Occupy Wall Street and 15M occupy the minds

There’s something about the mainstream media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street Movement that I find somewhat bizarre and pathetic: its attempt to classify, isolate, abstract from reality, label, define, only to denigrate, ridicule, mock, disempower, obliterate with an array of cliché rhetorical strategies. One year after its birth in Zuccotti Park, the media says the Occupy movement is declining, that it has lost its impetus….still so obsessed with the visual. What if Occupy values have been internalised by an important part of the population who does not necessarily have to be physically present in the square? To me, the mental battle is as important as the battle for public space. To occupy minds is as important as to occupy squares. And here’s why I think the media is pathetically behind in the race for credible and reliable information although one might question whether the adjectives “credible” and “reliable” can really be applied nowadays to the mainstream media in the US. In a nutshell, the complex dynamics of social movements defy the fragmentary and categorising logics of the media which still operates on the logics isolating the event, classifying it and then defining it. This is how most corporate media have been operating as a means of inserting certain cognitive frameworks in the minds of the viewers to control their perception of events. This methodology has proved effective, it has achieved results (as we saw in the media manipulation leading to the Iraq invasion) but, as we have seen with the OWS movement, it has serious limitations, especially when competing with interacting and world-wide information flows circulating via social networks.

There’s something that the media can’t catch in the OWS phenomena and this is its morphing nature, its adaptive capacity and transformative nature. But media attempts at reducing and controlling public perceptions of OWS frequently focus on membership: are you a “member” of OWS? Who is behind OWS? In other words, hierarchy, masterminds, top-down approaches, but also, “inside or outside” patterns of thought seem to constitute  their basic manipulative strategy. But these mental patterns are outdated for an increasingly interconnected world. Honestly, who can say who is orchestrating OWS from “behind”, “inside”, or “above”? OWS has morphed into a myriad of environmental, social and political struggles:

“To put it in a nutshell: the Zuccotti encampment model might have passed its heyday, but the spirit of Occupy is still very much alive … evolving and inspiring, expanding our understanding of the possible, exploding our political imagination. Before S17 we relied on the same dinosaur paradigm of the dusty old left. We looked backward for inspiration instead of forward. With Occupy we jumped over that old dead goat. Now it’s time to leap fresh again”.

It’s interesting to notice how all across the Atlantic Ocean, in Spain, the same kind of strategies were used by the Spanish mainstream media to ridicule, mock, ignore, threaten, minimise, caricaturise yet another big and empowering social movement: 15M. After the media uproar in the heat of occupations in Plaza del Sol and all across the country, the media were quick to assassinate the movement claiming it had lost impact and force to mobilise, that the movement had just been born in the fashionable winds of Spring and yet another time, the media failed to understand what was really going on, or were they really interested in improving public perception of this heterogeneous movement? As with the OWS, the disappearance of 15M from public space was inaccurately interpreted as the dismantling of the movement but this is not what really happened, as usual. There was an intense debate within the diverse groups forming the 15M as to whether continuing the occupation of squares in order to keep social demands on the spot or to diversify the strategy into neighbourhoods. And luckily and wisely, the movement opted for beginning to work from below, abandoning temporarily the squares to which they could always return as a symbolic gesture. Since then, internal struggles within the 15M movement have generated divisions, new and often politically antagonistic groups, a milieu of associations. In this line of thought, I was reading an article about the 15M in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which quoted a protester saying:

“some people believe that unity means to be all together in Sol Square. For me, the 15M means neighbourhoods. The spirit of the camping has expanded to any collective struggle against the dismantling of the welfare state”.

Perhaps something similar has happened in the Occupy Movement. Its spirit lingers in many local protests for which the frame of OWS and all it signifies serves as moral guidance or as a strategic umbrella connecting a milieu of disparate yet interconnected struggles both in the US and globally. And this is my point. Growth in organisms begins when cells begin the process of division which leads to larger and complex structures all working coherently yet performing different functions within the organism. We could argue that, following this metaphor, some of these structures and organisations might cease to work, some might perish, some might evolve or transform depending on the particular context of each struggle. It might not be a bad idea to conceive social movements from the standpoint of organisms because after all, social movements are small organisations of people interacting with complex social, cultural economic environments and this is what the media cannot grasp because from their reductive lenses division might be interpreted as lack of cohesion, rupture, weakness, whereas life operates and moves on precisely on division, which leads to growth which leads to transformation.

