I made my second trip down to Occupy Cleveland earlier tonight. I stopped down there about 2 weeks ago to check things out and I really wanted to get down there again to get a feel for the vibe. Recently the Occupy Cleveland group lost their permit to put up tents and stay the night on the city block and appears the numbers have dropped off as well. Now, I have only spent a about an hour and a half total observing the movement here in Cleveland, so I am not the foremost authority on all happenings here but I am glad to see it is still up and running barring this recent determent.
My original plan was to get there tonight and talk to the people in the movement and then write about it on Can the Man, but this is not the case. I actually had a very interesting time though. While standing off to the side, watching the general assembly, a man by the name of John introduced himself to me. As we began conversing we were approached by another guy named Chris. Chris, from the hour or so that I spent with him, seems to be a very thoughtful and intelligent filmmaker among other things. He along with his two friends, Mike and Dan, have spent the last two weeks traveling around to different occupy movements and were making a pit stop in Cleveland before returning home. Chris will be producing a video of their experiences documenting the movement and I will hopefully get wind of when and where this will be available to view. This will give real views on the feeling and happening in different cities, instead of the lame media coverage that we are accustom to. In my next post I will talk about some of the things that came up in conversation with this traveling group of men. However, be advised, Loren and I plan on being down at Occupy Cleveland at some point this weekend in hopes of having some interesting conversations to whomever we shall meet.
Randall