Winston, I'm interested in what you have to say and would love to hear you expand on some of your points. Because I've had some really intense and enlightening conversations with wildly different types of people at my local Occupy encampment, I found it really helps me empathize with them more when I know where they're coming from, how they came to think the way they do and how they know what they "know." This helps me when I attempt to fearlessly look at how I know what *I* think I ‘know”.
I am interested in your understanding of the first amendment, particularly at this moment in the American cultural context with a Supreme Court that says corporations have the same right to free speech that people are guaranteed in the Constitution. That no matter how they impede on the American political process, no matter how much their funding goes to spreading disproved lies like those in Karl Rove's superpac commercials, it is protected free speech and corporations have a right to spend however much money they want in their effort to have a profound impact on mainstream US politics.
You bring up the famous example of a person not being allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Can you give me an example of a moment or moments that was or were the equivalent of doing that with Occupy Wall Street?
I am interested in your definition of peaceful, which to my way of thinking means in the foremost non-violent. I see that you are using a definition that includes making noise. I am wondering what you have seen or heard with your own ears or eyes that hasn't been peaceful? Have you heard about the drumming, or have you heard the drumming? Also, there are allegations that the NYPD brought noise cannons to clear out the park at 2 in the morning, where noise is supposedly one of the problems. I say allegations because it's what I heard from sources I trust, but I don't know it for a fact. What sources do you trust that you are using for the information you bring up in your post? At my local occupy encampment, you have to BE in the park to hear the drums after sunset. Music serves the same function at Occupy that it does in theater, in church, everywhere humans want to create a sense of community. It’s art as connective tissue. I do know when the issue at Zucotti was first brought up, it was said that the drummers would do the same thing that my local encampment has done. I don’t know if it’s come to pass and so am curious about how you know that it hasn’t? I do believe that the Occupy Movement has a commitment to non-violence and it is the violent actions of the police, caught on video for the world to see, that spurred the rapid growth of the movement, which is not even three months old.
Are you specifically referring to things in New York, or are you thinking of the various Occupies around the country and world? I know that when some people behaved violently the day of the Oakland general strike, the violence and destruction were not only denounced by Occupy Oakland, but efforts were made to pay for and/or fix and replace the damaged property. That’s pretty much all I can ask of a movement that is trying, in all its amorphous glory, to maintain its commitment to non-violence.
Of course, we live in a world where a policeperson in (iirc) Portland, Oregon told an interviewer that protesters linking arms and sitting on the ground was “an act of violence.” Again, I’d just like a working definition of that term.
I haven't personally seen Occupy Wall Street presenting itself as an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, but rather as a gathering of people, citizens, who want to be heard in the midst of huge economic and social crises fueled by unethical financial malfeasance. In the biggest city in the country. Which comes with all the attendant good and bad that always comes from a lot of people in tight quarters all over Manhattan. Occupy is more of a microcosm than it is a club, you refer to Occupy "members" but there really isn't any such official designation. It’s a tightly packed group of people with all the issues and conflicts that humans everywhere experience.
I find myself mostly fixated on your line, “There needs to be accountability of wrongdoing on the part of the members of Occupy Wall Street.” Given that they have such an open process, that nothing is done “in secret,” I am wondering what specifically has been the wrongdoing you’re aware of?
Like you, I have concerns about reports of sexual assaults anywhere, against anybody. This week I happened to meet one of the women from New York who was a victim (though she would probably hate that word) at Occupy Wall Street. I can't imagine what it is like to survive such a thing, nor can I imagine what would be left of New York if every building, every business, every street and every park where a woman has been sexually assaulted were summarily shut down. The Occupy Movement is not celebrating a world where people are truly free, where everybody has access to the health and mental health care they need, where anybody dealing with the effects of the many societal ills associated with our current cultural crises gets their needs met, and where everybody is free from say, the sexism and misogyny and general effed upness of this patriarchal culture. Which is to say, if the world were only allowed to function if everybody who deserves safety were truly safe, no one could ever to do anything; jogging, walking, bike riding, taking political action, you name it.
At my local Occupy, volunteers from the local rape crisis center hotline have been conducting trainings on sexual assault for everybody. I see this as a response to something nobody would have wanted to happen, but which is a necessity in the real world. I see this as a good thing. I see that as a group striving to do its best.
I also don’t think people who assault others are anything but shunned by the Occupy community, as they are in the rest of the thinking world. Violence against anybody is repeatedly denounced.
As for the cleanliness and public health issues you mention, I’m wondering what your source is on that? In his press conference about the eviction of the protesters, Bloomberg said that there were allegations of defecation in alleyways. He also said he could cite no evidence of it and that his administration found no evidence of this when they went looking for it. I’m not exactly sure what to make of this kind of thinking, why did he bring it up in the first place, other than to put the notion out there, no matter how fallacious, so that people will think it must be true. And what is the repeated truism about smelliness? Roxy floated the notion that people just shat in the park, untrue, but we know what his source is. My local Occupy camp smells perfectly fine, but it doesn’t stop people who have never been there from jumping on the “it’s stinky!” bandwagon. I just can’t help thinking about poverty and homelessness, and how if homeless shelters had to pass a pleasant smell test they would all be shut down and then there would be an even bigger problem on the streets.
Finally, (because I can’t believe how much I’ve written already), what do you make of Bloomberg and Ray Kelly banning members of the working press from observing their official actions? And arresting many of them? And bloodying a city council member? I mean, if we’re calling for an accounting of wrongdoing, can we include these things as well? And as for cleaning up the park, occupiers did powerwash it before the last thread of eviction for (in my opinion) non-existent cleanliness issues AND Russell Simmons agreed to pay for all cleaning and repairs in the park.
I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I ask these questions in the spirit of real dialogue.
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