Four years later

Hello world,

I am taking this opportunity to briefly update this site. Needless to say, we are no longer an active organization, and this site is kept solely as a heritage site. I have lost contact with most of the original IGC members, most of whom no longer reside in Portland area. I am also contemplating a relocation out of Portland after 18-plus years, due to increasing cost. I have invested close to four years of my life in political activism but I no longer have any interest in that. I have lost my spirituality and faith as activism became my idol. I am slowly rebuilding my life after many years of unhealthy involvement in the activist scene even as increasingly I became painfully aware of myself no longer in good conscience support much of the ideologies. I benefited both emotionally and materially however from being in a community of some sort and gaining social capital that I never had before. But beyond that, I gained nothing and lost a lot. So I decided to move on with life. I am still trying to remember and recover the groove that I once had. It's hard. Occupy was a bit like a cult in that sense. It was hard for me to leave it behind, and after that, I could not simply go back to "normal" life.

"Occupy Portland" ceased to exist on December 11, 2013. The last General Assembly was convened for the sole purpose of voting itself out of existence. Friends of Occupy Portland, Inc., a non-profit corporation, subsequently assumed its role as the successor legal entity for "Occupy Portland" until May 19, 2015. At that point the corporation was in debt and could not legally continue its existence. The articles of incorporation required that any funds must first go to service any and all outstanding debts. Because of the debt it was unable to pay the state the annual fee to renew corporation, or to file the required annual report as a charitable organization.  I served as a member of the board for the said failed corporation since September 2013, and despite my best efforts, it simply could not financially survive.

By accident of history, I became one among the last of the Occupiers, who maintained a continuous involvement in the movement except for a 3-week break in the spring of 2012. I saw and experienced first hand the rise and fall of this movement, now a colorful footnote of Portland's history. I decided to keep this website as a primary source testimony to that history, as well as a commemoration of one of the most significant periods of my life.

I am a living history of this movement, and I am still planning on writing and publishing a memoir.