Noon until 3PM today, in Drexel Park, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia,
Occupy Valdosta will be having a General Assembly.
This is the slow, messy, talkative, oddly organized, flashy-fingered
decision-making forum descended from the direct democracy of ancient Athens.
The General Assembly method is
why Occupy Wall Street is two months old
instead of being a one-shot one-day march.
Absolutely amazing! The grass roots effort, outspent by a 10 to 1 margin,
defeat the CUEE effort by 4 to 1! That’s what it’s all about! This is
what democracy looks like!
Thanks to all the put in the time and effort and showed up at the
polls. Now I hope we can have a serious discussion about the education
of our children in Valdosta. Y’all in the county can, too.
Right outside of Palms Quad there’s a free speech thing,
but, as you can see, uh…. [gestures around]
[laughter]
You know, like I said.
If someone’s violating the law here, and creating a dangerous situation
by, uh, physically disrupting the students or faculty, that’s one thing,
we deal with that….
But if it’s, even this gnat, we will allow this gnat to….
Henry Calhoun found VSU Interim President Dr. Louis Levy,
who came over to the Occupy Valdosta meeting 27 October.
Erin Hurley invited him to come to the
mid-November Teach-In.
He replied:
…as long as it’s legal and non-obstructive
in terms of people getting in and out of buildings.
We tend to promote free speech.
And if we don’t, we’ll pay the price for it later.
…
We actually encourage free discussion and debate.
Besides, I’m a sociologist.
We can take what everyone knows and put them into
four different kinds of perspectives and lenses
just to do battle with each other.
I don’t consider myself an extremely political person,
but I do believe
that people should stand up for what they believe in. The Valdosta
community has recently come together to do just that.
On Friday, I participated in the
Occupy Valdosta march
with over 100
students, teachers, and other members of the Valdosta community. I was
excited that I got to shed my title of Spectator reporter and
editor for a
day and actually fully take part in an event. The turnout was, in a word,
amazing. Honestly, I was trying not to get my hopes up too high for this.
The rest of her very interesting experiences and opinions are well worth
a read.
Here’s her conclusion:
Here Amber, Bobbi Anne Hancock, LHS student Nathan Wilkins,
and VSU professor Karen Noll all march together.
They all Marched to Occupy Valdosta.
(Erin was in Atlanta, and Austin and others were out of town due to
VSU’s Fall Break.)
Doubtless there were others; nobody tried to take a head count of the crossover.
The VSU Spectator posted the most detailed traditional news media report of Occupy Valdosta,
along with an excellently edited video.
Desiree Thompson wrote 20 October 2011,
Occupy movement inspires Valdosta,
According to Occupy Valdosta’s mission statement, the group exercises
their right to “peacefully assemble, to nonviolently occupy public
space, to create an open process to address the problems they face,
and to generate solutions accessible to everyone.”
In an attempt to raise revenue, Bank of America Corp. plans to charge
customers at the beginning of next year with a $5 fee every month they
use their debit cards outside of withdrawing from the Bank of America ATM.
Protestors demanded an answer from the bank downtown, but employees
refused to comment.
