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January 31, 2012

Occupy 2.0: Less protest, more community service

Only four months into the era of Occupy Wall Street and already many have taken great delight in proclaiming this populist protest a thing of the past. The encampments are mostly gone and, outside of Oakland, the headlines have largely faded from the front pages, leading some to assume that the movement must be over.

It isn’t.

Many an Occupy group has morphed from being a tent city solidarity statement, that sometimes parades through city streets, into more traditional social service work. Instead of camping, they are committing acts of community improvement.

Last week, in fact, Occupy Providence traded their…

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January 29, 2012

Occupy Oakland not opposed to violence, destruction for the cause

It should come as no surprise that when the Occupy activists finally resorted to violence and destruction, it happened in Oakland.

Long before Saturday’s action, at which protesters tried to forcibly take over an abandoned community center to use as a headquarters for the movement, Occupy Oakland, as I’ve reported, has been the vanguard of the 99 percent movement.

“It seems Oakland has a little bit different agenda than the rest of the Occupies,” Sierk Beij, who moved to Oakland from Holland, told me in late December. “We’re a little more hardcore.”

In both October and November, when activists…

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January 18, 2012

Passing on DC and an end to the Occutour

I almost got off the train in Washington D.C. yesterday. The OccupyCongress #J17 action was taking place and my good friend Michael McCarthy from Occupy Providence was there.

On the other hand, it was the last day of the 45-day Amtrak ticket I bought and I was in striking distance of being home after a month-and-a-half on the road.  I told McCarthy I was probably going to pass but reserved the right to change my mind.

Which I did.

I grabbed my pack from the luggage rack and actually got off the train during the five minute layover. Then I…

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January 16, 2012

Successful foreclosure actions win Occupy Atlanta high praise

As Atlanta honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., its greatest hometown hero and the country’s most revered political protester, the newest incarnation of social-justice seekers here – Occupy Atlanta – was winning praise from a leader of the organization King helped start during the Civil Rights era.

“They’ve become part of the community,” said Rev. Samuel Mosteller, the president of the Georgia chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization that King helped to launch in the late-1950′s.

Mosteller praised Occupy Atlanta as the activists marched by, literally in the shadow of the Ebenezer Baptist Church on…

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January 15, 2012

Occupy NOLA works vacant lot into community garden

Earlier in my Occutour I wrote that nowhere in America needs to be occupied more than Detroit. New Orleans, a city equally plagued by poverty and blighted neighborhoods, has no shortage of areas that rival the Motor City’s need for community resurgence.

Today I visited the Seventh Ward, where Occupy New Orleans recently set up its third encampment after police removed them from their previous two. It’s a neighborhood where houses are still boarded up – if not razed altogether – from damage suffered during Hurricane Katrina; where drug dealing is prevalent and murders not uncommon.

And just like…

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January 12, 2012

Renegade activist stirs debate about justice within Occupy Tucson

As is the case with so many Occupations across America, there is a division within Occupy Tucson. But the split here has less to do with the reform versus revolution debate or inter-movement class disparity as it does with a renegade activist who misappropriated funds from the group and is refusing to return a laptop loaned to him.

It started in November, when Jon McLain, the activist in question, started a working group called Occupy Public Lands.

“A lot of people feel like we didn’t go through the proper consensus process,” he said.

McLain, one of the initial driving forces…

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January 11, 2012

A day off for a bike ride up A Mountain

Other than a few really fun days in Portland, an afternoon at a rustic spa in Ashland and a couple drunken nights in Atlanta and New York, I have pretty much been working nonstop, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day, for the past 42 days. During that time, I’ve visited 19 different Occupies, 21 cities, written just about 60 stories and traveled no less than 8,000 miles by bus, car, train, plain and – as of today – bicycle, too.

Needless to say, I am exhausted.

So it was a bit of a godsend when earlier today I…

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January 10, 2012

Occupy Tuscon continues the camping

Count Occupy Tucson as one of the few offshoots of OWS that still has campers keeping the original idea for the protest alive.

By 9 p.m. on Monday night, as the group’s general assembly meeting came to a close, there were already a number of people sleeping in solidarity on the sidewalk outside of Viente de Agosto Park, better-known locally as Pancho Villa park, for the statue of the Mexican bandit and revolutionary in the center of the downtown green space. The night before, one activist told me, more than 30 people slept on the sidewalk.

