I wrote this at the bottom of a question I was answering earlier, but it hasn’t gotten any responses, so I’ll give it its own post because I am legitimately curious:
Can someone explain why the camping is seen as necessary? Why would it be a problem for people to just be there all day, every day, but not set up housekeeping? I get that it’s probably partly a money thing, but surely there’s a strong enough network in place at this point that those who actually live in NYC/whatever city could offer their couches/floors/guest rooms (ha! — guest rooms in NYC apartments) for out-of-towners to crash. It seems to me this would actually make more sense because it would eliminate much of the bad blood with local businesses.
So can someone more intimately involved in the movement than I weigh in by replying to this post or messaging me? I’m not asking to make an argument for or against camping for protests, I just want to know the reasoning behind it.
UPDATE: Good response from riningear (though I’d object to the idea that the housing sharing plan I mentioned wouldn’t work — have you heard of couch surfing? A lot of people are very comfortable with strangers staying over for free), but probably the most interesting fact to me is that, as robotbutler noted, the park in NYC is privately owned. I’m sure this isn’t the case for most of the OWS protests, but it definitely provides an interesting new angle to the NYC occupation and evictions.
