{"id":532,"date":"2011-12-14T18:42:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T23:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/?p=532"},"modified":"2013-02-11T23:12:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T04:12:59","slug":"occupy-harvard-pursuing-trojan-dome-tactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/2011\/12\/14\/occupy-harvard-pursuing-trojan-dome-tactic\/","title":{"rendered":"“Occupy Harvard” Pursuing “Trojan Dome” Tactic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I reported in a post early Monday afternoon (here<\/a>), on Sunday afternoon key members of the “Occupy Harvard” movement held a brainstorming session about how they might extricate themselves from their current miserable predicament:\u00a0 so few of their members are actually willing to sleep at the site, or even staff the info desk for an hour or two a day, that the site is left vacant for increasingly lengthy periods of time, leading to intense ridicule — not just at Harvard<\/a>, but globally via the internet (e.g., Breitbart.TV<\/a>\u00a0 and this post<\/a> on the highly influential Instapundit blog<\/a>).<\/p>\n

As I noted in my blog post, there was general consensus that a proposal should be made at the Monday evening meeting of the “General Assembly” that all the tents are to be taken down and removed from the site, leaving only the newly erected geodesic dome — either immediately or, perhaps, within a week or so (e.g., once the undergraduate students are gone after finals are completed), to allow time to work on “messaging.”<\/p>\n

Although I do not have first-hand knowledge of what happened at Monday evening’s meeting, my source “NS,” who I consider reliable (for the reasons mentioned in my Monday post), reports that this is exactly what happened at the “General Assembly.”\u00a0 It was a very short meeting, especially compared to the marathon meetings I endured on November 14<\/a> and November 18<\/a>, and my source reports that only two matters of importance were raised at the meeting (beyond updates from various groups and individuals on various matters, and various individual comments).<\/p>\n

First, a woman labor activist (perhaps affiliated with the SEIU, though I couldn’t confirm this) gave notice that at the next “General Assembly” on Thursday night she (or someone affiliated with her; it’s not clear) plans to ask for a further resolution from “Occupy Harvard” opposing Harvard’s investment in HEI Hotels & Resorts.\u00a0 Apparently she received only a lukewarm response:\u00a0 someone pointed out that there have been several resolutions on this topic, and there was some concern expressed about “Occupy Harvard” placing too much emphasis on this Harvard-specific point, and being too closely allied with a Big Labor agenda generally.<\/p>\n

Second, after a relatively moderate amount of debate and discussion, the “General Assembly” passed, with an overwhelming consensus, the following resolution to remove the tents by December 20, and explaining the rationale for that action:<\/p>\n

\n

“Occupy Harvard 2.0”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our first month is over, and in the last 30 days we have greatly affected the discourse amongst students, faculty and staff alike, not to mention hundreds of outside followers.\u00a0 This would not have been possible without our physical manifestation, and its visceral disruption of the status-quo confronting — inelectably — the local population.<\/p>\n

In growing into our second month, to engage the risen discourse, we propose a modification of our physical presence:\u00a0 a consolidation only in footprint, to an interactive community space built within the context of the dome and that can exist within open gates.<\/p>\n

The immediate proposal entails two changes:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 That all other structure but for a supply tent is taken down in transforming the dome to a hub of activity, to host events small and large, from student unconferences to performances. \u00a0 [My source tells me that by voice vote the reference to a supply tent was struck; every single tent will be removed by December 20.]\u00a0 Timeframe:\u00a0 December 16th-20th.<\/p>\n

2. That the information space is reimagined out of its current iteration as a static space to be occupied at all hours, perhaps moving to address the public outside of the yard and including an engaging information board auxiliary to the dome.
\nTimeframe:\u00a0 starting after the consolidation<\/p>\n

To frame imminent points of information, clarifying questions, and amendments, this proposal is not to encompass the details, physical or otherwise, in the employment of the new space.\u00a0 It is rather a request of confidence in taking the initiative in creating a convivial forum that enables great participation, the exact use and shape of the forum to be readdressed in the spring.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The key to understanding the effect of this proposal lies the references to the geodesic dome.<\/p>\n

The first is the reference to a dome “that can exist within open gates.”\u00a0 As I reported in my Monday post, what’s happening here is that “Occupy Harvard” is capitulating to the Harvard administration, which laid out a clear exit path:\u00a0 stop sleeping at the site, and remove all the tents, and we’ll open the gates, and you can keep the dome and use it as a headquarters — keeping “Occupy Harvard” alive in name (allowing you to save face), though not in fact.<\/p>\n

But the capitulation is not necessarily complete, it seems.\u00a0 The resolution also references “transforming the dome to a hub of activity . . . .”\u00a0 My source says that this is code for the reference made by people at the “General Assembly” meeting to making the dome the new headquarters for all “Occupy” activity in the area — once the gates are open, it can house “Occupy Cambridge,” “Occupy Boston,” and perhaps other elements of the “Occupy” movements. (Indeed, “Occupy Boston” expressed an interest in occupying Harvard as far back as October 23 as evidenced by this video<\/a>.) \u00a0So it seems that those behind the dismantling of the tents may be pursuing what might aptly be called a “Trojan Dome” Tactic of removing the tents in order to lull the Harvard administration into opening the gates, after which non-Harvard elements of the “Occupy” movement will then be able to enter the Yard and adopt the dome as their new headquarters.<\/p>\n

An aside, somewhat humorous, but also a bit troubling in terms of the lack of transparency in the movement:\u00a0 At the end of the meeting, people involved with “messaging” the decamping requested that no one circulate the resolution, to prevent premature publicity about the forthcoming action. So naturally I thought it was important to put the resolution on this blog (my source was able to obtain a copy from someone on the Logistics Working Group which drafted the resolution). Note to “Occupy Harvard” planners:\u00a0 when something happens at a “General Assembly” meeting that you don’t want leaked to outsiders, it might be best not to flag it as a super-secret secret that shouldn’t be leaked to outsiders, especially when you’re well aware that one or more members of your movement are leaking to outsiders.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I reported in a post early Monday afternoon (here), on Sunday afternoon key members of the “Occupy Harvard” movement held a brainstorming session about how they might extricate themselves from their current miserable predicament:\u00a0 so few of their members are actually willing to sleep at the site, or even staff the info desk for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":456,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/spaceoccupants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}