You may recall that Occupy Cleveland took a turn for the corporate in December when it rented office space in the City Club building. But the group — a local offshoot of the nationwide backlash against corporate America — didn’t offer up a very convincing impression of a good corporate citizen.
The office, intended mainly for meetings and a place for Public Square tent-dwellers to occasionally shake off the winter chill, quickly turned into something more resembling a hostel for wayward youth. The 30 or so tent occupiers — average age 21 — who volunteer for eight-hour shifts were using the office to sleep, relieve themselves, and eat. And they left a lot of dirty dishes lying about.
And so the City Club building kicked them back to the street early this year.
“The building wasn’t thrilled with a lot of the kids’ behavior,” says Occupy member Leatrice Tolls. “They were defiant that they need a warm place to sleep. And their needs, in their minds, are more important than the needs of the group.”
It’s not just a Cleveland problem. One faction nationwide wants modest Occupy funds to support them — ostensibly the same cycle they’re trying to break on Wall Street. It’s creating a rift in the movement, particularly throughout the Midwest.
In Cleveland, Occupy is taking on two primary forms: Those who hang out at the tent looking the part, and those who make up “working groups”: mostly more experienced volunteers who offer their time to actually accomplish something — the current project is canvassing neighborhoods to help those facing eviction because of foreclosure.
“There’s a core group of people in each town who want to create a permanent welfare state of activists, and they want all their needs met,” says Tolls. “We’ve raised a generation of spoiled people, and we didn’t give them the tools to be self-sufficient.” Tolls respects the young people for having the courage to man the tent, but she’s concerned that they do nothing else.
“If we’re going to pay for their food and give them a place to live, what are they going to do in return? Have a party?”
Adding to her concern are complaints from visitors on Public Square. “They’ve had less than satisfactory conversations,” she says.
The local movement hopes to head off the boorishness by instituting new boot-camp sessions for Occupy volunteers. Every Saturday, members of the intentionally leaderless group will convene to learn about … leadership principles.
“Nothing is mandatory. For those who want to learn, it’s a resource we’re offering,” says community organizer and full-time Occupy member Peter Schanz. Topics include group structure, public narrative, relationship building, and other leadership concepts.
By summer, Tolls expects Occupy Cleveland to erect more tents on Public Square, which she hopes will be accompanied by better overall structure and a stronger focus on group initiatives like the foreclosure project.
For now, the group has found new warehouse space about two miles from downtown in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. There, Occupiers are free to sleep, shower, hang out, and make signs.
“It’s more suited to their needs,” Tolls says. Translation: It’s already a dive.
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2012.
The fact that the “occupy” citizens (parasites) are irresponsible cannot possibly be unexpected.
Visit any public housing project and you will find the identical behavior.
When people are given “things” (money, food, shelter, health care) their perceived value of what was given to them is zero. And since the value is zero, and they do not own it they do not take care of it – as if it were something THEY worked for.
Communism was an outstanding theory, Socialism a close relative….they BOTH fall apart in practice because somebody has to take out the trash, and in the theoretical world: taking out the trash is everybodies and nobody’s job.
On and for the record… I have already called and talked to Maude Campbell, and Anastasia Pantsios for more information on the Scenes desire to spin such a defamatory piece. I would like the assistance of the media team on how best to move fwd in addressing their obvious lie at wanting to cover us more often with Scene starting {as was the intent shared w/ me by Maude } to address more important issues we are successfully addressing on the whole as we fight .. then allow all pertinent info to be excluded and for it to devolve into THIS !
Although the few actual quotes in quotes , were pretty close to what I did say.. the context was blown out and spun out and included alot of information I NEVER shared obviously gleaned from another not included source and I am PISSED.I shook the whole way home and still feel nautious.
I certainly did not appreciate the truncated quote at the end ending with her snarky.. its already a dive.I do believe at the time of the discussion the wharehouse wasn’t even moved into yet. I do believe the quote by me origionally ended that within the new space they can begin again the conversations that will forward transforming of our society and give us a home base we can better operate from to create the better world we envision.
