Fear and Loathing

Occupy Wellington.

Woke up this morning to hear that the folks of Occupy Wall Street had been forcibly removed in the early hours of the morning by the NYPD.  I sighed.  And then of course, there were the ridiculous status messages on Facebook that insisted that this was exactly the right course.  A lawyer "friend" rejoiced that the court action considering the protestors rights to remain in the park meant that the lawyers win.  This particular guy is always on the side of lawyers making money.  At least he's consistent if not cynical.

More troubling is the subscription to a belief that the first amendment can be abridged by a frustrated government.  That, actually, is precisely the purpose of the First Amendment.  In a New York Times article, Mayor Bloomberg is described as becoming increasingly "fed up with their inability to police the park, with complaints about noise, disruptions to businesses and odors, and a leaderless movement that they just could not figure out how to deal with."  The Mayor ordered the middle of the night raid ostensibly because public health and safety demanded it.  That was his message to the media anyway.  There had been a few assaults among campers, true, and a large encampment, as all summer campers know, generates less than lovely smells.  But when the cops surrounded Zuccotti Park to vacate the occupiers, they also threw 5000 books into a dumpster.  And when the occupiers who were not arrested-- as approximately 200 were, including a City Councilman-- walked off to find other venues, the cops appeared to disrupt their continued efforts.  As in, your first amendment rights are no longer welcome here.  Anywhere.  The protestors set up in front of City Hall and were dispersed.  They went to a park along Canal Street: same thing.

Now, less than 24-hours after the raid, and a court hearing that validated the city's assertion that the first amendment does not also guarantee the right to form an encampment-- funny because it does guarantee the right to spend money on elections, so maybe the NLG lawyers could have argued the value of the tents as expression-- the protestors have reclaimed Zuccotti Park.  It's been power washed and barricades surround it.  Cops line the perimeter and have formed a bottleneck to permit (slow) re-entry.

Whatever you want to think about the Occupy movement, it's a tribute to them that they've successfully confounded the leaders of several major cities across the country.  Portland and Oakland camps have been raided; leaders of cities are trying to coordinate with each other to deal with the predictable joining of cities'  homeless populations-- and their drug and mental illness problems-- to the movement.  It is to their credit that cities are trying to determine how to balance the expression of the movement against the possible infiltration of a criminal element, but I have to wonder, just how much of a criminal element is present?  It's convenient to assert that bad things-- crimes!-- are occurring among a large gathering of people seeking to claim their pro-rata share of governance in this world.  And to object to the possibility of crimes preemptively, as UC Berkeley did last week when the cops violently "nudged" with batons an incipient group of Occupiers, well, then, it's clear that the vulnerability of the leaders is their befuddlement and not a more media-friendly concern for public safety.  I've got an idea!  What if the cops, who clearly want something to do and are getting a lot of OT hours to do it, were to target the crimes that have been committed by the bankers from their lofty offices in skyscrapers looming over these paltry encampments?  Yeah.  What if.

Occupy Wellington's second suburb.

What I hope people come to see in this cycle of protests is precisely the vulnerability of their leadership.  Because that's who we have the power to seat or unseat in elections, to call upon for assistance in our communities, and to demand accountability from throughout their tenure.  And I hope that people come to see that these leaders must be accountable to us, and not to the corporate interests who pay for their protection.  I hope people are inspired to become leaders themselves, for the good of the people and not the possible girth of their wallet.  And finally, I hope that people come to see that we are all given a voice that we can use to seek change.  When we finally start using it again, for our own benefit and not the benefit of banks and multinational companies, then we will indeed be more powerful than the corporate interests currently in control.  At least, I hope.  We can and should first say, "fuck this system."  Then we need to demand another.

I also hope that despite their frustration, our leaders will remember that we have rights to assemble and rights to speak.  The First Amendment-- shit, democracy-- is inconvenient, expensive, messy.   No one likes to hear things that question their imperatives but, hey, if they relax and listen, they might see that they have a player in the game as well.  And when they say that our rights are guaranteed for only as long as we break no laws but there are far too many laws at their disposal, then we need to sit down and resist.  Some laws are going to be broken; I hope that the offenses are nonviolent and the response as well.