But it hasn’t been easy,…

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January 9, 2012

Lattes, cowboys and tall tales in Tucson

My train arrived here at about 3 a.m. last night, and since the only hotel room within walking distance of the station would have run me more than $100 for just a few hours shut eye, I decided to occupy a nearby playground instead.

When it was dark out, it looked enough like a park to roll out my sleeping bag and get a little sleep. But by dawn, when the early morning joggers and bike riders started to come through, it became pretty evident it was just a playground. Rather than risk a visit by the local authorities, I…

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January 8, 2012

Occupy LA debates nonviolence vs. diversity of tactics

Unlike some of the other big city Occupations in America, like those in Oakland and New York, Occupy Los Angeles has typically worked within the constructs of the system.

Started by older, more traditional labor activists in early October, the group got a permit before its first march. And when they set up camp in the park outside City Hall, they did so with the blessing of the Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council. There was even a council resolution passed supporting the protest.

And OLA has, as a group, always worked hard to play by the rules, as…

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January 7, 2012

Occupy LA lives on in lively meetings and frequent actions

The Occupy Los Angeles encampment in front of City Hall was broken up by police more than a month ago. Initially sanctioned by the city, with the further backing of a council resolution supporting the protest, the camp was one of the biggest in the country at the time and likely would have grown even larger because of Southern California’s mild winters.

But after a change of heart by the mayor, followed by the arrest of some 300 activists on Novembmer 30 when the camp was dispersed, there is now a chain link fence keeping Occupiers – and everyone else,…

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January 5, 2012

San Diego activists plan bus trip to DC to lobby Congress

Occupy San Diego activists are going to occupy a Greyhound Bus all the way to Washington D.C. to join with other activists from across the country for a series of actions in front of the Capitol building coordinated to coincide with the opening day of the 2012 congressional session.

There are “at least a dozen” Occupy San Diego protesters making the trip by bus, possibly as many as two carloads that will follow the Greyhound and another six who are flying to the nation’s capital for the direct actions in DC on January 17, said Mike Garcia, a mortgage broker-turned-substance…

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January 4, 2012

San Diego police use encroachment ordinance to disrupt Occupy

Within 15 minutes of arriving at the plaza outside of City Hall here, where Occupy San Diego continues to congregate during the daytime and hold their daily general assembly meetings at night, I saw firsthand what the local activists have been dealing with.

“Code Blue,” yelled out a woman named Lynn Leseth.

Code Blue, she explained to me later, was the signal to alert activists that the police are on their way. And, sure enough, there they were, two San Diego police officers making their way over to the small group of activists milling about near a fountain and sitting…

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January 3, 2012

Santa Barbara: tailored to the 1 percent

Another town, another dissipated Occupation.

I had stopped here in Santa Barbara – the town where the affluent of LA move to when they get sick of the city – not so much because of its reputation for activism, but rather because I didn’t want to take a train into Los Angeles in the middle of the night.

And besides, from previous trips there, I knew there was no shortage of transient street kids there, so I gambled that they might be keeping the camping going.

No such luck.

In fact, much like in Boulder and Ashland, the transients viewed…

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January 2, 2012

The future of Occupy

As I stumbled through the streets of Portland a few days back, blindly searching for a hot meal and my next scoop on the 99 percent movement, I came across a sign in a window that indicated there was an art show inside featuring photographs of Occupy.

It didn’t matter, though, the door was locked and the shades were drawn.

It was yet another sign that the movement as I knew it was coming to an end. Only a few days before that, in a moment of burnt-out frustration on a soaking wet Portland night when I, initially, couldn’t find…

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January 1, 2012

Portland: thus far and no farther

Like many an explorer before me, Portland, it turns out, is the point at which I turn around and begin the long trek back east.

I’ve been on the road for 32 straight days now and have only 15 more left on my Amtrak pass. So when I opened my computer this morning and started to plan the next leg of my journey, I decided to head south towards Los Angeles instead of further north to Seattle and perhaps eventually Vancouver.

