Power to the Peaceful
Holding Space as OWS Camps Come Under Assault
by Randall Amster
As the Occupy Movement gains strength and garners worldwide support, the predominant anti-OWS tactic of authority is becoming 
clear: decimate as many Occupy camps as possible, in the hope that this delivers a fatal blow to the movement’s momentum. It is an outmoded, heavy-handed tack, one that starkly illuminates the gap between the casual brutality of the 1% and the core aspirations of the 99%.
And it will ultimately fail.
At each turn, the sweeping of the encampments — many of which have become little “utopian experiments†in themselves and working models for an alternative society — has only served to galvanize the resolve of Occupiers and drive even greater numbers out into the streets and parks. Mass arrests aim to make activists pay a personal price for their open defiance, but they also yield greater degrees of movement solidarity and radicalize demonstrators across generational and cultural lines. (more…)
