OCCUPY: Inside the Movement - Interoccupy

Let Me Ascertain You: Occupy Wall Street is back with Part II, on January 13, 2012 at 9:30 PM at Joe's Pub (tickets here)!

Civilians artists conducted over 100 interviews, but the cabaret is only an hour! Which means we have a lot of great material that we can't perform on the 13th. So, we're featuring exclusive material here on the blog that you won't find at Joe's Pub on Friday, from interviews conducted with a range of people connected to the heart of the movement. 

Here are excerpts from an interview with one of the first organizers of Interoccupy, which she describes as:

"But, um, Interoccupy, basically, what it’s trying to do- and it is doing this - is um, setting up a place for the occupations across the country to talk to each other and collaborate on projects- whatever… whether that be direct actions or more policy kind of things, you know um, demands, that kind of stuff."

And here she talks about one of the big questions post-raid - is Occupy more than just Zuccotti Park?

"It's a battle of economics, politics, and then just like social... Social.  Living.  Social justice..  And then, and then you have the camp, it's like you have the site itself.  It starts to become its own world, and its own politics, and you know.  And then, it's like well, what do we care more about?  Do we care more about the camp?  Or do we care more about what the camp represents, like, on a philosophical level.  I, I think that there's a lot of value to having a physical place where people went.  I mean there was a reason why tourists went down there, you know what I'm saying?  It's not just to look at the animals in the zoo, although that was probably some of it, but I think also, it was like, I know that I could go down there, and have conversation with a perfect stranger.  And they might be crazy, but most- a lot of times they weren't.  You know what I mean?  You could have actual exchanges with people, and I don't remember that happening at any other time in the city.  And I've been here for 20 years.  It doesn't happen.So I feel like that in and of itself is a huge success, you know, and, and... then it caught on in such a gigantic way.   It's like everywhere, like, every country, there's one of these things happening.  It's actually pretty hopeful."