#NOV 17: A Narrative Account

In the morning hours yesterday, November 17th, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered by "the red cube", a sculpture that sits in a cement plaza across from Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza. They marched to Wall Street proper, and proceeded to block pedestrian traffic leading into the stock exchange. Around 100 of them were arrested at this action, including a retired Philadelphia Police Captain and a young girl, who according to some friends of mine who participated was no older than twelve. A two person counter-protest was in evidence. One man held a sign reading, "Occupy a desk". The second held one with the highly original "get a job" in black marker. The Protest failed to stop the opening bell at the stock exchange as it had hoped to do, but was the first large protest that the movement has succeeded in holding on Wall Street itself, as opposed to the surrounding financial district neighborhood. Other events were planned throughout the day.


I wasn't in attendance. It wasn't because I overslept, but because coincidentally, I was to appear for my arraignment on charges of disorderly conduct in the second degree, the result of my arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge just over a month ago while participating in an OWS led march. When I saw a couple of NYPD helicopters hovering over the financial district as I stood outside the courthouse at 100 Center St. at 8:30 a.m, I knew why they were there


Inside I checked in with a representative of the National Lawyers Guild, which is providing legal representation to those involved in the OWS protests free of charge. I went to the court room and waited with about twenty others who had been arrested with me for the lawyers representing us individually to arrive. The hearings were short. We were all offered something called an A.C.D. (Adjournment in Consideration of Dismissal) in which the charge is essentially dropped if you promise not to be arrested for six months. Accepting the ACD means that you do not plead either guilty or innocent, but that you promise to "stay out of trouble" and if you do, the record is sealed and it is as if you were never charged. Most who were arraigned before me accepted the ACD. I chose to go to trial. I did this for a couple of reasons. The ACD seems to me a tacit admission of guilt, sort of like someone charged with a civil offense offering a monetary out-of-court settlement in order to avoid pleading one way or the other. Second, I know that I will much want to participate in other OWS actions, as long as there are any going on, and considering the response of the police to the recent protests, it would feel dishonest to 'promise' that I wouldn't be arrested. I would certainly try not to in any case, but it seems that certain otherwise non-criminal activities are likely to get you arrested if you're with a group of people holding the wrong signs.



Though I understand that what I did could easily be construed as a violation, walking on a car path in New York City under any other circumstances wouldn't elicit a sideways glance from the cops. I won't go into much detail here, but the police essentially led us onto the car path then hemmed us in front and back and arrested every last one of us. Many were taken to jail in commandeered city buses. There was a much larger march across the Brooklyn Bridge last night (which I'll talk about later) which resulted in few arrests (none on the bridge itself). The only difference between the two situations lay in the actions taken by the police. It seems apparent to me that the earlier march ended up the way it did because a certain third term billionaire Mayor ordered his G. Gordon Liddy looking Police Commissioner to intimidate some "hippies" enough to discourage them from embarrassing the people of quality he rubs elbows with and who have made him the twelfth richest man in America. The fact that last night's march went so much differently bodes well in my mind, both for OWS and for my case in particular.


If you're concerned that I'm taking risks for something of doubtful real value, I thank you for your concern. However even if I am found guilty, Disorderly Conduct isn't a felony. It's a misdemeanor and I wouldn't be required to mention it on a job application. The maximum penalty would be a $500 fine, which I wouldn't be happy about, but wouldn't exactly ruin my life either. I'd be worse off if I had to spend a month without a roommate to share rent with or go to the emergency room for a night (even with my wonderful health insurance in effect). I was given a trial date. The lawyer appointed to me by the NLG gave me his card and told me he'd be in touch.


After returning to Flatbush and having some pancakes with my roommate. I went straight to Facebook to hunt down some photos or accounts of the earlier action. It looked like there had been pretty significant turnout. Then, still in my courtroom attire I headed back to the Q train Manhattan bound and to Foley Square where I intended to join a few other people in celebrating OWS' two-month birthday and showing the world that the recent eviction of the encampment at Zuccotti Park would not be the end of the movement. That, as some signs carried by marchers since have read, 'you cannot evict an idea whose time has come'.


