Category: NYC

what the march looked like at the foot of Union Square in mid-afternoon today, moments before the police attacked these obviously-hostile miscreants

This post will have to be something of a placeholder, as I’m far too tired to do more than put up a very few images from a day which I found both incredibly depressing and tremendously uplifting.
For the former, I offer the fact that, even by its own imagined standards, the NYPD dishonored itself today, a verdict with which many of its members would have to concur – were they allowed to do so. For the latter, I refer to my renewed, and extended, admiration for the democratic process, the determination, and the integrity of the participants in #occupywallstreet.


an arrest near Union Square for, well, . . . something they’d decide on later


silence your critics by ordering your lackeys to snatch them up in a dragnet and put them totally out of communication for a while (although the technique has some downsides, including that of the an occasional passerby being swept up – some of whom may not respect the current “anything for security” mantra and put up quite a stink – and there’s always the mischance of an attack on the press, like that which occurred on Saturday when a reporter for Public Television was arrested as he diligently pursued both his profession and what we would once have quaintly referred to as his rights)


. . . and don’t be surprised if the intended victims don’t want to cooperate


. . . and if some really keep their cool


a view of a large number of the arrestees, but I still don’t see any “hostiles”, even if tying their hands behind their backs and pushing them into the base of a building is intended to make them look guilty of just about anything


with the marchers back at Liberty Plaza, minus the total of 96 (according to an overheard police communication) who had just been arrested, the General Assembly convened to discuss a threatened charge by the NYPD, now lined up three and four deep at the east end while menacing them with prominent stacks of the Department’s now-notorious orange netting


the media center was busier than usual because of the mess made by the NYPD and the attention it had attracted


on this particular afternoon the on-site library was attracting fewer patrons than usual

The beginnings of an appendix:
Colin Moynihan in The New York Times
OccupyWallStreet
live streaming from the site
#occupywallstreet twitter
AnonOps Communications

general assembly, with facilitator in white tee, speaker in blue, one repeater left front

