Occupy Santa Cruz Celebrates Past Successes with TENT MOB at Court House

The celebration began when a group of community members displayed bamboo poles that were similar to those used in the building of the giant tee pee that was the centerpiece of the Occupy Santa Cruz camp, which was located in the benchlands of San Lorenzo Park last fall. In ritual-like movement, they held the poles straight up and walked around the court house plaza on Water Street. The culmination of the display occurred when the poles were touched together for a moment to form a symbolic tee pee.

The bamboo poles were then tied together to create impromptu structures, and store bought tents were also set up. The structures were clearly not built to be inhabited, but more to test the idea of what law enforcement officers would allow to be placed on the court's "property", which also serves as the general assembly location for Occupy Santa Cruz, and is a space that has been occupied on and off in variety of manners since last fall.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff's deputies were on scene at the celebration's start time of 4pm, and they warned those in attendance that no structures of any kind would be allowed to be built in the area of the court house. The deputies left and returned at 7pm, insisting then that everything be removed, and community members complied quickly with that request.

From the TENT MOB event announcement:
"In celebration of our highly successful past tent camp community and courthouse steps Occudome Plaza, we will again be erecting tents.
We will show up on Friday May 25 at 4 pm and begin erecting our tent village. We will play music, dance and have fun with each other. The drive-time traffic will take note of our new Occupy Village.
The first definition of the term "occupy" in Webster's dictionary is "to engage the attention or energies of,"
Then... we will take our tents down.
We may not be able to stage a long term camp but we can hold it for a couple of hours "hit n' run" guerrilla style."

For more information about Occupy Santa Cruz, see:
http://occupysantacruz.org/

For more information about Adbusters' "Laugh Riots"
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/may-18-laughriot-chicago.html


Alex Darocy
http://alexdarocy.blogspot.com/