Sorry about that Doug -- I only just found out about it myself. The good news however is that:
(1) It turns out the Occupy Forum meets at the same time and place every Monday (not always on the surveillance topic of course), and
(2) They were quite open to the libertarian perspective
Much more than I would have expected in fact. The guy who was giving the talk, in particular, sounded quite libertarian. Among his comments:
• [On Constitution and Bill of Rights] "We should protect all our rights, including the 2nd Amendment. As long as they [the government] have those weapons, they shouldn't take them away from us."
• [On the ideological diversity of the Occupy movement] "Its principles were anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, as well as anti-capitalist." Occupy included "anarchists, libertarians, Ron Paul people." Ron Paul supporters were there "on the first day of Occupy" and were there "every day".
• [On an issue he has with the left] "The left is trying to use the fight against capitalism to put more power into government."
Even more encouraging was that nobody else present voiced disagreement with any of this, or said anything hostile toward the Libertarian Party or libertarianism that I heard (I identified myself as being with the LP). There was an interesting discussion of the left-right paradigm, and of Ralph Nader's new book calling for a left-right alliance, with people generally sympathetic to trying to work with the right to fight the NSA's spying and so on. (Nader, incidentally, is going to be in Berkeley on July 30th, it was announced, at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, speaking at 730pm, cost $12. The phone number (800) 838-3006 was listed for info.) While admitting that our messaging has sometimes been too conservative, I pointed out that libertarians aren't right-wing, and that we don't want to be lumped in with the right, and nobody took issue with that either.
One guy even asked me in a respectful, earnest way, after someone else mentioned in passing fighting against capitalism, whether talking about being anti-capitalist would turn libertarians off, or how we felt about that, and whether there were other terms that would be better. I admitted that for many self-identified libertarians it would be an issue, and suggested the term "corporatist" instead. (Others present mentioned the terms "crony capitalism" and "state capitalism" as possibilities). I suspect many of them are not about to stop identifying as anti-capitalist, or seeing capitalism as at least an enemy if not the enemy, but they listened respectfully to my explanation of how libertarians just want people to be able to buy and sell freely without outside interference, how we feel that real capitalism would actually be more egalitarian and beneficial to the little guy, because of how the big corporations are actually aided and abetted by big government with things like limited liability and intellectual property laws and just the whole regulatory environment that is easier to handle if you are a big company with lots of resources than if you are a little mom & pop outfit, et cetera. Again none of the 15 or so folks in attendance argued with me about any of this.
Naturally, most of the meeting revolved around the surveillance issue. There was much talk about the threat to privacy, various Internet legislation (the speaker specifically mentioned libertarians in Congress as a positive force on this issue, singling out Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, for his recent anti-NSA-backdoor amendment), ways to protect privacy, and so on. Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald were praised (at least a couple people attended the talk by Greenwald I went to a couple weeks ago, which sold out the reported 1500 capacity Nourse Theater).
There was also some discussion about net neutrality, about which I have somewhat mixed feelings. It's not libertarian, strictly speaking, but may be advantageous to freedom in a practical sense, at least in the short term. The speaker and another attendee who'd been involved talked about their recent "Occupy Google" protest in support of net neutrality, at which around 25 people had pitched tents and camped out for about 15 hours on Google property at company headquarters and at a nearby public park in Mountain View. Ten of them ended up being arrested and spent four hours or so in jail, but apparently many Google employees reacted favorably and sympathetically to the group's message, and they weren't forced out until late at night when the employees were all gone, and the police and security people came back in force with a less friendly attitude than they'd had at first. (The action got some publicity, including this story in the reportedly influential tech journal TechCrunch.com -- http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/occupygoogle-arrests/ ).
Anyway, it seems to me that there's lots of room for libertarians to work with this group on various issues. I intend to go to future meetings and encourage others to do likewise. Again, it's 6-9pm every Monday at 2017 Mission Street, 2nd floor, conveniently located right across from the 16th and Mission Street BART station.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))