Thanks to an extended stay here in Portland, my clothes, at long last, are finally clean. But my bones…

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December 30, 2011

OWS holiday travelers help movement to better work together

Before getting down to the business of its spokes council session Thursday evening, Occupy Portland activists took some time to hear announcements from some of the 60 or so people at the meeting. Mentioned were the upcoming port protest in Longview, Wash., potential lawsuits against the Portland police for the shutdown of their encampment, an idea for a healthcare group and campaign and a seed exchange.

But the announcement that garnered the most excitement came from an activist who called himself Yikes, who said he was from Occupy Wall Street, and wanted to talk with people from Portland about…

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December 29, 2011

Occupy Portland slows down for the holidays

It may be one of the most progressive communities in the country with an unemployment rate, at about 10 percent, as high as any major city in the country. But still the Occupy movement seems to have taken a sort-of Christmas break here.

“It’s gotten cold and the holidays have come so things have slowed down,” said Cammie Ground, who was one of about a dozen people who came and went from Occupy Portland’s 24-hour vigil in front of City Hall to protest their lack of a legal ability to have an encampment. “It’s getting difficult for people. There’s only…

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December 27, 2011

Ashland, Ore: where the occupation predates the movement

This artsy and culturally-sophisticated mountain town nestled into the side of the Siskiyou Mountains right on the border between California and Oregon – an area old timers know as the State of Jefferson because it once tried to secede from the union – has long been known for its rich history of social and political activism.

But it’s unlikely to ever be known for its occupation.

At an organizational meeting yesterday afternoon for Occupy Ashland – held at a fast food organic restaurant instead of outside on the Plaza in front of City Hall because, participants told me, it was…

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December 23, 2011

Occupy Oakland: vanguard of the 99 percent movement

While the protest may have started on Wall Street, Occupy Oakland seems to clearly have situated itself as the vanguard of the 99 percent movement.

“We set trends here, and sometimes we don’t even know we’ve done it,” an local activist said at a meeting between Occupy Oakland and visiting activists from Occupy Wall Street Thursday night.

He was referring to their presence at a City Council meeting Tuesday night, at which at least 60 protesters filled two balconies and the lower seating area of City Hall. Activists heckled the city council throughout the meeting, and many feel their presence…

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December 22, 2011

Occupy Berkeley raided by police; officer threatens to shoot videographer

Occupy Berkeley, the last Occupy encampment in the Bay Area and one of the last on the West Coast, was raided by local police last night and early this morning after the city informed activists that camping would no longer be tolerated in the downtown park.

“We had no intention of doing what people are calling a raid,” said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, the Berkeley Police Department’s public information officer. “A group of officers and public works employees went to take away some abandoned tents and the truck they were using was surrounded by a very entrenched group. The truck was…

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December 22, 2011

Occupy Oakland preps for next port protest

Occupy Oakland plans to embark on another effort to shut down a port. This time, though, rather than in the Bay Area, activists will head to Longview, Wash. in January to attempt to prevent a multinational grain exporting conglomerate from delivering a grain loader there.

“We need this to be a humungous and awesome occupation,” said Jack Heyman, a member of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union, at an Occupy Oakland general assembly meeting on Wednesday, where activists voted 123 to 0 (with one abstention) to support the action.

While activists don’t know when the Export Grain Transporters, the company…

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December 21, 2011

Occupy Oakland maintains presence inside and outside of City Hall

The tent city is gone from outside of City Hall in this largely blue collar Bay Area city that has become the western front for the Occupy Wall Street movement. But both here at Frank Ogawa Plaza, which local activists have pretty successfully renamed Oscar Grant Plaza, and inside the council chambers itself, Occupy Oakland’s presence is still very much alive and well.

Last night, about 25 Occupiers continued their ongoing presence in the park with a 24-hour vigil as many more activists were inside City Hall arguing against a proposal that would utilize “whatever lawful tools” the city…

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December 20, 2011

Occupy Providence mulls leaving park in exchange for a homeless center

Back in my home state of Rhode Island, Occupy Providence is considering swinging a deal with the city: they’ll stop occupying Burnside Park if the mayor and city council agree to  create a community center for the homeless population to use during the day to stay out of the cold.

