I'm not convinced. It might be that 'camping' narrowly refers to an outdoors recreational acitvity, but the concept of 'protest camps' involving people living in tents has been around for many years in many parts of the world. And it's not just about 'petitioning government' - protest camps are usually used for mobilizing, networking and movement building.

Sure, the call-outs to these activist camps are typically not phrased as 'let's go camping against climate change!'. But still, they are camps. I have a hard time seeing how the use of the verb is harmful to the OWS movement.

Drum circles, drug tents, music sessions:  This isn't "work" it is a bunch of people hanging out with the illusion of legitimacy.

I find it ironic that due in part to the costs of managing the Occupy LA movement, basic services are being cut to manage the city budget.  Way to empower people.  Also, the small businesses near Wall Street were severely affected by the camps as well.

It's definitely correct to say that many critics of Occupy WS (and elsewhere) have seized on the idea of camping to criticise the movements. I heard someone in NYC say 'if they want to go camping they should go do it in the woods where they can't annoy hard-working people'. So it's good to get control of the language and to attempt to sidestep easy (and unfair) criticism. An 'encampment' has a much broader sense than 'camping' (and is much more suited to what Occupy is doing... 'Encampment' is not so associated with leisure...  As a parallel example, Aboriginal protesters in Australia for years maintained a 'tent embassy' in Canberra outside the Parliament buildings: use of the word 'embassy' prevented many of its opponents from demeaning it by calling it a 'camp'.

I find their attempt at defining camping as recreational (involving hiking, boating, etc.) vs their activities outside of living in tents is as inaccurate, just as their use of 99% vs 1% is inaccurate.  They've tried to define the 1% as the rich/super rich/etc. and the 99% as the poor that they claim to represent.  Of course, the 99% are *not* all poor, or even the middle class, and there are plenty who fall into the 99% who reject the notion that the occupiers represent them in any way.  If we really wanted to play with numbers, anyone living in a first would nation is part of the 1%, including the oppupiers.

Likewise, camping generally refers to sleeping out of doors, sometimes in a tent, sometimes in a cabin.  Even then, there are exceptions.  How many children have "camped out" in their backyards or even their living rooms? We've had someone "camping" on our living room couch for 6 months before he saved up enough to get his own place. 

More significant than the language being used I feel is the real issue behind the language: defining, defending, and acting upon our First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  It seems to me that this right should and must include (and really always has included) political assemblies in public spaces, which I thing Occupy definitely is protected by if we believe in broad freedoms and civil rights.  Hence the sign.  On the other hand, the other side tries to manipulate and delineate the situation through "time, place, and manner" or making excuses of public welfare.  Hmm wait so I guess it is an issue of language and language's effect in articulating power and defining action :)  

A big reason why Occupy people take issue with the description of what they do as "camping" is because a lot of cities have laws that forbid camping within city limits. These laws only directly effect the homeless, whom the laws are often made for to discriminate against. So if they don't call it camping, then it's not illegal; get it? But for the millions of homeless people in the U.S. who have to deal with these discriminatory laws every day, it's not so simple. In fact, a few of the different Occupy protests have addressed this fact and welcomed the homeless into their camps to to ease their burden of trying to find a place to sleep where they won't be harassed by cops, even though some see this as a bad move.

The issue raised by city governments has nothing to do with recreation, it has to do with who the welfare of all the city's citizens is impacted when large groups of people take up residence in areas that were never intended as actual places of residence.  Where will people cook their food and is it done in a safe manner?  Where will they throw their trash, and who is responsible to pick it up?  Where will they perform bodily functions?  While I have great sympathy for the goals and motives of the Occupy protesters, I don't think it is reasonable to ask those affected by the protests (the landowners, city workers, neighbors) just to suck it up and live with the impact the protest has on the environment they all live and work in because the First Amendment says they have to.    Long term encampment on someone else's property, or city common spaces, does not equal free speech.

Viva occupy! This regime must be overturned.

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