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Meditate on What's Next for Occupy Vancouver, Then Tell Us

As the movement builds, so does discussion about how to make an impact. What's your idea?

Robyn Smith 20 Oct 2011TheTyee.ca

Robyn Smith edits and writes for The Tyee.

On Saturday, they converged in financial districts, legislatures, art galleries. They marched, they camped, and (at least in Vancouver) they meditated (watch the video to learn why).

Now we're asking you to occupy The Tyee. Please share your views about what methods #OccupyWallStreet should pursue to affect the change people are saying they want. You can do this by posting a comment at the end of this article to carry the conversation forward.

"The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the one per cent," proclaims the Occupy Wall Street website. If so, how will demands be arrived at and articulated? And what tactics will push things ahead?

Having famously described Goldman Sachs as the "great vampire squid" and Wall Street corruption as the "50-headed hydra," Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi recently took his crack at proposing five "short but powerful" demands for Wall Street occupiers to consider.

But Taibbi also writes that it's "extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV."

Nor is it easy to characterize the complexity of the global movement that has sprung up in resistance. As Vancouver videographer Dan McKinney notes, news media tend to portray the occupiers as angry folk. And yet when McKinney aimed his camera at the scene in Vancouver last Saturday, he found people calmly meditating in its midst.

So what do you think? What's next for the occupation?  [Tyee]

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