Report from Occupy Wall Street: "All Socialists Will Huddle at Such-and-Such Area."

An EPJ reader reports from "Occupy Wall Street" (Charlotte Edition)

I went to the Oct 1 Occupy Charlotte GA ( General Assembly) at Marshall Park.

After a few hours, a sort of meeting was organized; it was reminiscent of a mass wedding; I wish I had recorded it.

An organizer began reading a script in the way that a minister reads wedding vows, with pauses for the audience to repeat each phrase. The first order of business was an agreement that organizing committee names would be drawn from a hat. The inner circle were known to each other in advance. I could not see the hat, or the people drawing the names, so I can't say exactly what happened, but I can conjecture.

In any case, organizers were selected from the hat. The very next order of business, I kid you not, was "All socialists will huddle at such-and-such area."

Silence. The rest of us are wondering, OK, are they going to suggest any other groups? Next announcement: organize in small groups any way you want.

The self-identified socialists huddle. By some miraculous coincidence, the anointed leaders are all socialists.

Next item: small groups, each led by one "leader", Ostensible purpose of groups: to determine whether we shall march or not. Two people in my group, including myself, asked "any discussion about an agenda, demands, anything like that?" The leader then revealed the real purpose of these meetings - to identify possible "troublemakers." He attacked me, accusing me of trying to "poison the well."

I don't know about other groups, but this was clearly planned as a front for the local socialists. I do not mean people who are sort-of-socialist, like John McCain; I mean people with signs or t-shirts identifying themselves as socialist thus-and-so - card-carrying self-identified socialists. It wasn't the least bit subtle.