Liberty Plaza (or Park or Square) looks an awful lot like Zuccotti Park again—aside from the damaged flower beds and a broken plastic peace sign lying in the gutter. At 1 in the morning, hundreds of police in riot gear stormed the plaza, shining floodlights and tearing down tents. Sanitation workers loaded occupiers’ belongings into garbage trucks, including the books of the occupation’s library. LRAD sound cannons were on the scene, and as many as five police helicopters hovered high overhead, where airspace was closed to media aircraft. On the ground, police cornered reporters out of view from the plaza during the eviction of the protesters, some of whom locked arms around the kitchen area and nonviolently resisted removal. They faced pepper spray and batons for doing so.
When I arrived at around 2:20 a.m., riot police were preventing anyone from getting closer than a block away from the site. By the time I returned there just after sunrise, after hours following marches and spontaneous assemblies and affinity groups meeting in the streets, the place had been completely cleared and washed. It was blocked off with barricades, despite a court order that the occupiers should be allowed to return. Back in Duarte Square on Canal Street, though, where hundreds had temporarily gathered, it was surprising how positive the mood actually was.
So, then, what next? What does the Occupy movement do when its flagship occupation is, at least for now, gone?
It happens that just hours before, Adbusters magazine—which originally called for the occupation—promulgated “Tactical Briefing #18: Occupy the High Ground.” It suggested that perhaps the time has passed for the movement to be so focused on encampments, and that it might move on to bigger and better things instead. This is a notion that has come up repeatedly in my recent conversations with early organizers; after almost three months, they feel, the movement is starting to outgrow the occupation. Mostly in a good way—the working groups, websites, and other infrastructure are already at such a point that most of the occupation’s business has been happening outside the crowded plaza for weeks. Organized resistance actions are taking place around the country without being specifically tied to occupation sites.
It’s also true that the camps have suffered from problems of health, sanitation, and crime, which were the excuse for what appears to be a coordinated attack on occupations by the mayors of cities around the country. But the occupiers have insisted that they can resolve these problems themselves, and nonviolently, in contrast to their governments’ policies of forced, armed eviction. Now that these coordinated attacks are happening, they seem to call for a coordinated response.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had in the first week of Occupy Wall Street with Monica Lopez, a Spanish journalist who took part in the May 15 movement in Madrid (and who was featured in our video “The Demand Is a Process”). This occupation won’t last forever, she predicted. It shouldn’t. The time eventually came in Madrid that the movement decided it would be better off ending the occupation than keeping it going—on June 12, less than a month after it began. Since, as WNV’s Ter Garcia has reported, the Spanish movement has shifted its attention to direct actions ranging from preventing evictions, to organizing a global day of protest, to engaging the political process. And, as I recently witnessed in Greece, those who occupied Athens’ Syntagma Square are now focusing on cultivating neighborhood assemblies concerned with local issues.
For the rise of the Occupy movement so far, though, the tactic of occupation has been absolutely essential. Mayor Bloomberg suggested in his explanation for the eviction that the encampment was not included in the protesters’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. However one interprets the law, though, from a strategic point of view, the encampment was precisely what made their free speech heard, allowing it to cut through the din of politics as usual and jump-start a public conversation about wealth and corruption.
Still, an encampment alone poses little real threat to the pillars upholding the power of the banks and the corporate elite that the Occupy movement hopes to undermine. Even the encampment in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, for instance, likely couldn’t have brought down Hosni Mubarak without the support of a coordinated general strike that threatened to bring down the Egyptian economy. If focusing too much on encampments distracts the movement from conducting more threatening actions like this, encampment is better left behind.
For those in it and those trying to understand it from the outside, the Occupy movement has never been easy to predict. As it enters this next phase, I’d bet we should be prepared to be surprised again.
i think of OWS as something akin to what hakim bey calls a “temporary autonomous zone”. while literally holding space is important, OWS has come to exist beyond the physicality of any specific location – it has become something para-geographical.
