Watching the twitter feed. It's good guys versus bad guys. You know, it's like sports except it fucking matters.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Arrests eminent in Boston
Friday, October 7, 2011
Goals and Outcomes
Tonight we had a planning meeting for Occupy Worcester. There were about 20 people there. We introduced ourselves and set a date for the first GA to be held Sunday at 1:30pm on the commons. We talked about process and goals. As is common for this movement throughout the world, we have a common vague goal. My explanation of it is a call for a change to the systemic ways that profits are being put before people and the planet, but I may be missing others goals in this explanation. There are myriad ways this comes about and many specific reasons why people are calling for this change. People have different ideas about how we can change this. That is what makes this movement so widespread and dynamic.
We went around the room last night explaining why we were there. I said something along the lines of needing a drastic change and and because the capitalist system didn't work. On the ride home Doug asked me what I meant by that, if I was saying I wanted a revolution. My answer was quick and unwavering: YES.
I think the root cause of this problem is the global economic system of capitalism and the ideology behind it. It pits us against each other and rewards greed. It tells us that the best thing there is, is to be rich, and the only way you can be rich is by having others under you. This capitalist, individualist ideology is what has created the situation we are in now. There is no reform that will change that.
I don't know what will come out of this movement but I know it's getting people to think. I know it's showing people they are not alone in feeling an abuse of power from above. I know it's breaking down barriers between all sorts of people. Some kind of real change will have to happen, we're too far in to turn back now.
I also thought last night about what are the differences between the movement and my own views and goals. My views on this reach wider than our country. Yes, things in our country for the not uber-rich are getting worse, but think about other countries. Think about communities that have no clean drinking water. Think about communities that have had their land or their way of life destroyed or taken away from them. Think about countries that have been at war for probably longer than I've been alive. Think about wealth inequality that far outstretches 1% having 50%. Think about the destructive practices that we use in order to feed our addictions. This, to me, is more than student debt, labor rights, greedy ass banks and backwards governments. For me, it's a hope that there can be a global respect for people and our planet.
We went around the room last night explaining why we were there. I said something along the lines of needing a drastic change and and because the capitalist system didn't work. On the ride home Doug asked me what I meant by that, if I was saying I wanted a revolution. My answer was quick and unwavering: YES.
I think the root cause of this problem is the global economic system of capitalism and the ideology behind it. It pits us against each other and rewards greed. It tells us that the best thing there is, is to be rich, and the only way you can be rich is by having others under you. This capitalist, individualist ideology is what has created the situation we are in now. There is no reform that will change that.
I don't know what will come out of this movement but I know it's getting people to think. I know it's showing people they are not alone in feeling an abuse of power from above. I know it's breaking down barriers between all sorts of people. Some kind of real change will have to happen, we're too far in to turn back now.
I also thought last night about what are the differences between the movement and my own views and goals. My views on this reach wider than our country. Yes, things in our country for the not uber-rich are getting worse, but think about other countries. Think about communities that have no clean drinking water. Think about communities that have had their land or their way of life destroyed or taken away from them. Think about countries that have been at war for probably longer than I've been alive. Think about wealth inequality that far outstretches 1% having 50%. Think about the destructive practices that we use in order to feed our addictions. This, to me, is more than student debt, labor rights, greedy ass banks and backwards governments. For me, it's a hope that there can be a global respect for people and our planet.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Reform or revolution
Just a quick thought from the train. I'm worried that a lot of supporters of this movement are aiming for reform. I think that'd just be a bandage. The reason things are like this is because we live in a system that values greed and individualism. We live in a capitalist system. This whole system is based upon the tennant that some people are uber rich and able to make money by owning the means of production. They do so by taking advantage of the workers need for money, for livelihood. I digress.
I think we need something different where work is valued, people are valued, our earth is valued and the money doesn't rule the world. If we cooperated, there would be enough to go around and we could squelch greed. But peopleare afraid what they'd have to give up. To me, I don't care. It's worth it.
