Proposal for Occupiers

[JDPriestly]

Hyde Park in London and parks in many other British cities have Speakers' Corners -- areas designated for free speech pretty much any time by anyone with liberal parameters applied in judging whether the speech is "legal."

Seems to me that we should ask city councils across the country to designate corners of popular parks in central areas of their cities for really free free speech.

Here is the Wikipedia article on Speakers' Corners in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner

I like this explanation:

Nearest Tube Station - Marble Arch (Central Line).
For over 150 years, Speaker's Corner has been one of London's most unique and eccentric attractions. On any given Sunday morning, anyone who has an opinion to air and anyone who will listen will gather at the point where Oxford Street and Hyde Park meet, in the shadows of Marble Arch and carry on an oral tradition that is becoming somewhat lost to a modern culture of email and online chat rooms.

A visit to Speaker's Corner will offer you a glimpse of London's real past, where Londoners engage in earnest, open conversations that can quickly become loud and contentious debates. There's no parliamentary procedure here, it's freewheeling verbal contact and if you have a mind to, you're free to take part. Tourists can often be seen entering into heated discussion with locals and other visitors alike. Speakers require no qualification or invitation. It is as open a forum as you are likely to see anywhere in the world, a classless forum where one can really see grassroots democracy at work.

http://www.offtolondon.com/hyde_speak.html

The second article suggests that the area is reserved for Sunday speeches. I was unaware of that when I was in London.

This should be our goal: free speech corners in every city.

[Capitalocracy]

1. An area designated for free speech implies a restriction of free speech elsewhere

That's why the idea tends to turn people's stomachs, and you'll probably get some replies here that reflect that.

There should be no limit to the "free speech zone". But in real life, they're often fenced off, surrounded, and "kettled", turning a "free speech zone" into a corporal punishment area.

[JDPriestly]

2. That is not the idea.

The idea is to have a place where people will find listeners when they want to exercise their free speech.

People go to a Speakers' Corner to hear what others are saying, not just to hear themselves speak.

So a Speakers' Corner does not mean that speech is restricted elsewhere but rather that, if you go there you can hear some interesting ideas and if you feel moved to speak, may find someone there who wants to hear what you have to say. You can do all that without the organizing that goes into exercising free speech in a more organized way.