Occupy Wall Street needs an exit strategy

Posted on October 11, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Starting a large enterprise without having a clear idea of how it could end is risky and dangerous.  (Ask George W. Bush about the wisdom of plotting an exit strategy.)  Now that Occupy Wall Street has succeeded in getting public attention and spurring like-minded efforts across the country–and maybe the world–activists need to think about how they want to get out of Zuccotti Park.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, no friend of the occupation, and not a member of the “99 percent” by any accounting, is not the immediate problem.  Bloomberg has announced that the Occupiers can stay as long as they obey the law, suggesting that when the weather gets colder, they’ll want to drift off.  My hunch is that many of the Occupiers are heartier, more committed, and experienced enough in winter camping to hold on.

But is a democratic community based on using toilets at local fast food restaurants sustainable–or even desirable?  (See Samantha Bee’s Daily Show piece on the Occupiers and their neighbors.  The Christiania encampment in Copenhagen, which has mostly survived for forty years, provides a cautionary tale.)

Adbusters’ initial call to Occupy Wall Street asked for demonstrators to agree on one demand, and then stay until it was met, but it’s hard to see how that’s relevant–or even possible at this point.  The Occupiers’ intense focus on inclusion and democracy will make coming to any one consensual demand–aside from allowing the Occupation to continue–much less one that could actually happen–could emerge.

So, what could happen?  Complaints from neighbors or from Brookfield Office Properties, which owns Zuccotti Park, could bring the police in to break up the encampment.  Activists would then have to find a way to resurrect the Occupy movement without an occupation, arguing all the while about their right to stay in the park.

Alternatively, a few stalwarts can remain encamped near Wall Street while many others move on to other projects.  Those who stay will work to maintain a community, and their concerns will, unavoidably, focus on that goal, which means talking about their own self-governance, food, shelter, and power (electrical more than political).  This will become less and less interesting to mass media or the rest of America.

Ongoing protest outside the Lorraine Motel

Think, for example, about Jacqueline Smith, who has maintained a vigil outside the National Civil Rights Museum since 1988, when she was evicted from the Lorraine Motel, which now houses the museum.  Smith said that Martin Luther King, who spent the last night of his life in the motel, would have wanted the money and space used for something more than commemoration, like affordable housing.  She calls for a boycott of the museum, which claims more than three million visitors.

More than twenty years on, local passersby rarely raise an eyebrow at her encampment and signs; the protest continues, but without much attention, and even less visible impact.

Protest is powerful when it breaks through routines to draw attention to a set of issues, but new routines can cloud those issues again.  The Occupy campaign has already been spectacularly successful in putting the issue of economic and political equality square in the middle of policy discussions.  When this moment passes, however, activists need to find a way to maintain that focus without relying on a presence in a small public private park near in the financial district.

It’s worth thinking about this now.

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Managing the fringe

Posted on October 10, 2011 by David S. Meyer

When an estimated 100-200 antiwar activists marched on the National Air and Space museum this weekend, they took the Occupy DC name.  Occupy DC, in turn, was a name claimed by already organized groups of activists who wanted to demonstrate solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

In fact, Stop the Machine, the antiwar group, had planned this demonstration well in advance, and had displayed a tighter focus, on the war in Afghanistan, than most of the Occupy efforts.

Some of the demonstrators tried to rush the guards, and to get into the museum to protest an exhibit on unmanned aircraft (drones), like those the armed forces are now using.  The ensuing standoff led to guards pepper-spraying somewhere between one and twenty of the demonstrators, and shutting down the museum for the rest of the day.

The shutdown was a great opportunity for opponents of the Occupy effort to discredit the campaign, emphasizing its disruptive intent and its aggressiveness.

The most aggressive and disruptive of the protesters, by his own account, was Patrick Howley, an assistant editor at the American Spectator, an extremely conservative magazine.  Howley explains that he had (easily) infiltrated (read: joined) with the express intent of getting them to confront the police and discredit the larger movement.  Howley explains, and recounts his vision of the event on the Spectator’s blog.

