Oh Say Can You Mourn?
The Wet Lands of LA.

When So Proudly We Cast
Nets To Receive Its Bounty

Whose Gulf Floor Wound Gushes Black
Thru The Perilous Fight

O’er The Ramparts We Watch
Wild Life Sadly Striving

The Oyster Beds Black End
Pelicans mired in oil

Yield Proof of LA…ment
From the Author of Life

Oh say Lou oui si an na
All yet To Re Claim

O’er the Land of Free Fowl
In Sea Son – of black – Pearls !

In my mind the occupations, more than anything else, are living breathing experiments in organizing community based on anarchistic principles, the scale of which has not been seen in America in decades, if ever. I think this is the most exciting thing to happen to anarchism in my lifetime. This conviction begs the question: where are all the anarchists?

At the occupation I have seen those who have dedicated their lives to organizing and activism of all radical stripes leave in frustration. It is one thing to meet with those who already share your analysis and create non-hierarchical organizations with them. It is quite another to seek consensus with those who do not share your views. That is when the true test of ideals occurs: when the desire to create a world in the image of anarchist analysis clashes with the desire to create a world where no unjustified power is asserted and everyone is given the same freedoms we would want for ourselves.

This isn’t meant to blame. The practice of anarchism is extremely hard work. It is made even harder when you have so much knowledge about what is wrong with this world, when you have so much passion about the tactics that should be used, when you have so much conviction about the ways we should structure a different community, as so many radicals and anarchists do. The more you know, the harder it is to relate to those who don’t, let alone break bread and make compromises with them.

But let’s be clear: anarchists cannot create the massive change they seek by themselves.  With the occupations, there is an opportunity for anarchist organizing principles to reach the masses. I believe anarchists need to be, more than anything else, models of relationship and organizing that is non-hierarchical and consensus-based. But how?

If I’ve learned anything at the occupation, it’s that the analysis and theories of anarchism have little if anything to do with its practice. A person can have as radical an analysis as anyone: that private property is theft, that our devotion to patriarchy continues to oppress half of the population,  that those in power incite racism by oppressing and exploiting people of color, or simply that the application of unjustified power is the ultimate locus of everything that is wrong in our world. But how does one put this analysis in practice? What is unjustified power and how can it be prevented from asserting itself– and how can we prevent individuals from submitting to it?

This is a question with endless answers, so I’ll start simply with the experience I’ve had so far in trying to facilitate General Assemblies at Occupy New Orleans. The first time I saw video of the General Assemblies I was mesmerized. Finally, a clear image of anarchistic political organization! I was convinced this would result in the utopia I have always dreamed of (more accurately, the utopia as imagined by Ursula LeGuin’s “The Dispossessed”). When Occupy NOLA began, I immediately applied myself to the facilitation of the GAs. To me, discovering and perfecting this process was an important aspect of the movement and I wanted to contribute.

When I set off to help facilitate, I didn’t really do much research. A man from the New York occupation was around and had been doing facilitation up there. I immediately deferred to him. This was one of my first mistakes, and thus one of the first lessons I learned. Even when someone knows more, or has had more experience, it does not mean that he should be unquestioned. If we do not want unjustified power asserted over us, we have to be careful when we eschew responsibility. When we do not take responsibility we give away our freedom and become vulnerable to power, even when it is not being aggressively asserted. Perhaps if Occupy Nola had not had the authority of someone from New York, it would have started from a much less authoritative position as it began the assemblies. If everyone had felt truly engaged in the process from the beginning, it could have eased the pain of creating consensus within the body.

As General Assemblies continued, the facilitation group began the process of creating our process. This is where I made another mistake. As a very vocal member of the facilitation committee, I pushed for having assemblies be as close to how assemblies were supposedly operating in other cities around the country, thinking people would eventually understand, even though day after day we were alienating more and more members of our assembly as we stalled out on even basic issues. I did not respond to the needs of the community but instead, because of my conviction of how the meetings should go, and my belief that the process was going to work, I asserted my conviction over others. I was not patient with those in the occupation, I did not try hard enough to reach them where they were. We did not start as inclusively as we could have, and we have suffered for it.

Let me be clear: I know deeply that one of the most wonderful/terrible things about a truly decentralized organization is that we can only feel so much responsibility when things go poorly, or wonderfully. I don’t blame myself for how things have progressed. I’m just trying to analyze how I unjustly asserted myself.

The lesson I learned is that even a strong conviction about something can be enough to create a dynamic of unjustified power in a group. Special knowledge can do this even moreso. If you have either, you should be in a constant state of check, ready to defer to others at any moment, even if they have neither. We cannot assert our power over others because of their ignorance. Even if this ignorance appears willful, we must keep trying to bridge the gaps. As individuals and people living in groups we have very little experience when authority is not asserted. It is a hole that we seek to fill, because without leaders the responsibility rests solely on us. This is the underbelly of being given the amount of freedom available in a space like the occupation– it is a great responsibility. We have to empower ourselves to speak our truth and live our bliss while being ever vigilant as to when those acts are preventing others from the same.

And so, the General Assemblies go on. Brave souls stick it out night after night in the face of pretty intense danger. Dinner gets served. Discussions reach new highs and lows. The pace is slow, but that’s how we know we are in New Orleans. I can’t venture to guess what is going to happen, which is certainly the most exciting part. But perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned is that these occupations are extremely difficult to stop. Even those who walked out in frustration trickle back.  At times I feel that the occupation is impossible, that I have to leave, that I could do it better myself or with the help of those with whom I share close bonds, but yet I cannot not give up on the occupation, for the same reason I can not give up on anarchism. It has taught me too much, and given me too much hope. Even though I was born and bred in systems of unjust power– economic, political and social– I have faith that as individuals and groups we can break those patterns: that in the end, these systems are just tools we use to assuage our egos or seek control when we feel fear, and through hard work and careful practice, we can find real ways to break them down.

Anarchism as a theory is not the same as anarchism as a practice, but they are based in the same values: that we should love and trust one another simply because we are human, and that no one will know true freedom until everyone is liberated and empowered in a precisely equal way. This is our challenge and our only hope. Are we ready to rise to the occasion? Hope to see y’all at the occupation…

When Occupy Wall St. burst unexpected on the scene a mere month ago, many (and especially many in the mainstream media) had no idea what to make of it and treated it as an incoherent outburst. We need to consider why this phenomenon was so perplexing to some, while so inspiring to many others. We need to see that the Occupy Movement does have a deep significance, yet we also need to be careful not to attempt to pin down its meaning too rigidly at this early point in its development.

