Yesterday, while Occupy Wall Street worked to get back into its park, the movement as whole wrestled with which way forward. Is Occupy about occupying? Yes, to a certain extent, because as people told us yesterday in Zuccotti Park, you can't do everything on the Internet. You need a place where people can gather and exchange information. It matters that you have a kitchen and a library. It matters that you have a physical hub.
Occupy Cleveland this week picked up and moved part of its camp to the yard of a single mother who's at risk of being evicted from her house. Class it class warfare if you want -- as our guest former Labor Secretary Robert Reich told us last night, this conversation wasn't happening before:
[B]efore the Occupy movement a couple of months ago, there were not page one stories about so much of the nation's income and wealth and political power going to the very top. There was not very much discussion about the consequences of all of this for our democracy. And even for our economy.I mean, the mere fact that the occupiers have focused on this extraordinary concentration of income wealth and power has made it something that even in polite company, you can talk about without being accused of being a class warrior.
If you're Occupy Cleveland, you set up your tents in a neighbor's yard and you land in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, civic activists doing civic activism. It's cool to think about the ways Occupy might grow.
(On the show: Occupy is here to stay. Photo: Cleveland Plain Dealer)