The notion that “what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” will be tested - and proven - in the days, weeks, months, years following November 15, 2011. Like Cairo’s Tahrir Square, physical occupation of the renamed Liberty Square has undeniable power for inspiring determination and strength. Violence by the state, with NYC’s brutal eviction effort, and condescension from the media, which have always supported the powerful, are wrong but predictable. Occupy Wall Street is a movement that is international, stretching well beyond the financial corridors in lower Manhattan. There are plenty of ways to keep our presence and protest visible.
Halloween seems a good time to consider what's "scary" about Occupying Wall Street. When I talk to friends about stopping by Liberty Square, the response is almost universal. It goes something like: “Oh, I really support Occupy Wall Street,” followed by, “I don’t want to get arrested!”
Thanks to initial NYPD brutality and the drumbeat about a big police presence with alleged overtime extravagance, there is widespread fear of joining a peaceful demonstration. And now we have Oakland.
Word of shocking violence against Occupy Oakland immediately went viral. Google shows more than 50 million search results for “Oakland police violence occupy protest.” Widely condemned (including by our modern day Walter Cronkite, Jon Stewart), it nonetheless perpetuates the sense that protesting is dangerous.
Essentially, the State is scaring folks away from criticizing it.
Scare Tactics: Not Working So Well
Yet despite (and also inspired by) nationwide state-sponsored violence, public approval of Occupy Wall Street efforts is soaring. In New York state, a poll this week shows that, by 2-1, voters agree with OWS criticism of bankers and Wall Streeters; a full 86% of NYC voters support the OWS right to protest. Earlier this month, Time magazine reported that 54 percent of all Americans view the Occupy Wall Street movement favorably.
So, will the government let the Occupy Wall Street movement, powered by social media, grow unimpeded? Not so fast.
Right after the Oakland debacle on October 25, when police threw concussion grenades and tear gas directly into the crowd, leaving one protester, an Iraq veteran, in critical condition, public officials seem to have tried to get Google to remove damning videos of the attacks. According to Chris Burns, editor of the tech website, SlashGear, Google issued a “transparency report” on October 27, indicating that the search engine giant “had requests and/or demands from law enforcement agencies to take down videos…. for fear that they would ‘defame’ law enforcement officials.” Burns notes that Google regularly complies with content-removal requests from the government, though clearly not in this case.
Social media have plenty of their own weaknesses (like issues of veracity, manipulation, and vacuous content to name a few). But the bigger threat remains from the 1% and government officials it controls. They will keep fighting back. What do you think?
Courage, Ingenuity, Kindness, Fairness, Hope....virtues I associate with the amazing (oh yeah, plus amazing) phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street here in NYC.
At the "Political Action Table" in the well-renamed Liberty Square, I've talked to scores of really diverse people over the past month. Like me, they are awed by the "occupiers" and OWS efforts.
"Good luck to you!" they say (even though I'm just a part-timer there). They seem really happy when I say, "Oh no, good luck to US!"
Here's the thing - a concern that Jimmy Higgins highlights in his fine post (thanks Jeanne Heifetz for sharing): All of us 99%-ers need to claim our part in OWS and build this movement - even if we don't sleep in a park.
