Liberty Squared is a zine compiled by local folks who have been engaged in and thinking about the occupy movement.

The creators/editors include:  Taryn Amina, Jackie Dougherty (C3 Collective Member), Julia Handshuh, and Tanner Slick.

Contributers include: taryn amina, rob crowner, ramiro davos-comas, jackie dougherty, leah mae dyjak, larry ely, chelsea granger, julia handschuh, jeff havens, sita magnuson, alice posner, steve randall, tanner slick, tiny tenting task force, jill turner

Pick up a paper edition at Food for Thought Books or download one at Valley Art Share. 

INTRODUCTION

Hot Topic sells Che Guevara underwear. You can get a beaded curtain with Frida Khalo’s face on it at the mall. Again and again, when radicals get singled out as leaders, capitalism finds a way to suck them back into the fold, selling their dissent back to us.

Capitalist logic goes: if you can’t beat ‘em, turn ‘em into heroes.

American media is obsessed with cranking out heroes — super heroes, action heroes, war heroes, revolutionary heroes — because heroes are perfectly sellable. They can be individually wrapped and sold separately. They can be isolated and confined. They can be used to knock whole movements down, in that they come to represent the movement in society’s eyes — and an individual, no matter how glorious, is much easier to bring down than a mass of people working together. Heroes are tragic.

Unsurprisingly, the media has tried to make heroes out of Occupy. Local media in the valley hasn’t been an exception, with left-leaning publications such as the Advocate painting active local individuals in golden light one week, and assassinating their character the next. It is good to talk to individuals — to get their perspectives and gut reactions and questions, desires, fears. These make up a movement’s blood, and understanding them is critical. But equally critical is understanding them in plurality.

No one represents Occupy. And Occupy has no heroes. Occupy has a trillion heads! It has a trillion hearts and a trillion guts! Occupy is a trillion-tentacled octopus! An occupus! It is not a hero.

To that end, this zine presents you with some of the voices — plural — who the mainstream media thought they drowned out when they fired up the hero machine.

Occupy is not a hero, and will not go down like one.

—Taryn Amina