Off to occupy boston tonight. There was a huge march today with the students and nurses union. They blocked off the Boa building for a while and students had a sit in on the street. Luckily without incident. Also huge march in NYC today. 20,000 marchers I heard. Going for the GA today and to get some help with occupy worcester.
I think we need something different where work is valued, people are valued, our earth is valued and the money doesn't rule the world. If we cooperated, there would be enough to go around and we could squelch greed. But peopleare afraid what they'd have to give up. To me, I don't care. It's worth it.
Off to occupy boston tonight. There was a huge march today with the students and nurses union. They blocked off the Boa building for a while and students had a sit in on the street. Luckily without incident. Also huge march in NYC today. 20,000 marchers I heard. Going for the GA today and to get some help with occupy worcester.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
New Additions
There are some new additions to speak of today.
One great big, varied addition is support from different unions, labor groups and workers in general. I've been hearing support from nurses unions, steel workers unions, pilots unions, transit workers unions, school employees, marines, etc. I heard a number somewhere around 135 from the Boston but I don't know if that means in Boston or all over. There's a sizeable list here. It's pretty impressive when the Transit Union Workers Union makes a stand and tells NYPD they will not to drive busses that are taking protesters to jail. This is so important!
Tomorrow there is also a nation wide student walk out. They are walking out of classes and joining a march all in schools over the place. Go students!
Another new addition is Occupy Worcester! There's a group working on this and we're figuring out a time to have a first meeting!
Occupy Wall Street has opened an art exhibit. How awesome!
A set back, but also a positive thing, is that Occupy Boston at Dewey Square is at capacity. So this is fantastic in that there are so many people there. It's a bummer in that my plan was to be there all weekend and I don't particularly want to spend the money to come back and forth on the T. I guess we'll give it a go.
Other good news is that Occupy Wall Street has created a document called Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. It's basically an official statement that was accepted at the General Assembly stating their mission and (still) vague goals. But it also addresses the reason for the vagueness and where they're going from there. you can read it here.
Something discouraging I've been seeing are online comments. Mostly people who agree with the basic gist of the movement that have gripes about tactics or specifics. Just on quick glance people are saying we shouldn't be looking for support of the unions, that we should be occupying a government building area, you should be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. Democracy is messy and people are hard to please. In a way I feel that is because we are a product of our environments. It's just a a little overwhelming and chaotic.
Something to leave you with...
By Lupe Fiasco, the American rapper
Hey Moneyman the crowd is outside. The past, the future and the now is outside. The teachers and cooks and the drop-outs too. Word on the street is they looking for you…
Hey Moneyman they saying what’s the score? And how much blood have you spilled on the butcher shop floor? Those numbers keep running but what they running into? The crowd is outside and they asking of you…
Hey Moneyman Moneyman the mayor’s on the phone. He says he wants to know if all those people went home. Those momma’s and poppa’s and students and cooks. Those teachers and preachers, one second I’ll look…
Hey Moneyman Moneyman the tents are still up, the songs are still singing and the coffee’s in cups. The nights due to fall and the sun’s going down but its still a whole mess of good folks hanging ’round…
They eyes are wide and their voices are loud. Its white and black and colorless proud. The signs are big and the smiles are bright. By heaven I reckon its gone be one hell of a night!
Hey Moneyman poor Moneyman you should slip out the back. Cuz’ the forces of greed are under attack. No bombs or bullets or rocks or guns. Just hashtags and voices at the tops of their lungs!
And Moneyman Moneyman I wont need a ride. But if you need me…
You can find me outside.
By Wasalu “Lupe Fiasco” Jaco
#OccupyWallStreet
One great big, varied addition is support from different unions, labor groups and workers in general. I've been hearing support from nurses unions, steel workers unions, pilots unions, transit workers unions, school employees, marines, etc. I heard a number somewhere around 135 from the Boston but I don't know if that means in Boston or all over. There's a sizeable list here. It's pretty impressive when the Transit Union Workers Union makes a stand and tells NYPD they will not to drive busses that are taking protesters to jail. This is so important!
Tomorrow there is also a nation wide student walk out. They are walking out of classes and joining a march all in schools over the place. Go students!
