Last night I found myself down in Boulder for the first time in many weeks. I had wondered how I would feel being back there, thinking it might fill me with a heavy heart, but instead all I felt was great release and joy. Perhaps it was the warm wind coming down off the mountains before sunset.
I was there to attend an event at the Nomad Theatre, a peformance space on Quince Street in North Boulder. But I was not there to see a dramatic performance, but rather to go to a town hall meeting of Occupy Boulder.
I'd read about on Facebook and had decided to go, as the first step in what seems to be my new direction in life, which is to attend and observe as many events as possible of what appears to be this chaotic proto-revolution and revolt that is in progress, and which I believe will grow only stronger and bigger in 2012.
The meeting started around five o'clock. The purpose was to discuss strategy to combat an impeding rule from the Boulder City Manager that would basically outlaw the current occupy encampment at Sister City Park.
The building is an old quonset hut---a very quaint space. There were already cookies laid out on the table at the entrance, and a row of clipboards with email signups and petitions.
About a hundred people showed up. Ironically it felt much like a theater performance. They even were handing out folded paper programs with a "cast list"---an lawyer for the homeless, an ACLU representative with an Arabic name, and a grey-haired local activist woman. As I watched them speak on stage, and discuss the proposed ordinance, I couldn't help but be struck by the complete blending of dramatic performance and politics, all rolled into one.
I loved watching it, partly because it all felt so haphazard. What the hell is this all about? Nobody really knows. It just feels like democracy, as if we are rediscovering something long lost in this country.
I enjoyed it all, until the fourth speaker, who was a Denver lawyer who spoke about filing injunctions. He went off on a tangent decrying the "Tea Party" (which got some applause from the audience) and speaking about how this whole thing was not an issue of individual rights but "collective rights." That made me cringe. Then he spoke about how this issue wasn't about the Constitution, but could actually be fodder for the Organization of American States human rights council, which he said was the human rights organization "for this part of the world." The old liberals in the audience let out sighs of happiness at the bashing of the Constitution and the mention of unelected world government, whereas I felt disgusted. It reminded me of how much I differ with many of those in this "Occupy Movement."
But that's OK. I can deal with that. For now I'm just going to keep going to these "performances."
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