#occupywallstreet is onto something. We are witnessing, or at least those who are paying attention are witnessing, the birth of an extraordinarily important movement for fundamental change in political and economic arrangements which we have been told are not just normal, but unassailable. Unfortunately the current brutal and oligarchical order has also been protected by the sad reality that many who might otherwise support change are pretty comfortable with things as they are now, or at least think they are. People are afraid of losing what they have, and change is scary anyway. Many are not willing to cross an employer – or any other authority – and many just won’t chance reaching for an alternative to what already exists, even if they belong to what the movement for change describes as the 99 percent of the population crushed by the greed and corruption of the other 1 percent.
While this is only the beginning, this is not a children’s crusade and must not be dismissed as one. Regardless of one’s take on Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann, it’s worth thinking about what the oft-self-described ‘comic’ told the pundit today of the unholy and disastrous alliance of Wall Street, government and the media: “They think they’re going to get away with it [and] believe me, they’re not done yet . . . ” Also: “There will be riots in the streets . . . what you see on Wall Street [i.e., specifically #occupywallstreet] will be known as ‘that’s where it began'” [my emphasis].
Today some of the most noble and courageous members of the multitudes included in “the 99 percent” continue to occupy Liberty Plaza (called “Zuccotti Park” before the current protest began), to the surprise of most observers, including many of their sympathizers. They remain there even in the rain and in the darkness, forbidden by the NYPD the use of any cover or electricity. Yesterday Barry and I visited their “encampment” for the second time.
Once again we happened to have picked a pretty quiet moment, the police who surround them being content for a time with sequestering their superior numbers and sheathing their brute strength. Of course there was also the implied violence of that monstrous elevated surveillance tower overhead. But people inside the park were not all idle. While some rested or were in engaged in discussions, others were talking to pedestrians who had stopped to learn what was going on. Some were being interviewed by the press, and throughout the hour or so we were there a large group was seriously engaged in the process of an extraordinarily open and democratic “general assembly”.
The NYPD had forbidden the, from using an amplified bullhorn. On that subject, the statute forbidding the use of electric amplification for speech, like all New York laws, is applied selectively, and all activists know it. Social and political protests are not permitted to use even portable battery bullhorns without a permit (try getting one), and I’ve seen cops get pretty violent when they saw they were being employed, as they did inside this camp on Monday. I’ve also seen the police totally ignore stores and other commercial use of bullhorns on the sidewalk. Naturally the restriction either does not apply to religious institutions, or else it’s just not invoked.
The volume of ambient sound found in Liberty Plaza makes it impossible to hear anyone at any distance, and certainly impossible to carry on a conversation in a reasonable-sized group. In order to be able to conduct any kind of assembly the group had had to improvise a system which required more than just a facilitator. A number of hand and arm signals were established; they represented the simplest and most common moves or requests which might be expected from the “floor” (like ‘point of order’). Also, because they wanted to keep the noise down (yeah), people were asked, should they want to approve or applaud what they heard, to raise their arms and “jazz hands”. Most remarkably, there were also a number of “repeaters” positioned at some reasonable distance from the speakers who were asked to speak from a designated area in the front of the assembly. The repeaters’ assignment was to dutifully repeat in unison each phrase uttered by the speaker, who for that to work would have to regularly break up her or his address, thus facilitating its broadcast to the larger group.
Wow.
I was impressed. I was more than impressed, even if only an hour later I thought to myself, ‘what about an old-fashioned cheerleader megaphone?’. But while I was still witnessing this phenomenon at the base of the skyscrapers I thought only of its beauty. Standing near the front and hearing this beautiful call and repeat process continuing for so long, my mind sort of boggled, and my heart swooned. I thought of what it meant to have to pause and interrupt something important you wanted to say after every short word construction, but I also felt that it somehow resulted in a more profound delivery and a more thoughtful response than normal discourse, at least in these circumstances.
I could barely take in the awesomeness of what I was experiencing (ACT UP had only needed facilitators!). I slipped into reverie. I was witnessing the communal resonance of some ur-language; the long-distance conversation of some remote mountain people; a fully-engaged and over-the-top Greek chorus. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, as if these people had been doing this all their lives – or had prepared all their (mostly) young lives for the moment when they would be called to do this.
One of the people who spoke lived in the area and had asked to speak in order to complain about the noise of the encampment (in particular, as it turned out, that of the night before, when there had apparently been an unplanned response to the murder of Troy Davis which violated their own noise curfew). The seriousness, respect and detachment with which the repeaters broadcast to the group (of which they were a part) the complaint being made against it, and effectively against the importance of everything the group was doing, dramatized for me the awesomeness of what it was accomplishing with this free and open, heroically-democratic process being exercised only blocks from the dark canyons of Wall Street.


the fun/arts & culture working group announced “formal Friday” for the next day


sign, at rest for now


central media department


staying clear of the planting beds


pretty focused

are we watching the beginning or the end? (relaxing in Zuccotti Park early this afternoon)

#OccupyWallStreet is now in its second day, and no one knows where or when it will end.
It seems to be in the nature of grass-roots political uprisings that there should be neither leaders nor defined objectives, and it is clearly true of this one. This should be not be a surprise, and it unlikely to be a liability, especially in the early stages of a popular street protest.
But this one just might become something more than just another protest which will once again frustrate its authors and participants and be ignored or endured by its targets wielding economic and political power.
The remarkable thing about uprisings of any kind – and in any place – may be the fact that they happen at all, and we who enjoy (or do not enjoy) a system which has always seemed impervious to revolution may now be in for a big shock: The Arab Spring may now have become the U.S. Fall. There is clearly general unrest throughout the country, and its physical expression has begun with political action outside the institutions which have frustrated and even defied the wants and needs of most of its citizenry. We do not know how far it will go, but unlike the case of the dissent provoked by the last, Great Depression, this time there appears to be no Roosevelt around to save either the institutions or the citizenry.


tourists staring down Wall Street, flummoxed by the security services’ decision to shut down all the streets which approached the shrine


a particularly dangerous-looking revolutionary, and not atypical of the people gathered inside the park


all quiet in the park this afternoon: signs, t-shirts, food, meetings


the agenda for the general assembly just ended


and working groups too


were there hula hoops in Tahrir Square?