A small linkspam with a side of chips

[sqbr]

Occupy Wall Street kitchen staff protesting fixing food for freeloaders OH NO ACTUAL POOR PEOPLE

Occupy at Home Resources for those unable to join the protests, also just generally useful if very US focussed.

Health as a virtue

In local news:

Indigenous elders condemn intervention extension WHY WON'T THIS LEGISLATION DIE

Comments

[woldy]

It sounds like the first article isn't just 'oh noes, poor people' but something more like 'oh noes, seriously unruly & kinda scary people who are making some women in this camp feel unsafe', and I think there's a significant difference.

Having lived in the poorest part of Canada for years, I think it's important to make a distinction between supporting anti-poverty efforts (including housing, jobs, medical care etc for people living on the street) and being willing to live in unsafe conditions oneself out of solidarity. If the test of being a 'real lefty' becomes a willingness to run the gauntlet of verbal and sexual harassment in public, then there aren't going to be many women who count as 'real lefties', and it would be an obviously sexist movement.

I've never been to that camp, and I don't know what's transpiring, but if they're saying it's motivated partly by wanting to ensure the space feels safe for women then that strikes me as an important thing to be concerned about -- though obviously it's still open for debate whether they're not doing the right things to achieve that.

[sqbr]

I have way more of a problem with the way the writer of the article framed the situation than I do with the actions of the protestors. I can understand them having an issue with people who are not involved in the protest coming and taking advantage of their resources, especially if they're causing trouble or harassment etc.

There is absolutely no acknowledgement that some of these "freeloaders" and "professional homeless people" are themselves victims of the same financial injustices that the protest is all about. If someone is starving and living on the streets, can you really blame them for taking advantage of free food being offered to anyone who asks for it? You may or may not decide to give it to them, but I think they deserve compassion for needing to ask. Also the assumption is that long term homeless people are outsiders when to me they seem like natural allies.

Also, keeping the protest safe (which I agree is important!) is not the same thing as keeping out outsiders. I've heard complaints that any time a man within the protest harasses women it's brushed off as "some outside trouble maker".

[djkittycat]

It's the NY Post, which is something like a populist right wing tabloid. It's trash.

[sqbr]

Ah, ok. Good to know. I have trouble keeping track.