevent foreclosures now, we’ll have to accept that more and more homeless people, some of whom were our neighbors, will be on the street. We’ll have to pass them on our way to work and on our way home every day. We will soon become who they are. That is what happens when you don’t help your neighbor during a growing crisis -- you become a victim yourself.

We need to occupy empty buildings all across America. Occupy them en masse so that authorities will be unable to keep up with the occupations. Occupy empty homes of the wealthy. And when there are no more empty buildings and homes to occupy, start knocking on the doors of the rich. Tell them to move over or move out, because your family is bigger and needs the room usurped by only one.

Tell them the 99 percent is now Number One.