As I stepped off the train at Brooklyn Bridge station the police presence was staggering. There were at least five cops on the platform. I walked out of the station and north toward Foley Square as dusk was beginning to fall. The rally was massive. The papers today have seemed to focus on the more rowdy action at Wall Street earlier with its greater number of arrests, and those that have mentioned the evening's march have been buried on the back pages or have significantly downplayed the numbers. Foley Square (which covers a few square blocks) was completely filled. Riot cops and metal barricades kept the crowd from spilling onto Centre Street, but the sidewalk on the far side was also completely filled with marchers. A while after I had arrived a group of thousands who had marched down from an earlier action at Union Square joined us, adding to the already gigantic crowd. I knew some friends from work were there and I found them by walking towards some blue United Auto Workers signs I saw floating in the crowd.This event had a permit, and thus there was sound amplification. There were some speakers and a hip hop act and then we began to slowly march south toward the Brooklyn Bridge. When we reached the Northeast corner of City Hall Park Chambers Street to our right was blocked off by police on horseback. At this time the whole march stopped moving. Police buses with lights flashing approached from the south. For a moment I thought we were being "kettled". Later I learned that a group of about 100 had sat down in the roadway at the foot of the bridge and been arrested, their numbers including one City Council member. Apparently because this was going on were were told by the police to walk west on Chambers Street and then around the park, which would force us to walk a few extra blocks and approach the Bridge from the south. We complied and as we walked along the outskirts of City Hall park the crowd thinned, but as we approached the crosswalk leading onto the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian path we again joined a crowd of thousands and began slowly walking onto the bridge. As we did the sea of people extended as far as the eye could see toward Brooklyn on the bridge's span. A few yards onto the bridge I saw a familiar head of gray hair on a man holding a familiar briefcase. It was the lawyer appointed to me earlier, taking part in the march himself, briefcase in hand. We exchanged greetings and continued.


As we marched many below honked their horns or gave the thumbs up in support. When we passed the Verizon building that sits just north of the bridge on the Manhattan side we noticed that a huge '99%' was being projected onto the side of it from somewhere below. The projection went on to list many of the cities with occupations and to state, 'We are winning' and 'this is the beginning of the beginning'. Inspired, many marchers stopped and cheered, chanting along and yelling when their hometown or a city they felt a particular connection to was mentioned (I did so for Philly and Scranton, by the way)


My friends and I didn't continue to the Brooklyn side, but turned around about half way since we'd heard that there would be a General Assembly at Zuccotti park soon. We walked back toward Manhattan against the flow of the march, along with a few others who had already reached and were returning from the Brooklyn side where, we were later told, a marching band was playing and the mood was festive. As we walked again past City Hall Park a middle aged woman with two young children at her side approached me and asked with a Spanish accent, "Can we take a picture?" I held my hand out assuming that as a tourist she wanted a picture in NY with her children. She looked confused. "You want to take a picture of me?" I asked. She asked if I spoke Spanish,"A little" I responded and she pointed to the UAW sign I was carrying and asked in Spanish, "What is that?" in my mangled Spanish I answered, "Its a union, for workers who make automobiles". She nodded and took my picture, then said,"Good luck to you." I don't know why she was interested or sympathetic, she must have known about or had just witnessed the march.


We passed through the police checkpoint in the barricade that now surrounds all of Zuccotti Park. The police made us remove the cardboard tubing from our UAW signs, as any kind of stick is now prohibited by Brookfield rules. Inside a short General Assembly was held. Midway through a crowd of a couple hundred marchers began to arrive, the last of those returning from the bridge. Everyone cheered and many of them joined us in the park. After the G.A. a man with short cropped gray hair and a matching mustache was telling us how proud he was of OWS, and admonishing us not to repeat what he felt were the mistakes of the anti-Vietnam war protests in the sixties, which he said he'd taken part in. When asked where he was from he replied, "The poorest city in the United States. We didn't know we were the poorest city until we read it in the newspaper."
"Where's that?" Someone asked.
He replied, "Reading, Pennsylvania". Grinning I told him I was also from PA and we shook hands and talked. Noticing the UAW sign he told me that he had been a member of the union when he worked at Saturn for the duration of its existence as a company. He told us that is was a good place to work that was run differently than most large companies. He felt that Saturn had gone under because they had to compete with other companies that "weren't such good places to work". He was surprised to learn that we were UAW in our jobs as book store clerks. Later he told us that he had been a steel worker in PA in the 1970's and that when he'd gone to work in the mill he saw that the workers there, in his words, "were just getting mangled and hurt left and right. They were all eastern European guys and they were getting injured all the time, so I decided I was going to get active in this union (the Steelworkers)." I told him I was a shop steward, albeit at a much cushier job, but he shook my hand again and said, "All workers ought to have a union." We talked a little longer in the chilly park and I headed home.