”The Temporary Autonomous Zone is an encampment of guerrilla ontologists: strike and run away. Keep moving the entire tribe…The “nomadic war machine” conquers without being noticed and moves on before the map can be adjusted. As to the future–Only the autonomous can plan autonomy, organize for it, create it. It’s a bootstrap operation. The first step is somewhat akin to satori–the realization that the TAZ begins with a simple act of realization.” Hakim Bey
http://hermetic.com/bey/taz3.html#labelPirateUtopias
i believe that the “simple act of realization” – which was catalyzed by a critical public display of captured space – will begin to seep more deeply into the fabric of our culture as these revolutionary ideas continue to spread – via electronic means, and through person-to-person dialog in public squares and around countless holiday dinner tables.
as more and more people begin to believe that change is possible and feel empowered to take charge of creating and participating in solutions, i believe the OCCUPY movement will only gain power as it decentralizes. next step: occupy everywhere!
http://www.facebook.com/occupyeverywhere
I have a few questions about the current state of the Occupy movement. I acknowledge there is corruption and greed however I don’t understand how the current state of the Occupy Movement can address these issues. If any information I present is unfounded or factually incorrect please correct me.
1. It seems hypocritical to me that one would nonviolently protest, so that the government would violently force others to give up their wealth. If you don’t pay your taxes, you’re arrested with the full force of the law behind it.
2. How can the Occupy Movement “move into the next phase”, when to me on the outside there seems to be a lack of cohesiveness (there may not be, I may be ignorant on this issue).
3. Does the Occupy Movement hold the government most responsible for greed and corruption? If not, why? It seems to me that the Occupy movement wants to use the government to fix the problems the government has created (ie we do not have true capitalism, many things have the government deeply involved in them through lobbyists, subsidies, loop holes, political corruption etc.)
4. If all else fails what is left for the Occupy Movement?
5. It seems to me that the Occupy Movement has lost momentum in the public arena. The public moves on quickly from issue to issue. What is the Occupy Movement going to do to stay in the minds of the people? I believe it needs some PR. When celebrities stop coming, and it is no longer politically viable to support the Occupy Movement (up coming election maybe?) What structure does the Occupy movement have to combat these issues?
Though it doesn’t quite touch on the questions on more recent issues, you might find my FAQ for The Nation helpful in understanding the nature of the movement.
Thanks I’ll check it out.
Phil, thank you for your frank questions.
In brief and personal: The Occupy Movement presents to me a disgust with and rejection of the government AND the perpetrators of financial ‘treason’. It is almost demoralising to remember that they are also our co-citizens, members of a community, neighbors, family members. So whom do we hold responsible? We have met the enemy…. in government, corporate rapaciousness, and individuals.
What is Occupy going to do,? As suggested above, we are involved in the ontological task; and assessing the relevant pressure points for direct action; disengaging from obvious ‘antisocial’ entities where we can; giving support to existing entities beyond the corporate economy. None of this is new, evolution is cyclical, Hope springs eternal!
What structure? A contemporary hierarchy based on the wheel!
Thanks for the response! I hope anyone taking part in the day of action today remains safe.
Could/should the Occupy Movement take notes from a similar contemporary movement, the Tea Party movement? Many of the core principals are similar ( tired of middle class struggle, tired of corruption, want a better future for one self and family, and country etc.) They waged a nonviolent campaign that succeeded in a lot of respects just months prior to this movement (majority in congress). One could argue they didn’t get what they really wanted ( many of those elected are green and inexperienced). I’m thinking more along the lines of the style, non violent but loud and spread a message a lot of people agreed with. I think it would be wise to study what happened during that movement and use what worked.
An idea for the colder winter months: I know in Occupy Boston they’ve asked Engineers, Scientists etc. to help deal with problems during the winter months, mainly temperature issues. There seems to be some sort of daily duty structure to the Occupy Movement as it is now, so you could switch off daily with the task of riding a bicycle. The bicycle would have to be tweaked to be stationary, and generate electricity (not that difficult, it’s been done.) You setup many of these, regulate the power coming from the riders, and boom power source to do with as you please. You’d also increase body heat through exercise.
Hate cannot drive out hate. Dominative power cannot stop greed. One note, no matter how beautiful, can carry the song we need to sing. I pray for more, creative, imaginative tactics to arise
Check it out… http://bit.ly/vHZSR6 CNN’s Jack Cafferty asks what should OWS’s next move be.