As cities get fired up for the coming months and camps begin “spring training,” the small camp in my town folded its tents.  What I was hopeful and excited about as a vision of Occupy’s future, became a short-lived failure that missed its mark both within the camp and with the surrounding community.  Why?  The question must be asked and answered if Occupy is going to reach all 99%.

Struggling with the complaints of area businesses who claimed to be suffering in an already fragile economy and an even more fragile location, the borough passed an ordinance banning the tents from the small center pavilion.  One tent and its single Occupant, rumored to be a vagrant who was using his Occupier’s voice and labors to advocate for the election of a write-in Democrat (running against a local Democratic incumbent), moved to a small park way out of sight, on the other side of town.  A statement released by the Occupancy stated that the camp was moved “due to a fear of tents” expressed by the director of local “’farmers’ style market.”  Disappointed by the slander and put off by the political motives that seemed to underline the camp’s activities, I’m attempting to withhold personal judgment on the camp and instead focus on what went wrong with a small town occupation that should have set up a model for the spread of the movement.

Sitting in a local business, I overheard some community members talking about the Occupation, noticing that it was gone.  One woman commented that she was not sure why they set up camp here in the first place, “after all, this isn’t a corporate center or anything.  There aren’t any big businesses or even banks with bad reputations around here.”

The issue of people not understanding the presence or point of Occupy is one of our biggest problems, whether in a small town or a huge city.  While the overall message of Occupy is one that is generally heard, the smaller works of our camps are being missed by those we need to reach.  In urban settings, it is easier to find projects to get involved in because the problems plaguing American cities are clear and numerous.  Occupy has fed the homeless, cleaned up trash, beautified vacant lots, and so forth.  In small towns, however, the problems are not so glaring.  Picking up small amounts of litter that blow out of sidewalk trash cans isn’t going to cut it as “community service.”  Small town occupations simply have to develop new and finely tuned strategies for outreach and support.

From major cities to small town America, the impact of camps on local businesses puts Occupy at immediate odds with those they are intending to help: the common citizen, and hence, small business owners.  Even taverns that bordered Zuccotti Park in the great tourism capital of New York City complained of the incredible impact the camp’s existence had on their business.  What protesters see as an acceptable loss, a casualty of war, local business owners see as counter-intuitive and extremely personal, putting at odds two groups that should be united in their vision of an improved nation.  Setting up special working groups to communicate with local business owners in close proximity to camps might help ease relations, control undesirable effects of camps, and build bridges between campers and business owners that can turn into powerful alliances for both.

Another common complaint about the occupation in our town was that there was never anyone there.  The camp consisted of about six tents, but when people would approach the camp, there was rarely a camper to be found.  In fact, one local reporter shouted into vacant tents and sat around for more than an hour before giving up on interviewing Occupiers for her story.  What is the point of tents if not to house people?

As we learned when the camps in Zuccotti were rolled up by police last fall and Occupy Wall Street answered with the biggest march of their campaign, you don’t need tents to Occupy a location.  Occupying is a lot about possessing a space, but that space is often more inside our heads than in an actual geographic location.  We cannot allow our mission to obtain a physical space become our purpose or our mission.  Our mission is to occupy the minds of people around the world, to occupy the headlines in an effort to promote our social messages, and to occupy the political spectrum with the goal of changing the game that is rigged against us.

If camps, large or small, fail to see the meet local objectives they will never meet the movement’s goals.  Occupy cannot and will not achieve anything without the support of the people.  We can battle it out against the police.  We can tolerate the elements.  We can withstand the hours of legal drama after arrests.  What we cannot do is continue to spread a message to people who are no longer listening, and the quickest way to deafen an ear is to never stop talking.

Conversation is a two-way street.  Problem solving is based on hearing all parts of the problem.  Direct democracy is about respecting everyone’s voices.  And revolution is about changing the whole game, not just one part of it.

As a movement, we need to see the common denominator (hyperlink), the root cause that connects all of our issues and attack it at its root.  Small businesses in Jenkintown (and every town) struggle because the odds are stacked against them.  Why is Jim struggling to get the loan he needs to fix up and rent his building on the corner?  Why is patronage at the Main Street Market down when grocery sales at Wal-Mart soar?  Why does it seem like the local politicians are working against us?

Occupy isn’t only about occupying.  It’s about healing, uniting, and educating.  None of those things are going to come out of empty tents.  If we aren’t going to “Occupy” these communities with proactive and productive activism, we may just as well hang signs on our foreheads that read: vacancy.

The early signs of spring are appearing.  The promise of change and revitalization teases us in the form of trees with tiny buds, too young to be green, and the stump-ish beginnings of long, slender tulip pushing their stems through the soil’s surface.  But aside from the crocus, something else wonderful has popped up in my small town: tents.

I almost crashed my car when I saw them, honking in support – scaring the hell out of a guy sitting in camp… I’ve had some trouble containing my excitement.  Although the early onset of spring has me seriously worried about both my summer garden and a crop famine my unborn great-grandchildren might have to suffer through, I am truly revved up for spring… especially now that there is an Occupancy in my town.