But before the city mulls the proposal, Occupy Providence will consider the idea and put it to vote at its general assembly meeting tomorrow at 3 pm.

“Having recognized the willingness of its people to take care of their own, the City of Providence should thus open a public space…

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December 20, 2011

Missed opportunity in Denver

Coordinating a cross-country occutour is trickier than you might think. Especially when you’ve got nothing but an Amtrak ticket and the good graces of old friends to help you get around. Thus, sometimes travel decisions I make mean I’m going to miss some pretty critical coverage.

And so it was yesterday when I jumped on a train heading west out of Denver about 12 hours before Occupy activists there lit there make-shift sidewalk shanties ablaze before the police had a chance to remove them. Here’s the video from the Denver Post:

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December 20, 2011

Denver to Grand Junction, in tweet pics

The train trek from Denver to Grand Junction is certainly one of the most beautiful stretches of rail track in the country. It switchbacks up into the Rocky Mountains before literally burrowing right underneath the Continental Divide in a six-mile tunnel before following the Colorado River through the mountains for the better part of the day before reaching the other side of the state.

It’s about a 250 mile trip and it took more than seven hours to traverse it via Amtrak. During that time, I saw snow squalls, bald eagles, frozen waterfalls and enough mountain passes to last the…

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December 19, 2011

Why Occupy: Boulder

The Occupation here in this affluent college town is the most polarized that I have seen yet in my travels. Some Occupiers here are calling for a full-scale revolution while others are lauding good that the movement has already brought about. Watch these six videos to get a sense of the wide disparity of opinions among Occupy Boulder.

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December 18, 2011

Occupy Boulder deals with division in its ranks

There’s a division among the 99 percent movement here in this ultra hip, liberal, and very economically diverse western mountain town.  Some of the homeless activists here, as well as others, are critical of some of the more well-to-do protesters refusal to camp with them. While some protesters on the other end of the economic spectrum say the campers are giving the group a bad name.

“If you people want to occupy Boulder, then get out there and occupy with us,” said Ian Murdock at a visioning session at a local church on Saturday afternoon. “We’ve been out there for…

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December 18, 2011

Occupy Boulder puts Wells Fargo on trial

In one of the most entertaining and imaginative actions I’ve seen yet from Occupy activists, Occupy Boulder put Wells Fargo on trial in front of the local bank branch on the Pearl Street walking mall in the center of downtown on Saturday.

The play is called “Miracle on Wall Street: The People vs. WellsFargo” and activists here plan on making the script available for other Occupy groups to use in front of their own Wells Fargo bank branches. It’ll be interesting to see if it becomes a holiday tradition…

After the performance, Occupy Boulder stormed into the bank, chanting…

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December 17, 2011

Back Out West in Boulder

After my Amtrak station all-nighter, my train finally rolled into Denver at about 11:30, four hours later than I thought, and then I caught a bus to what locals like to call The People’s Republic of Boulder, the leftist capital of the Rocky Mountain West (and home to Mork and Mindy!).

Occupy Boulder maintains a camp here, but I haven’t seen it yet. They are holding a series of actions tomorrow – including holding a mock trial for Wells Fargo at a local bank branch and a special general assembly meeting to discuss “What’s Our Vision for Occupy Wall…

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December 16, 2011

The amazing inefficiency of Amtrak

There’s a gorgeous sunrise going off over central Nebraska but it’s hard to enjoy because I’ve pretty much been up all night waiting for an Amtrak train that was supposed to leave Lincoln at midnight but didn’t get out of town until 4:45.

Evidently, passenger trains are given short shrift when there is freight that needs to be moved.

“Welcome to train travel,” said a fellow passenger on her way to Boulder, Colorado.

It’s pretty much a uniquely American concept, putting commerce before people. And it’s certainly the reason that Occupiers have taken to the streets all across the country…

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December 16, 2011

Occupy Lincoln is starting a school

In an effort to model the kind of change it wants to see in society, Occupy Lincoln is starting its own school.

“We would like to make education equally available to everyone,” said Occupier and University of Nebraska economics professor Hendrik van den Berg. “How do you have a successful democracy without that?”

