-- Download Occupy Vancouver Will Meet Again at 6:15pm on May 1 as PDF --

It’s Earth Day. Let’s honour our ecology by rebooting Occupy Vancouver on May Day!

At first, I put out a call to see who wants to have a meeting to discuss connecting a rebooted Occupy Vancouver with the worldwide #WaveOfAction that started on April 4 and extends [at least] to July 4.

We call these things General Assemblies. There may or may no be jazz hands deployed.

The 1% have had us scattered and disorganized, but even the rulers of the world, the World Economic Forum [WEF], have acknowledged the Occupy agenda is valid and what we’ve identified as risks to society, the WEF has adopted.

I just know that none of us want THOSE PEOPLE trying to solve these problems since, frankly, they are the ones who created them. And I have a suspicion that their solutions will look more like a Kafka or Huxley or Orwell novel than we’re interested in.

So I think it’s time to meet. Here are the details:

I had first thought a nice site would be the Teamsters picket at the Richmond IKEA, where they’ve been locked out for almost a year. And I thought May Day would be a good day to catch up with the #WaveOfAction.

But now we have a May Day march and rally that labour has organized. We should piggyback on that. Read below for the details of the Occupy portion of that event.

https://twitter.com/funkypenzz/status/458118583478779906

From the above tweet, you’ll see that the march starts at 5pm at Clark Park and the rally starts at 615pm at Grandview Park. I figure we could have a little Occupy chat off to the side at the rally around that time.

I expect to get to the rally site well before 615pm. So if you’d like to show up early-ish too, we can talk!

The agenda? I’d like to make it up as we go along.

My contribution? It’s pretty simple after years of pondering Occupy, its creation, its opposition and destruction, and the necessity for its resurgence:

1. I think Occupy should be about seeking equality and justice, politically, socially, economically and environmentally. So when people ask me what Occupy thinks it’s about, that is what I say. Simple, to the point, and pretty broadly encompassing.
2. I think a literal occupation of some physical space is neither a necessary, nor sufficient part of success. And it can be a highly politicized distraction. Others think it’s a critical element; there are good arguments for that, but public rallying space like the Art Gallery may not be as valuable an occupation site as IKEA or a bank lobby. It should be an interesting conversation.
3. I think something useful and practical to reflect our capacity may be for Occupy Vancouver to pick a few campaigns/projects to support, then roll on to others. I think helping the Teamsters local 213 achieve a settlement with dignity with IKEA and then roll on to unionize all the other IKEAs in Canada. Another can be to help with the campaign to end the punitive, mean, cruel child support clawback that further impoverishes vulnerable families. Another can be to coordinate with everyone else in the country stop the Conservative Party of Corruption from creating a corrupt election system in the country. Taking part in the WORLD WIDE MARCH WAKING UP THE MASSES: Vancouver (Unceded Coast Salish Territories) from May 1 to May 4 could also be a natural fit! And then when we achieve those goals, or expand our capacity, we can move on to new projects.
4. I think our movement could look like these Fried Squirrels. 🙂
5. And I think maybe we can get the Occupy Vancouver Twitter, Facebook and website coordinated again, while helping reboot the Occupy Canada infrastructure.

Beyond that, let’s see what we come up with.

And if you were at the October 8, 2011 Occupy Vancouver planning meeting at Woodwards, you know how much of a zoo that was. On May 1, we will either have a small, medium or enormous crowd. Or it may just be me. Regardless, we will make something work.

So.

Look for me. I will be carrying a posterboard sign on the top of a hockey stick. It will read “Occupy Here?” or something along those lines.

Let’s hope the weather is on our side.

Related articles across the web

• Calling For An Occupy Vancouver General Assembly
• What Occupy Vancouver Could Look Like
• Occupy Canada For May Day, With Bananas
• Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Banana Republic

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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