Another new addition is Occupy Worcester! There's a group working on this and we're figuring out a time to have a first meeting!
Occupy Wall Street has opened an art exhibit. How awesome!
A set back, but also a positive thing, is that Occupy Boston at Dewey Square is at capacity. So this is fantastic in that there are so many people there. It's a bummer in that my plan was to be there all weekend and I don't particularly want to spend the money to come back and forth on the T. I guess we'll give it a go.
Other good news is that Occupy Wall Street has created a document called Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. It's basically an official statement that was accepted at the General Assembly stating their mission and (still) vague goals. But it also addresses the reason for the vagueness and where they're going from there. you can read it here.
Something discouraging I've been seeing are online comments. Mostly people who agree with the basic gist of the movement that have gripes about tactics or specifics. Just on quick glance people are saying we shouldn't be looking for support of the unions, that we should be occupying a government building area, you should be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. Democracy is messy and people are hard to please. In a way I feel that is because we are a product of our environments. It's just a a little overwhelming and chaotic.
Something to leave you with...
By Lupe Fiasco, the American rapper
Hey Moneyman the crowd is outside. The past, the future and the now is outside. The teachers and cooks and the drop-outs too. Word on the street is they looking for you…
Hey Moneyman they saying what’s the score? And how much blood have you spilled on the butcher shop floor? Those numbers keep running but what they running into? The crowd is outside and they asking of you…
Hey Moneyman Moneyman the mayor’s on the phone. He says he wants to know if all those people went home. Those momma’s and poppa’s and students and cooks. Those teachers and preachers, one second I’ll look…
Hey Moneyman Moneyman the tents are still up, the songs are still singing and the coffee’s in cups. The nights due to fall and the sun’s going down but its still a whole mess of good folks hanging ’round…
They eyes are wide and their voices are loud. Its white and black and colorless proud. The signs are big and the smiles are bright. By heaven I reckon its gone be one hell of a night!
Hey Moneyman poor Moneyman you should slip out the back. Cuz’ the forces of greed are under attack. No bombs or bullets or rocks or guns. Just hashtags and voices at the tops of their lungs!
And Moneyman Moneyman I wont need a ride. But if you need me…
You can find me outside.
By Wasalu “Lupe Fiasco” Jaco
#OccupyWallStreet
Monday, October 3, 2011
Following
I've been watching this movement like a hawk. I'm glued to my twitter where people are constantly updating. There are live streams of GAs on the internet and Saturday there was a showdown in NYC. Some 500-700 people were arrested in a march on the Brooklyn Bridge. So glad the BPD is awesome and I feel for those who were arrested, but the silver lining is that this is getting us into the news - finally!
We went down yesterday with some supplies just to drop off. Pallets, a tent and a cooler. I just wanted to stay. I want to be a part of this. There were so many tents and people there. Even a friend from Worcester. I wanted to go today, but I have work and I have to come home to take the dog out. By the time I get that all done, I wouldn't be able to catch a train til 7 and I wouldn't be getting there til 8:30. If I were to catch the later train home, I wouldn't get home til probably almost 1am. And I would have missed the GA anyway. I just can't do it all but I want to be there.
I was talking to one of my residents about the protests today. He was a big business man and he has a key to the city so he's a pretty big deal. I thought he might be like, what the hell are you doing? And after he called me a hippy, he asked what we were trying to accomplish. When I told him to put people before profits he said he agreed with that. That made me pretty happy.
I'm out of work Thursday at 5 and I think we're going to head down there then, or maybe on Friday morning. I'm afraid there won't be a place to set up a tent because it looked pretty damn full yesterday. In any case, I'm interested in being there all weekend, to talk to people, to march, to be part of the GA, to continue this and help it grow. I plan on tweeting up a storm, but I dont know if I'll be able to charge my phone at all.
The news is starting to get out. The NY protests and mention of Boston were on the front page of the T&G today and I guess on the Globe as well. I've been following a reporter from the metro who's been at the protests as well and there was a spot on GBH tonight. A lot of criticism too but that's to be expected with anything. Can't let that get us down, but reading critiques is good too.
