Nov 2nd, 2011 by F. Grey Parker with Nicole Zimmerer
For the greater part of the day yesterday, the Chicago Occupation was held by a small team of its most dedicated troops. It has not been easy for them to maintain their strength during certain points each week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel's brutal repression of dissent has taken its toll. Nevertheless, the corner of Jackson and LaSalle continues not to be the comfortable causeway of traders, goons and empty suits that it once was. It remains in the hands of the Occupants.
There was a mid-afternoon teach-in discussing the costs and inherent corruptions of the prison industrial complex. It was smart and it was informative.
However, there were not sufficient numbers for an early march.
Later... the crowd exploded in size.
Crying out in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Oakland, thousands marched to Daley Plaza and made the world famous Picasso their backdrop for a show of power.
"They are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied America."
-- Bill Moyers, from his keynote address marking the 40th anniversary of Public Citizen
Having spent time on the ground with Occupy Chicago, including the massive march this weekend, it is increasingly shocking to see not only the distortions from detractors but, also, how much they are actually cheering on violence against the movement.
For example, popular right wing trouble maker Kurt Schlichter tweeted "club, club club!" late this past Saturday night as the police moved in to disperse the tent city constructed on Michigan avenue.
Some of his fellow travelers go further. They are actually attempting to provoke worse outrages against Americans assembling and speaking freely. Andy Breitbart, in particular, launched a sick smear of the Occupiers as stooges of al-Qaeda last week.
How is this not like shouting fire in a crowded theater?
All it might take is one mouth-breathing wingnut with a perverted sense of "patriotism" to follow this propaganda to its illogical conclusion.
If you think this is an exaggeration of Breitbart's intent, you are simply unaware of how much he has openly embraced notions of violence against the left. Speaking to a gathering of the Red Mass Group greater Boston Tea Party just one month ago, he said, "They can only win a rhetorical or propaganda war. We outnumber them and we have the guns." The group laughed a bit nervously and, just so there was no misunderstanding, Breitbart doubled down on it, "I'm not kidding."
He's right, on one level... If our battles are confined to the arena of ideas?
We can win. This terrifies him.
Therefore, he riles and provokes his followers by publishing dangerous falsehoods with the apparent hope of seeing some of us get killed.
"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation."
-- Adlai E. Stevenson
Not that long ago, many political observers on the left were expressing more frustration than support for the Occupy Movement. I was one of them. As any regular reader of this blog knows, my views have evolved substantially.
So, too, has the position of Sally Kohn. Today, she has written a passionate defense of the movement and its motives:
"Critics of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement complain that the protesters don’t have a policy agenda and, therefore, don’t stand for anything. They're wrong. The key isn’t what protesters are for but rather what they’re against -- the gaping inequality that has poisoned our economy, our politics and our nation.
In America today, 400 people have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. That’s not because 150 million Americans are pathetically lazy or even unlucky. In fact, Americans have been working harder than ever -- productivity has risen in the last several decades. Big business profits and CEO bonuses have also gone up. Worker salaries, however, have declined.
Most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters aren’t opposed to free market capitalism. In fact, what they want is an end to the crony capitalist system now in place, that makes it easier for the rich and powerful to get even more rich and powerful while making it increasingly hard for the rest of us to get by. The protesters are not anti-American radicals. They are the defenders of the American Dream, the decision from the birth of our nation that success should be determined by hard work not royal bloodlines."
The city of New York is threatening to close down the Occupy Wall Street movement. Starting at 7am tomorrow, Mayor Bloomberg plans to evict the protest from Zucotti Park at the behest of the space's corporate owners. Pick up the phone and call the numbers below the post to push back.
"Occupy Wall Street's nearly four week camp out in Zuccotti Park might come to an end Friday morning. Mayor Bloomberg visited OWS Wednesday evening in lower Manhattan to notify protestors that New York City has given them until 7 a.m. Friday to clear out of the park for a routine cleaning.
The cleaning would take place for four hours and then demonstrators would be allowed to return to the area "for lawful use consistent with [city] regulations."
"People will have to remove all their belongings and leave the park... After it's cleaned, they'll be able to come back. But they won't be able to bring back the gear, the sleeping bags, that sort of thing will not be able to be brought back into the park," NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly told the Post.
The evacuation and clean-up comes after NYPD's Kelly received a letter and numerous complaints from Brookfield Office Properties, the management company that now owns and controls the public Zuccotti Park. Mayor Bloomberg's long-time girlfriend, Diana Taylor is, coincidentially, on the Brookfield Office Properites' board of directors."
PUSH BACK New York mayor Michael Bloomberg: +1-212-NEW-YORK (639-9675)
Brookfield CEO Richard Clark: +1-212-417-7063
Brookfield US headquarters: +1-212-417-7000
Brookfield Canada headquarters: +1-416-369-2300
Brookfield Australia headquarters: +61-2-9322-2000
I finally had to put my weight behind it. There was no other choice, in my estimation.
Matt Stoller helped me explain this when he wrote brilliantly a little over a week ago:
"What these people are doing is building, for lack of a better word, a church of dissent. It’s not a march, though marches are spinning off of the campground. It’s not even a protest, really. It is a group of people, gathered together, to create a public space seeking meaning in their culture. They are asserting, together, to each other and to themselves, 'we matter'."
Today, I had the chance to see this first hand...
This is America.
People aren't waiting to talk... they are listening. There is a big difference.
Pushing back against the smarm of Fo's Neil Cavuto, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) tells it like it is. "This is freedom. This is America. This is something we ought to celebrate."
"Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz showed up at “Occupy Wall Street” this week to show his support for the protest and clearly outline what he sees as the worst crimes of the American financial sector."
Having expressed my own reservations about the anti-hierarchical, intentionally leaderless nature of the Occupy Movement from the outset, I have, nevertheless, heartily endorsed it.
W.W. over at The Economistmakes a fine argument for jumping off the fence and getting behind the protests, warts and all:
"I am not by disposition a joiner, but I'm nevertheless inclined to smile upon attempts to stick it to the man, even if the attempt is quixotic or confused and the man in the end remains unstuck. The Burkean horror of social upheaval is fine in its place, but there is no apparent danger of upheaval. And who among us doubts that the man deserves a good sticking to? So why not try?"
Some observations. For a large portion of this afternoon, comments under the #OccupyWallStreet thread on twitter were mostly coming from naysayers, challengers and some very rude trolls. The thing is, they all kept harping on how the Occupy movement needed to "go get a job." So... why were they the ones tweeting?
Hmm. Anyhoo, I kept seeing this charming fellow. He harped. He bitched. He moaned. And then? He tweeted this.
I couldn't resist. I had to ask.
Cue the internet's version knuckle-scraping spittle-dribble
Gosh. I had so many problems with that on grounds of reason and basic interpersonal skills that I couldn't stop laughing. I mean laughing. Like when you are a stoned teenager type-laughing. Before I could respond, he brought a "friend." Aww. Dig the avatar.
Again. Some questions cannot remain unasked.
Cue crickets... Alas, they have given me no more to work with.
In response to a particularly smug and, at times, downright disturbing opinion piece from the Daily News, Sam Seder had a few things to say:
I will be honest. I have received some blow back regarding my calls last week for more focused demands from the Occupy Wall Street movement. I was even derided by one reader for being a member of the "professional left," which is nuts. The thing is, I stand firmly behind the action. I am not arguing against it. This civil disobedience probably should have been engaged in 30 years ago when the seeds for the current state of American misery were being planted. Now, the uprising has become inevitable.
There is no safety on the sidelines. There are no sidelines. We are all in this together. We must openly join them and publicly support them.