It is crucial to understand that “Occupy Wall St.” is a floating signifier. This means that although it may have a common core of meaning for many, it also means many different things to many different people. There is simply no way to pin down what it “really means.”  What it really means is everything it is, and everything it will become.  Its various meanings at this stage of its evolution sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict.

This ambiguity should not be surprising. The most firmly-established political signifiers (Freedom, Justice, Democracy, etc.) have widely divergent meanings and have long been a battleground for contending factions, and signifiers for new social tendencies that spread rapidly through society are always immediately claimed and contested by diverse currents. This is what occurred with “the Movement” in the 60’s. It happened again with the various post-USSR “Color Revolutions,” and it is being repeated with “Occupy Wall St.” now.

It is also not surprising that when Occupy Wall St. emerged, established political forces and mainstream media had no idea of what to make of it. These conservative apparatuses specialize in containing divergent forces and reintegrating them into the established universe of discourse. Thus, the dominant media were unanimous in proclaiming that the Occupation Movement (if, indeed, it even was a movement!) was unclear, and even hopelessly confused, about its goals.  One heard over and over, “What do they want?” “What’s their point?” “What are their demands?”

The problem wasn’t that Occupy Wall St. wasn’t making coherent demands, but that it was speaking a language these media were incapable of understanding. The problem wasn’t that Occupy Wall St. had no goals, but that its goals exceeded these media’s impoverished conception of the meaning of a goal. The response of the mainstream media, in all its usual brilliance and eloquence, came down basically to “OWS? WTF!”

Compare this to the typical response of these media to reactionary demands– the most incoherent statements are accepted as crystal clear. When the forces behind the most powerful technocratic state in the history of the world, the forces that continue to expand a huge global military-industrial apparatus, say “we want smaller government,” this is never questioned.  The absurdity is merely passed on to the public.  The right-wing is in favor of minimalistic global domination. They like very tiny totalitarian power. No problem there.

No one from Fox News to the New York Times will suggest that there might be even some minute little contradiction in such monumental absurdities.  But when the Occupation Movement says that it wants to destroy political and economic domination by the corporate elite, or that it wants to create participatory democracy, the media establishment is completely confused. What do they want? Why don’t they have any real demands? Will they ever figure out what they’re trying to do?

On October 14 NPR interviewed Eduardo Martinez, a senior at Florida International University, about the ideas of the Occupation Movement. He said, “We wholly embrace the notion of horizontal systems of democratic government, not vertical systems of hierarchical domination.” This statement is clear, well-formulated, and radically critical of the established system.  However, the NPR reporter helpfully transformed it into something vague, innocuous, and (let’s be honest) stupid, for the benefit of NPR’s presumably gullible audience. He said: “translation: average Americans, not Wall Street and the banking industry, need to be heard now.”

Note that the reporter admits explicitly that he is translating this perfectly clear and coherent statement for NPR’s listeners, who are presumed to be too politically-challenged to understand the original. According to the translation, it’s all about being heard, about “speaking truth to power” for the millionth time, rather than about smashing that illegitimate, hopelessly corrupt power and replacing it with a qualitatively different form of power.  It should be noted that during the report, we can hear in the background protesters chanting “support education, not world domination” Yet, there is, of course, no mention of the issue of “world domination” by the dependable reporters of Nationalistic Puppet Radio.

But let’s get back to our floating signifier. In “Occupy Wall St.,” what does “Wall St.” signify? It signifies at least four overlapping things.  First, for a significant number of activists in the movement, those with the most coherent analysis of what “Wall St.” presupposes, it signifies the global capitalist system. They see it as an immoral and irrational system that imposes hierarchical power on humanity and exploits the labor of the vast majority to deliver disproportionate benefits to a small minority. They take note of significant facts: that it is capable of keeping over a billion people in absolute poverty in a world of abundance and affluence, and that it is in the process of pushing the biosphere toward ecological collapse, even while there exist the means to fulfill all our material needs in a sustainable manner.

For many other activists “Wall St.” signifies the global system of “corporate capitalism.” The target in this case is not capitalism in general, but the dominant form of economic organization in late capitalism. Many of these activists have not thought through the question of whether the ills of capitalism can be separated from its corporate forms, while others think explicitly that it can be reformed or kept under control if corporations can be tamed. The basic assumption of the anti-corporate faction is that the economic dominance of corporations must be ended.  Anti-corporate activists often support cooperatives and small businesses as an alternative to large corporations. Their critique is formulated in terms of size and scale, centralization vs. decentralization, rather than as an analysis of capitalist exploitation of labor or appropriation of value.

A third group of activists means by “Wall St.” an economic oligarchy that dominates both the economy and the political system. The oligarchs are the very rich and the super-rich, the famous “one percent.” This group does not formulate its goal as the abolition of capitalism or even the dominant corporate form of capitalism, but rather as the overthrow of the power of the economic oligarchy and a reversal of the trend toward greater and greater concentration of wealth in its hands. The members of this faction support a democratized political system in which capitalism, including the existing form of corporate capitalism, can be controlled better so that it can operate within limits defined by the public good.

Finally, there is a smaller minority of activists who mean by “Wall St.” some particular devious or mysterious cause of economic crisis and decline.  This diversified fringe of the movement projects on to our convenient floating signifier all its objects of hatred, resentment, paranoid fantasy and conspiracy theory. For Ron Paulite econocranks, it is the Federal Reserve Bank. For closet anti-Semites, it is the International Bankers.  For diverse conspiracy theorists, it is the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Lizard People. What the fringe members share is that each has its own Great Satan, so that systemic understanding and critique of the capitalist economic system or the economic oligarchy is not necessary.

The future of the Occupation Movement lies in the interplay among the first three tendencies. The degree to which it will become a reformist, a radical, or a revolutionary movement depends on the balance between these perspectives, and the extent to which each can express itself in the thought and actions of the developing Movement.  Those within the final category tire quickly of the Movement’s interest in social and economic justice, and the vast majority of the Movement tires quickly of them.