Van den Berg was one of 12 occupy activists at a local coffee shop in Lincoln planning and imagining how the school would operate. They are considering calling it either the Free school or Occupy Education. Anyone could teach a class, or take a class, and classes…

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December 16, 2011

Why Occupy: Lincoln

The home of the University of Nebraska and the state capital doesn’t boast a big occupation, but it does have a group of very committed activists who have legally held a public park since October 15, and is working on several initiatives from lobbying for a resolution against corporate personhood to starting a free school in the city. Here’s what some of the activists at Occupy Lincoln told me when I asked them why they are occupying…

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December 15, 2011

Local police pay early-morning visit to Occupy Lincoln

As cold temperatures set in, local police have been making routine checks of Occupy Lincoln’s encampment in Centennial Park even though the activists have a legal right to camp in the park.

In fact, they came last night at about 3:30 am to check on campers, though they didn’t wake me up.

“We have some safety concerns,” Captain Bob Kawamoto told me, noting that officers have been stopping in every other night or so for a week since it snowed last week and temperatures have been dipping down into the 20′s at night. “It’s nothing we don’t do for anyone…

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December 15, 2011

A late night welcome to Occupy Lincoln

Last night was perhaps the most precarious leg of my cross-country occutour. I had taken a 10-hour train trip from Chicago to Lincoln, Nebraska and when I arrived, a little after 1:00 am central time, I threw my 50-pound pack on my back and began walking down the cold, lonely streets of this midwestern college town/state capital in search of the local occupation.

Occupy Lincoln’s website indicated they were still camping in Centennial Park, the green space in front of the state capitol building, but you may not be surprised to learn that occupy websites aren’t always up-to-date and…

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December 14, 2011

Why Occupy: Chicago

In some ways the action here shouldn’t be called an occupation because powerful resistance from the police have prevented the activists from occupying any public space. But in a larger sense, Occupy Chicago is protesting – almost on a daily basis – in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations taking place around the globe. And, as you’ll see and hear, when I asked some of the activists, they have very similar reasons as do activists in other communities for standing up and making their voices heard.

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December 14, 2011

Occupy Chicago survives without a park to occupy

Occupy Chicago hosts daily general assembly meetings in front of the Chicago Board of Trade building on the corner of Jackson and LaSalle streets, but this isn’t the kind of event that would draw much media attention. Nor is it – as the saying goes – what democracy looks like.

When I was there on Tuesday, there were three older activists on one side of the street holding signs so the passing traffic could see and maybe four younger activists on another engaged in various side conversations. There was one mic check, when a cart of new signs was brought,…

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December 13, 2011

Why Occupy: Detroit

Of the seven occupations I have visited to date, Occupy Detroit is easily the most fascinating local incarnation of the OWS movement I have experienced. They are making a real difference in the community by reoccupying foreclosed and abandoned homes, and that is just one of the local issues that activists there are working on. They are also starting new local businesses using the employee-owned cooperative model, starting to plan for neighborhood gardens and advocating for reform and new legislation at the local level.

“Detroit is uniquely positioned because we are ground zero for corporate deinvestment,” Lee Gaddies told me….

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December 12, 2011

Occupy Detroit occupies abandoned homes

Nowhere in America needs to be occupied more than the Motor City.

When cars were still largely an American-made phenomenon, there were some 2 million people living here. Now, there are only slightly more than 700,000.  The population of this once-thriving city has shrunk by 25 percent in the last decade alone, leaving a wasteland of real estate in the wake.

The mass exodus of people has provided Occupy Detroit, which last month took over a downtown park with the same kind of tent encampment as seen in other cities, with a new mission.

“We’re moving into the next phase…

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December 12, 2011

Next stop on the Occutour: Detroit

I had a nice, relaxing though productive weekend here in what some call the New York City of the South. Not only is there a very interesting and diverse occupation happening in Atlanta – everything from radicals risking arrest to protest foreclosures to soccer moms trying to recruit the rest of the 99 percent to the movement – I also got to catch up with one of my oldest and best friends ever.

Liam and Courtney Tierney, not to mention their son Finn, put me up in their spare bedroom for the weekend and in between Occupy events,…

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December 11, 2011

Why Occupy: Atlanta, Georgia

From homeless black men to suburban soccer moms to traveling hippies to hard-core activists and just about every demographic in between, there are a wide variety of people occupying in Atlanta. Here are some of the reasons they have decided to join the movement.