According to Howley, the siren song of the radical left is strong, particularly when carried by large numbers of attractive young women.  Alas, as he tells us, the demonstrators were timid about confrontation, but he was able to demonstrate his protesting virility by getting past the guards and provoking pepper spray.  Whether the museum would have been closed without his efforts is an open question, but I’d think that anti-Occupiers would be wary about using this particular example in their rhetorical campaigns.

With our without Howley, however (and I’d guess the Spectator will consider continuing without him–isn’t it, after all, a journalistic enterprise?), one problem he demonstrates is a common one for movements in the United States.

Every social movement draws up some people so intensely committed that they will say–or do–something that would offend the great majority of people in that movement.  Sometimes those word–or an action–can discredit the movement as a whole.  But movements, particularly those with a democratic ethos, have a hard time policing their boundaries.  You “join” by showing up at something or doing something, claiming the name or cause.

Tea Party activists worked to purge their rallies of racist signs, and I can’t believe that most of those demonstrating outside the Capitol approved of throwing racial epithets at members of Congress, much less spitting at them.

The first defense is denial: there were no racial slurs, there was no spitting.  Political opponents will lie about you to discredit you–even if they’re members of Congress.  (Take a look at the video below and see if you can explain Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver’s walk up the steps without a screaming spitter’s intervention.)

The second denial defense is that the offender really wasn’t one of us, but was operating on his own.  The antiabortion movement, for example, worked hard to disown Paul Hill, particularly after he shot a doctor who performed abortions.  (Hill was convicted of murder, and executed in 2003).

But movements are stuck with their crazies–at least politically.  Although they want to tuck in or cut off the fringe, this is far easier said than done.  And the  larger a movement grows, the more likely it is to engage at least some zealous people who, uh, don’t help.  This is particularly true for an effort like Occupy, which is so determined to remain open and democratic, and, they would add, nonviolent.

Whether the Occupiers will be tarred by the museum protest, legitimately or otherwise, be assured that something else will happen, that their opponents will point to in order to discredit, dismiss, and marginalize the emergent movement.

The very difficult response, particularly for a democratic movement, must be taken in advance: it is to put forward, consistently, a clear focus on issues and sharp parameters on acceptable political tactics.

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Occupy Wall Street versus the Tea Party (I)

Posted on October 8, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Perhaps predictably, the comments section of the Washington Post in response to my op-ed has provided a space for typists to rail against me in making their own political points.  The notion that I would dare to compare the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers, particularly, has appalled respondents on the left and right.

Tea Partiers are angry that I would compare a bunch of unwashed and lazy moochers, ready to disrupt and break the law with upstanding employed people who are petitioning, sometimes with their feet, to reign in government.

Politico comparison of Tea Party and Occupy movement

Sympathizers with the Occupiers report that I don’t understand how the Occupy effort is an effort to build democracy–while the Tea Party is bought and paid for by large money, and is essentially a surrogate for the right wing of the Republican Party.

The protesting people you like are authentic and provoked; those you disagree with are deceived, doing someone else’s bidding (big business or ideologues), stupid, and/or selfish.   It’s too hard to recognize the possibility of sincerity and good will from your political opponents.  (I must confess, however, that I don’t believe that I’m getting flack from both sides means I’m right.)

What’s the same?  Both movements, one well-developed and institutionalizing, another emergent, represent substantial groups of people, angry about governance and the economy, who’ve taken to the streets as their best hope of effecting influence, taking politics outdoors.  To make an impact, they will have to inspire and/or coerce support from people fully engaged in more institutional politics, where they each have allies.

That said, the differences are significant: Two lines that the editors cut from the Post piece:  While the Tea Partiers dragged lawn chairs to large rallies, the Occupiers carried sleeping bags, planning for a longer stay. Images from the Occupy Wall Street movement show a younger and more colorful America than Tea Party projects.