A large part of the significance of the Occupation Movement, is that, in focusing on capitalism, corporate domination, and the economic oligarchy, it can help bring the issue of class back to its rightful position in oppositional politics.  Over the past few decades, we have made huge advances in incorporating issues of patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, nationalism, imperialism, and the domination of nature into radical politics (though we are obviously far from solving any of these problems). We need to continue to develop our analysis and practice further in all of these areas, but we also need to return with much greater seriousness to the necessary moment of universality that is embodied in class politics. The Occupy Movement gives us an ideal opportunity to do so.

Capitalism is a system of domination in which the vast majority of humanity is exploited and disenfranchised for the sake of the power and wealth of a minority of humanity. Even in societies in which formal political democracy exists in some degraded form, the economic system is an open dictatorship. This system was classically called “the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie,” a term that has mystified many.  However, it is a very clear and coherent concept. It means simply that the great majority has no democratic voice concerning how we work and what we produce through our labor. It means that a small unelected minority dominates the economic system.

In other words, it means something that is blatantly obvious to anyone whose mind is not poisoned by ideology.  It means that the economy is a dictatorship and you and I are not the dictators. The export of jobs under globalization and the decline of membership in labor organizations in general and radical unionism in particular have drastically reduced the ability of working people even to moderate the functioning of this dictatorial system. Thus, the revival of class politics becomes ever more relevant in late capitalism. The Occupation Movement, with its emphasis on “corporate greed,” the dominance of “the 1%,” and the evils of economic inequality, brings class analysis back into American politics to a degree that we have not seen perhaps since the 1930’s.

We come next to the other half of our floating signifier. What does “Occupy” signify? Once again, it signifies many things to many occupiers. It is important to consider not only the things that this powerful concept already signifies, but also what it is beginning to signify and what it is capable of signifying.

“Occupy,” above all, signifies a rejection of conventional American politics and the embracing of a new politics of direct action. It signifies a revolution of Do-It-Yourself politics, an affirmation of self-expression, self-determination, and self-management of social change. This does not mean the acceptance of the naïve cult of immediacy that pretends that there can be social action without any mediations and without any forms of representation. What it means is an explicit rejection of the destructive, disenfranchising, immobilizing forms of mediation and representation that that dominant system of power imposes on us.  “Occupy” is a rejection of the reigning politics of resignation, reformism, and retreat.

The Occupation Movement is an affirmation of the possibility of the Social Act. It is a practical refutation of the ideology of TINA, “there is no alternative.”  We know that there is an alternative because the Movement itself embodies that alternative and thus proves that it is possible. The Movement is a performative statement of its own ideals. It states the ideals in the form of begining to put those ideals into action. The strongest argument for the possibility of a phenomenon is the actual existence of that phenomenon.

In its most visionary sense, the Occupation Movement is a reoccupation and liberation movement.  It consists of the community taking back the territory, reoccupying that which has long been under occupation by the forces of domination. This is why “Occupy Albuquerque” just decided to rename itself “Unoccupy Albuquerque.” This signifies a growing awareness that our land has been occupied, our communities have been occupied, our minds have been occupied, and our bodies have been occupied.  They have been occupied by the state and capitalism and need to be liberated from that occupation. The promise of the Occupation Movement is that it will become a movement of reoccupation and liberation of our own lands and communities, our own sacred places, our own minds and bodies.

We cannot know how far the Occupation Movement will ultimately take us in this direction of collective liberation, but we do know that it is already a major liberatory advance in the political culture.  Given the crushing force and addictive power of the dominant institutions, the dominant imaginary, the dominant ideology and the dominant ethos, the very fact that the ideas and practice of the Occupy Movement have exploded onto the scene in over a thousand places seems almost miraculous. It is an indication that unimagined liberatory processes have been going on beneath the surface of this occupied continent. It means that in a multitude of places scattered across the United States of Amnesia, people are beginning to remember how to think and to remember what life and human community are really about.

In a time of oppressive occupation, such as the Nazi occupations during World War II, certain truths become clear to everyone. One of these truths is that under a system of domination, all political perspectives (including a supposed “apolitical” one) reduce to forms of two basic orientations.  Each person who lives under that system is either a collaborator or a resister. This is not to deny that some collaborators inadvertently do much to undermine the system, or that some resisters do much to reinforce it. Nevertheless, each person, whether through an act of choice or by default, adopts the standpoint of either resister or collaborator. Either one goes through a crisis of conscience in which she or he recognizes that the system of domination is intolerably evil and goes on to oppose it actively, or one remains, by decision or indecision, an agent of that system.

Abolish mental slavery! Occupy!

The following selections are excerpted from a longer essay, “Fighting Together and Going it Alone,” which will shortly be posted here in its entirety

As the Occupy movement kicked off on the Gulf Coast, I visited Jackson, MS and New Orleans, LA, as well as the planning meetings in my hometown of Biloxi, MS. I received regular communications from an affinity group in Pensacola, FL, and browsed the Internet for reports of activity elsewhere. Everywhere I went there seemed to be a divide between professional activists and experienced radicals on what should and shouldn’t be the strategy, tactics, and final goals of the movement, with the minds of the previously apolitical attendants hanging in the balance.

In our lives there are two differing conceptions of democracy, both of which can be seen in every Occupy group across the United States. In one conception, a small group of people claims to know what is best everyone, and attempts to set the boundaries of debate and action around the goals that its small cadre has pre-decided.  They will attempt to depict themselves as reasonable or moderate, and paint others as being immature, irresponsible, unreasonable, or too impatient. Completely ignored by these small cadres is the idea that they conceived the objectives and rules of what is supposed to be a democratic movement without consulting any of the movement’s other participants.  Once that small group has established its rules, the rules are beyond question, and they set up an apparatus of enforcement to ensure that it is so. This method of democracy is similar to the one that governs our daily lives: a ruling elite sets the rules, and if the rest of us expect to participate, we must abide by them. Otherwise, we are “irresponsible, immature, unreasonable, or impatient,”  and as a consequence are jailed, shamed, or removed from the vicinity of the “reasonable” and “responsible” minority.