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December 11, 2011

Soccer mom tries to export Occupy movement to the masses

Darlene Jones-Owens, a middle-aged mother-of-four who lives in suburban Carrollton, Georgia, is hoping to do for the Occupy movement what high-profile actions and arrests may not be able to accomplish: appeal to average Americans.

“I would go down to Occupy Atlanta and set up a table with some chairs,” she said, referring to the pre-October 26 days of the occupation here in Atlanta, before activists were arrested for camping in downtown Woodruff Park. She said she did so because she didn’t want to sit on the ground, which is where many of the occupiers perched.

“Invariably, people like me…

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December 10, 2011

Protesting foreclosures, Occupy Atlanta storms Chase Bank branch

As foreclosures increasingly become a new front in the Occupy movement, the group that occupies the biggest city in the south is not only protesting against banks but also advocating for people in danger of losing their homes.

The activists have for a week occupied the front yard of a home on Glen Iris Drive in the old Fourth Ward, a transitional neighborhood near downtown, that Chase Bank is threatening to repossess.

And last night, the occupiers marched from there to a bank to demand that the loan be modified.

“This is a very large family for whom this…

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December 9, 2011

Why Occupy: Washington DC

There are two occupations in the nation’s capital, so I asked people at both why they are occupying. The answers I got are among the most insightful and articulate as I’ve heard anywhere else to date…

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December 8, 2011

A tale of two DC occupations

There are actually two Occupy encampments in the nation’s capital, and they are only about five blocks apart from one another. One is called Occupy DC and it is in McPherson Square near K Street. The other one goes by Occupy Washington DC and it is a little closer to the Capitol and the mall on Freedom Plaza.

The Freedom Plaza occupation is the older of the two, having started in early October. In fact, it was being planned back in April, long before anyone had the idea to occupy Wall Street.

“It was basically designed as an anti-war protest,”…

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December 8, 2011

Bad timing in the Beltway

My timing couldn’t have been any worse yesterday. I arrived here in the nation’s capital just as the protest on K Street was ending and just as a driving pouring rainstorm was starting.

In the time it took me to figure out that I had missed the majority of the protest, pretty much everything except for my computer – which was wrapped up in my raincoat – was soaked through.

Foolishly enough, I briefly considered camping but instead decided to hole up with a friend of a friend. Since then, I’ve been running everything in my backpack through his…

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December 7, 2011

Beltway activists occupy K Street

K Street is well-known for being occupied by lobbyists, but today Occupy DC paid the infamous Beltway thoroughfare a visit. That is, until the police showed up.

As part of a direct action, which drew occupiers from as far away as Minnesota and Boston as well as busloads of union members, protesters turned K Street into what Matt Kirkland called “an Occupy block party.”

“We took five intersections,” Kirkland said. “There were conga lines and drum circles.”

He said the action was designed to target the Podesta Group, a lobby firm that represents, among other clients, Wells Fargo and BP….

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December 7, 2011

Why Occupy: Zuccotti Park

Even though Zuccotti Park isn’t being occupied any more in the sense that the tents are gone and no one sleeps there, Occupy Wall Street activists told me that the occupation continues in spirit, as well as in practice elsewhere.

To that end, even though I visited other occupied locales while in New York (60 Wall St., Brooklyn), I did my ‘why occupy’ interviews exclusively at the park that launched the movement. Click on the headline above to watch the responses…

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December 7, 2011

Wall Street on Occupy Wall Street

While I spent my days here with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, I generally spent my nights at bars in the Financial District talking with people who work for Wall Street investment banks.

I didn’t get a chance to drink with the 1 percent, as they frequent a very different type of establishment as I might wet my whistle at, but I did talk to what one middle manager described as the 99 percent of Wall Street.

“I don’t think it’s me they are protesting against,” he said.

While there are certainly many, both on and off Wall Street, who share…

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December 6, 2011

OWS marches through Brooklyn to protest foreclosures

Occupy Wall Street marched through Brooklyn to draw attention to rampant bank foreclosures on homes. Click on the story to watch a video and to read my tweets from the action.