Neither point is as trivial as it might seem.  Tea Party supporters ARE older, whiter, and more affluent than the rest of America.  We don’t have comparable data–yet–from the Occupy movement, but the pictures and issues clearly show a larger share of people in the early stages of their working life, and a larger share of people who aren’t white.  The Occupiers are strongest in large cities.

America is changing demographically, something that at least some of the Tea Party is fighting, trying to appeal to an imaginary past, rather than recognizing the world as it is.  The Occupiers are deeply steeped in the travails of the present (see the grievances at we are the 99 percent), and at least some visible portion of those at Wall Street are heavily invested in an imagined (democratic) future that appears utopian.

The inspired visions, of a strict Constitution without the baggage of the real historical Constitution (slavery, for example), or decentralized democracy with grassroots participation and widespread engagement, animate the action–and especially the rhetoric–of many protesters, but movements operate in the present, with extremely pragmatic constraints.  History doesn’t end either way.

With the Republican establishment largely out of power at the outset of the Tea Party, party operatives and organized groups were quick to invest in the emergent Tea Party.  Freedom Works trained organizers across the United States and produced scripts for disrupting the town hall meetings of 2009.  The support of large business interests, most dramatically represented by the billionaire Koch Brothers, provided a deep pocket to invest in one set of ideas and a social movement strategy.  Recall the surge in sales for Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, as conservative activists promoted the virtues of organizing.

Well-established groups rebranded themselves as Tea Party campaigns to raise money and their public profile.  Sal Russo’s Tea Party Express was a conservative PAC called Our Country Deserves Better; the movement changed the names, but the activity–funneling money into political campaigns–stayed the same.  And national Tea Party groups have been incredibly successful at raising money.

The Tea Party also enjoyed the active support of a segment of mainstream media, most obviously, Fox News, which promoted its events and consistently offered a favorable interpretation of Tea Party activism.  There is no comparable analogue on the left.

I do not mean to suggest there isn’t real grassroots activism out there on the right.  The Tea Party appeals found strong support from frustrated Americans, and the passionate endorsement of a significant minority of Americans.  Real money and organizational skill couldn’t produce a movement without some public resonance, which the Tea Party demonstrated.

Now, however, Tea Party efforts have moved to focus on electoral politics and Washington lobbying–at the expense of the grassroots.  Tea Party Express chair Amy Kremer explained that shift as reflecting the Tea Party’s growing up: “The movement has matured, and we have learned that having a rally, it’s great, it attracts people but it doesn’t affect change just because you’re out on the lawn or 20 days and 20 nights.”

The move to conventional politics helped the national groups make the movement’s apparent focus the debt and deficit, and channel opposition to taxes and regulation–and not issues many local groups preferred, like immigration, social concerns, or the Federal Reserve.  The battle to define the Tea Party continues, now through the Republican primary season.

Occupy Wall Street came from outside of virtually all of the large left and liberal groups, which were initially wary about offering support–or even publicity.  Only when activists demonstrated the potential appeal and staying power of their effort did larger groups, like Moveon.org and the unions jump on.  The organized groups insist that they don’t want to take over, but rather, to endorse the activists.

The struggle to define the Occupy movement is just beginning.

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What Occupy Wall Street Learned from the Tea Party

Posted on October 8, 2011 by David S. Meyer

This appears in the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook Section.

[I’m fascinated by the range of responses in the comment section.]

The Occupy Wall Street movement, three weeks strong and gaining momentum, reminds us that tea partyers aren’t the only people unhappy with the state of the nation.

The two groups are angry about some of the same things, too, especially the government bailouts for big banks — a similarity that Vice President Biden observed in remarks on Thursday. They’ve taken different tacks for expressing their anger. The Occupiers are camping out in New York’s Financial District, while tea partyers have elected people to fight against government spending and deficits — and against regulations or oversight of businesses, small and big.

It’s not something they’re likely to claim credit for, but members of the tea party cleared the way for protesters on the other side of the political spectrum. The tea party demonstrated that protest works, even when government doesn’t.