In another conception of democracy, that supposedly being represented by the Occupy Movement, everyone in a given community gathers together to decide as a large group what their desires are and how to achieve them.  They do away with the conventional wisdom of normal protest tactics and civil society, thinking not of what is “realistic,” but what we want and how to get to it. All rules made by these groups are subject to constant scrutiny and revision, while others are allowed to act and participate outside of the established framework.  Not only does this do away with the tyranny of minority rule by allowing groups and individuals participating in the greater assembly to act on their own ideas and power, but an apparatus of enforcement becomes unnecessary because the decisions of the group are arrived at through a process of negotiation that leaves everyone content to abide by the rules that they themselves created.

The Starting Place of Minority Contol: the Call to Action

Typically an occupation is initially called for by a small cadre of individuals. Many of these cadres are composed of professional activists, and many take it upon themselves to pre-emptively declare that the protest will be non-violent and will remain respectful towards police officers.  These organizers closely define the boundaries of what the occupation will be about and constantly encourage everyone on the camp site to “stick to the issues at hand.” In many cities, these initial organizers have also tightly retained non-democratic control of their city’s Occupy-related Facebook and Twitter accounts, ensuring only their narrow message is heard and others’ voices can be silenced. By taking this approach to organization, these cadres ensure that the energy of the protest remains fully under their rules and control.  The democratic principles they are supposedly protesting in favor of are almost completely forgotten.

Nowhere are the long term effects of this approach clearer than in the Occupy Denver encampment. The Occupy Denver encampment was called for by a small group who then pressured those in attendance to stay on the sidewalk during marches, not be rude to police officers, and not break any laws during marches. Having those principles is fine, but they tried to force the entire encampment to abide by them, going to so far as to use a megaphone to point out those breaking their rules and accuse them of being agents provocateurs.

Three weeks into their occupation, on October 13th, it was made clear to the occupants of the park that the police were being sent to remove them.  The initial cadre and their reformist partners were inclined to stay within the perimeter of the law and remove all of the things they had spent three weeks building with the more radical members of the occupation.

The majority of Occupy Denver’s group on the ground wanted to stay, but a few of the initial cadre of organizers insisted that this would force the police to get violent. To those initial organizers, not following laws was violent (or at least not nonviolent). The point made by the other occupiers was that there’s nothing violent about civil disobedience. They explained that everyone has a right to be on this land, that the group calls itself an occupation, and there was a need to stay and fight for Occupy Denver’s structures. Fearmongers stood up and warned participants they were certain to face time in prison, huge fines, and a record that would follow them around for their entire lives. Some responded by explaining that each person has a choice and that no one would need to stay if she or he didn’t want to, but that those who chose to stay should know the consequences.

In the end, the police stormed the park, tearing down sixty tents and making twenty-four arrests. The initial cadre that organized Occupy Denver was nowhere to be seen during the arrests or the legal process that followed; the Denver Anarchist Black Cross was the organization that came to the defense of the protesters. The rebuilt encampment is now divided between those who would obey the law at all times, no matter what the consequences, and those who will break it in order to defend the principles that they stand for.  This has left the movement in danger of a major split on a local level.  If the groups who make the initial calls to action are unwilling or unable to allow others in the occupation to decide the rules and conditions of occupations, then they should be similarly prepared to face opposition to their anti-democratic decision-making process by those who wish for more than what they offer.

Permits and Pacifism: a False History

Another disturbing trend in the movement thus far has been the tendency of those in the movement to insist upon getting permits for occupations and marches, and to insist that everyone within the Occupy Movement remain law-abiding. This is particularly troubling because the initial call to action cited the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt as its inspiration.  The occupation of Tahrir Square was not only illegal, it forcibly resisted all attempts at eviction.  The story of the revolution in Egypt has long since been whitewashed by the corporate media as being “non-violent.”  However, the facts and footage of the day fly in the face of this false historical reporting.

One particularly interesting piece of evidence is a protest pamphlet that was distributed in Egypt during the uprising entitled “How to Protest Intelligently.”  This pamphlet asked for protesters to bring a hoodie (to protect themselves from pepper spray and tear gas), a scarf (to block tear gas from entering passageways), insulated gloves (for throwing back tear gas canisters), goggles (for preventing the entry of pepper spray and tear gas into the eyes of protesters), the lid of a steel pot (for protection against rubber bullets), a pair of good running shoes, and a can of spray paint to be sprayed over the visors of riot police in order to take them out of the fight.  Protesters were also asked to carry a rose, to symbolize that they wished to accomplish their goals as peacefully as possible. All of these tools were necessary because the Egyptian government tried to end the occupations of public space with use of overwhelming force. If Tahrir Square is truly the inspiration behind these occupations, then why are occupiers asking for permits and accepting arrest with a calm, peaceful demeanor?

The effectiveness and purpose of permitted, law-abiding protests and lobbying can most easily be demonstrated by the Anti-War Movement in the United States from 2003-2006.  Liberal march organizers forbade illegal action including unpermitted marches and civil disobedience in this movement, keeping complete control of the movement from its birth to its death, even going so far as to call the police on radicals who were planning illegal actions. On February 13, 2003, they turned out in record numbers for protests worldwide, with millions marching against the Iraq war in major cities around the globe.  They continued this trend of marching, sign holding, and lobbying for politicians through to the Congressional elections of 2006.  The Democrats ran on a strong anti-war platform, taking advantage of discontent with the war to take control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Once elected, however, the Democrats immediately fell back into pro-war sentiment.  All funding cuts and troop withdrawals were opposed as unpatriotic, because they put the troops that were still occupying Iraq in more danger.

The United States must be strong, the war hawks said, because we could invite more terrorist attacks with a policy of appeasement. Soon the Democrats fell in, saying that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States.  Three years of effort by the movement was lost as both parties refused to hear anti-war sentiments as realistic. The war has continued to the modern day, with declarations that the troops will soon withdraw.  What has not been as widely reported is that five thousand soldiers are necessary indefinitely to defend the new U.S. embassy in Iraq.  There are still talks of permanent military bases in country, and numbers of private mercenaries involved in the conflict are steadily increasing as U.S. troops withdraw.  On top of this, the State Department’s security detail now includes hundreds of soldiers as well as tanks and black hawk helicopters.  The war goes on under a new name, and the U.S. population is pacified with the television image of troop withdrawal.

