The creativity of Occupy

I'm pretty impressed with Occupy so far.  They've made some intelligent choices about how to get their message out, what that message should be and how to draw in the most (or alienate the fewest) people.   Early on, they chose to adopt a General Assembly model that I suspect yields similar benefits - and costs - as open source software development.  Whatever drives the decision-making, it's working in a lot of cases.  Occupy has deftly avoided getting pigeonholed by so far refusing to issue a specific list of demands.  (I think that story gets it wrong by playing up the discord)  There's been remarkable discipline in the commitment to non-violent action, despite brutal and wrong state responses to the protests. 

It's also worth appreciating and commending the movement's creativity in the use of technology and art to generate strong emotional appeals to people's humanity.  Both my wife and I see a lot of Burning Man culture in the movement.  There's a powerful sense of play and world-as-art-project that's strongly reminiscent of what we as burners create on the Playa every year.  The creativity hasn't been limited to playfulness, either.  After the now-infamous episode at UC Davis, where Chancellor Katehi ordered the eviction of student tents and initially responded to the pepper-spray violence her order yielded using the passive voice, Occupy protesters responded in a simple, brilliant, nonviolent and profoundly disturbing way: they said nothing.  Occupy uses creativity and street theater to generate attention, call out bad behavior and evade classical suppression to get their message out.  It's inspiring, and I wonder what comes next.