It’s cold here at #OWS. Move inside. Take over a bank. Or the NYSE. Or a store.
It’s cold.
Get Inside, OWS
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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The beginning of the end.
Imagining a better world, but running out of ideas?
Do you find it hard to keep up with your busy work and protest schedule?
Is the cold winter weather dampening the fire in your revolutionary spirit?
Try a less time-intensive indoor protest tactics like this!
“Occupy Elevators”
***CAUTION: Do not send all comrades at once. File in over a steady stream instead.***
1) Select a target high rise office building, preferably one housing several offices of the banks, corporations and government entities largly responsible for our current economic disaster and the subsequent bailout. The more floors the building has the better. Participating comrades should also look like they belong at the building and dress appropriately. Do some advance recon to see what style of dress looks typical for the building occupants, as well as the amount of traffic there seems to be coming and going from the elevators at which hours, on which days, etc.
2) Select a day (based on your recon homework) that you think will be busy.
3) Begin filing in to the building in groups no larger than ten spaced at least five minutes apart when the building opens. You do not want to attract attention. Yet.
4) Each participant needs only do one thing, and I’ll break this down in steps:
A) Enter an elevator and ride it up to a pre-assigned floor number.*
B) Conduct “business” at destination floor. This can be talking to a receptionist, grabbing a brochure, slapping your head and saying “Silly me! Wrong floor!” and either returning to the elevator or ascending a flight or two of stairs to pre-position yourself for step C. Drop EXACTLY ONE colored paperclip somewhere visibly in a hallway or stairwell you visit.**
C) Call the elevator from the floor your are on, and wait to descend.
D) Leave the building. That’s it. No camping out. It’s easily less than an hour’s commitment if that’s all you can manage.
*Timing and logistical planning are the key to making this work. The idea is to gradually infiltrate people inside the building onto different floors so that by the time peak traffic occurs there are an inconvenient number of people on each floor of the building waiting for the elevator to go either up or down and the elevators are having to stop at EVERY floor to let some people out and other people in.
**The colored paperclip is a symbol for the movement. It lets each subsequent person who comes through the building, doing his or her part in the occupy effort, know that they aren’t alone and that others passed through and did their part before them. Some effort should be made to keep them somewhat scattered so that they don’t attract undue attention before things get interesting. Some clips may get cleaned up along the way, but not all of them, and not all at once. Text your comrades (in code, course) letting them know how many you’ve seen. I only use a colored paperclip as an example. The symbol can be anything the movement selects, and it should be kept a guarded secret until the day of the event.
Not being a New Yorker, I have no idea which buildings might make good candidates for targets. I’ll leave that to Comrade Ted.
Good luck.
i’m pushing for the 60 wall street atrium. we basically have it occupied already during the day. apparently they “close” at ten. but it’s another one of those private/public spaces that would be very easy to occupate (there’s a subway station inside) and is actually on wall street. no one could say that we were kicked off of wall street if we actually move to wall street. and if people want to stay in liberty plaza then more power to them. there’s no reason we can’t have two encampments. but then at least people who can’t handle the cold and the snow have an option besides going home (if they have one). obviously, the cops will try and stop us but this place has doors we can barricade. and even if they arrest everyone what’s to stop us from coming back? again and again. look at oakland. they’re right back where they started.