Asking for a permit for an occupation poses other serious problems. The first is that a permit may allow for the space to be occupied for a certain period of time, but inevitably the permit will expire, leaving the occupation vulnerable to a legally sanctioned police attack. You cannot get a permit to occupy indefinitely. If you decide to reapply for a permit on a regular basis, then your occupation will be vulnerable every time the window between permits opens. If there is no window between permits, then your permit can still be denied based on sanitation and safety concerns, or by saying that other groups now wish to use your permitted space. Not only is this possible, it is completely legal. The police will then have a perfectly legal reason to evict you, and your ability to counter their logic in mass media will be limited as the police blast their reasons for the eviction through local and national news outlets before, during, and after their attempt at eviction.

The second permit-related concern is that a particular person’s name will go on the permit for the occupation. A name will also have to be placed on all marching permits. This means that the person whose name goes on the permit will be held legally liable for all incidents that involve breaking the law at the march or occupation during the duration of the permit. This may also result in that person’s trying to establish control over all behavior at the protest, possibly establishing his or her own policing apparatus for doing so. Making one person legally responsible for the behavior of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other people undermines the democratic decision-making process. If Tahrir Square is to be our inspiration, then we must become as aggressive and unmanageable as the people of Egypt against our own corrupt government system.

Realistic Revolution

The idea of revolution against big business and big government by the ninety-nine percent seems a bit far-fetched to most people.  “It will never happen,” they say, “and even if it does, there’s no way people are intelligent enough to determine their own destinies.  It would be chaos!”  Even a passing examination of this attitude shows that it is based purely on cynicism.  It is commonly said that behind every cynic is a disappointed dreamer.  So I ask you, dear reader, to see this attitude as what it is: the despair of the dreamer in you! We have shown our capacity to organize our own lives through these occupation and general assemblies.  We will continue to hammer out the process and become better organized with time, so long as we keep working on it. We aren’t doing this for some other people half a world away.  We are organizing to make our own lives better, and we should expect resistance. So, now I must ask, what would it mean for us to reject the life that has been offered to us by fate and make for the horizon?

Imagine our current society was created by an invading force.  If Nazis or other fascists invaded the United States, what would you do?  What would you do if they integrated Mussolini’s definition of Fascism?  “Fascism should be more accurately called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” What if this occupied country called itself a democracy, but almost everyone understood elections to be shams, with citizens being free to choose between two opponents from the same pro-corporate party?  What if anti-government activity was opposed by stormtroopers and secret police?  Would you fight back?  If there already existed a resistance movement, would you join it?  Would you resist if the fascists irradiated the country side, poisoned the food supplies with oil and other cancerous chemicals, and made the rivers unfit for swimming, so filthy that you wouldn’t even dream of drinking from them?  If fascists systematically gained control of the continent, would you join an underground army of resistance, to defend your neighborhood, and head from there to the boardrooms and the halls of their Reichstag to pick off the stormtroopers and most especially those who give them the marching orders?  Give me a point; give me a threshold where you will finally make a stand. Is there one? Aren’t we there?

“If I Can’t Keep my White Male Privilege, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution”

Sleepaway camp suuucked, y’all. Must be all the hormones, that pesky uterus of mine whispering mean somethings in my ear: “These fuckers would rather ejaculate on the steps of the federal reserve…”

And all the other ladies who felt unsafe, silenced? Our menstrual flows must have synched up, because certainly no person in their rational mind would turn away from Duncan Plaza as it stood, filled with drunk, shirtless men bursting at the seams with The Right Answer.

The right answer seemed to be verbal attacks on banks, congress, dysfunctional schools– caricatures that represent oppressive power to the mainstream. But when a woman points out a strange power dynamic that plays out in her conversation with a man in camp and asks him to check himself, the defensiveness sets in. And sometimes, as took place at a specific General Assembly, a woman’s got to yell in order to be heard. With what quickness the confrontation became two-sided in the eyes of the campers! “She shouldn’t have yelled at him, we agreed this was a non-violent space.” Well, then. It is too convenient that this space, a space in which a sexual assault or harassment is actually viewed as commonplace, should suddenly become vehemently defended in terms of non-violence the moment that ladies start yelling.

Over the years, various men have taken “my best interest” on as their area of expertise. There is nothing less surprising to me than a group of menfolk who fancy themselves the gatekeepers to the land of revolution also taking on the hefty responsibility of, um…which bills may be posted to said gate. Post no bills that reference race or gender, please!

They are intimidated, you must understand. Be sensitive. You are asking that they let go of their power and that frightens them. Be kind. Remember ladies, make revolution with a smile. The cuter the revolution the better. (Please google Hot Chicks of Occupy Wallstreet)

“I’m just worried that you may be pushing away the people who are really on your side.” This warning from an “ally” after I defected, alienating him with my anger. My side?

How can I describe my side without you thinking I’m running away, tampon tucked between my legs?

I ____________(name) don’t give a shit about the federal reserve.

Stuff I think would make a real revolution possible: stop raping people.

My side? I want to stand with you! And no, no one delegated secretarial tasks to the ladies, but when our problems are not viewed as primary, then here we are again, like in every lefty movement, playing a supporting role. Please understand that your economic status, your debt, your level of unemployment don’t mean shit to me when my best friend was hog-tied and raped at gunpoint by three masked men in her own home. I’m not trying to be dramatic, this is real life for women every day. Show me that this scares you as much as it scares me. Then we can chill together and plot the decline, etc.

It was early Saturday morning the first week of the New Orleans occupation. It was the first morning we had hot coffee at the camp. I was sipping on a cup and having an awkward half-awake chat with my new crush who I met after the first General Assembly when I heard the security report from the night before. “There was a guy masturbating on another guy while he was sleeping.” Hearing of an assault at the camp was heart-breaking enough, but added to that was the discomfort I felt hearing the emphasis that was placed on “another guy.”

The morning meeting started and when the issue of the assault came up, I spoke up and mentioned that whenever there is a male-on-male assault I become concerned about the reaction being framed in a homophobic way, and how that would affect my and other queer people’s comfort in the space. I looked up, and the man who worked security, the one who put the emphasis on “another guy”, was twinkling his fingers in agreement with me. After the meeting he came over and apologized for the way he spoke, introduced himself, told me how much he was learning at the occupation, how it was all very new to him. He spoke with a radical humility, with all defensiveness and ego dropped, and then he gave me a hug.

