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Day Two: As Occupy Wall Street Movement Builds in Berkeley, How Berkeley Will it Be?

By Ted Friedman
Monday October 10, 2011 - 01:04:00 PM
Second night facilitator at Wall Street protest prepares instructional chart with hand signals for "general assembly."
Ted Friedman
Second night facilitator at Wall Street protest prepares instructional chart with hand signals for "general assembly."
Second night at Wall street protest. "Sister," in center holding notes, announces that "strongly recommending" no smoking is not good enough for her and she might have to drop out of the over-night "occupation."
Ted Friedman
Second night at Wall street protest. "Sister," in center holding notes, announces that "strongly recommending" no smoking is not good enough for her and she might have to drop out of the over-night "occupation."
These young socialists (they brought a small socialist lending library) at lower left, look on at second night of Wall Street protest at Bank of America downtown. National Lawyers' Guild phone number is lower middle
Ted Friedman
These young socialists (they brought a small socialist lending library) at lower left, look on at second night of Wall Street protest at Bank of America downtown. National Lawyers' Guild phone number is lower middle
Second night of Wall Street protest. A protester signs the  "stack" (speaker's list).
Ted Friedman
Second night of Wall Street protest. A protester signs the "stack" (speaker's list).

Day two of the national Occupy Wall Street Movement presently encamped (by night) in the Bank of America Civic Plaza at Shattuck and Center streets was a planning session which will determine the course of the protest.  

And already, some Berkeleyans are bristling under the yoke of a national movement with protocols originating in successful revolutions in the middle east--and masterminded by Micah M. White a senior editor at Adbusters, Vancouver, B.C., an anti-consumerist magazine, founded in 1989.  

Some veteran Berkeley protesters are wondering whether they are throwing in with a McDonald's franchise in which you do it McDonald's way.  

Others welcome the efficiency of such techniques as a "general assembly participatory democracy, stacks (speaker's list), and hand signals," which speed the development of an infrastructure and an agenda.  

The adbusting White spoke Saturday at B.A. Plaza, welcoming Berkeley to his national (going international) movement.  

Protesters, new to protesting, and veterans alike have become more fluent with new jargon and techniques in just the second day of the protest.  

Issues addressed by the [apparently] leaderless group, which prefers to keep its goals open, and is still discussing where the protest will encamp indefinitely (the protest could last "until Hell freezes over"), included plans for maintaining the occupying over-night sleep-ins, police relations, committees formation, anti-smoking, anti-drugs, public relations, logistics, and the discussion process itself.  

There was a call Sunday for more over-nighters (eight slept-over the previous night), possibly in shifts, and funds were quickly raised among the general assembly for the protest's communications committee.  

Sunday's protest drew more than fifty, down somewhat from the opening event the previous day.  

The Planet is presently covering the action daily. Stay tuned for updates.