If you can't occupy...then surround

On Sunday, I heard Bill McKibben speak at a lively, full-house gathering in San Luis Obispo. Two big ideas I walked away with...

Firstly: "Much of your effort has to be in the local community, but in such a way that that local effort has a bigger, even a global, political impact."

Then secondly, surrounding is a necessary adjunct and follow-up to occupying. Not that occupying needs to be supplanted — but in order to keep the public theater fresh and exciting, new forms of protest need to be created, too.

For example, in London when protestors were prevented from occupying their first choice, the heart of London's financial center, they found themselves occupying venerable St. Paul's Cathedral instead. When the City of London Corporation, the local government in London's financial district — and more importantly, St. Paul's Cathedral itself — threatened to take legal action to end the occupation, first Canon Giles Fraser and two other St. Paul's officials resigned in protest, and then Christian activists in Britain vowed to ring the protestors and St. Paul's in a "circle of prayer." As I'm typing this, two hours ago St. Paul's suddenly shifted course, rescinded its threat to initiate legal actions against the protestors, and has initiated dialogue with the occupiers instead.

And then on November 6 in Washington, protestors of the Tar Sands Pipeline intend to surround the White House, our house. All the signs carried in that action will be quotations from Barack Obama's campaign speeches in 2008. As Bill McKibben points out, this is a flashpoint moment, an opportunity to put a dent in the oil industry's agenda. Click on the link above to listen to actor David Strathairn's eloquent and heartfelt invitation to join and support this action.

More than 200 protesters, including many long-time Carmel residents rally in front of the La Playa Hotel. Photo courtesy of Xasáuan Topday.Finally, on a very local level (in Carmel), protestors have been joining in support of employees of the La Playa Hotel who have been abruptly terminated, even though some of them have worked at La Playa for 20 years or more.. Here is Xasáuan Today's typically sharp and pointed reporting on one more important local issue.