Hugging another man is pretty much against the rules of our hetero-centric, homophobic society. Hugging a gay man is completely against the rules. By listening, by being self-critical, by expressing a desire to grow, this man stood up against homophobia and patriarchy.

A problem some people have with the occupation is that there isn’t enough action. “The point isn’t to camp in a park,” is one common complaint. While I also am excited to see this movement take bolder steps in confronting systems of power, capital, and inequality, I know that a prerequisite for that is Solidarity. Solidarity is the knowledge that the people we are with have each others’ backs, not just against a police line, but at work, at a picnic, on the street corner, and over morning coffee. Solidarity is the antithesis of the alienated life handed to us in late-capitalist society. It is the antithesis of walking by people on the street and never stopping to find out about their lives and struggles and joys. It is the antithesis of politely and quietly ignoring acts of oppression so as not to make a scene– whether those acts are physical, verbal, sexual, symbolic, or otherwise. The occupation has been noticeably different to me from other activist work in that attempting to live, eat, discuss strategy, shit, work, and relax in public space with strangers forces us to work harder at finding and building solidarity.

When the 99% leave their homes to unite around what makes us the same, we will find there are deep and glaring differences. For instance, one tension that’s arisen at the occupation is the difference between people who have homes to go back to and those who have lived on the streets and in the parks of the city for some time. This latter community has boldly and bravely asserted their humanity to others in the space, creating conversations around class that many of the more privileged young people in the park have never had before. The solidarity built between me and this other man started with an acknowledgement of different experiences. This process, however slow, is a quiet but unequivocally important step in the right direction, and for that reason I urge all people with a desire to see change to celebrate slowness; it is absolutely necessary for thoughtfulness. This slow thoughtful building of solidarity is, in fact, a building block of revolution.

Dr. King stares down park where we have gathered
from a place non high
with flowers draped around his neck.
A statue, commodified and left to sit, forever still.

Occupation day 9, full of lust and confusion and coffee.
There is talk of “revolution”, but very little
to atone for such big words.
Some seek to have us all continue
begging the apparatus to behave.

As if we don’t tire from begging,
looking up to our masters with blood in our eyes,
a fire in our palms.

Somedays i feel the sidewalks under my feet,
the wind on my face and the burning hate for all this
surrounding me and suffocating me.

City hall is not reserved for us.
This system is not in place to benefit us.
It holds us all like a jealous father.

I have scraped my knees against my irresponsibility
and come clean with everything.
Naked with conviction, defiance, caffeine.

Two weeks ago I walked away
from a job and a lease and an entire way of living
that had me in shambles.
Today i wake up and walk here to this park,
where we have liberated this space.
Capital moans and groans with childish fear.

Here, when the sun goes down,
enthusiastic youth march through downtown streets
tearing their throats apart screaming,
feeling all this hope.

Yet, the spectre of pacified reform is haunting:
some pathetic spirit made of dust,
talking pretty to politicians.
My heart is full of rage and piss.

I am weary of talk, small, petty talk. A fuckin’ rabble.
We need sidewalks not overtaken by workday feet,
but empty
because we’re all in the streets.

Pensacola is ours.

Since Hurricane Andrew hit North Carolina in 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has relied on portable housing units to provide temporary shelter for survivors of natural catastrophe. As recently as 2008, when Hurricanes Ike and Gustav pummeled the Texas and Louisiana coasts, FEMA deployed thousands of temporary housing units (THUs), manufactured structures designed for short-term occupancy, to assist displaced populations in their return home.

Most infamously, FEMA also relied on manufactured housing after the record-breaking storm season of 2005. To provide shelter to tens of thousands of displaced families, FEMA cobbled together a fleet of 150,000 mobile homes, park-model “Katrina Cottages,” and travel trailers, commercial campers designed for use off-the-grid. The units were sent throughout the region.

Thousands of mobile homes were never used, though, due to federal flood-plain regulations, and the Katrina Cottage program was slow to get off the ground, so the bulk of THUs provided for the 2005 housing mission were travel trailers, bought off dealer lots at first but later built to FEMA specifications under manufacturer contracts.
Almost as soon as the shelters reached disaster zones the trailers became a public health nightmare and a threat to the very occupants the program was meant to serve. Children in the trailers began to suffer an odd array of symptoms, from headaches to nosebleeds, and allergies developed in children and adults alike to household and dietary products that had never been a problem before. Hair spray, disinfectant, processed foods, food with red-dye coloration, and a host of other innocuous things suddenly triggered allergic reactions among families seeking refuge in the trailers. As reports of sick families mounted, FEMA field agents tried to assess the problem and, largely due to the work of the Mississippi Sierra Club, formaldehyde was identified as the likely source of illness.

Added to this was the frightening number of fires and explosions that destroyed the units and injured or killed occupants. In the first two years of trailer use, scarcely a month passed without one or two electrical fires or propane-related explosions somewhere along the Gulf Coast, causing injury or death, destroying whatever property had been salvaged from the storms, and bringing even more grief to survivors.

FEMA’s response to these problems was first to deny the problem of formaldehyde exposure by ordering field agents to cease their efforts to get to the bottom of the developing crisis. Second, the agency attempted to bureaucratically disown the situation through a year and a half of foot-dragging. When the toxic exposure continued to be
reported, the agency ordered a study of indoor air quality– at the behest of an outraged Congressional committee that revealed FEMA’s duplicity in the matter through internal emails. When released, the study was roundly criticized by an array of doctors and scientists who questioned its sloppy methodologies and the conclusions it drew.

Further studies confirmed elevated levels of formaldehyde fumes found in almost every type of trailer. Ultimately, a series of lawsuits against manufacturers was resolved mostly in the manufacturers’ favor, despite well-documented evidence of the dangers occupants faced. Explosions and fires caused by a combination of occupant unfamiliarity with the units and poor-to-no maintenance of the leaky structures continued into 2008. Investigators found evidence of faulty installations and improper servicing of the units. Specialized electric wiring and propane systems were often overlooked by contractors with little to no experience in travel trailer upkeep. Initially, four major engineering firms – the Shaw Group, Fluor, CH2MHill, and Bechtel – were tasked with the installation and maintenance of the trailers, but when smaller local businesses loudly complained about the no-bid contracting process, FEMA relented and handed out contracts to three dozen small businesses.