Most people take to protest only when they believe it is their best hope for getting what they want. It doesn’t have to be extremely promising, just more likely to work than anything else. Nearly three years into President Obama’s term, the Occupiers have little reason to believe that their government is going to respond to their concerns. Washington seems stalemated, and the protesters’ priorities — addressing economic insecurity and political inequality — aren’t high on the agenda. So they’ve gone to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, camped out in front of Los Angeles City Hall and marched in Washington’s Freedom Plaza.

Not very long ago, this is essentially what the tea party was doing. Supporters started to appear at town meetings and rallies in 2009, demanding a more responsive government. Our political institutions, they said, no longer worked the way they were supposed to, and the concerns of regular people were being ignored. The Occupiers agree, although the regular people they represent look a little different.

The tea partyers’ success at the polls, ironically, made it even harder for the government to get anything done, as clearly demonstrated by last summer’s debt-ceiling debacle. The Occupiers watched, and learned.

One lesson was the virtue of audacity. The tea partyers who shouted down members of Congress at town hall meetings during the health-care debate in the summer of 2009 got massive media attention and built a national movement. The Occupiers went after the capital of capitalism, Wall Street, promising a long-term encampment and, more generally, to create a movement that would speak for the “99 percent” of Americans whose interests neither Wall Street nor the government is taking seriously.

Less than two months ago in these pages, I wondered where the movement on behalf of those suffering most in this stagnant economy was. I argued that for a powerful protest movement to emerge, large, established progressive organizations and labor unions had to invest heavily in organizing one. The Occupiers have so far shown otherwise.

The call to occupy Wall Street didn’t come from any of those well-funded and experienced groups, but from Adbusters, an activist magazine in Canada, and it was endorsed quickly by the hacktivist collective Anonymous. At first, the turnout in Lower Manhattan was small, far less than the 20,000 that the organizers predicted. Coverage from mainstream media was slight. Yet news spread online through many activist networks, and the protest continued, with dozens of demonstrators sleeping out on rainy nights, holding open a space for broader participation.

And it came. Activist celebrities and celebrity activists visited, and much larger crowds turned out for events including a march across the Brooklyn Bridge that disrupted traffic and led to more than 700 arrests. That made news around the world, and as mass media began to cover the protest and the stories of the people involved, new allies signed on to the campaign. Organized groups and individuals who couldn’t get to New York started other Occupy campaigns around the country, often relabeling events they had already planned.

The Occupation became a place where diverse groups could bring their grievances, as when hundreds of pilots marched, in uniform, against the very slow progress in their contract negotiations — and corporate greed more generally. National progressive groups and trade unions, which were initially wary of the Occupy effort, issued statements of support. This past week, Occupy Wall Street staged a much larger demonstration, its numbers swelled by the support of unions representing nurses, teachers, transit workers and others.

Just what the movement is is controversial. Stressing the need for consensus, the Occupiers haven’t settled on demands, expressing general criticism of inequality and telling personal stories about health-care problems, student loan and mortgage debt, and — over and over — unemployment and underemployment. Individual demonstrators have offered remedies, from tax reform to global revolution, but the Occupy movement has refused to settle on a narrow set of demands; instead, participants are demanding that others come up with answers to their problems. And it’s not hard to see a familiar left-liberal agenda offering solutions.

The Occupiers can’t control what happens next. As larger, more established groups join them, they are staking their own claims about what needs to be done, trying to contribute and ride the surge of discontent that the Occupiers have launched. MoveOn.org endorsed the protest, and Van Jones, whose brief, controversial tenure as an environmental adviser in the Obama administration eventually led to his national campaign to “take back the American dream,” credited the Occupiers with starting what might become a liberal counterpart to the tea party.

Politicians have begun to respond, as well. In Los Angeles, several City Council members visited the Occupation in front of City Hall before the council introduced a resolution of support. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent 100 ponchos to the Occupiers’ tent city when rain came. Soon, the activists will want more than rain gear.

