The first National Occupy Gathering has begun, in Philadelphia, at Liberty Park, next to the building that houses the Liberty Bell, across the street from Independence Hall. Representatives from 92 different occupy locales have committed to come meet and share strategies and resources over the course of five days.
Veterans for Peace member and local organizer Bill Perry sets up
Veterans boots and Gun display on Market street at foot of mall.
You can see independence Hall in the background.
Already, the Philly and federal police were making things more difficult than necessary for the travelers. The area was cordoned off with barricades. No people were allowed within the barricades if they were carrying camping gear.
This Occupier has a backback, so Park police won't let him in.
Of course, with temperatures of 95 degrees, it's important to keep people hydrated.
Occupy supply, sponsored in part by Firedoglake.com, is providing bulk water and free water bottles, but the police give a first warning that they can't be setting up there.
giving out free water and water bottles.
I don't know that I've ever seen so many different varieties of police at an action-- and this isn't even a protest-- local park police, USA Park Rangers, US Marshalls, Philly Police-- even someone wearing a Department of Justice cap. "So you're here to protect our free speech," I joke, as he makes excuses for the barricades.
But things are progressing. Groups are meeting, sharing ideas, planting signs
Discussions, lectures
Posting signs.
I'll be posting more as the gathering gathers steam.
Remember the hashtag to follow on twitter is #NatGat
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
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