I am truly Upset by this .. and apologize for EVER talking to her.. I mistakenly had some trust in her based on her first 2 pieces I was included in ,and after meeting her at the EPA hearing re: the gasification plant. These quotes were gleaned when I was not as careful as I could have been over a month ago now when she called me and I was in Denver, I worked hard to hold my tongue during a VERY emmotional time post finding out we lost the space and had abandoned the tent and my sons fathers death. yet NEVER forgot who owned her paper.
Regardless.. I have been overjoyed with the progress made in the last few weeks.. and watching us again find our voice,the ability to work together and courage…
I hope you don’t lose faith or trust in me as mine has been restored in all of you…and I’m NOT going to let the attempts of obviously bias slander EVER sway my commitment to OCCUPY ! Scene magazine…. Bring it !
Hi Lea,
By all means, and I say this with utmost sincerity, please email or call to clarify which pieces of non-quoted information you feel you aren’t associated with and we will be happy to discuss further.
@ ikolea…
Nauseous not nautious
Warehouse, not wharehouse
Emotional, not emmotional
Son’s, not sons
Not to mention the numerous punctuation and grammatical errors.
If you want people to take you seriously take the time to educate yourself. Obviously you have access to the internet, instead of whining like a spoiled two year old use it to learn something. That being said, I am off to bed in order to slave away another day trying to support my family myself rather than demanding society and those willing to work do it for me.
@Xavasia…Bravo…Okay back to work…
First of all there is faulty logic behind the whole idea of “visibleprotesting”. You do not need to camp out all day and night to get peoples’attention. You protest morning rush hour, noon lunch hour and evening rushhour. Paradoxically people will notice you more the less you are there. Inthe meantime go back to where your home is and recharge {or work onsomething else}. You don’t need a headquarters {nor all these provisions}and therefore no donations. This will eliminate the stigma your opponentsare trying to define you as. You know that the group is not a bunch offreeloaders but rather has come together to challenge one of the greatestmyths perpetrated on the American people; that somehow all wealth and powerin this country is legitimately earned and by extension CEO’s deservereceipt of a salary 400 times the lowest paid worker. Can the corporateboards prove the CEO adds that much value to the successful attainment ofthe corporation’s goals? The sine qua non of the Occupy Movement is aboutre-establishing fairness {as if it ever existed} by the very corporationswho receive enormous tax breaks all for the stated purpose of “communitydevelopment” but all the while stuffing the windfall profits into theirgreedy pockets. The idea of defending those from being foreclosed upon hasmerits but it really takes your eye off the ball by not focusing on theunderlying causes of the problem. Believe it or not “corporations” arereally just organizations controlled by a very few people. If you want toget their attention organize a boycott of their advertisers, buyers, sellersetcetera. There is only one thing they understand and that is avoiding {atall costs} anything that may jeopardize their greed.
Second, you need to establish some form of leadership council whereby agoverning committee is elected by their peers and headed by a president {orwhatever title you choose}. Usually the various committees you have alreadyformed are headed by some sort of chairperson. Since time immemorial humanbeings have always been divided into two groups: the leaders and thefollowers. And whether you want to base this as a result of Aristotle’sfour personality types or Abraham Maslow’s theory of self actualization orJohn Bradshaw’s research on family systems the common denominator is thatmost people {unfortunately} need to be told what to do and the fact thatthere are very few “leaders” out there.Occupy Cleveland has a opportunity to set the model for the remainder of thenation but worrying who failed to clean the dishes completely and totallysidetracks the organization and puts doubts in members minds that this trainwill ever be able to leave the station. Who knows, perhaps this model maylead to what desperately needs to happen in this country; the formation ofthe Independence Party whereby true independent candidates can challenge thetwo party system with a promise to address the issues affecting theirpotential constituents rather than holding fast to their party platform. AIndependence Party would not be hamstrung like the two major politicalparties are today. The will of the peopletempered by the conscience of their representative would be a start to thelong road to recovery of what the Founding Fathers intended. Never let itbe said that this was the time when the tide ran out for the United Statesbecause of silly bickering and squabbling over who gets the best spot underthe tent but rather was the time when a small group of patriots bandedtogether to bring the tide back in for America. You have your assignmentsnow get to work!
Joe BialekCleveland, OH
PS: Some reading and discussion of the American Revolution may be advisable.