And in this larger organism of social movements, perhaps social networks act like the neural systems, interconnecting nodes of information in larger and more complex webs of ever-growing and transforming patterns of thought. Is there a danger that the original spirit of the struggle is lost in this perpetual transformation? No, because OWS and the rest of struggles are founded on some core principles/worldview/frames (Lakoff again!) that are not incompatible with each other. And what’s more interesting, social networks are creating a larger common and empowering consciousness that many of us, of the average people, even if we are from different cultures or political affiliations, share more with the other than we thought: basically, we want a world with more justice, more equality   . I believe in the power of social networks to transform reality; not alone, of course, but their power is enormous, just look at the US government attempts at restricting internet freedom to realise how scared the powerful have become of social networks. Behind every computer in FB or Twitter or in any of the social networks, there are flesh and blood human beings exposed to interconnected flows of information that, in many cases, challenges official mainstream propaganda, constantly changing and influencing the users’ perception of the world in different ways in their neural circuits. And the tendency of these larger, interconnected networks of minds and bodies will be to evolve, change, and grow like any other organism living in a complex environment unless a brutal crackdown on the web of   unbelievable, totalitarian proportions manages to disrupt the flow in some way.

It took 30 years for an emancipatory process like the Spanish II Republica to achieve the magnitude of a mass movement that could ultimately lead to transformative power, as it happened in Spain. Nowadays, the time-space immediacy of the web can organise a protest in minutes in any part of the world as we saw in Tunisia and Egypt to give two examples among many. But the creation of a larger truly empowering and massively coordinated global consciousness will take time because there is still a large segment of the population sleeping in the couch, watching TV and wasting their lives in senseless consumerism, that is true. But the economic crisis/fraud is likely to affect increasing numbers of workers who will find themselves dispossessed, marginalised and excluded from the “benefits” of a coroparte-ruled society. Facebook alone won’t change the world, but the world cannot be changed without an integrated nervous system that not only opens the consciousness of more and more people to the bleak and oppressive reality of corporate power but also to the emptiness and meaningfulness of the kind of sterile society and nihilistic worldview corporate power represents. And what’s more important, if someone thought that the aim of social movements like OWS and 15M, among many others, is to symbolically occupy squares to meet the headlines then he/she perhaps needs to read a bit more: as far as I know, both 15M and OWS are creating spaces in the fringes and crevices of the very same system they want to change. That is, these movements are now on the stage of opening autonomous spaces of solidarity and self-organisation, alternative paradigms of a new, yet still in progress, society. 15M lives on in some experiments with alternative currencies, barter markets, ethical banking institutions, community and self-organised cooperatives, the many local assemblies of firemen, teachers, doctors, civil servants and foreclosure associations articulating empowering decision-making from bottom to top taking place in Spain; and OWS lives on in the milieu of environmental local struggles, student, teacher and doctors’ protests spread throughout the whole of the US that have found a strategic umbrella in OWS. Corporate media prefers not to see or listen to the inner life and energy liberated by OWS and 15M but they must remember that energy never dies, it just transforms itself. But this might sound just too complicated and profound for showbiz agendas……. Behind the scenes, a new paradigm for society is growing.

 

Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez is an independent researcher who obtained his PhD in postcolonial literature in the School of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he has taught literary theory, Ecopoetry and Catalan language. His research focuses on the relationship between art and biodiversity, cultural politics, philosophy of mind and cultural/human geography. He also loves progressive rock, growing vegetables and all kinds of coffee. He is a freelance translator, Spanish and Catalan Tutor and enjoys volunteering for the U3A group teaching Spanish to elderly people in Norwich.</em>

the Grand Old Party: no longer grand, probably still old, seeking help

For a long time, the media and the political sphere were undecided on Occupy Wall Street (OWS); was it a fluke? Was it a short-lived movement that would dissipate as soon as the first winter frost would bite their unprotected fingers? Unsure of the future of the movement, Wall Street bankers and other lobbyists refused to intervene or simply ignored the protesters, seemingly growing more and more uncomfortable as the idea(l) spread across the country like wildfire. It wasn’t until the massacre in Oakland, CA that the general public was faced with a manichean decision: to support or not support OWS? Who are those college graduates, mothers of two, recently laid off executives, and journalists willing to suffer at the hands and batons of their local police department for their beliefs? Curiosity didn’t kill the cat: it is however threatening the hegemony the Republican Party is trying to create for itself. After their 2010 victory in the House of Representatives, Republicans, with Tea Party candidates as their herald, can no longer ignore the stomping feet and angered grown knocking on their door. Is the Republican Party just the shadow of what it once was?

