占领华尔街运动正在走向组织化行动

    一家名为NYCGA.net的网站收录了所有这些集会的会议纪要。组织信息可以在Twitter上公开查阅，并且用#OWS（占领华尔街）和#needsoftheoccupiers（占领者的需要）这样一些标签进行分类处理。维德斯称，并非所有的需要都能得到满足，许多参与者依然需要食物和衣服，这些东西基本上都来自各方的捐赠。

    尽管占领者依然在一些方面难以满足其成员的基本物质生活需要，但占领华尔街运动已经满足了抗议者中一些技术精英的精神需要。维德斯说，许多程序员在完成了白天的工作后，才会开始为占领运动工作。这是一个许多大企业梦寐以求的潜在员工群体，他们正在为占领华尔街运动贡献自己的聪明才智，因为他们喜欢自由地创作（事实上，一位占领者最近被一家金融机构招致麾下，他可以一边在祖科蒂公园抗议，一边为该公司工作）。

    这种创作的自由已经催生了一些富有创意的解决方案。一个抗议者小组正在研发一个名为“摄影棚占领（studio occupy）”的网络应用程序。它允许人们共享原始视频，占领者和支持者们都可以对视频进行协作编辑。此外，支持占领华尔街运动的程序员还在编写一个基于云计算的日历程序，它可以在地图上标示出事件、空间及其他的相关消息，比如附近的警察活动等。

    占领活动没有等级观念，这个特征或许会对计算机高手和程序员格外具有吸引力，因为这个群体往往对DIY（自己动手）文化情有独钟。虽然在我们这些按时点卯，赚点辛苦钱的局外人看来，占领者的总体目标似乎依然不够清晰，但维德斯坚称，他们的目标正在形成之中，而且将在华盛顿和华尔街以外的地区得以实现。

    维德斯希望这些零散分布的占领活动最终能演变为可持续发展的社团。下一步将是把占领运动与非营利组织或小企业结合起来，从而使它们获得可持续的资金保障。占领华尔街运动已经有了一个小企业工作组。但愿长期的可持续性规划能够在明年秋天现出雏形，因为在寒冷的冬季往往很难举行大规模的社会活动（今年这个冬天很可能会特别难熬）。

    我们将拭目以待。全球占领运动在很多方面都显得大而无当——各种相互冲突的议程使之难以确定共同的目标，更遑论实现这些目标了。但换个角度看，某些地区的占领运动已经具备了一种或许值得许多公司效仿的组织灵活性。占领运动刚满一个月的时候，维德斯曾经试图筹办一次纪念活动，需要买一块大蛋糕。蛋糕售价200美元，但示威者们谁都拿不出钱来。维德斯说，他当天就找到了一家糕点店，愿意在网上接受支持者零星捐款。祖科蒂公园的示威者们最终成功地举行了一次庆祝胜利的派对。

    这是一个从人群中迅速募集资金的成功案例。

    因此，虽然那些敲锣打鼓、举行集会、忧心忡忡的占领者看起来并没有一个贯穿始终的诉求或战略，但它们其实正在形成。就目前而言，占领者们至少可以时不时地吃上一块蛋糕。

    The website NYCGA.net contains minutes from all of the general assembly meetings. Organization information is openly available on Twitter and are categorized with hashtags like #OWS and #needsoftheoccupiers. Not all of those needs are being met, Wedes says, and many people participating still need food and clothes, most, if not all, of which come from donations.

    While occupiers are still struggling in some ways to meet its members' basic needs, OWS has met the intellectual needs of some tech-savvy supporters. Many programmers work for OWS after they finish their day jobs, Wedes says. This is a much-coveted population of potential hires for big business, and they're donating their brain space to OWS because they like the creative freedom. (In fact, one occupier was recently recruited for a job at a financial firm, of all places, while protesting in Zuccotti Park.)

    That creative freedom has led to some innovative solutions. A group of occupiers are developing a web application called "studio occupy." It's a video editing software that allows people to share raw footage that occupiers or supporters can edit collaboratively. OWS-friendly programmers are also coding a cloud-based calendar that should map out events, spaces and relevant knowledge, such as nearby police activity.

    The lack of a hierarchy may appeal to computer whizzes and programmers, a community plugged in to the DIY culture. While their overall aims still seem hazy to the rest of us as we put in time for our hard-earned paychecks. Those goals are forming, Wedes insists, and they will come to fruition outside of Washington and Wall Street.

    Ultimately, Wedes would like for these scatter-shot occupations to become sustainable communities. The next step will be to connect Occupy movements to nonprofits or small businesses to make them financially sustainable. Occupy Wall Street already has a small business working group. The plan for long-term sustainability should start to take shape, hopefully by next fall, Wedes says, since major social movements are more difficult to stage in the freezing cold (this winter will likely be hard enough).

    We'll see. In many ways, the global OWS movement is large and clunky -- full of competing agendas that make it difficult to identify common goals, much less accomplish them. But, in another way, OWS within certain regions already has the kind of organizational agility that many companies could probably copy, to their benefit. Wedes wanted to celebrate the one-month anniversary of OWS, but none of the protesters had the money for a $200 sheet cake. Within a day, Wedes says he found a bakery that would accept online, piecemeal donations from supporters, and the people at Zuccotti had their victory party.

    It was an example of successful, fast, crowd-sourced funding.

    So when you look at the cloud of drum circles, meetings and angst that is Occupy Wall Street, there may not be a coherent message or strategy, but there is a nascent one. And for now, at least, there is sometimes cake.