Politics & Government

Occupy Movement Moves To the 'Burbs

Groups in Needham, Newton and Natick will be out holding signs and talking with passersby on Saturday, Dec. 17 as they work to spread the message of Occupy Boston, Occupy Wall Street and others across the country.

The Occupy Boston tents may have been packed away, with protestors no longer staking a claim in the city’s financial district, but proponents say the movement is still very much active—and it’s sparking action right here in Needham.

This Saturday, participants in a local wave of the Occupy movement will make their presence known by holding signs on Needham’s , as well as at public locations in Newton and Natick, inviting residents to come talk with them about the issues.

Informally known as “Occupy ‘Burbs,” this growing group of political organizers includes residents from the greater Boston area that are hoping to continue spreading the message shared by Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston and others throughout the country.

Find out what's happening in Needhamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“When I think about the movement, I think that it’s about the injustice in the system right now and making sure that corporations don’t have more influence than they should,” said Stacie Shapiro, a Needham organizer. “To me, it’s really about fairness, about leveling the playing field, about creating opportunities for people who don’t have opportunities now because the system is really working for the wealthy and not for others.”

Though many Occupy protestors have promoted the idea of the 1 percent vs. the 99 —that a small wealthy fraction of the U.S. population has a far greater impact on government and policy than the remaining majority—Shapiro said she doesn’t like to make the issue sound so divided.

Find out what's happening in Needhamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I don’t like to use the 99 percent thing because I know there are a lot of 1 percent-ers that support this, and I don’t want it to seem like it’s one against the other,” she said.

Clearing up that misconception is just one goal Shapiro has as the group looks to start a dialogue here in Needham.

“I think there’s less awareness out in the suburbs where it’s not in front of them all the time,” she said. “I think that there’s a lot of misconceptions about the organization and about what it’s trying to do, so I’d like to talk to people.”

A next step for Occupy

Spreading the Occupy message outside the country’s major cities is a natural progression for the movement, explained organizer Harmony Wu.

“I think it was inevitable that the camp [in Boston] would get shut down at one point or another. The tents have been so important to pushing the message—about wealth and inequality, problems with campaigning and corporate spending on elections—into the foreground so that now a lot of people know a lot more than they did a few months ago,” Wu said.

She and others from Needham and surrounding towns were active supporters of the Boston camp, which was shut down on Dec. 10—bringing in supplies, helping with the de-encampment or just standing with the protestors for solidarity. One area woman is even helping to house a portion of the group’s free library, which had been set up in a tent at the Boston site.

The realization that the camps would eventually be shut down made it especially important for groups such as the one in Needham to begin organizing, Wu said.

“That’s why we felt it was so very important back in October to start organizing here, without tents, in our homes, where we live, and to start making this into a true mainstream movement—not just a movement of people who have the time, commitment and passion to be radical enough to sleep in a tent in the middle of winter,” Wu said. “Those people are fantastic; they made the movement what it is. But carrying forward, we need to have a non-tent component.”

The closure of the Boston camp “is just the unfolding of a timeline that we anticipated,” Wu said. “But we’re glad we got together in October and are not just thinking about this now.”

Working toward common goals

The Needham group first met on Oct. 23 at a local home, drawing about 30 people. Since then, members of the group have met with others from nearby towns to talk about the issues and how to work toward common goals.

One of those goals is to support legislation that will begin to change some of the systems that Occupy supporters say are corrupt and unjust—such as overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision that was passed in January 2010.

Wu explains the decision this way: “It allows unlimited corporate and union spending on presidential campaigns where there had been a cap before. Basically, if you don’t coordinate with the candidate—and there are lots of ways around those restrictions—you can just spend scads and scads of money as an outside group supporting a candidate. It’s an end run around the restrictions that are in place which are designed to keep people from influencing elections through the power of the purse.”

Wu and others support a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision—a move that would require a lot of work on the local and state level.

“We are looking at state legislation that attacks the problems that people are talking about,” Wu said. “Maybe we can take that [anti-Citizens United] bill and give it serious legs with some organization.”

Working out exactly what the common issues are is one aspect of expanding the Occupy movement into the suburbs, said Needham organizer Artie Crocker. While many of the arguments are common across groups, each individual supporter often brings his or her own view of what is most important.

“There’s a vast array of people within those movements—in Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston and all the others—and at this point they’re probably doing the right thing in letting all those issues get aired out,” Crocker said.

To him, the main issues center around undoing the Citizens United decision, ending corruption in Washington and creating accountability for those whose actions helped lead to the most recent Wall Street crash—as well as preventing those same mistakes from being allowed in the future.

“We need to find a way to stop the big money from flowing into Washington. Every citizen has the right to be represented—not just the people with the biggest pocketbooks, and right now that’s what’s happening,” Crocker said. “The corruption bubble has burst, and people are starting to wake up to why this money has led to us to where we are now.”

The Needham standout will take place on Saturday, Dec. 17 from 12:00-1:00 p.m. Saturday on the Town Common. Earlier in the day, Occupy supporters will be out in Newton Center and Natick Center for similar events.

Following the standout, on Sunday evening, Dec. 18, the Needham group will hold its next meeting at a local home. For information or to learn more about the group, email occupyburbs@massroots.org or follow the group on Facebook at Facebook.com/Occupy.NeedhamMA.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here