Occupy Wall Street protest in Washington, DC on October 6

It made the headlines this week: the GOP is scared of Occupy Wall Street, because it has an “impact”. We are always scared of the unknown, the unexpected, what springs upon us unseen and unplanned – the scariest is that Republicans never saw it coming. The financial divide splitting the country in two, the one articulated in simple mathematics by the OWS rhetoric – “the 99%”, the people, the masses, the proletariat, the working and middle classes, versus “the 1%” of extremely financially secure, the rich, the over rich, the über rich, but most importantly, the ones not subjected to taxes – is finding an echo chamber in America. The GOP had it all until then: banging against the President for violating what the “founding fathers” had in mind, appealing to the historically conscious; the religious right had never seen such better time even under George Bush Sr, finding in House Leader John Boehner the crusader they had been waiting for; the rich, the lobbyists, the employers resting comfortably on their armchairs knowing their interests were just as secure with every Republican vote as it would be in a safe in Switzerland.

“It has been replaced, with much help of spin doctor Karl Rove and economist Francis Fukuyama, into war-mongering machine “

I believe the GOP no longer is the party it once was, the structure that spawned George Bush Sr. What could be labelled “rational conservatism”, advocacy for the social convenance of the much-altered “family values” capable of evolving with its time, paired with fiscal conservatism and expensive foreign policy, has vanished. It has been replaced, with much help of spin doctor Karl Rove and economist Francis Fukuyama, into war-mongering machine pandering to the religious right and calling for the return of much forgotten values belonging, literally, to another century. Stephen Singular, author of the book “The Wichita Divide”, wrote in April,

When people at the very top of society sanction hatred in a public way, it filters down to those not only less fortunate, but sometimes to those who are emotionally unstable. Then violence becomes not just likely, but virtually predictable. And then, when it’s too late, the haters claim they had nothing to do with the bloodshed and run for the hills. Whether we want to be or not, we’re all involved in this war and we’re all responsible for what we bring to it. This is a fight for the soul of the nation, just as the first Civil War was. We can’t afford to lose the sense of co-operation and balance that have kept America alive, and kept religion and politics separate, throughout more than two centuries. We are perilously close to the edge. (1)

What the GOP is attempting to do in the modern United States is nothing more, nothing less of a divide in morality, a sanctioned, self-righteous concept of right and wrong. Its popularity however clearly declined the second the ordinary American citizen, embodied by the infamous Joe the Plumber, once campaigning behind Sarah Palin, could no longer afford to pay his credit card bills, or found himself homeless after his home was foreclosed by Bank of America. The divide is not drawn between religious beliefs; it is not drawn between war-supporters and the so-called tree huggers. It is not the concept of right and wrong, left and right as we had seen it to this day. What Occupy Wall Street has highlighted is a divide between those who can’t and those who can; those who can’t are however those who could and would. It’s the coulda-woulda-shoulda-but I have been out of work for more than four months. The GOP has always tried to portray itself as the party of the working class, the undereducated, the simple man seeking to feed his family. Besides those suits, those ties and those secondary homes in Florida, GOP representatives have always catered to those who haven’t been in college but are still upholding the same education values their parents had once cherished. The left, especially during the John Kerry campaign of 2004, was the college man, the separatist with his books and his Latin – in short, a character that was unrelatable. John Kerry, despite all his qualifications, could not be the representative of the entire American people. He did not fit with the narrative George W. Bush was pushing forward: that of a former failure that made it good, of the underdog that was handpicked in the crowd to lead his flock into a tiresome but necessary battle. John Kerry, using arguments against the Iraq war that no one could understand, that never appealed to the passionate core of popular politics, lost in a desperate and frankly pathetic fashion. A leader has little to do with knowledge. It has everything to do with charisma.

from BlogForIowa on WordPress

“Occupy Wall Street represents a formidable paradox in American politics: it is the precise opposite of the Republican movement, yet it uses and benefits from the same popular appeal”

Under the younger Bush’s reign – more so under Rove and Fukuyama’s – the GOP no longer was about governance and democracy, but protecting lobbyists’ interests. The party was transformed to please those funding it, and could care less about the interests of the people, the very one they were representing in Congress and in the Oval Office. The battle for the hearts and minds of the American people was won with little effort in the days following 9/11, with a collective morale so low it could only find its way upwards. The 9/11 skeptics, the deniers, were called treaters to the nation, they were accused of befriending the terrorists, of embracing their cause, of ruining America with a disbelief that only belonged at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where European socialists were shaking their heads at the upcoming and unavoidable pro-war propaganda that would be unleashed. There is no distance to ever be taken. Occupy Wall Street represents a formidable paradox in American politics: it is the precise opposite of the Republican movement, yet it uses and benefits from the same popular appeal. Appealing to the passionate, the have-nots, all those without a cause is what Occupy Wall Street do best. It had the elite confused in the first months of the movement, but quickly grew into an idea that had people riled up, that churned everyone’s guts, that divided a country into the financially secure and the precarious. It drew a line everyone knew their side on.