As with all social movements in America, this one will evolve as it grows. Some issues will come to center stage while others get crowded out. How the Occupiers are defined will determine their influence. Calls for progressive taxation or serious investments in education and jobs, for example, are likely to make for a larger coalition than a vague call to end global capitalism.

And what’s happening with the tea party? For the first two years of the Obama administration, it was the political right that was staging the colorful and visible demonstrations that made the news. In relatively short order, it marched into the Republican Party, invigorating electoral campaigns — at the expense of the grass-roots mobilization that first made headlines. National tea party groups, such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, have raised more money than ever before and have been fully engaged in the Republican presidential primaries.

The large demonstrations that put the movement on the political map have tapered off. Tea party activists are struggling with how to reconcile their vision with the actual candidates for office, who will always be imperfect messengers. FreedomWorks, for example, protested outside a presidential forum sponsored by the Tea Party Express because Mitt Romney was participating. What’s best for the movement? A purist who won’t be elected? A well-funded, pragmatic candidate who, they fear, will sell them out once in office?

Obama is not being challenged for the Democratic nomination, so Occupy activists don’t face that same dilemma. They can press for what they believe in and watch as politicians try to deliver. They’re already trying. This past week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) proposed financing a jobs program with a surtax on millionaires. This might or might not be good policy; the Occupiers have shown, though, that it’s good politics.

But this movement is just beginning, and this is only the first political response. If the mobilization continues and grows, the offers will only get better.

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An Agenda for the Occupiers?

Posted on October 5, 2011 by David S. Meyer

One of the gripes, cautions, criticisms of the emergence of a movement of Occupiers is the lack of a coherent agenda.  (I’ve also made these points.)

But take a look at We are the 99 percent

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

and see if you don’t think there’s a common agenda underneath the stories.

People report on unemployment and underemployment, student and housing debt, health care and insurance woes, and a general frustration with their perceived lack of political influence.

 

At this moment, there are 49 web pages of photos and personal stories.

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Report from Occupy LA

Posted on October 4, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Erin Evans, a graduate student here at UCI, attended Occupy LA, and offers this report:

Like most activists who attended the Occupy LA protest on Saturday, October 1st, I was posting about the experience there on facebook throughout the day. Someone wrote on my “wall” the next day, “How was yesterday?” I replied, “Lots of people. Lots of good signs. Marching on the sidewalks, only. Lots of community, not so much anger. But I think things will rev up as the NY folks keep staying ground.”

We started in Pershing Square where the organizers had activists congregate and rally before marching to City Hall. Some friends of mine from the United Auto Workers, the union representing graduate students UC Irvine, were well accompanied by other unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW brought several large red and black flags that stood out amongst the pieces of cardboard most of us used, with slogans written in felt pens. It was a diverse group from the start, all of us mingling around looking for friends amongst the hundreds of demonstrators. It was a little surreal being around so many people from such different walks of life. Folks from Anonymous wore Guy Fawkes masks to signal their affiliation or solidarity with this otherwise clandestine, un-networked group of hackers. There were middle-aged folks with signs stating that “It’s not a crisis, It’s a scam,” and senior citizens with signs reading, “Not Too Old To Be Angry.” A very well dressed man held a sign with, “I am the 1% who supports the 99%,” and he appeared timid and nervous, for good reason. He was amongst a majority of signs slamming Capitalism. Like many mass demonstrations, the group that seemed most present was what Olbermann called “The over-educated and under-employed.” Peace punks with home made patches and mohawks.  “Hipsters” with mustaches, tight pants, deliberately messy hair, and charmingly dismissive demeanor.  People who looked like they just returned from Burning Man and were extending the affair into the protest realm. And people in themed costumes planning variations on street theater, like female reporters with death-mask face paint doing mock interviews throughout the day.

