Blink porchlight at 9pm turn off until 9:09

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Ask the public who supports OccupyLA to blink their porch light at 9pm then turn it off until 9:09pm. At 9:09 they can turn it back on. This will help people who cannot come out to the encampment to participate and support the cause.

Is this a GA approved action?

If it is, then know that this is very similar to a proposal that went nowhere back in early October (fortunately) which was a call for LA residents to honk their horns 99 times at 9:09 A.M. and 9:09 PM, an inspired piece of inanity that occupied the AC for a couple of hours, I heard, before actually making it to the GA that night.  (Oct 11?, check the notes for any serious debate on this topic.)  Imagine if that had passed.  Imagine this is the day and the minute for you to do your part in support of OLA.  It is 9:09 so you beep 99 times, be it the underground parking lot, on the freeway (maybe idling in traffic), sitting in a parking spot in front of your apt building, etc.  Besides blowing out your eardrums and pissing off the neighbors or the people in the cars around you on the road, what has been accomplished, even symbolically?

This variation is better, in that it is silent.  But it will not "help people who cannot come out to the encampment to participate and support the cause."  There are better ways to do that than blink your lights like an idiot.

That's not to say mass symbolic individual solidarity actions of this sort aren't a good idea; in fact there is a long tradition, such as lighting a candle, putting it in your window, for a cause.  But those causes have all reached a threshold beforehand where everyone was made aware of it as a well publicized action, or they didn't need any promotion because it was that big a story.  OLA is NOT good yet at even publicizing big time its main actions.  This idea -- blinking the lights -- doesn't even do anything for the participant, other than promote nervous ticks.

There is power in lighting a candle and leaving it in your window or gathering at a street corner.  People going by will wonder what the cause is and may inquire, and then join -- the word is spread.  But blinking your lights?

Unless OLA is up for such a media blitz, creative variations of earlier bad idea should be allowed to die from neglect in the same way.  Personally, I believe better things are happening at OLA that could use a coherent pr boost.  Time and energy should go there.

 

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