{"id":906,"date":"2011-12-21T17:46:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T00:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=906"},"modified":"2014-07-04T13:53:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T19:53:37","slug":"denver-de-occupied-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=906","title":{"rendered":"Denver De-Occupied"},"content":{"rendered":"

It happened around 11:30 PM on Monday, December 19th. \u00a0The Denver Post<\/em> has the story<\/a> and some\u00a0pictures<\/a>, including this one:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Eviction of Occupy Denver, December 19 (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post)<\/p><\/div>\n

This was the scene at the eastern edge of Civic Center Park (where the occupation moved from adjacent Lincoln Park back in October) at noon today:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Civic Center Park, December 21, 11:30 AM<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s difficult to disagree with the house editorial<\/a> in today\u2019s Denver Post<\/em> asserting that Occupy Denver had \u201cdegenerated into a caricature of itself,\u201d\u00a0 and that the public sympathy that once existed had \u201cfrayed or dried up.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0The movement never seemed to regain its footing after the eviction of Lincoln Park protesters on October 15.\u00a0 There have been reports<\/a> of movement infiltration and infighting, and occupiers don’t help themselves by engaging in bad behavior<\/a>. \u00a0Playing off of Peter Marcuse\u2019s astute observations<\/a> about the Zuccotti Park occupation we wondered back in October<\/a> whether there would be a \u201cPlan B\u201d to sustain the movement once winter weather set in, perhaps involving alternative forms of protest and the occupation of different kinds of public spaces.<\/p>\n

In the couple of months since the Lincoln Park eviction, and in light of the forcible dispersal of protestors at Zuccotti Park on November 15, Marcuse has continued to\u00a0blog about Occupy strategies.\u00a0 In one particularly compelling post<\/a> (subsequently channeled in Salon<\/a> by Todd Gitlin) he warned against \u201cfetishizing\u201d occupation spaces\u00a0 in a way that makes permanent and round-the-clock defense of that space “the overwhelming goal of the movement, at the expense of actions furthering the broader goals that that space is occupied to advance.\u201d\u00a0 For example, goals like articulating a coherent way of looking at the world, formulating a platform of specific demands, and advancing a particular program for activating change.\u00a0 And, modeling for the rest of us (via internal organization and procedures) what an \u201calternative form of democracy\u201d that accommodates disparate groups and interests would look like.\u00a0 For Marcuse the establishment and defense of occupied space is certainly important. However, it\u2019s only one means to an end and not the end itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Eviction of Occupy Wall Street, November 15 (David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

In another trenchant piece posted at about the same time Marcuse suggests a \u201cTwo Site\u201d Solution<\/a> for Occupation movements in New York that should be considered elsewhere. Namely, one site to be used as a Staging Area<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and symbolic anchor\u00a0(e.g., Zuccotti Park, Lincoln Park) and another, closely-linked site to serve as a\u00a0Political Incubator<\/em><\/strong> (e.g., an empty factory or warehouse, a college campus, an office building atrium, a church, a large empty storefront, etc.) for workshopping movement goals and methods. \u00a0All easier said than done, of course, given zealous campus police<\/a> and reluctant clergy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, for Marcuse \u201conly the imagination (and the balance of power!) limits the possibilities.\u201d\u00a0 The extent to which the imagination lives in other cities is not clear. However, it seems to have tapped out very early here in Denver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It happened around 11:30 PM on Monday, December 19th. \u00a0The Denver Post has the story and some\u00a0pictures, including this one: This was the scene at the eastern edge of Civic Center Park (where the occupation moved from adjacent Lincoln Park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-denver-urbanism","category-occupy-denver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-eC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3337,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/3337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}