The one thing about Occupy Wall Street, though, is what no one had counted on: the deafening silence on the Republican side. Democrat senators such as Barney Frank and independent – yet Republican primary runner – Ron Paul supported the movement from the get-go. The vast majority of those in office, however, remained completely mute. For a long time their lack of appropriate commentary justified itself by a so-called vagueness as to where the movement was heading and what their precise demands were. When the first violent clashes with law enforcement took place, they took place with the world watching: on the nightly news, but more importantly on Occupy Wall Street’s own livestream, the self-generated source of information on the movement. In New York City, the home base of the movement, the police operation labeled “Bloomberg Dawn” by the occupiers was met with unprecedented support from the every day man and even elected officials: among the arrested was a City Council member. From then on, especially after the terrifying demonstration of force by the Oakland Police Department, Occupy Wall Street showed more than simple discontentment with banks and their allies – it proved disenchantment and lack of trust towards the very institution of government, the need for a real freedom of speech, and hard proof that democracy still exists. Hardly had the United States seen such uprisings, such grasp on civil liberties held by the very Constitution the Tea Party claimed to respect. There was fear in the incumbent eyes. Their answer to disagreement and discontentment is not more elections or more town hall meetings, it’s oppression and repression. That everybody, thanks to the internet, can now see and access.

The GOP doesn’t play the democracy game anymore. It just wants to be in charge all the time. And they certainly didn’t plan OWS.

What is shocking and bewildering to them is that the police state no longer scares people. They’re ready to fight. The threat of pepper sprays, of mace, of batons, and of imprisonment without clear charges is expected, even accepted among the occupiers. The National Lawyers Guild even provided free legal aid to those without assistance during arrest. The General Assemblies provided information on how to peacefully resist arrest. Several million dollars were donated through private funds to the cause so occupiers can have shelter, food, and electricity for their laptops and iPhones, instrumental for the message to keep on spreading. The tables have turned: the lyricism in the discourse, the great calls for justice, the appeal to the morals of putative supporters, the poking of socio-political buttons is now in OWS’s cold, callous palms. There is not a single family in the great land of the free that doesn’t have a son, a brother, a cousin, a mother that is out of work, whose house’s mortgage is slipping out of their hands, with a stepbrother recently graduating college having to deal with not having a future in sight. The nation is rising and asking for the American dream to be handed back to them, the people; for transparency and trustworthiness; for a reason to believe, and another reason not to be afraid. Chuck Palahniuk once wrote that once you’ve lost everything, you’re free to do anything. Nothing could illustrate it better than Occupy Wall Street, people leaving the comfort of their apartment to live under a tent with a thousand strangers all reunited against the same cause. The Republican Party is failing because it has failed the very people that would once buy into their easily articulated spin. The Democrats are losing momentum because they no longer know how to speak to a youth movement that was once easily acquired in the polls. Occupy Wall Street is now more than a movement. It is. And it will stay.

Read more on OWS: interview with journalist and occupier John Knefel // interview with writer, comedian and all-around muckracker, Lee Camp

“Once I spent a day or two there I understood that something massive was happening”

The OccupyTogether movement has grown in intensity over a very short period of time, amazing even the most seasoned grassroots journalists. After our interview with Lee Camp, and the personal recollections of our contributor Evan Petersen, we have turned to comedian and podcast co-host John Knefel to gather his impression on what could be the news story to eclipse several campaign races all over the western world. From anger to activism, from niche to all-encompassing community, the movement, without any leader, without any spokesperson, is regrouping the most diverse category of the population: the vanishing middle class. John has spent several weeks at Camp Zuccotti and is not going anywhere anytime soon: strongly attached to the movement’s values, he is sharing with us his impressions, feelings, and hopes for the future months. 

I assume you first went to Camp Zuccotti to cover it for your podcast. Have you always had in mind to more or less stay there and cover it on a regular basis, be one of the protesters?