This is a pretty good article in the globe today here
We went down yesterday with some supplies just to drop off. Pallets, a tent and a cooler. I just wanted to stay. I want to be a part of this. There were so many tents and people there. Even a friend from Worcester. I wanted to go today, but I have work and I have to come home to take the dog out. By the time I get that all done, I wouldn't be able to catch a train til 7 and I wouldn't be getting there til 8:30. If I were to catch the later train home, I wouldn't get home til probably almost 1am. And I would have missed the GA anyway. I just can't do it all but I want to be there.
I was talking to one of my residents about the protests today. He was a big business man and he has a key to the city so he's a pretty big deal. I thought he might be like, what the hell are you doing? And after he called me a hippy, he asked what we were trying to accomplish. When I told him to put people before profits he said he agreed with that. That made me pretty happy.
I'm out of work Thursday at 5 and I think we're going to head down there then, or maybe on Friday morning. I'm afraid there won't be a place to set up a tent because it looked pretty damn full yesterday. In any case, I'm interested in being there all weekend, to talk to people, to march, to be part of the GA, to continue this and help it grow. I plan on tweeting up a storm, but I dont know if I'll be able to charge my phone at all.
The news is starting to get out. The NY protests and mention of Boston were on the front page of the T&G today and I guess on the Globe as well. I've been following a reporter from the metro who's been at the protests as well and there was a spot on GBH tonight. A lot of criticism too but that's to be expected with anything. Can't let that get us down, but reading critiques is good too.
This is a pretty good article in the globe today here
Why am I protesting?
Why am I protesting? Why am I here?
I am not here because I got laid off, because my house got foreclosed on or because my 401k tanked. I'm not here because I'm heavy with student debt with no job prospects on the horizon or because of anything that happened to me. I'm here because these things ARE happening to other people, because I see whole populations of people being exploited, because people and our earth are being polluted and disease ridden. I am here because I have faith that there is a better way to live; with healthy people, a healthy planet, equality, respect and solidarity.
I am not here because I got laid off, because my house got foreclosed on or because my 401k tanked. I'm not here because I'm heavy with student debt with no job prospects on the horizon or because of anything that happened to me. I'm here because these things ARE happening to other people, because I see whole populations of people being exploited, because people and our earth are being polluted and disease ridden. I am here because I have faith that there is a better way to live; with healthy people, a healthy planet, equality, respect and solidarity.
The First Night
10/1/11
This was an energy I had never felt before. From the crowd around me I sensed excitement, love, respect, hate, frustration, anger, amusement, desperation, hope, fear, rebellion, accordance, awe and intelligence. There was a buzz around that this is it. No matter why you came here, this is it. A sign on a tattered piece of cardboard said it best: "The beginning is near."
Last night was the first night of Occupy Boston, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street which has been going strong and gaining speed for 2 weeks now. Both these ongoing protests are part of a larger global movement dubbed Occupy Together or Occupy The World. occupytogether.com There are over 80 cities occupied at this time. These protests have brought thousands out of their homes and into the street for a pretty vague demand: stop business as usual where profits come before people and the planet. There are lots of ways in which this manifests itself in our daily lives, which is why this is appealing to so many people. I was more than excited to be there last night. We got to the encampment at Dewey Square about an hour after the occupation officially started. There were a few police officers posted at the edge of the park as we walked in. People were broken into groups talking, later to be found as different committee meetings before the General Assembly, the GA, at 7:45pm. There were people walking around the park with large flags and homemade posters and a small group of people playing music. There was a table set up for collecting food donations and distributing a prepared dinner. They were very appreciative of the bag of muffins I brought, despite the fact they became mostly smooshed on the journey there. A man with a rather loud voice announced to all "food people" the importance of hand sanitizer. We ventured further into this small piece of green amongst the tall financial high rises surrounding it. Standing there looking somewhat stupefied, a rather unidentifiable man in a grey t-shirt came up to us and asked us if we just got there and if we had any questions. After explaining to us about the GA and answering some questions, I inquired about him, why he was going around helping others and whether he was part of the organizing group of another group. His answer came as a surprise to me, he was just another protester. He wasn't staying the night as he had to get back to his kids, but he took it upon himself to seek out those lost, confused newbies and welcome and inform them. I thought that was fantastic of him.