Now when I see the hateful comments of those not sympathetic to the movement on Occupywallst.org and related Facebook pages, I think of him. Lately the barrage has gotten much more intense. Living in one of the most liberal cities anywhere the level of conservative stupidity I have to deal with on a face-to-face level is thankfully pretty low. However, in the world of the internet the reactionaries seem to have amped up their effort to make us feel outnumbered. Maybe they've realized that this isn't some sort of hipster fad and that we're not going to give up easily or get bored and go home. The typical stereotype that they apply to an OWS supporter has now gone from "hippies" and "lazy bums" to "diseased animals" and "rapists", "drug addicts" and "criminals". (No doubt in large part because the biased news reports they thoughtlessly accept have taken to blaming Occupations for any crime that occurs in their vicinity. These are all words I have seen used, specifically.) Well, the man from Reading,PA I met isn't any of these things. This is a man who has worked from the time he graduated high school in dirty, hot, dangerous and noisy jobs so that he could support his wife and daughter (Who now works at Villanova University) and who became a union activist not because he wanted "more than he deserved" as conservatives would characterize it, but because he cared about the safety and well being of his fellow human beings (even and especially those who were immigrants). He'd been politically active for decades in support of causes that only "hippies" are supposed to care about (Anti-War, Anti-nuclear and now OWS) I'd imagine the only drugs he ever abused were Yuengling and maybe a little liquor. All of these right wingers should know his story and try using their smug, twisted logic to explain why nothing he believes is valid.


So anyway, that's my account of the events of November 17th, 2011. If you get a different picture from the NY Post, CNN or the New York Times, ask yourself why that might be and if you have an idea then you might understand what OWS is trying to change.

Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street.

Last Saturday, I was arrested with approximately 700 other people as were were surrounded by New York City Police roughly mid-way across the car path of the Brooklyn Bridge. We were taking part in a march organized by Occupy Wall Street, which has been encamped in Zucotti Park for about three weeks now. I've been cautiously intrigued by the action since I'd seen it mentioned on some lefty website or another in early September. I had participated in the last six months or so in protests and rallies in the New York area organized by Uncut NYC, the Reverend Billy and various mainstream labor unions. I have to admit, my experiences with protest in the past have tended to be less than inspiring. The turnout was generally small. During the past spring I stood outside a Bank of America branch in mid-town chanting “B.O.A, Must Pay!” with a few dozen others. The bank and its patrons went about their business. After an hour or so, we left. No one in the press covered it as far as I know. When the occupation was in its first days the extremely sparse news coverage I found succeeded in convincing me that this was just another abortive attempt put forward by a noble but tiny minority. In the following weeks I have been happily proven wrong.

At this point, no one can deny that Occupy Wall St. has gained more attention, both from those who agree with it and those who despise it, than any protest action in recent American history. Many critics ask, “What's the point? What are they protesting?” Others, like Andrew Ross Sorkin and the entire staff of the New York Times engage in knee-jerk ad -hominem attacks, tarring the protesters as hippies, who of course would realize how utterly silly they were being if only they had to work like everyone else. Many on the left have essentially hidden behind these arguments, claiming not necessarily that they share the sentiment, but that they worry that if the movement doesn't seem serious and organized it won't be able to accomplish the good things it surely hopes to. At this point I won't be the first to make this argument, but I'm not bothered by the lack of a specific demand or narrower target. To pigeonhole the movement into this small bore thinking would be the death of it. The movement does have an open document online, with a set of demands, or what I think would be better described as a Shadow Platform, the platform of the 99%, the platform a genuine left political party might put forward were it not as hopelessly bought-and-paid-for as the current two “acceptable” parties are (I won't name them, I don't feel like gagging at the moment). To me though, simply embracing this “platform” and calling for its implementation would be to miss the point.

Before getting to what I find most promising about Occupy Wall St. please indulge me by allowing me to share some autobiographical information. I was born in November of 1979. A few months later Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. My adolescent and teenage years took place during the boom years of the 1990s when even as a high schooler I got really, really tired of hearing about rock-star CEOs and how America needed a President who “knew how to run a business.” I always found it funny that the most nationalistic, histrionic patriots were the ones comfortable equating their country with Kinkos or Ore Ida. The accepted, almost uncontested narrative in the media, the arts and society in general was, for the first twenty years of my life, that free markets are perfect, government is inept and inefficient and all the problems of the world would be solved if only some crafty entrepreneur could profit from solving them. The way for bands to be “edgy” was to claim that they were proud to have “sold-out” and that everyone was “just jealous of their success.” Being political made you tiresome. People didn't entertain the possibility that it was more than some retro, punk rock fad. It was after all, the End of History.