I actually went to Zuccotti initially out of curiosity and a feeling that I needed to participate in whatever was happening. I didn’t know what that meant at first. Once I spent a day or two there I understood that something massive was happening, and then Molly and I just started talking about it on Radio Dispatch. It wasn’t until after we had discussed it a few times on the show that I really started reporting from there in any more serious way.

 What was your first feeling when meeting the crowd for the first time and has it changed?

When I walked down Broadway the first time and saw Zuccotti, it looked smaller than I expected. The park, that is. That was a few days before the Radiohead rumor, and the encampment was still pretty sparse. There was an info desk, a kitchen, and a small media center. I didn’t know anyone there, but I bumped into a friend who was down there for the first time as well. That’s pretty much been the story. Every time I go down there I see a few familiar faces, and the more often I’m there the more people I recognize. The protesters I’ve met have all been warm and inviting, no small task considering the place is crawling with undercover cops. I’m starting to see myself less as an ally and observer and more as a participant, even as I try to keep the stuff I write on Twitter and say on Radio Dispatch accurate, not propogandistic.

John writing the number for legal aid on his arm before Bloomberg Dawn. Photo by Allison Kilkenny.

Were you ever scared? I remember the night preceding the Bloomberg Dawn, or Battle of Bloomberg as one of my friends called it – Allison posted a picture of you writing down the number for legal aid on your arm.

There are lots of very tense moments. They’re scary because they’re uncertain. When you’re looking at a line of mounted cops in front of you and a fleet of moped cops behind you, you’re imagination can start running a bit wild. Also, it doesn’t take much to escalate these situations. One of the horses on 46th street stumbled and I thought someone was going to get trampled.

Fear of getting arrested is kind of the same thing. You don’t know if the police are going to manhandle you during the arrest. You don’t know what you’ll be charged with, how long it will take. Luckily, nearly all of the arrestees don’t have anything on their record after they get out. Not even a misdemenor. My friends who have gotten arrested say it’s boring but not so bad. Good way to network. I haven’t been arrested yet, but it’s good to hear people talk about it as a hassle, nothing more nothing less. I think once large amounts of people are willing to get arrested — once they see it’s not such a big deal — we’ll be at a new tipping point in the movement.

Michael Moore said that OWS was the killer of apathy. Someone replied that most of all, it was a killer of despair. What do you think? Is there more exhilaration than anger?

There is a certain amount of anger, certainly, but that’s not the dominant emotion. I’d say, yeah, exhilaration. It’s cliche, but I think a lot of people feel empowered. That word gets overused, but I mean it in a very strict sense. Internally, the process is very good at making participants feel like their voice is being heard. And externally, the people in Liberty feel like the news and the elites are finally paying attention to them. It’s an intoxicating feeling. Also, holding the park on Friday morning was unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. Activists in America don’t win. When we did, there was this feeling of, “OK, this isn’t going anywhere.” Also, there is an incredible amount of solidarity and good will.

You told me there’d still be a lot to do by the time I head back. I’m coming back in January. What do you think the post-OWS America will be like?

It’s still far too early to know. This movement is only a month old, and it’s still growing. It’s experiencing some growing pains, and there will be missteps along the way, but no one really knows what’s going to happen. That’s part of the thril. People are not going home, literally. We’ve already forced income inequality back into the national conversation. It might take 10 years to be in a “post-OWS America”. It’s important to remember that the fight being waged here is against — and I say this without engaging in unnecessary hyperbole — the most powerful set of institutions in the history of the world. Structural reform will take years, decades even. The power the movement has is derived from the most basics fact imaginable: we all have bodies, and we’re now using them as tools to fight injustice. The occupation is about bodies calling attention to a system designed to render those bodies, and therefore voices, invisible. There’s an action tomorrow (Friday) up in Harlem calling for an end to the racist Stop & Frisk NYPD practice. There will be a lot of OWS-ers there, along with a lot of leaders from communities of color. Every day there is a new tomorrow, with new events, new actions, new possibilities. That’s not going to end any time soon.

What OWS really revealed to the general public was the extent of police brutality against protesters that have always claimed to be peaceful and non-resistent. Is there a way for NYPD to understand that they could just as well be part of the movement? Have you met NYPD officers that were keen to listen?