Let me start by saying, thank you to Occupy Philly and the founding campers of Occupy Jenkintown.  Inspired by nothing short of brilliance, they have decided to bring the movement into places more graspable to those looking to get involved and more visible to those who are simply missing it.  While urban occupations are important and productive, they are also sitting in places that are relatively cut off from the people Occupy needs to reach next.

It is as though our nation is designed in circles.  Like those emanated from a stone thrown into calm water, populations ripple out of urban centers in decreasing magnitude as they delineate.  Since September 17^th, the stamina of the movement has been discussed by everyone on all sides, as has its ability to reach large portions of the nation.  This is the first real sign that Occupy may be up to challenge.

Jenkintown is small.  It is just over one half of a square mile, which means our annual 5K race has to loop through as well as round our town.  In truth, however, we are small but mighty.  About 4,500 people call this bite-size borough home, a pretty dense population.  We have our own school district and police force.  We are encapsulated on all sides by the American phenomenon of true suburb, thickly populated and overrun with corporate chains of every kind, but our town prides itself on a central hub of Mom-and-Pop shops, a farmers market, and an historic movie theater that we faithfully support.  We are primarily middle-class, and we are – like most – feeling the sting of the corporate-political bully who has been slapping America in the face for decades.

My neighborhood is ripe for change, as are countless others across the states.  Setting up tents and signs, and working with Occupy Philly to make sure that there is a constant presence (when local Occupants are at work or at OP functions) brings the movement and its message into the path of the average American.  It makes representatives accessible to people who may be on the fence or plainly uninformed.  It helps make involvement and interaction a possibility when driving into the city for a GA at dinner time, leaving the family behind, after a long day at work doesn’t seem so desirable.

Most importantly, however, it takes the very important step of extending the possibility of true democracy.  For generations, we’ve been calling America a democracy, but it is not now – and never really was – a democracy.  We live in a Republic, a governmental structure that empowers representatives to hold office and work (in theory) on behalf of the people.  A representative system has the strong advantage of narrowing the political players into smaller, more productive groups, but it bears the characteristic burdens of easy corruptibility and simple misrepresentation, two problems that ail the current system.

In a true democracy, the people are engaged, educated, and participating in the decisions being made.  They are the government.  They make the decisions as a unit.  Democracy, surprisingly, is natural to species throughout the animal kingdom.  It is how herds and flocks of all kinds decide when and in which direction to move, and in some cases, it even holds contention is whether the winner of a fray becomes the seated alpha of a pack.  It isn’t always harmonious, and it certainly isn’t easy – especially with populations into the billions – but it can work.

The trick to a better, stronger America is to make it work in cooperation with a representative system, and that starts with tents in places like Jenkintown.  By engaging the members of smaller communities, bringing real, counter-media information to its members, and making people unavoidably aware of what is happening within the small offices of the local representatives we largely ignore, Occupy can stretch direct democracy into functioning reality.  We can hold these elected officials accountable, force them to represent us, and remove them from office if they don’t.

What’s more, if we directly involve the people in small communities, particularly in the further, less pronounced ripples of the population circles, we can reeducate people about the realities of consumption and the effects it has on human and political behaviors (as well as the environment).  In towns like mine, Occupy has a leg up.  We are a small borough surrounded by larger, commercially dense communities, but we stick to our own and forge strong personal relationships with one another and with the small businesses owned and operated by our community members.

In larger areas like those around Jenkintown, that lack town centers of commerce and community, Occupy will face greater challenges in uniting the people.  Engaging in local politics, acting in schools, shaking hands with local business owners, and handing out information in places like parking lots will help the movement root itself in these less centered areas.  Similar strategies will help bring Occupy into the fold of more rural communities as well.  If we can successfully reach out to these communities, unit the people by finding their common ground, and promote basic political, social, and economic understanding, we can raise these communities from crowds of apathetic consumers to educated, aware social participants.

Imagine what we would be capable of if people saw themselves as not only members of empowered local communities but empowered national communities – or, dare I say, the human community.  We could control the people who are controlling us; we could put the full-court press on representatives who use blatant manipulation and bold-faced lies to retain their power and position; we could level the playing field and stop the exploitations of our people and planet that will surely spell our inevitable doom; we could oppose the growing volumes of ridiculous and unconstitutional legislation meant to suppress the people and their voice; we could wield the power bestowed on us by our forefathers.

So, while I swallow the jagged pill of early spring, the frightening reality of yet another weak winter, the foreshadowing of increased garden pests and fierce allergies, I admit there is something beautiful about the warmer weather… the furling and flapping of tent tarps and cardboard.  Though I am constantly worried that the planet might be dying, liberty is alive and well – as is the promise of a still blooming and growing Occupy movement.   If for that alone, I can peacefully and honestly proclaim my welcome to spring.