Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 64

Thinking About Occupy

I have been trying to work out my response to Occupy. Of course, I am in favor of it. But what else? What is my analysis?

I am irritated by people who write essays on what Occupy should be doing. Occupy is a work in progress. The people doing the actual work in the parks and on the streets should make the decisions about what to do next. I think it takes a lot of arrogance to advise them. What I want is news about Occupy, not opinions about it.

To me Occupy looks like anarchism in action: a community with distributed power, that makes decisions collectively. I like this. I got interested in anarchists recently -- before Occupy -- because they were doing interesting things: running publishing houses and poster collectives, publishing good books, printing wonderful posters, running book fairs and even one science fiction convention. They have been alive, while the rest of the left looked asleep. (Maybe there were leftists working in places I couldn't see them... Well, I could find the anarchists.)

Occupy has shown great creativity and good humor: the tents suspended by balloons over Sproul Plaza at Berkeley were wonderful. The We Are the 99% tumblr site is fabulous. The UC Davis cop pepper spraying through time and space tumblr site is also fabulous, though not entirely nice. The cop must be feeling pretty unhappy by now. He shouldn't have done it.

We can see from the police response -- a gazillion cops with shields and helmets, like Imperial storm troopers out of Star Wars -- that Occupy is getting through to the establishment. The viral stories about dirty, violent hippies and dangerous homeless people also show how freaked the bosses and politicians are.
I have not been able to track these stories to specific events, except the Vet who killed himself in the Burlington, VT camp. That is one event in a nationwide movement. I suppose he came to camp in the hopes that it would help him with terrible depression, and it didn't. This is one event. It's tragic, but depression is tragic and happens to many people in this society, especially to vets. Our society does a really bad job of helping its troubled and vulnerable members. At least the Occupiers are trying.

I talked to Patrick about the menace of homeless people at Occupy sites. Patrick says homeless people usually keep to places they know and avoid places where they may attract police attention. It does not seem likely that they would trek in large numbers down to Wall Street. I did see one homeless guy at Occupy Minnesota. But downtown Minneapolis is small. He was not far from places that help homeless people. And he looked pretty harmless to me. Like most Minnesotans, he was looking for coffee and would be fine as long as he got it.

But the viral stories are equating Occupy with homeless people. Both threaten civilized life as we know it: people working underpaid jobs and living in underwater houses, watching their steps, afraid that they will lose what little they have.

I figure Occupy is a movement I want to watch and not analyze. They are shaking up the US. All I do is write science fiction.

Thinkng About Occupy

I have been trying to work out my response to Occupy. Of course, I am in favor of it. But what else? What is my analysis?

I am irritated by people who write essays on what Occupy should be doing. Occupy is a work in progress. The people doing the actual work in the parks and on the streets should make the decisions about what to do next. I think it takes a lot of arrogance to advise them. What I want is news about Occupy, not opinions about it.

To me Occupy looks like anarchism in action: a community with distributed power, that makes decisions collectively. I like this. I got interested in anarchists recently -- before Occupy -- because they were doing interesting things: running publishing houses and poster collectives, publishing good books, printing wonderful posters, running book fairs and even one science fiction convention. They have been alive, while the rest of the left looked asleep. (Maybe there were leftists working in places I couldn't see them... Well, I could find the anarchists.)

Occupy has shown great creativity and good humor: the tents suspended by balloons over Sproul Plaza at Berkeley were wonderful. The We Are the 99% tumblr site is fabulous. The UC Davis cop pepper spraying through time and space tumblr site is also fabulous, though not entirely nice. The cop must be feeling pretty unhappy by now. He shouldn't have done it.

We can see from the police response -- a gazillion cops with shields and helmets, like Imperial storm troopers out of Star Wars -- that Occupy is getting through to the establishment. The viral stories about dirty, violent hippies and dangerous homeless people also show how freaked the bosses and politicians are.

I have not been able to track these stories to specific events, except the Vet who killed himself in the Burlington, VT camp. That is one event in a nationwide movement. I suppose he came to camp in the hopes that it would help him with terrible depression, and it didn't. This is one event. It's tragic, but depression is tragic and happens to many people in this society, especially to Vets. Our society does a really bad job of its helping troubled and vulnerable members. At least the Occupiers are trying.

I talked to Patrick about the menace of homeless people at Occupy sites. Patrick says homeless people usually keep to places they know and avoid places where they may attract police attention. It does not seem likely that they would trek in large numbers down to Wall Street. I did see one homeless guy at Occupy Minnesota. But downtown Minneapolis is small. He was not far from places that help homeless people. And he looked pretty harmless to me. Like most Minnesotans, he was looking for coffee and would be fine as long as he got it.

But the viral stories are equating Occupy with homeless people. Both threaten civilized life as we know it: people working underpaid jobs and living in underwater houses, watching their steps, afraid that they will lose what little they have.

I figure Occupy is a movement I want to watch and not analyze. They are shaking up the US. All I do is write science fiction.

This colorful topographical map of the Moon is centered o...

