Saturday I attended the monthly Philadelphia Writers Group meetup, which is always a terrific experience. If you’re a writer and you aren’t finding some opportunity to discuss your craft and your work with peers, you simply must remedy that – meetup.com is a good place to start looking.
A few of us went for drinks after the meeting, and the conversation turned to Occupy Philly. At the time of our November meeting the encampment on Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall was thousands strong. On Saturday it was gone, cleared away by police so construction crews can start tearing up Dilworth for a major renovation project. In that same month, everyone at the table agreed, Occupy managed to squander considerable popular support and goodwill and alienate most of Philadelphia.
In October I wrote a post about my participation in the Occupy movement. Others at our table had taken to the streets, and voiced their prior support. Yet by December we were all fed up, and everyone agreed on the reasons: Occupy Philly stopped being about a message we supported [my attempt at summary: to counter the Corporate power-grab in America and fix the system that privatizes profit and socializes loss] and became a petty squabble over Dilworth Plaza. Continue reading