This is a very complicated issue that no one has really been able to resolve. On the one hand, NYPD relations around Liberty have been quite good. You see the same cops around, they see the same protesters, and no one wants to break the skull of someone they know. Lots of individual police are sympathetic to the movement, certainly. You see that at every march. There is also a concerted effort to appeal to the cops’ better side. You hear chants like, “give the cops a raise.” On the other hand, even the good cops are using moral means towards an unjust end. Their function is to preserve the status quo and order, even if the current system is unjust. In that way they must be seen as an obstacle towards reform. Not the most important obstacle, but one nonetheless. They take orders from the top brass, who takes orders from Bloomberg. Some OWS-ers talk about the police joining us. If that were to happen it would be a development on the scale of … I don’t know … a presidential assasination. It would be a once-in-a-generation event that would shake the very nature of American life. I don’t see that happening, but I do think that as the movement grows the police will be less willing to use force on protesters. That, at least, is a positive development.

 I asked Lee the same question; what do you think of CNN’s Erick Erickson and his “response” to OWS, “we are the 53%”? On top of their math being questionable, is there really an audience for that site? Does the extreme popular support given to OWS somehow undermine the GOP primaries? Especially considering Herman Cain’s unashamedly pro-millionnaire, anti-poor program.

OWS is so much larger than Erick Erickson that he doesn’t need to be addressed. When you’re the big story, don’t allow the little story to attach itself to you. We get to decide who we respond to, and he doesn’t deserve our time or effort. The same general sentiment goes to Cain, though if he continues to show he has staying power I imagine it will only help the movement grow.

I have attended an OccupyBelfast protest and a similar one in Dublin as well. I was saddened to find Paris could care less about the movement. A journalist explained it was due to “fear of police retaliation” (it didn’t stop OWS) and a “stable unemployment rate” (at 9.8%!) How far does one country have to go to sparkle that type of uprising?

One thing that OWS stresses is that we’re all autonomous, and we can come and go and act as we so choose. The sympathy movements that have popped up are amazing, and I think they’ll continue to grow. I think Liberty Square is the engine that created a lot of the initial momentum, but it’s so far beyond that now, both geographically and digitally. The main issue now is getting another victory or two (whatever that looks like) under our belts. That will help OWS expand. People are drawn to strength.

Will you be with the protesters on Guy Fawkes’ Day and how long do you think the movement can sustain itself, with winter coming?

Winter is still the biggest variable and obstacle in our path. The encampment will make it through the winter, but it will be incredibly unpleasant and the people who continue to show up deserve the respect and admiration of the rest of the world. There’s talk of finding somewhere inside to occupy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happens on a small scale, but Liberty Square will have occupiers from here on out.

I’ll be out there for Guy Fawkes’ Day, as well as many of the others. See you when you’re back!

John Knefel lives in Brooklyn, NY and is the co-host of Radio Dispatch, a political podcast he created with his sister Molly. A seasoned comedian having graced the stage alongside Jamie Kilstein and Lee Camp, John has also been featured on This American Life with Ira Glass, as well as writing for The Huffington Post, True/Slant, and ThoughtCatalog. You can also find him regularly at Le Poisson Rouge for his comedy show, John & Molly Get Along.

“This could be the high point of this generation’s political lifetime”

This said it was a fad; they said the Internet could never create such a massive popular movement. They thought we would go away, but more than a month after its humble beginnings under the indian summer sun, Occupy Wall Street just claimed its first victory over the very establishment it is fighting against. Around 4 in the morning last night, more than two thousand people joined in solidarity with the permanent residents of Liberty Plaza, dubbed “Camp Zuccotti”. Mayor Bloomberg had announced he would send his overzealous police force to “clean the park” at 6 am. He called it off at the last minute, once foreign press, nurses unions, and regular New Yorkers on their way to work formed a human chain around the park chanting “We are not afraid”. 

Entering Zuccotti park in early October is either a political statement or an act of sheer curiosity. I went, fairly familiar with the goings on, to satisfy the latter. I wanted to see what it was, what it was trying to accomplish, and more importantly, where it was going.

The park was guarded on all four sides by police, most of whom seemed to be nervous, as though they’d been warned of terrible things to come. The park was capped at either end with lines of protesters holding signs and, at the time, two separate drum circles. My initial impression was not good. What could these unorganized hippies actually be trying to do, aside from dance around with signs about “corporatocracy” and “greed”?

I walked several times around the perimeter of the park and slowly filtered into the crowd, silently trying to figure out what was actually going on. I realized that perhaps I wasn’t there to look. A photo album would not do this justice. This thing had power, and I felt compelled to sit down among the droves and breathe in my surroundings.

