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 a month freezing while you guys have been warm inside your homes.”

After the meeting, Murdock exchanged words with Cliff Smedley, a local business owner and political progressive who has been critical of those camping as part of the protests associated with Occupy Boulder.

“I don’t think it communicates a very clear message,” Smedley told me. During the meeting, he admonished some of the campers for mic checking a recent Boulder County Democrats candidate forum. And he and Murdock also disagreed on whether arrests or actions like Occupy Boulder’s mock trial of Wells Fargo were more effective.

Occupy Boulder holds a visioning session.

“I think some of the more radical approaches are diminishing our efforts,” Smedley said.

While the afternoon meeting at the local church was scheduled to discuss the future of the movement, many of the attendees spoke about the ideological split between camping and not camping, and the campers and non-campers.

“I counted 65 people here,” said a camper named PJ, who didn’t give his last name. “I’ve never seen 65 people at the encampment. We could be creating so much more if some of you would come to the camp.”

About a month ago the Occupy Boulder general assembly voted against starting an encampment this winter because, several people told me, the winter in Colorado is not conducive to camping.

But PJ set up camp anyways on the green in front of the Boulder County Courthouse. About 25 activists eventually joined him, many whom can best be described as hippie vagabonds. They are largely homeless by choice, they say, and travel back and forth between Boulder and other liberal enclaves of the West, such as Santa Cruz, Calif. and Ashland, Ore.

“There’s obviously a division,” said 29-year-old Aaron Fletcher, who has been camping at Occupy Boulder since the camp at Occupy Ashland dispersed several weeks ago.

Occupy Boulder prepares for its mock trial of Wells Fargo

He described himself as being “home free” and said that means having overcome the “problems” with being homeless.

“The 99 percent is a pretty wide spectrum,” he said, “and some of the 99 percent don’t want to associate with us.”

Another activist, who came to Boulder from Occupy Oakland and asked not to be identified said, “the non-campers are the ex 60′s radicals who forgot what they were fighting for. They got some money and got comfortable and forgot about their principles.”

Adolfo Tibana, who mediated to the disagreement between Murdock and Smedley after the visioning meeting, made the point that  both factions would benefit from a better working relationship.

“In most movements there is an above ground and an underground,” he told them. “You can’t just disregard the above ground for having houses. You may have to hide in their basement someday.”

Lee Buchsbaum, a freelance writer and photographer who doesn’t think Occupy Boulder should camp, said the two factions “don’t really do much with one another.” He pointed out that there were only one or two campers at Occupy Boulder’s action in front of Wells Fargo on Saturday.

“The ideologues who wanted to camp started to mix with the drifters and the homeless,” he said. “People began to stay away from the camp because they didn’t want to be associated with it.”

Homelessness is definitely a problem in Boulder, and Occupy Boulder has brought attention to the issue. The city manager is trying to fast track a new ordinance that would put a ban on the camping. And the group held a recent action at the City Council meeting in which they mic checked the names of the 19 people who have died sleeping on the streets in the city in 2011.

Income inequality is also an issue in the culturally and economically upscale community nestled into the foothills of the Rockies. Boulder is a fun town, with lots of great restaurants and shops and enough live music and entertainment to keep you busy every night of the week. But it also boasts the most dramatic level of income inequality west of the Mississippi River and has the eighth highest level of income disparity in the nation, according to a recent article in Business Insider.

Santa Cruz and Ashland are also both known for attracting as many haves as have-nots.

Fiore Grey, one of the organizers of the visioning session (who played the elf in the mock trial of Wells Fargo) called it “a major division.” She doesn’t camp, but said she understands the value in the statement it makes. She said the Occupy movement has got to grow on many fronts to succeed.

Interestingly enough, Grey grew up in Ashland before moving to Boulder, where she has started her own family, with a husband and two children.

“Many people in Boulder haven’t experienced the repression that some of the others have,” she said.

— Bob Plain