Another fall weekend in New York City brought another few days of freedom in a small square just across from the new World Trade Center site. Once again, an eclectic collection of people fed up with being abused by Wall Street gathered to express their dissent and freely associate with one another. The numbers in the park are growing – from a few hundred three weeks ago to thousands today. And the hard granite of Zuccotti Park has become a beacon for young people throughout the country who file down the stairs of its entrance and enter a space where the intensity of the movement seems to have sped up history.
A young couple from Alabama just jumped into their car and headed up to Occupy Wall Street (OWS.) Their fairly dapper dress clashed with the now well seasoned attire of the multi-week occupiers, yet, their spirit matched the moment. A short conversation about democratic socialism led to the revelation that they too were socialists. Consciousness moves that quickly in the park – from a quiet campus in Alabama one day to signing up for the Socialist Party USA mailing list the next.
If history was speeding up for our friends from Alabama, it couldn’t move fast enough for Pat, an 80 year old occupier making his first appearance at the park. “I’ve been calling for this since the end of World War II!” he proudly declared. His friends used to call him “crazy” and ask him why “he was messing around with this junk” when things were going well. Pat laughed them off, convinced that whatever democratic rights did exist were slipping away. He declined to add his name to the Socialist sign-up sheet because “I take care of things by myself,” but he was willing to offer a few words to the bright eyed participants from Alabama – “Don’t stop! You have to spread this thing.”
Deeper into the park, away from the stairs at the opening that serve as a perch for tourists to gawk at the occupation, is an alternative society in formation. Respectable university educated types mix freely with very crusty gutter punks. You have just as much of a chance to find business casual as you would weeks-old grunge. In between are very busy people – pushing carts of food, taking out the trash, chopping squash and sorting the ever growing library. This operation teems around the thousands of people wandering through park just taking in the scene.
The food line is a particular spectacle. It is an amazing marriage between the ethics of the hippies and the efficiency of any top-down kitchen in a Manhattan restaurant. Everyone gets to eat – everyone – no questions asked. And there is always enough – limited supplies are stretched by the skilled hands of kitchen crew. But there is a line. Don’t try and cut or you risk receiving the righteous indignation of diners and cooks alike. And when the meal time is done; it is done. No extras just breakfast, lunch and dinner served at set times.
Though the hippie ethic has drawn derisive comments from right-wing pundits, those supporting the occupation should not be so quick to reject it. Zuccotti is in something of a time warp. It is a peaceful place. A place where fellow human beings have managed to reverse the ethics of zero-sum individualism and survival of the fittest that rule capitalist society. Those engaging in the occupation care about each other, they share things spontaneously and many people have developed an affinity to the park similar to that of a home.
Returning home is exactly what the nightly marches do. On Saturday evening nearly one thousand occupiers marched from Washington Square Park to Zuccotti. They were met two blocks ahead of the park by people who had spent the day inside the park. Perhaps they had arrived late to the Occupation and missed the march or, like me, they had already been arrested for the movement and chose not to risk further contact with the police. The standard greeting for the marches is “welcome home,” a sentiment that perfectly captures the bond between the occupiers and the space they occupy.
These marches are a critical part of what is going on at Occupy Wall Street. They bring energy and a vibrant militancy to the occupation. Inside the park, it is easy to forget about the political mission of the occupation. There are entertainers on the left side, heady intellectuals on the right and even the occasional meditation flash mob. All of this is essential to building this alternative community, yet it is out on the street that the politics are made concrete. The smart, slightly romantic, Anarchist notion that “the street is our manifesto,” comes to life each day as a street demo directly challenges the power of the state and brings anti-capitalist politics into a head-on collision with Wall Street.
Being one of those arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge is something of a badge of honor to other Occupiers. The very fact that so many of those placed under arrest have returned to the occupied space spurs many on to join the marches. A sign reading “for every one of us you arrest, two more will appear,” is confirmed each day as more and more people take the plunge into this politically charged space.
Though there are many young people who are new to radical politics, there is also a distinct accumulation of participants from other movements. Some have been waiting a decade since the apex of the anti-globalization movement at the turn of the century. Others come from one of the many anti-war movements that sprung up since the 1980s. Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua – you can find veterans from all of these movements in the park. One should also mention the myriad of environmental movements – small and large – that produced a whole section of new militant activists. Evidence of all this is offered by the stories swapped in passing conversations, in compost boxes and by the new plants sprouting out of plastic tubes behind the food table planted with the loving care of eco-radical occupiers.
Occupy Wall Street is a space to draw inspiration from. Hope lives here and not the kind cynically peddled by Wall Street financed politicians. This movement relies solely on the solidarity expressed by participants who are willing to risk some part of their lives, who are willing to offer their skills and who are ready to embark on the dangerous task of changing the world. Entering the square is an almost mystical experience – this is a place where anything seems possible as long as one is committed to resisting. A first step inspired a question from my six year old daughter, “Dad, is this what freedom is?” My answer, without a pause was, “Yes.”
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Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and the editor of the Socialist WebZine. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly@gmail.com. Become a FAN on Facebook.
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