We ventured yet further into the park, past a cordoned off veggie garden with a few sunflowers and stumbled upon a rather large gathering of people. This turned out to be a meeting of the Direct Action Committee. They were proposing and discussing times for marches to happen the following day. Options were presented with a chance for points of interest and then the group voted by majority vote. The only really odd thing was that if people agreed or were voting on something, they would put their hands up in the air and wiggle their fingers. It was then asked by the young man leading the discussion about any other times to have marches. Without even thinking, I piped up, "Tonight!" Hands and wiggled fingers went up all around the group. Fantastic! This and other things were discussed and before I knew it we were breaking to start the GA.
The GA (General Assembly) Started at 7:45pm in the back part of the park that is right up against the side of a large building. We sat facing the wall, all but the people who were speaking. It was estimated that there were about a thousand people there. It was opened up by a few speakers that were part of the original organizing group, covered use of hand signals to control crowd noise, led to updates and announcements from each committee and closed with a "stack" of speakers from the crowd. The committees that break off from the GA are legal, media, medic, food, outreach, direct action, tactic and arts and culture. Each committee covered what they do, how they relate to you and some updates on what they've been working on. The most impressive was the legal, which has secured a probono lawyer and told us to write the name of the National Lawyers Guild on our arms in the event of an arrest. Speakers used a megaphone but in the fashion of the OWS GAs, used a form of amplification called People's Mike. This is when the speaker talks and those who can hear repeat after so that those further away can hear. This is quite effective when PA systems are not available or permitted. However, it really slows down the process of speaking, which can in itself be a long process in a democratic consensus style. The crowd around me seemed excited, interested and full of questions and information. Overall I found the GA to be a great meeting.
Committees met again after the GA but I was more interested in marching! I'd never participated in a march and I didn't know what to expect. With plans to go to OWS in NYC next weekend, I felt compelled to get a little experience under my belt. I joined up with the Direct Action Committee and we announced to the camp that we'd be leaving for a march shortly, after a quick workshop on health and safety at a protest. The workshop was given by a small bug eyed girl, who could pass for one of my roller derby friends. She covered using the buddy system, arrests, pepper spray, what to do in an emergency etc. It was quite informative and helpful.
The march
I was ready to go! We headed off down the street. Many people in front of us, many in back. Quite impossible to tell how many of us there were, but I guess it was estimated somewhere between 400-500. We had signs and drums and we chanted slogans as we went. Passer bys took pictures, looking intrigued or confused. The energy was over the top. Spreading our message like a locomotive of justice. We spilled into streetways, people from time to time jumping up on things to take pictures. All the while the tall office buildings hovered like giants looking over us. We were like a flood, oozing around the streets and corners. At one point the blue lights came. We didn't know what to expect. I expected that they were there to stop us, but in fact they were there to protect us. To stop traffic for us and let us pass. The police, unlike in NYC, were directed to let us do our thing as long as we weren't causing any trouble. We marched in total for almost 2 hours and ending back at camp, so I thought. As we approached camp, some people kept going. "We're going to rally at the fed," I heard someone say. On the sidewalk in front of the fed we stopped. One lone security guard has his eyes pressed to the window to see what we were doing. He looked so small inside that massive building behind those massive panes of glass. And all at once the group rushed towards the building. Doug and I stayed back as we felt that it was probably private property and that the security guard and the police would not take so kindly to that. We decided to go back over to camp and had to leave shortly to make the train home.
On our way out we stopped to see what was needed and what we might be able to bring back with us. We also stopped at the spiritual and meditation tent, where men and women in white robes were talking. Some of them were on the march toting signs with a religous tone. I wondered where they were from and why they were here, and of course why they were wearing those silly robes. Turns out they were all from different churches and they came partially on accord for the church and partially for themselves. We talked with them for a while and then we started home.
