What’s so effective about the Occupy movement is how it makes creative use of public space to get its message across.
For instance, the terrific techno-graffitti unleashed last night in New York, where protesters projected their message on to the Verizon Building without leaving a trace.
I have a idea for continuing this strategy, but with a new target: the great American MALL.
As you know, it’s just one week until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when all good patriotic Americans are supposed to line up at the big box stores at dawn, credit cards in hand, ready to start the mad Christmas shopping rush.
This year it seems that the whole capitalist enterprise that fueled those crazy Christmas shopping binges has started to crack and sway.
I dimly remember why Christmas is associated with gift-giving–it had something to do with the Three Wise Men bearing gifts to the baby Jesus, right? But this American tradition of giving mountains of gifts to one another, competing with each other to buy the biggest, shiniest, best gift of all–that has nothing to do with the spirit of Christmas.
Myself, I prefer to celebrate the winter Solstice in this season, the day when the deepening darkness turns the corner of the equinox and we begin the long slow return to light and warmth.
I propose that this Black Friday, Americans should link arms with our family and friends and Occupy the malls of America. Instead of driving ourselves ever deeper into debt with those credit cards, we should protest the corporate policies of outsourcing that have made it so unusual to see American-made products for sale in American stores.
If we want to put America back to work, we are going to have to reinvent the whole economic model of globalization. It had a nice ring to it, back in the 1980s and 90s when it was being implemented, but it has turned out to be a catastrophic failure on more levels than I can count.
What’s needed now is a re-locallization: a return to locally based economies, all over the world. Let the Chinese manufacture goods for themselves while we get American factories humming again.
But this time, let those factories be worker-owned cooperatives rather than top-down corporations–just like Gore-Tex or Clif Bar or Eileen Fisher, all big brands that are actually owned by their employees.
Let’s gather in malls and shopping centers all across the U.S. on Black Friday and use the Thanksgiving holiday to push the corporations represented there to do what’s right for America.
When they start listening to us, we’ll all be giving thanks.
Transition Times 
Thinker Belle
/ November 23, 2011It just sounds like another ploy to blame Zionism for the economy by linking it to Christmas.
Perhaps it would be better to educate the “followers” of Occupy on various dates associated with Christmas so they could make a choice of when to celebrate if they CHOOSE to use that season to purchase things they’ve waited for all year. After Christmas sales are great!
Perhaps the Occupy crowd could quit re-inventing the wheel, too. People already collect coats and things and they are sent to thrift stores, churches, Goodwill, etc. They are normally sold at a reduced price to cover their overhead, pay their employees, and donate the remainder to their particular charity.
If they were to, er, say, set an example of goodwill and peace on earth, maybe people would be more sympathetic to their cause(s)-whatever that might be. An example: package fruit and nuts in gifts for those that normally buy the pre-packaged processed foods because they appear cheaper and fit their limited budget. Invent some type of game that can be produced and facilitates learning for small children but costs little to nothing. Even art supplies are a learning tool.
Most of us are all too familiar with the basic tactic of the ‘literary’ greats to convince others that sorrow is much better than happiness. We’ve never actually seen them do anything different over the course of the years. They, too, use the season to line their wallets with their published rants. It’s English 101.