Not all were equal to the task. Politically connected companies, including one owned by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s niece, received contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars despite their lack of expertise, as did janitorial service providers, a roofing repair company, an accounting firm, and even a scuba-diving business. The results were seen in plumes of smoke and the charred remains of the boxy units that littered neighborhoods of New Orleans and many other places from Texas to Florida. Several of these companies have been investigated and found guilty of fraud in their actions. More trials are yet to come.

FEMA would argue today that the agency learned from its mistakes in the 2005 recovery. Limits on formaldehyde levels were put in place, and now all units approved for use have, theoretically at least, levels of the chemical not thought to pose a threat to occupant health.

FEMA also banned the use of propane in its THUs, and demanded that electric systems be upgraded to household current, rather than using 12-volt battery systems traditionally installed for off-the-grid use. Units issued for emergency housing in recent years are largely designed for handicap-accessibility, and are the larger park-model type trailers rather than the notoriously cramped travel trailers.

FEMA’s contracting procedures for emergency housing have improved since 2005, but the agency hasn’t had to meet the same scale of challenges since. The hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk in dozens of vulnerable cities across the country can only hope that these lessons of the past have been taken to heart.

In the past few days and for the first time in my life, I simultaneously lost and found my voice. I’ve never had laryngitis before. Usually it is hard to hear what I’m saying, because I’ve got a low, mumbly voice, and when I stand up in front of people and talk, I start blushing fast and my hands shake. Counter to this, I am also a very argumentative and opinionated person. The past few days I’ve had occasion to do several things that scare me in front of a whole lot of people, and there’s something about having a raspy, scratchy, squeaky voice that has made it so much easier. Last night I told my roommates, “I feel tougher! Like, this is how I actually sound on the inside!”

And the past few days have felt like months. Occupy Wall Street is gathering supporters faster than anyone can believe, and here in New Orleans we’re just starting up. I write this on Friday, October 7th, 2011, the eve of Yom Kippur. Five days ago was the first general meeting to start up Occupy NOLA. I knew something important must be going on, because it drew two hundred people to a sunny park at noon during a Saints game. Yesterday was the first march, and the beginning of the Occupation in Duncan Plaza, across from City Hall. This feels like déjà vu to a lot of us; in 2007, a group of people fighting for public housing and homeless rights occupied Duncan Plaza for about a year before they were forcibly removed by the police. In that time, what began as maybe six tents, became three or four hundred people. The plaza is beautiful, in a very city-specific way. It has a huge gazebo in the middle, winding paths all around, and several rolling green hills. It is between the city hall, the large public library, and Tulane Avenue, all within the shadow of the locked and empty Charity Hospital, where all of New Orleans’ un-insured and under-insured got their healthcare Pre-Katrina. The plaza is often full of all sorts of characters and law enforcement types, like most city parks I’ve known.

This time, I cycled through the emotions of planning a political action (excitement, criticism, panic, despair, doom, resolve, hope) faster than anyone has reason to. It was clear to me early on that, as in NYC and other cities with an Occupy movement, no one reached out to street medics or other medical support to make sure someone is on top of keeping people safe. I’m certainly no expert, seasoned medic, but I have training and lots of experience in healthcare and in organizing, and this lack of planning rattled me. The values of street medicine are as strong to me as are antiracist principles- for the first, do no harm, know your limits, always have a buddy, get consent first, fight the power, and don’t depend on the health system unless you have to. For the second, learn from history, listen when people of color tell you about their lived experiences, believe them, be accountable and do what you say you’re going to do, think about the actual impact much more than the intention of your actions, fight racism in person and in public.

A young woman I recently met said to me the other day, “Life starts at the edge of your comfort zone, baby!” I have to admit that she’s right. As terrifying as it was to take on organizing a health and safety training before a big protest where we had every reason to expect police violence (given the recent history of the NOPD and what’s been happening in other cities), it was powerful. I really don’t like to be in the spotlight, for several reasons: I’m a woman and I’m scared of getting shut down for being visible, I’m white and I’m used to being able to be invisible when I want to, and I’m just plain shy, as well. From the hindsight of a couple days, I can see that it was important to stand up for what I believe in, which is creating a culture where as many of us as possible take responsibility for taking care of each other, without waiting for someone else to do it.

And I never would have expected to speak up in front of the several hundred people gathered for the first real General Assembly last night. It was starting to be twilight, the crickets were loud, and mysteriously, in a classically New Orleans manner, the long grassy hill on which we all sat was the only place in the park where the streets lights didn’t work. Ambulances, sirens wailing, went back and forth every few minutes from University Hospital to the rest of the city. The facilitator was a man who had just flown in the night before from NYC to visit his family in the South, and to help get the process rolling in New Orleans. As the meeting started he explained to us about all these newfangled activist hand signs to keep things orderly. The fingers wiggling up, the fingers wiggling down, the thumbs and index fingers steepled, and then some sort of an index finger point-and-swirl that I’m still unclear about. Just for pizzazz? Anyway, he taught us about the process of “people’s mic.” It is incredible to experience in person. When people want to speak, they stand up if they’re able to, and say about three words. The people nearby repeat them, and then the speaker says another three words, and so on. It feels so incredible, because in a funny way, the words are out there in the world and you’re acting as a microphone to say them, so it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree. You own those words. By extension, you are responsible for the person who says them– it becomes much harder to distance yourself from the human emotions and opinions that you’re repeating. At least until someone says something that makes you really mad, and you stand up, and then you have to hear your own scratchy voice amplified by two hundred people.

What made me mad enough to stand up last night occurred during a discussion about non-violence and how we would like to identify our movement. We talked about internal and external violence and about the use of self-defense. When someone from the crowd asked, “Are we considering property destruction violence?” the facilitator from NYC responded, “For the purposes of this discussion, yes.” Y’all, I’m not out there lighting cop cars on fire, (though I am full of huge compassion for the anger and frustration of the people who are), but it made me mad because one thing I can’t stand is when facilitators, who have a responsibility to guide the process of collective decision-making, get confused and think their responsibility is to call the shots. It’s an easy mistake: you’re up there, in front of a lot of people, with almost everyone listening to every single thing you say, and following your directions. I understand that it can be confusing. So I stood up and said, with my voice shaky and my face all red in the dark, “So, if we’re going to stick to this process: when someone asks a question, like, ‘Do we consider property destruction violence?’ it’s not appropriate for a facilitator to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. This is a group decision about definitions, and it’s really important.”