With the circus of the Bush administration in effect from 2000 on there were some encouraging rumblings. Of course, 9/11 was supposed to have restarted history, now with a monolithic Islamic threat to replace the discredited Communist one. During this time the Daily Show and Colbert Report became liberal pranksters, calling the media and political class out on their many hypocrisies and stupidities. It was reassuring to me to realize that enough other people saw the absurdity enough to laugh at it, an on a large enough scale for these programs to become resounding successes. Before the 04 elections, people who I'd never heard talk about politics began saying things like, “That guy's fucking crazy. Who the hell could vote for such an idiot.” Well, enough did that for the first time he (probably) actually won. Again, as the world financial system collapsed under the weight of the fraudulent instruments dreamed up by investment bankers to trade in the debt peonage they'd imposed on ninety percent of the population for thirty years it seemed like a corner had been turned. Newsweek even informed us that “We Are All Socialists Now.” Then came...The Tea Party.

What I am getting at, other than a little venting is that during my lifetime, the wealthy and powerful and the government they own have always, without any significant exception been able to buy, co-opt or discredit anything that even looked like it threatened them. Anyone in possession of even the most rudimentary bullshit detector should have seen that it wasn't a coincidence that the media whether supposedly “liberal” or “conservative” would never step out of a narrowly defined acceptability and that this “acceptability” wasn't based on what was acceptable to a majority of people, but to the people with the most economic weight to throw around. Any voice that spoke this truth during my lifetime has been relegated to the margins and ignored. Or, if gaining any prominence seemed to be neutralized in terms of inspiring any tangible action beyond a very small group of politically aware people. Even those who agreed with the dissenters were too comfortable or too disheartened to do any dissenting of their own.

Now, there is Occupy Wall Street. The Tea Party may have been for some an expression of genuine populist outrage, but it was soon distorted and corralled by the aforementioned elite into yet another hate-spewing know-nothing parade of assorted ugly Americans. So far, as someone who has participated in Occupy Wall St., I would say it has avoided a similar fate. If Occupy Wall street maintains its present character there is a good chance that it won't be used or absorbed by Obama 2012, the “Ron Paul Revolution” or for that matter, the Socialist Party USA (sorry guys). Occupy Wall Street is not yet fully formed, and the idea seems to that it can never be. The general consensus among its participants is in support of principles and policies that I think could only improve the state of things were they to be implemented, even on a piecemeal basis. (Reinstating Glass-Stegall, taxing Capital gains as income etc.) Many no doubt will fail to see how this matters if no politician who has a chance of winning office will adopt these policies. In reality, this is a triumph rather than a failure. The only way any politician of any persuasion will adopt a policy is if their corporate pay-masters tell them to. There is no significant exception to this rule If we start with support for a politician and follow with policy suggestions or the expectation that they'll do right by us, we will only be deceived and used. (See Clinton Administration 92-00/Obama Administration 08-12) We have to start with organization and a shift in consciousness, then develop policies and force whoever is in political office or the boardroom to accept that the people will no longer apathetically allow their will to be smugly ignored. (See Abolitionist/Civil Rights/ Labor/Women's Suffrage Movements).

What's inspiring to me about the movement so far is that it genuinely does seem to indicate a broad-based shift in the attitudes of many people in America. People seem to be beginning to understand that their problems are not caused by poor African-Americans on welfare, but by corporations on welfare. They may be realizing that what's really important is the empowerment and standard of living of the majority, not the one-in-a-million chance that they'll be the next filthy rich bastard who doesn't have to pay any taxes. Everyone who is inspired by the persistence of Occupy Wall Street and the many Occupations around the nation that it has inspired can take heart that they are not alone and that together they can only be ignored for so long. In trying to operate using consensus based decision making they are creating a model for how direct democracy might function if money wasn't the all-important factor it is today. In contrast to the times I've lived through so far, it seems that people just might finally be re-discovering the understanding of class and social power that are a necessary precursor the process of positive change described above.

When Andrew Ross Sorkin finally wrote his compulsory disdainful article about Occupy Wall Street, he framed it as a little research he was doing for an unnamed CEO acquaintance, who'd asked him if he should “fear this thing.” It sounds like he already does, he should, and the fact that he does has strengthened my dedication to doing whatever I can to make sure he and his ilk can't continue to flippantly oppress and abuse everyone they've pushed to the bottom with their greed.