The protestors ranged from very young to pretty old, and every race, creed, and class seemed to be represented. I was struck by the diversity of the general crowd. However, the occupiers themselves — the people actually living in the park — were generally a more consistent demographic: young, poor, and perhaps most dangerously, obviously used to similar living conditions. Squatters, freight-train hoppers, crusty punks, and hippies all had their packs and bedrolls spread out on the floor of the park, with donated mattresses and other comforts scattered here and there. This is the source of the power: their constant presence gives them strength and inspires others to come, either to just watch or to join their ever-growing ranks. Most of the protestors can go home at night, comfortable in the notion that they can always come back because the occupiers are always going to be there. This means that the hordes of people dissatisfied with the current state of the union can come and go as they please, because there is a solid, constant, and unwavering backbone supporting them. This could lend amazing strength to these demonstrations, I thought.

The trouble, though, is this: The life changing, once in a generation power may be there. The pure message hasn’t been refined yet, though, and the protests might be halted. While the general unhappiness of the masses has been expressed, a cogent, unified goal hasn’t been clearly presented to the public. While real social and political change can come from people uniting in protest, the lack of a practical, tangible objective becomes a problem when the protests are ended. Demands must be made for demands to be met and it appears now that the occupation may be forced into a retirement more premature than Sarah Palin’s.

Even if the only problem were that winter is coming, it would still be a difficult thing to maintain. The protests may not even get a chance to weather the weather. As of today, October 13th, it looks like the park’s owners are determined to put a stop to things, and likely have the cooperation of the city. While this may not be the stake through the heart they must be hoping for, the power could certainly be diminished.

The fact that they’re so concerned with shutting it down means they’re actually concerned. This is why the occupation must become a Hydra. Come back. Keep practicing. Sharpen your rhetoric and clarify your goals. The support of honest, hardworking people will be there as long as the backbone is there. This could be the high point of this generation’s political lifetime, so long as it’s clear, reasonable, and persistent.

With the proper execution and a bit of luck, maybe, just maybe, we can bring down the bank.

 Evan Petersen is from Colorado Springs, CO and has been living in New York City for a year. A trained and skilled sound engineer, he has always been writing, now displaying his musings on his blog. Living the life between his bar in the East Village and his apartment in Brooklyn, Evan is most known for losing his phone at 3am on Locust Street, contemplating a master’s degree in English at CUNY, and his indefectible loyalty. 

Lee Camp: “The revolution will not be minimized”

In early 2010, the resident king of satire, Paul Provenza, released a book he intended as a tribute to his fellow comedians – and political activists – that he called “Satiristas“. It was a chance to read in-depth interviews with household figures such as Billy Connolly and Roseanne Barr, the brains behind the Upright Citizens Brigade and Bill Maher; but mostly, it shed a much necessary light on up and coming faces like Lee Camp’s, who introduced his own interview by recalling his one-off interview on FoxNews as follows:

“FoxNews invited me on to do a few jokes commenting the primaries.  I don’t even know how they found me, but my first thought was to say no, because I’ve watched that festering pile of propaganda wrapped in the American flag spew its poisonous eggs into the brains of average Americans for twelve years. Watching the flag flapping behind a Fox “news” program – that’s desecration.  But my second thought was, why not do it once and burn that bridge – just fucking set the thing on fire? That might be fun and interesting.”

Such was our introduction to Lee Camp; and since then, Lee has become, through his stand-up shows and his excellent podcast, Moment of Clarity, an inspiration, a voice speaking clearly among vast political white noise, a call to action, ceaselessly delivering an incredibly empowering message to a nation disenchanted with the very same values they thought they were supposed to embrace. Watch his harrowing, apathy-destroying speech on the Occupy Wall Street movement: “Occupy Wall Street is a thought revolution – and it won’t be minimized.”

You’ve made repeated calls for a revolution, or at least the end of social and political apathy on your podcast Moment of Clarity. Do you think OccupyTogether has the potential to become a lasting movement? 

Well, I haven’t called for a physical revolution because I feel like that’s not possible in our current police state. Anybody doing something violent will be locked away for a long time. Not to mention that I don’t believe violence is the answer anyway. So I’ve called for something akin to a thought revolution or at least a significant change in our societal paradigm. And yes, I feel OccupyTogether is that movement. I think it will be lasting and I think the very least it will do is force Obama, and the left, to start ACTING like they’re on the left. The White House has done jack shit to regulate Wall Street and stop the 2008 collapse from happening again – which will result in more economic terrorism. And I know economic terrorism sounds like an extreme term, but else do you call it when giant corporations turn to the people of a country and say “Give us close to a trillion dollars or we will destroy your way of life. Those are your options.” Anyway, yes, I feel people are getting sick of the rich controlling and legislating the other 99%. That’s why this will last. That’s why the OccupyTogether movement is not leaving.