At 10:30am speakers, without megaphones, had the crowd chant instructions on remaining peaceful, remaining on the sidewalks, and remaining obedient to instructions given by organizers and police. It was difficult to hear what they were saying with so many people chatting and milling around, but most of the crowd chanted along and followed their instructions carefully along the march to City Hall. By the time we left around 11:30am there were 500-1000 people walking out of Pershing Square, on the sidewalks, only. This made the march a long and clumsy affair. (It felt like 500-1000, but I’ve read reports about it being more like 4000.)

We stopped at stoplights. We stopped for cars. At one point someone started chanting “Whose streets?! Our Streets!!” The crowd didn’t keep up with the call back, probably because it didn’t make sense. A friend walking behind me called out, “Whose sidewalks?! Our sidewalks!!” A humorous way to illuminate the frustrating irony of our obedience, especially in the face of what was happening in New York. We marched slowly and chanted peacefully down the sidewalks for about an hour towards City Hall. Once we arrived the crowd split into two entrances to the building, one on the North side and one on the West. They kept shuffling us around when thoroughfares got clogged.

There was a drum circle with dancers on the West side for most of the afternoon. A young guy with piercings gave me a sticker that said “Support Zombie Banking: Green, Selfishness, Excess, Indulgence, Gluttony” and asked me to put it on my sign. Two artists worked on an amazing painting for hours and drew wandering crowds of protesters as the picture evolved. Some people laid on the grass, some held signs for hours on end on the sidewalk, most took bottled water from volunteers, some bought food from a street vender, others left to buy food and come back. There was a massage train at one point that turned into a string of 20 people or so rubbing each other’s shoulders. Every once in a while an enthusiastic activist would hop on a bullhorn and rant for a few minutes, trying to get folks excited and chanting.

It felt like an outdoor festival, with a purpose. There was an agenda posted on the first aid booth with the afternoon of speakers and various events that seemed like a hodge-podge of activity to keep us from getting restless. At the end of the agenda it read that activists would leave City Hall, but the activists I talked to shared a common understanding that this one rule would be undoubtedly be broken. I was there with a few other grad students from UC Irvine. For most of the afternoon we sat and chatted, then got restless and decided to walk around the building to see what the police presence was like. We came across what I think was a conversation between a police liaison and an officer. “We’re expecting the crowd to stay about the same, but we moved people around the last two times you asked us to.”

The organizers, whose affiliation I couldn’t pin down concretely, were eager to keep the police placated, and the activists mobilized. That is a very, very difficult endeavor. On the opposite side of the building it looked like personnel were cleaning up after a police training of some sort. A bomb squad vehicle was in the middle of one of the blocked off streets, and on the lawn they were taking down a buffet table. They didn’t seem concerned with the protesters, which made me think they weren’t overtly there for the occupation. But it was an ominous display and, I suspect,  intentional. When we got back to the West side we sat in the grass and talked. A person in black-block (a method of disguise) sat with us and said some folks who were “more direct action oriented” were meeting later in the afternoon to plan something. I didn’t attend the meeting, but heard that some folks used chalk to write slogans on the City Hall walls. Before we left I saw two people scrubbing chalk off the side of City Hall. The leash was tight on militancy.

We talked about the Occupations in my discussion sections for an undergraduate Political Sociology course today. As most teachers know, students have sparks of exception insight that come when you’re bogged down in theory and jargon. I mentioned how the LA event seemed more symbolic than the New York event, and how that could be due to a number of factors. Maybe because there isn’t a location where the target is concentrated, as there is with Wall Street? Or perhaps because it was an event meant for solidarity, as opposed to causing affective disruption? Maybe it was something as simple as it being on a Saturday, when City Hall is closed? A student said, “Los Angeles’ bread and butter is symbolism, of course it’s gonna be a bunch of people putting on a show!”

I thought that was rather astute.

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Wall Street, mass arrests, and media

Posted on October 2, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge are a good way for a protest campaign to break into mainstream media nationally.  Although Occupy Wall Street got some coverage in national outlets over the past two weeks, international news provided more extensive coverage.  Of course, movement sites, blogs, and Twitter provided even more coverage.

