Occupy Tampa has moved lock, stock, placards, frisbees and skateboards from downtown Tampa to West Tampa.
They're standing fast, and have morphed from direct action to a holding action, camped on a parcel of land owned by strip club empresario, Joe Redner, over there, backstage, in the wings, while between engagements on the Occupy Tampa main stage, Curtis Hixon Riverfront Park area over on Ashley Drive.
And Occupy Tampa's next engagement on that main stage will be in August when the Republican National Convention will convene in Tampa for four long days of delegating, voting, and fussin' and fightin' inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, over who carries the GOP banner into the Presidential electiion.
And four long days and nights of fussin' and fightin' outside the Forum over who can get arrested faster for throwing things at the massive security force assembled to contain them.
That is, them and the thousands of other protesters and demonstrators who will assemble outside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, and likely all of downtown Tampa, to make known their unhappiness and angst over the miserable state of everything in the world, including the end of human knowledge as we know it.
In the meantime, the hardy Occupy Tampa souls have been making do.
In fact, they've gone from being part of the scenery of the ritzy downtown Ashley Drive area to almost part of the family in the more folksy West Tampa area.
Neighbors regularly visit with food and supplies for them. The Occupiers have had a pot luck to introduce themselves, and a garage sale is coming up, during which the Occupiers will sell items at rock bottom prices in order to keep the lights on and the generators going, and the socks washed, and the soup kettle bubbling.
Like all good military strategists, the Occupiers have gone from direct action to a holding action.
And they're still here, and say they're not going anywhere until all of this is figured out.
And maybe, just maybe, all of this protesting and demonstrating is having starting to have an impact.
President Obama has made an end run around the out of session Congress, and appointed a man, Richard Cordray, to head up the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, created by the Dodd-Frank bill in 2010.
That agency is responsible for supervising mortgages, lending and banking fees, and targeting unfair and/or deceptive trade practices of firms offering those services to consumers.
Obama has taken a lot of heat for this act, deemed by out of session Republicans as "sneaky," and there will likely be a court action, but for now, the President has given teeth to the agency most likely to start cleaning up the act of those nefarious companies who operated in the shadows and shook down so many Americans who were faced with immediate cash needs.
And over there, in the Netherlands, lo and behold, a major pension fund and investor in Wal-Mart is blacklisting the retailer, citing poor labor practices and anti-union stance.
The pension fund whose name is worth it's weight in gold -Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensionefonds - has over 300 billion in assets, and is pulling it's investments from Wal-Mart for not only poor labor practices and anti-union activities, but the broader noncompliance with the United Nations' Global Compact principles, which is a set of core values relating to human, rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption efforts.
Now, that's saying something.
Good on 'ya, Mr. President for having the sand to stand up to Congress, and good on ya', er..Algemeen...uh..Burge...oh...you know...that company over there in the Netherlands who stood up to Wal-Mart.
Yeah, maybe those Occupiers are onto something.
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