This colorful topographical map of the Moon is centered on the lunar farside, the side not seen from planet Earth. That view is available to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter though, as the spacecraft's wide angle camera images almost the entire lunar surface every month. Stereo overlap of the imaging has allowed the computation of topographical maps with coverage between 80 degrees north and south latitude. The results have about a 300 meter resolution on the lunar surface and 10 to 20 meter elevation accuracy. Data closer to the north and south poles is filled in using the orbiter's laser altimeter. In this map, white, red, green, and purple represent progressively lower elevations. In fact, the large circular splotch tending to purple hues at the bottom is the farside's South Pole-Aitken Basin. About 2500 kilometers in diameter and over 12 kilometers deep, it is one of the largest impact basins in the Solar System.

Occupy Again!!!

The blog Crooked Timber has a thread on Occupy right now. I wrote the following:

OWS is a work in progress. I have no idea how it will turn out. I don't have advice. I bring coffee to the local Occupy group and wait and see. The Occupiers are raising the right issues and getting national attention.

Second, they are not a political party, vanguard or otherwise, they are a movement, like Civil Rights and the Anti-War Movement. I think we need to look at those for comparison re action and goals.

Third, in New York especially, OWS was/is creating an alternative society with housing, food, medical care, a library. It was/is a society that works by concensus, and it welcomed everyone, even the homeless. This strikes me as hugely important. A new world in the shill of the old. This is why the camps matter, and this may be why the camps are being destroyed.

Sandhills

After all the political posts, I wanted a photo of country that's beautiful and empty. I found this on Wikimedia Commons.

Years ago Patrick and I were in the Black Hills and decided we had to see Carhenge. We dropped down into Nebraska and saw Carhenge (well worth a visit). Then we drove east through the sandhills. They were golden under a bright blue sky, almost empty of people, though there were cattle, and lovely.

Again and Yet Again Occupy

More from Digby's blog:

From Atlanta to Washington, D.C., officials talked about how authorities could make camps safe for protesters and the community. Officials also learned about the kinds of problems they could expect from cities with larger and more established protest encampments.

In Portland, for example, protests were initially peaceful gatherings. Then the city's large number of homeless people moved in, transforming the camp into an open-air treatment center for drug addiction and mental illness.

On Oct. 11, just five days after protesters set up camp, police chiefs who had been dealing with the encampments for weeks warned that the homeless will be attracted to the food, shelter and medical care the camps offered.

I read the last paragraph to Patrick, and he said, "So?"
I replied, "We don't want to treat the homeless."
Pat said, "I guess."

I will put the links in later.

Even More Occupy

This is from Digby's blog:

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.

Now we know what Homeland Security is for.

Occupy Again

I've been trying to figure out why city governments find Occupy so threatening. This is part of the answer, courtesy of a Lambert Strether post on Naked Capitalism. He is writing about the bulldozing of Zuccotti Park:

And that's the story: Occupier self-organization. Self-organization is how the Tahrir Square organizers beat Murbarak's baltigaya, and self-organization is how the Occupiers will beat the 1%. Because look what Bloomberg bulldozed: Not only a library, but:

A media center
A kitchen
A medical tent (in which a patient was being treated)

None of what Bloomberg bulldozed was or is about violence. All of those institutions are about solidarity, people helping people. (For the homeless or the hungry, these institutions are helping people who can't get help anywhere else.) Perhaps that's really what Bloomberg didn't like?

Occupy

I had an appointment in Minneapolis yesterday. On my way back, I stopped at Occupy Minnesota to see if they were still there. They were and needed coffee. So I bought a couple of "canteens" -- cardboard boxes full of coffee -- at the nearest coffee shop and brought them back, along with a dozen cookies. Buying cookies one by one from a coffee shop is expesnsive. At least they were big cookies.

The porta-potties are gone, and there seemed to be fewer tables than before. However, the sleeping bags were neatly stacked in one area of the plaza, and there were a lot of them. The woman at the food table said most people were off on a march, protesting the closing of Zuccotti Park.

The governments in every city have said the encampments are messy and dirty and attract homeless people. Was Occupy Minnesota messy? Yes, a bit, the way any public space is when it's used by the public. A flea market is messy. So is a beach in the summer. There was one guy who looked homeless by the food table. So what? He could get a free cup of coffee and be treated like a human being. Is there anything wrong with a person wanting that and getting it?

The woman at the food table said they are negotiating to stay day by day.

Occupy

The police have cleared Zuccotti Park. They have done the same in other American cities. We will see what happens next.

Patrick says this is what the Minneapolis police have done to homeless camps for years. When they find one, they destroy it. Belongings are wrecked or taken away. When people come back to their home, they discover they -- who had so little -- have nothing now.

Society tolerates the homeless, so long as they remain perfectly homeless -- sleeping in doorways or in homeless shelters, run by others. But when they create their own shelters and communities and rules, they are attacked.

And for the same official reasons as are used against the Occupiers: the camps are messy and dirty and unsightly and dangerous.