How do you explain that even the non-Rupert Murdoch owned media took so long to focus on the movement? You’d think people would capitalize on the extraordinary fact that an organized mass of people identified the root of their problem and tackled it, almost literally. 

Maybe I’m more cynical than you but what else would you expect from the corporate media?? Look, this type of popular movement is VERY scary to them – “them” being both corporations and the rich. And let’s face it, almost everyone at top of the corporate media, including the anchors, is in at least the top 5% if not the 1%. So they ONLY want to defend their way of life. Furthermore, who are their sponsors? Giant corporations. So basically they go through a standard operating procedure during something like this.

A) IGNORE IT for as long as is humanly possible. See if it will go away by itself

B) RIDICULE it – talk about how it’s only a small group of disorganized and confused youth. Make it so that other people won’t want to join in because it sounds like it’s only freaks and drug addicts.

C) MISUNDERSTAND IT – Create some meaning for it that’s easier to understand and fits in your standard paradigm. “It’s the left answer to the Tea Party!” — Actually, no, it’s not. …And now we’re seeing-

D) Try to commandeer it for your own purposes. We see the corporate left saying it’s a movement against republicans. We see the right saying it’s people showing their anger towards Obama and his lack of job creation. But I think this movement is different. This one won’t be co-opted. This one won’t be hijacked by corporate talking points.

About yesterday’s burst of extreme police brutality against protesters: do you think the movement will always face confrontation with law enforcement, or is there a way to gain policemen and firefighters’ support for the cause? someone highlighted NYPD was “one lay off away from joining OWS”.

I think we should always TRY to work with the PD. The truth is – they ARE us in a lot of ways. However, I also think we need to be aware that they are being controlled by the rich. JP Morgan Chase just gave one of the largest donations ever to the NYPD. Bloomberg is in charge of them. It’s the rich who pull the strings. And unfortunately they are often so brainwashed during these types of things that they’ll simply enforce ridiculous laws. I know activists who may soon go to jail for 2 months for merely sitting peacefully in their state capital building. Not fighting back. Just sitting peacefully. How sick is that? The rich and pillage our futures and dreams and high five a cop on the way out. But a broke 20 year-old who has a peaceful sit-in to try to save her family’s jobs at the factory is sent to jail. It’s enough to make you vomit.

What do you make of CNN’s Erick Erickson response to the movement, “We are the 53%“? Will it gain momentum and become a real threat to OccupyTogether? 

I don’t know, but those who don’t know it’s bullsh** were probably Tea Partiers to begin with. The laughable part of it is that I bet you nearly 100% of those with jobs at occupyTogether pay their taxes. Who doesn’t pay their taxes? Corporations and the incredibly wealthy. GE paid zero taxes last year. BofA paid zero taxes. Billionaires have massive tax shelters and loopholes. I hope Mr. Erickson realizes that there will be very few of the top 1% in his little party because they are CERTAINLY not paying their taxes.

What does OccupyTogether need to become a lasting, changing, unavoidable force in politics, especially in the looming election year? 

It just needs numbers. It needs more and more people to wake up out of their iPhone-induced zombie-ism and stand up for themselves. I beg of you – get off the couch. The rest of us are already out here. And it may be cold by temperature but we’ve got more energy than you can believe.

Bloomberg was pretty straightforward when he said he feared the London riots would spread to the streets of New York. Obama, however, simply said he “understood” what OccupyTogether was about and clearly mentioned the discontent rose from the consequences of financial deregulation. Do you believe those are more than empty words? And from that – do you believe Obama should be primaried? 

From what I’ve read and heard Obama caved to the interests of Wall Street. They funded his campaign in large part and they have a lot of power. He would have to prove to me and the people that those are not empty words. And yes, I think he should have a primary challenger. Let him prove he deserves this job back. Let him prove he has the balls (or tits – I don’t wanna be misogynist) to go after a financial system that is drunk on greed and power. So far he has failed to show those tits. 

Read more about Lee Camp on LeeCamp.net // Follow him on Twitter // Add him on Facebook // Subscribe to Moment of Clarity on YouTube