Joining with at least 20 other Occupations across the country in a national day of action to draw attention to rampant bank foreclosures, Occupy Wall Street and members of the East New York community marched through a Brooklyn neighborhood that has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state.

View the story “Tweets from the march for foreclosed homes” on Storify]

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December 6, 2011

Where OWS does its daily business: 60 Wall St.

An Occupy Wall Street working group hashes out its business in tha atrium at 60 Wall St.

While Zuccotti Park may be the public face of Occupy Wall Street, the nuts and bolts of the movement are hammered out in a public indoor atrium at 60 Wall St.

“This is where we do the ongoing work of Occupy Wall Street,” said Jason Harris. “Putting out fires, starting fires, a lot of learning and give and take. It’s really why we are all here.”

Just as Congress has committee rooms scattered around the Capitol, OWS  uses this privately-owned public space in the heart of the Financial District to hold its daily subgroup meetings. Starting at 9 a.m. and…

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December 6, 2011

Zuccotti Park has jumped the shark

Zuccotti Park

Aside from dearth of tents and information tables and the exponentially fewer people in Zuccotti Park these days, there are also a series of metal gates, put up by police after they cleared the camping component of the protest, as well as several dozen uniformed and plain clothes officers that surround what could become known as the Bunker Hill of the occupy Wall Street movement.

Amy Miller, who has been occupying since day two in lower Manhattan, said its those metal gates and the police presence more than anything that has contributed to the demise of Zuccotti Park as the…

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December 5, 2011

Why Occupy: Burlington, Vt.

t marches through the popular Church Street section of downtown are proof positive that there is life for the Occupy movement after the camping is done.

I visited their weekly Really, Really Free Market and asked a few people my question: “Why Occupy?” Here’s what they told me:

View the story “Why Occupy: Burlington Vt.” on Storify]

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December 4, 2011

How Occupy Burlington became unoccupied

Donald Stetson stands near a memorial in City Hall Park for Josh Pfenning, an Occupy Burlington protester who shot himself November 10.

City Hall Park looked like a yard sale today, with second-hand clothes, used books and other random items that anyone may have lying around in the basement or attic strewn around the statue in the center of the downtown square. The only difference is everything was free for the taking.

It was Occupy Burlington’s second such direct action that they call the Really, Really Free Market.

“We were talking around Black Friday about trying to do something different for Black Friday and this is what we came up with,” said Matt Cropp, an Occupy Burlington activist. “We thought, why not…

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December 3, 2011

Heading to Occupy Vermont, then #OWS

Mass transit is never perfect, but here in the Green Mountain State you never know what is going to slow down the train. Tonight it was not the elements or the weather, nor was it wildlife or felled timber. Evidently, there was a beer keg on the tracks that needed to be removed.

No word on whether or not it was full, but if I know Vermonters – and I should, having done two journalism tours of duty here with newspapers in Brattleboro and Hardwick – the beer was likely consumed before the keg was abandoned.

After three cold nights…

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December 3, 2011

Why Occupy: Boston

As I travel across the country on my #Occutour, I’m asking people at each encampment why they have chosen to participate in the Occupy movement. I’ll then be posting some of what people tell me to Storify, but you can also follow along on Twitter with the hashtag: #WhyOccupy.

View the story “Why Occupy: Boston” on Storify]

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December 2, 2011

I was arrested while reporting on Occupy Boston

This is where I was arrested on October 11.

Last night’s clash over a kitchen sink between Occupy Boston and local law enforcement was pretty volatile – there were several skirmishes between police and protesters, including three initial arrests and one in which a man is said to have punched an officer. But it still ranks far below the night of October 11 when 142 people were arrested as the activists tried to expand the encampment to another nearby section of the Greenway.

I know because I was there that night, as well, covering the event for a Rhode Island radio station. In fact, I was one of the…

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December 2, 2011

The symbolism of a sink

Occupy Boston activists prevent a police paddy wagon from leaving with its newly-donated kitchen sink.

Occupiers were largely giddy last night, and the police officers that I spoke with this morning pretty grouchy, after an intense stand-off the night before over not economic injustice, public safety or constitutional rights … but rather a kitchen sink.

And it makes sense, as that sink will likely become one of the prevailing symbols of the Occupy movement.

