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.
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