The train ride home was quite fantastic. It was mentioned in the GA about how we are all part of outreach. Talking to people about the movement is the best way to get it going. So this is what we did. First I talked to 2 people who happened to work in finances and hedge funds. They were not so receptive. Second I talked to a group of people chatting, one of them with a 99% sign. Basically I just wanted to talk with them about the night but it turns out that 2 of them were not from the protest and really had no clue what it was. We ended up talking with them for a long time, telling them about the protests, why they were happening, how the media was ignoring it and of course that lead to conversation about the issues at hand. Then other people around us started joining the conversation. Either they knew about it or they didn't, but they all came away wanting to know more, including ourselves. It was so great! I left the train feeling so incredibly happy.
Like visions of sugar plum fairies, thoughts of protest and revolution danced through my head all night. I awoke, still very sleepy from being up so late, and couldn't wait to check twitter to see what else had been posted. Shortly after I got up, Doug texted, "I woke up thinking about the protest."
After the march we made the decision to not go to NYC and join Occupy Wall Street, as we had planned, but to stay and be part of Occupy Boston. It is closer but it also really needs or support just as much, if not more, than OWS. I'm also pretty happy that the BPD is being a hell of a lot nicer than the NYPD.
Either way, I am so excited to be part of this movement.
This was an energy I had never felt before. From the crowd around me I sensed excitement, love, respect, hate, frustration, anger, amusement, desperation, hope, fear, rebellion, accordance, awe and intelligence. There was a buzz around that this is it. No matter why you came here, this is it. A sign on a tattered piece of cardboard said it best: "The beginning is near."
Last night was the first night of Occupy Boston, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street which has been going strong and gaining speed for 2 weeks now. Both these ongoing protests are part of a larger global movement dubbed Occupy Together or Occupy The World. occupytogether.com There are over 80 cities occupied at this time. These protests have brought thousands out of their homes and into the street for a pretty vague demand: stop business as usual where profits come before people and the planet. There are lots of ways in which this manifests itself in our daily lives, which is why this is appealing to so many people. I was more than excited to be there last night. We got to the encampment at Dewey Square about an hour after the occupation officially started. There were a few police officers posted at the edge of the park as we walked in. People were broken into groups talking, later to be found as different committee meetings before the General Assembly, the GA, at 7:45pm. There were people walking around the park with large flags and homemade posters and a small group of people playing music. There was a table set up for collecting food donations and distributing a prepared dinner. They were very appreciative of the bag of muffins I brought, despite the fact they became mostly smooshed on the journey there. A man with a rather loud voice announced to all "food people" the importance of hand sanitizer. We ventured further into this small piece of green amongst the tall financial high rises surrounding it. Standing there looking somewhat stupefied, a rather unidentifiable man in a grey t-shirt came up to us and asked us if we just got there and if we had any questions. After explaining to us about the GA and answering some questions, I inquired about him, why he was going around helping others and whether he was part of the organizing group of another group. His answer came as a surprise to me, he was just another protester. He wasn't staying the night as he had to get back to his kids, but he took it upon himself to seek out those lost, confused newbies and welcome and inform them. I thought that was fantastic of him.
We ventured yet further into the park, past a cordoned off veggie garden with a few sunflowers and stumbled upon a rather large gathering of people. This turned out to be a meeting of the Direct Action Committee. They were proposing and discussing times for marches to happen the following day. Options were presented with a chance for points of interest and then the group voted by majority vote. The only really odd thing was that if people agreed or were voting on something, they would put their hands up in the air and wiggle their fingers. It was then asked by the young man leading the discussion about any other times to have marches. Without even thinking, I piped up, "Tonight!" Hands and wiggled fingers went up all around the group. Fantastic! This and other things were discussed and before I knew it we were breaking to start the GA.
