How a City Shapes an Occupation

I’m watching how group dynamics develop and are shaped by the differences in settings and historic influences in each city.  I am responding to reports from friends and from occupation websites, or other media.  I have been comparing Seattle where I live, with NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Wall Street as we know picked a private park that did not have regulations defining a “closing hour” and thus protesters have been able to sleep in the park.  Despite some efforts on the part of the owners to close it for “cleaning”, they have responded to the pressure of having thousands there and so have not closed it.  Being a large population center has also brought people in droves.

In Philadelphia they occupied a construction site in the center of the city, so they also have not received pressure to move until just recently when they received a letter from city council saying that it now needed to be vacated so construction could start and “claiming that they had agreed to move at that time.”  So OP has started to consider whether they need to move or face arrest.  In the meantime because they are two blocks from Friends Center (the complex the house Friends Journal, the AFSC, and Central Philadelphia Friends Meeting) the protesters have been able to use the kitchen there to feed thousands, and the bathrooms and to have General Assemblies there when it rains.  They have just officially voted to have General Assemblies (GA)’s there whenever the weather is inclement.  I have wonder how having that much support structure and lack of threat of arrest has allowed them to focus on the protests themselves.  The influence of Quakers is so pervasive in Philly that my impression is their GA process is also much better.

In Chicago they chose to be on the Federal plaza outside the Federal Reserve branch that is in Chicago.  The police slowly cordoned off areas to finally only a small amount of sidewalk was left and now they have to be careful to not block people trying to walk on it or they can be arrested for that.  City Ordinance makes it illegal to sleep on the sidewalk, so there is no where for Chicago protestors to sleep.  How OC protestors have handled that is that they are sleeping in cars that they can park on the street at night (but not day)  They have a uhaul they pay for and put their stuff in every night, and they take turn having two hour shifts staying up protesting with signs during the nights.  This I have to say seems so much more sensible and healthier than the sleep deprivation marathon that my Seattle comrade’s have set for themselves!   They were proud that they had no arrests as result.  They have however for two Sat’s in a row tried to occupy Grant Park a few blocks away and play cat and mouse with the police there who will allow them to set up tents but arrest them the minute they go in them.  This has resulted in arrests in Chicago.

In Boston they had two sites, one in Dewey Square across from their Federal Reserve bank and the other in a Conservancy park that actually had posted a very supportive letter about the demonstrators being in the park. Dewey Square had the mayor's permission and had about 50 tents and permanent supply tents. This second Park space was set up because the first became to crowded.  On the night of Oct. 10th the police in riot gear encircled it and then forced all the media away and arrested all the protesters, first approaching a Veteran's for Peace group and beating them.  The mayor and peace blamed their violence on the "anarchists".

But here is Seattle….the site that was chosen Westlake park is a small triangular cement park in the heart of the shopping district.  (Some say the financial district but I don’t see Seattle as really having a banking headquarters.)  There is an ordinance declaring the park closed at 10Pm every night, and it is illegal to sleep in any Seattle park.  So every night at 10pm the hassles with the police start.  The police will allow people to lie on the ground, but any camping gear results in arrest – this means even a camping pad, or an umbrella over you that touches the ground!   There was a call last Sat for “the night of 500 tents”  (They did feel the park with about 150 tents – it isactually too small for 500)  So many people came to support that the police did not want to arrest and so played this game all night where they would walk around, accompanied by a protester who would shout “we are coming to visit your tent” and if the police found the people in the tent with eyes open “not asleep” they did not arrest them.  But when this was repeated Sunday night they came at 3am and arrested everyone there, damaging many tents in the process. 

Sleeping in the park was allowed during the first week while the Mayor tried to negotiate with them claiming always that he favored freedom of speech.  He tried to offer them to move to City Hall where he said they would not be arrested and where they could use the bathrooms at night.  Frankly I thought that was a great offer, but it is true our City Hall is on the edge of downtown and protestors felt this was not visible and that it was all a ploy on the mayor’s part to marginalize our movement and control it.  After the police harassed people so much they could not sleep at night half the protestors moved there anyway to get a good nights sleep, but after two weeks they are closing that site because a lot of homeless non-protesters were coming there and stealing gear, and the protestors at that site felt unsupported by those at the main site.  The cops have taken at Westlake to shining their car lights all night on the protestors and walking around kicking those laying down.  There were numerous GA discussions of possibly moving sites, to including a Community College about 1 mile away which would pass on a general vote but be blocked and fail to win supermajority.  The campers themselves are very divided on this proposal.  Some want to as they are desperate for sleep.  Others define this as defeat or retreat.  This week it has finally passed to on Sat have a Halloween march and move the camp.

So sadly the very sleep deprived “camping protestors” have become more and more angry with the cops which worries me because I do not see a spirit of non-violence instead I see more and more of a spirit of “them vs us”.  I worry that our original choice of site has set us into conflicts with the police and then each other which has detracted from our work.

Some where last week I read that there was a national conference occuring of police chiefs and that they would surely be comparing notes on how to handle their occupations.  "Oh dear I thought" and of course we have seen the esculating of police violence from Boston to Oakland, to various arrests around the country - often violently.  Last night the police rioted on the protestors in Occupy Oakland - causing a severe head injury to an Iraqi vet among the protesters by hitting him in the head with a tear gas canister.  And then as his companions rushed to his aid firing another round on them. How sad indeed that this man came home safely from Iraqi without the concussion injury that so many soilders get, only to be wounded by US police!  It reminds me of the righteous anger of an African American Vet in NYC screaming at the police: You think you are tough, you are hurting unarmed civilians.  They have no guns. Is this what I fought for?  There is no honor in this!  How can you look yourselves in the mirror.

Let us hold in the Light all the brave protesters struggling around the country to see the change we were promised and never got!