I am going to try and keep this mostly short, those who read me know that...well I tend to get pretty damn wordy. I promise you I'll try not to go there.
This diary is going to be a quick retelling of those involved in my local Occupy group, how we plugged in to this election cycle, and how our networking during those formative months of Occupy created an activist coalition that worked hard this year.
This diary is inspired by lineatus pointing out a Charlie Peirce piece here
I'll continue past the Orange tent...or pepper spray depending on your location
Late into my involvement into my local occupy group I wrote a diary that made the wrecking ball, its here in case you feel like reading.
In that diary I detailed my transition from a couch potato screaming at the TV, to a true and blue and died in the wool activist. Someone who sees a problem, and then takes action. DKOS made that happen, it connected me to Occupy and Occupy then connected me to a whole host of other activists.
And see, that is the thing. We had so many varied activists in our Occupy group. A greenspace this, woman's rights that, etc.. take your pick you could literally swing a cat and find any number of people who championed one issue or the other.
However, here is the thing. We were all united, and we were all connected.
Fast forward to several months ago, those connections still existed. We still participated in Occupy stuff, but something wonderful happened. We realized that we stood at a precipice where we could make a change.
Did some of us still hold that, leaderless no political goal to our hearts...true, but we also as a collective recognized that at this point in history we had a chance to stand as stalwarts at the gate and prevent the barbarians from raiding the town.
So we do what we always do as occupiers, we saw an issue and we took action.
We registered
We called
We door knocked
We stood on the street with signs at times
We drove people to the polls
And we did all this because we recognized collectively that while at times we may not get everything we want, but to not do something would mean we get NOTHING of what we want. We were united under this tent.
So at least personally and locally here, Occupy helped to unite a very disconnected people at times. We have these channels of communication and operation working and open because Occupy happened.
And based on various emails I see, and FB posts, I suspect that we are not a outlier. We may not have out and out "Occupy" candidates, but based on the results from Tuesday, we have a whole lot of folks who look at the buildings we chanted at for months and recognize our anger and frustration.
And honestly, that makes me kind of happy.