Occupy Wall Street takes a new direction | Crain's New York Business

“The model of the general assembly can be really important to a lot of people across the country,” said Ms. Stamp, a canvasser for the Working Families Party who has become a conduit between the city's institutional left and the movement. “People have become so disconnected—'I'm so stressed out, I can't pay my bills.' But if you can teach them that model, they can start talking to each other.”

Already, occupations have sprouted up in Sunset Park, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Bronx, Harlem, Washington Heights and Jackson Heights. Protesters are beginning to talk about providing services to underserved communities throughout the city. And the outreach team just launched Occupy Your Block, a program to link the occupiers to community organizations across the boroughs.

“We've occupied Wall Street,” said Michael Premo, a 29-year-old multimedia artist who has been at the forefront of actions protesting foreclosures. “Now, why is it relevant to your community? We need to be working with communities to contextualize the larger movement within the context of their everyday realities.”

The protesters are also thinking about how to work with the nearly 500 other occupations that have sprung up around the country and world, said 27-year-old Sandy Nurse. She has put her experience growing up on military bases and working in international aid to use by coordinating logistics for Occupy protests. “The movement has grown beyond the walls of this occupation,” said Ms. Nurse, who traveled to Occupy Boston last weekend. “We're seeing the start of a national movement.”

George Martinez, an adjunct professor of political science at Pace University and a cultural ambassador for the U.S. Department of State, has keyed in on expanding the movement beyond the park, helping to organize the Sunset Park and Bronx occupations and to connect the protesters to occupations across the country. He traveled to Detroit and Pittsburgh to deliver supplies and support to occupations in those cities.

An accomplished hip-hop artist, Mr. Martinez also recorded a music video in Zuccotti—the “Occupy Wall Street Hip-Hop Anthem”—to spread the message.

“Sometimes all we need is a spark,” the song goes. “I take money from the rich and invest it in the poor/It's been a long time coming/Time we settle the score.”

To an increasing number of protesters, settling the score is coming to mean transforming the movement from expressive to disruptive. The park was vital, they say, in creating space for protesters to believe an alternative was possible, but now they want to raise the stakes.

via www.crainsnewyork.com