I know this is what I said because I read it in the meeting minutes this morning. Otherwise I really wouldn’t be sure; I was that nervous. If you’re an extrovert, it might sound like a small thing. For me it was a big thing, because I really, really don’t like to get up in front of people and do anything. And if I had a hard time speaking, I can only imagine the alienation people would feel who have had their voices shut down and their realities dismissed for much of their lives. A little while later, once we moved to a part of the park with the lights on, the facilitator apologized and said that he thought we might do things differently in New Orleans, but he would step back so we could do things the way we needed to do them. After that, three women co-facilitated the rest of the GA. Would that have happened as easily if a group of radical South Asian activists in NYC hadn’t fought to get language in a central document changed, and then hadn’t written about it publicly? I think that we’re seeing the ripple effects of them holding the NYC process accountable for history and language, and I think we in New Orleans can take that and run with it.

Because, if we are tearing down this system and building something better, we really need to be careful about who’s speaking for us, and who’s deciding what we represent. This process is a lot of things: boring, painful, silencing, alienating, exhilarating, creative, new, and totally wild… but whatever happens, it has to come from us.

All this is to say, we are already in a position in New Orleans to learn from Occupy Wall Street, after less than three weeks. Because of how fast this thing is taking off, and how many new cities are getting involved every day, there are already lessons we can learn: Lessons about planning for medical support as soon as the idea to organize something big leaves your mouth and goes to the ear of another fired-up person. Lessons about not ignoring the concerns of people of color, because all of a sudden it “Holds up the process.” (Seriously? The most time-consuming process in the entire world is consensus, but when someone wants to call out the racism in a collective document, moving on in a new and important “timely manner” is more urgent?) Lessons about police infiltration, police violence, and taking ourselves, our collective power, and the threat we pose to the system seriously enough to be ready for whatever happens. And lessons about how, when the issues at hand are relevant to enough people’s lives, and when the resistance feels life-giving and fun, people will show up by the thousands.

When I moved here from my home of NYC in early 2006 to help with the post-Katrina relief effort, I never expected to stay. But there were so many new challenges in organizing for justice here, and for the first time in my life, there were so many people willing to teach me. Because of what’s happened here and what we’ve learned from it, many people in this city know how to transform sexist and racist group dynamics that shut so many people down, and that keep our campaigns small and ineffective. Many people in the city know how to handle charismatic, disorganizing activist leaders. Once I reached out, medics in other parts of the country offered advice and resources to pull things together quickly for effective training. People of color here have created alliances between communities, from undocumented Latino workers to Black New Orleanians to Vietnamese youth, on all kinds of issues, from workers’ rights to LGBT justice to police brutality to fighting environmental racism. My intergenerational, white antiracist community has been responsive, supportive, and critical in the best way, and has truly been showing up to help each other do this work and stay engaged.

So I want to see this be a movement where, instead of someone saying, “How can we acquire more diversity?” almost everyone is saying, “Who isn’t here? Who doesn’t have a voice in this movement? And if they’re not making decisions with the rest of us, are we fighting for their rights as hard as we’re fighting for our own?” We need to talk about racism and antiracism, not in a way that centers whiteness, not in a way that’s about activist street-cred, not in a way where whoever is more critical wins, but in a way that makes the Occupy movement as relevant as it should be.

In New Orleans, this could be the movement that reinvigorates the struggle for the right to return of folks still displaced more than six years after Katrina, the right to public and affordable housing; the struggle that undoes the gutting of the public education system, that adds supporters to the fight to end to the highest incarceration rate in the world and one of the most brutal police forces documented, and that builds the kind of healthcare that actually addresses health disparities and helps people and communities get better. I want to see us acknowledge that systemic racism is real, that even if our economics look the same, our lived experiences can be so different, and I want us to stop letting our wish for sameness erase the voices that can tell us how to fight.

So tonight, at a synagogue in uptown New Orleans, I was struck once again, as I am so often, by the radical content of a central prayer in Judaism. The Amidah literally means “standing”, and it offers praise to God for supporting those who are falling, healing those who are sick, freeing those who are bound, and keeping the faith with all those who sleep in the dust. These are the rights that we’re fighting for. This is why we need to redistribute the wealth in this country so badly. To do all of these things, you need to be able to hear it when someone tells you they’re suffering, that their life is different from yours. Right now in Occupy NOLA we are just at the very beginning. We know what we’re fighting against, but we’re only just starting to articulate what we’re fighting for. We have so much potential, and I hope we can keep our minds and hearts wide open for the long haul.

Only $5 billion of the $20 billion “set aside” for victims of the BP oil disaster has been paid out, news met with enthusiasm by shareholders when announced in the summer of 2011. Thousands of claims, including from some of those hardest hit, have been denied, and BP has not paid ONE health-related claim, despite the ongoing health issues of coastal residents, clean-up workers, volunteers, and fisherfolk exposed to the dispersants and oil.

New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (ehumanrights.org) released a report illustrating the divergent approaches Oil Spill Compensation Czar Kenneth Feinberg used towards oil spill illness claims vs. claims for the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund, which he also managed. The 9/11 Fund required the claimant only prove s/he was in the “vicinity where harmful chemicals were present and had a medically diagnosed illness or disability.” Why a different standard for Gulf Coast oil disaster victims?

In October 2011, Waterkeeper Alliance (waterkeeper.org) released a report illustrating that the spill’s environmental impact will persist for decades, as three-quarters of it still lingers on the Gulf floor. In the same month, BP received the green light to drill four new exploratory wells 200 miles off Louisiana’s coast.  Of course BP is “in compliance with the heightened standards that all deepwater activities must meet,”  but assurances from a government that cannot enforce even the weakest safety and environmental standards is little comfort, especially when politicians aren’t willing to increase the cap on oil companies’ liability in the event of a spill.  It’s no coincidence that politicians on both sides of the aisle are cozy with and receive large campaign contributions from the oil industry.

Paying every claim, providing care to all people sickened by exposure, and cleaning up the Gulf’s fragile ecosystem would be a good start… but would it be enough? BP has no intention of making it right; there is no way any oil company could possibly “make right” the massive and complex system of exploitation our region has endured.