But upwards of 700 arrests near a national landmark is newsworthy everywhere.

And here’s the dilemma for activists: conflict, drama, celebrities, and novelty make news.  Alas, it generally doesn’t make for coverage of issues, and the things demonstrators do to get noticed may not bring them the kind of attention they want; they may look foolish, provocative, or deviant.  But polite, informed discussion of important issues by regular people isn’t so interesting to cover.

In one way, the New York Police Department’s mass arrest did the emerging Occupy movement a favor.

So, who was responsible?

The New York Times City room blog posted official police videos which clearly show police with megaphones warning demonstrators that failure to clear the traffic lanes will lead to arrest.

But it’s also very easy to find other videos on line that show police officers appearing to lead demonstrators into the roadway.

Watch a few videos and you’ll probably conclude, as I did, that police warned demonstrators and that many demonstrators thought they were following a safe demonstration route and received no warning of impending arrests.

These days, most large demonstrations are negotiated, even choreographed, in advance by the organizers and the police.  They permit locations, arrange for sound, and even identify zones where protesters can be arrested.  The leaderless Occupy Wall Street group hasn’t been negotiating with the police, and the open source ethos has allowed many competing messages to flourish within the ranks of the protesters.

This means less predictability–and more risk–for everyone involved.

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Off Wall Street and onto the police

Posted on October 2, 2011 by David S. Meyer

A demonstration’s organizers win when media cover their issues as well as their events.  As the events in New York reach a broader audience, they also focus increasingly on policing.  Is this a victory?

Occupy Wall Street has inspired support across the country and drawn locals to events elsewhere in New York City, but the visible focus, always fuzzy, has moved from economic inequality to the police.   On Friday, more than 1,000 people marched on police headquarters in New York, protesting the videotaped pepper spraying of several demonstrators earlier in the week.

Yesterday, more than 1,500 set off across the Brooklyn Bridge; more than 700 people were arrested for blocking traffic when they veered into the traffic lanes.  The demonstrators say they were following the police.  There’s some credible suggestion that they were entrapped.  The New York Times (one of its freelancers was among the arrested) reports confusion, with some demonstrators thinking that the police were protecting them, while others wanted to claim the bridge:

There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way. The Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito, and a horde of other white-shirted commanders, were among them.

After allowing the protesters to walk about a third of the way to Brooklyn, the police then cut the marchers off and surrounded them with orange nets on both sides, trapping hundreds of people, said Mr. Dunn. As protesters at times chanted “white shirts, white shirts,” officers began making arrests, at one point plunging briefly into the crowd to grab a man.

With no authorized leaders, police can’t broker deals with the group, and the mass of demonstrators make their own choices about where to go and what to say without much in the way of guidance.

In the bigger picture, the Occupy Wall Street group, which includes considerable diversity in terms of goals and approaches to social change, can all agree on protesting pepper spray and mass arrests.  The question is whether this focus is good for an emerging movement?

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Occupied Wall Street

Posted on September 30, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Some of the demonstrators who promised to stay at the protest on Wall Street until their one demand was answered nearly two weeks ago are still there.  Several dozen are camping out in Zuccotti Park, a private park nearby, and many others are coming to visit.  Among the famous (at least to left-liberal activists) visitors are Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, and Cornel West.  Noam Chomsky has sent an endorsement, which is now posted on Occupy Wall Street’s website.

Just what that one demand is remains completely unclear.  The organizers are vigorously committed to some kind of grassroots democracy, and this has made settling on any one thing–or even agreeing on a menu of policy remedies–practically impossible.  (Prove me wrong on this one.)  There is a consistent general concern with growing income inequality in America and the grossly disproportionate political power of the rich.  The communiques from the demonstrators are said to speak for the “99 percent.”

Meanwhile, the business of business on Wall Street (and elsewhere) has continued, apparently uninterrupted.  Surely, some people who work downtown have stopped by for education, entertainment, or to express support, but the markets are unaffected.