The GA (General Assembly) Started at 7:45pm in the back part of the park that is right up against the side of a large building. We sat facing the wall, all but the people who were speaking. It was estimated that there were about a thousand people there. It was opened up by a few speakers that were part of the original organizing group, covered use of hand signals to control crowd noise, led to updates and announcements from each committee and closed with a "stack" of speakers from the crowd. The committees that break off from the GA are legal, media, medic, food, outreach, direct action, tactic and arts and culture. Each committee covered what they do, how they relate to you and some updates on what they've been working on. The most impressive was the legal, which has secured a probono lawyer and told us to write the name of the National Lawyers Guild on our arms in the event of an arrest. Speakers used a megaphone but in the fashion of the OWS GAs, used a form of amplification called People's Mike. This is when the speaker talks and those who can hear repeat after so that those further away can hear. This is quite effective when PA systems are not available or permitted. However, it really slows down the process of speaking, which can in itself be a long process in a democratic consensus style. The crowd around me seemed excited, interested and full of questions and information. Overall I found the GA to be a great meeting.
Committees met again after the GA but I was more interested in marching! I'd never participated in a march and I didn't know what to expect. With plans to go to OWS in NYC next weekend, I felt compelled to get a little experience under my belt. I joined up with the Direct Action Committee and we announced to the camp that we'd be leaving for a march shortly, after a quick workshop on health and safety at a protest. The workshop was given by a small bug eyed girl, who could pass for one of my roller derby friends. She covered using the buddy system, arrests, pepper spray, what to do in an emergency etc. It was quite informative and helpful.
The march
I was ready to go! We headed off down the street. Many people in front of us, many in back. Quite impossible to tell how many of us there were, but I guess it was estimated somewhere between 400-500. We had signs and drums and we chanted slogans as we went. Passer bys took pictures, looking intrigued or confused. The energy was over the top. Spreading our message like a locomotive of justice. We spilled into streetways, people from time to time jumping up on things to take pictures. All the while the tall office buildings hovered like giants looking over us. We were like a flood, oozing around the streets and corners. At one point the blue lights came. We didn't know what to expect. I expected that they were there to stop us, but in fact they were there to protect us. To stop traffic for us and let us pass. The police, unlike in NYC, were directed to let us do our thing as long as we weren't causing any trouble. We marched in total for almost 2 hours and ending back at camp, so I thought. As we approached camp, some people kept going. "We're going to rally at the fed," I heard someone say. On the sidewalk in front of the fed we stopped. One lone security guard has his eyes pressed to the window to see what we were doing. He looked so small inside that massive building behind those massive panes of glass. And all at once the group rushed towards the building. Doug and I stayed back as we felt that it was probably private property and that the security guard and the police would not take so kindly to that. We decided to go back over to camp and had to leave shortly to make the train home.
On our way out we stopped to see what was needed and what we might be able to bring back with us. We also stopped at the spiritual and meditation tent, where men and women in white robes were talking. Some of them were on the march toting signs with a religous tone. I wondered where they were from and why they were here, and of course why they were wearing those silly robes. Turns out they were all from different churches and they came partially on accord for the church and partially for themselves. We talked with them for a while and then we started home.
The train ride home was quite fantastic. It was mentioned in the GA about how we are all part of outreach. Talking to people about the movement is the best way to get it going. So this is what we did. First I talked to 2 people who happened to work in finances and hedge funds. They were not so receptive. Second I talked to a group of people chatting, one of them with a 99% sign. Basically I just wanted to talk with them about the night but it turns out that 2 of them were not from the protest and really had no clue what it was. We ended up talking with them for a long time, telling them about the protests, why they were happening, how the media was ignoring it and of course that lead to conversation about the issues at hand. Then other people around us started joining the conversation. Either they knew about it or they didn't, but they all came away wanting to know more, including ourselves. It was so great! I left the train feeling so incredibly happy.
Like visions of sugar plum fairies, thoughts of protest and revolution danced through my head all night. I awoke, still very sleepy from being up so late, and couldn't wait to check twitter to see what else had been posted. Shortly after I got up, Doug texted, "I woke up thinking about the protest."
After the march we made the decision to not go to NYC and join Occupy Wall Street, as we had planned, but to stay and be part of Occupy Boston. It is closer but it also really needs or support just as much, if not more, than OWS. I'm also pretty happy that the BPD is being a hell of a lot nicer than the NYPD.
Either way, I am so excited to be part of this movement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)