After two hours of some of the most tense moments for Boston’s Occupation, activists in the media tent began scouring local news websites to see how the story was playing. Some media outlets led with the three protesters who were arrested, but…

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December 1, 2011

Police apprehend sink from Occupy Boston

In a very tense situation at Occupy Boston tonight, police took a donated sink from the camp. Activists tried to prevent them from taking it, and actually stopped a paddy wagon on Atlantic Avenue for about 15 minutes. Once they were threatened with the camp being evicted if they didn’t disperse, they cleared the road, saying they were giving police the sink as a Christmas present.

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December 1, 2011

Occupy Boston gets 2 week injunction against eviction

Philip Anderson and Ariel Oshinky field questions from reporters after a hearing on whether or not Occupy Boston has a First Amendment right to camp in Dewey Square.

A judge today extended a temporary injunction that will allow Occupy Boston to stay in Dewey Square for at least another two weeks without having to worry that the city will forcibly evict the protesters from their downtown encampment, according to several people in the courtroom.

“We do see this as a victory,” said Occupier Philip Anderson, as he emerged from a courtroom in the Suffolk County Courthouse, just a short walk from Dewey Square, after the judge listened to some fours hours of testimony from both sides.

The judge said she will render a decision in that time on…

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December 1, 2011

Safety patrol, and the other 1 percent, at Burnside Park

Two Occupiers on early-morning safety patrol.

My first night at an Occupy encampment and the first thing I heard when I woke up was the sound of authority enforcing the rules. But it wasn’t the local police; it was a 21-year-old Occupier named Richard who was on “safety patrol.”

A woman named Debbie had come to Burnside Park, smoking a joint, to take her friend out for breakfast, she said. Richard, however, told her there was a rule against non-Occupiers going near the tents while people were sleeping (this was about 5:30) – not to mention openly smoking pot in downtown Providence.

Richard was dressed in…

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November 30, 2011

Occupying America: My cross-country tour of a movement

It was about two months ago to the day that I first reported on the Occupy Wall Street movement. I had been following the story from afar when high-profile arrests made on the Brooklyn Bridge brought the protest to the rest of the nation’s attention. Local incarnations almost instantly began to spring up across the country – including here, where I was the digital reporter for a local radio station.

I told my news director that the story had legs, and that I planned to plant my flag in it. He agreed, and for the next month I filed dispatches almost…

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November 22, 2011

Providence models how to handle Occupy movement

There will be no pepper spray here. While cities across the country are using high-profile, sometimes-violent, headline-generating arrests to try to quell Occupy Wall Street encampments and actions, the progressive-leaning mayor of Rhode Island’s capital city has taken a much more understanding and peaceful approach to the city’s occupy protesters.

“We’re looking for a way to resolve this in a way that can distinguish us in a proud way in the Roger Williams tradition,” Mayor Angel Taveras told me earlier this month. Roger Williams, of course, is Rhode Island’s founding colonist, who came here as a religious expatriate from the…

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November 21, 2011

UC Davis, and fighting peace with violence

It should come as no surprise that one of the many results of UC Davis campus police trying to break up a rally by wantonly pepper-spraying passively-protesting students is … another rally. A march will take place on the quad today at noon.

The real surprise is that so many of the powerful people opposed to the Occupy Wall Street movement seem not to realize that violence and mass arrests have been the single best public relations tool activists have going for them.

Nick Kristof wrote in The New York Times on Sunday, “You have to wonder: Could Mayor Michael Bloomberg and…

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November 15, 2011

No longer with corporate America, but still reporting on Occupy

Since early October I have been covering Occupy Providence, the local incarnation of the Occupy Wall Street movement, for a Rhode Island news radio station. I have spent ample time at the encampment reporting on the protests , getting to know the activists and why they have engaged in such a protest.

Then, just a few days ago, I got a firsthand taste of why it is they are upset with Corporate America’s control over our culture. I was laid off from my job as the digital reporter at WPRO.

It wasn’t because my work wasn’t up to par,…

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November 15, 2011

WPRO and I report on Occupy Providence

Here’s a timeline of my stories, and others by WPRO, on Occupy Providence, up to the time that I was laid off. Scroll in and out, and left and right, to see all the stories.

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