So, what is it all about?  The protesters who’ve issued statements or appeared in interviews report on a range of individual and collective grievances with America, and sometimes with their lives.  The Wall Street action is the first chance they’ve seen to try to take collective action to make their worlds better.

The continued encampment has become a holder for grievances about inequality, the best site many people can find to stake their claims.  While some of the first protesters mean to start a nonviolent revolution to bring capitalism down, many other activists come with, uh, more modest goals.

More than 700 airline pilots marched in uniform, protesting the proposed merger between United and Continental Airlines, and stalled negotiations on their union’s contract.  In recent days, other unions have made appearances, showing support for the demonstrators and the action, and expressing their own spin on the political problem of inequality.

The persistence of the protesters, along with their resistance to settling on a small list of demands, has provided all kinds of other people with an opportunity to speak to broader audiences and to ride the anger and momentum of the protest–and public concern with inequality.  What the Wall Street action means, however, is still being negotiated through action.

There have been a few instances of very rough treatment by police, including aggressive use of pepper spray by a Deputy Inspector, all documented on videos that have gone viral–internationally.  The demonstrators are trying to balance ongoing protest against police brutality with efforts to reach  out to, recruit, and represent, the police.  It’s a difficult balance to manage, and longstanding local grievances with the police could overshadow the broader claims most demonstrators want to make.

A few issues that merit more attention:

1.  The Wall Street protesters have complained about being ignored or dismissed by mainstream media.  Although this may be a little overstated (see New York Times reports, for example), the protest has gotten much more attention overseas.  Most of the links above are from international media, and activist sites–and sympathetic amplifiers on Facebook and Twitter, have been much better at getting the word out.

2.  On Wall Street, activists have compared themselves to the Egyptian demonstrators in Tahrir Square, but this seems more than a little bit of overreach.  It’s certainly not clear that many want to bring the government down, for example.

3.  The Wall Street protest is already spreading, as allies around the country are staging their own occupations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.  These aren’t yet massive groups, bu there are efforts in many many places.  See Occupy Together for an inventory of actions and links to sites and campaigns around the world.

4.  On the right, a great deal of activist attention has been sucked up in the Republican primary campaigns.  On the left, however, with President Obama unchallenged for the Democratic nomination, the Wall Street-style protests are the best bet that activists can see.  Expect more–for months.

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Irvine 11 verdict vindicates poor protest strategy

Posted on September 24, 2011 by David S. Meyer

An Orange County jury found 10 students guilty of two misdemeanor offenses for disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador, Michael Oren, at the University of California, Irvine (my school), more than a year ago.  Superior Court Judge Peter A. Wilson sentenced the students to three years of unsupervised probation.  If the students each complete 56 hours of community service within the year, the probation will be suspended.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackaukas’s foolish choice to charge and prosecute the students for an uncivil disruption of a campus activity stretched the news cycle for the event over more than a year, gave a name and a public profile to a group of young activists, and created a national audience for their views.  It’s hard to think that this is what he had in mind when he decided to charge them.  (A cynical view would suggest that the District Attorney saw this as a good issue for building his own political career.)

In contrast, the DA’s decision helped the protest succeed far beyond what the activists could have reasonably expected.  Members of the Muslim Students Union wanted to challenge Ambassador Oren’s visit in particular, and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians in general.  The “popcorn protest” (staggered fits of shouted denunciations) interrupted the talk, as one after another of the protesters was escorted out of the auditorium.  The Ambassador ultimately delivered his remarks and took questions.

Take a look at the video of the disruption, and see if you think the students’ arguments got out clearly:

The university disciplined the disruptive students (individual penalties are not public), and banned the Muslim Students Organization from campus for one quarter for organizing the protest and concealing its efforts.

It could have ended there, but the DA rescued the students’ cause by charging them.  A simple Google search for news of the Irvine 11 verdict generates nearly 500 hits at this moment, across the country and around the world.  The students got to make their claims about Israel and its ambassador in court, getting far more attention than they would have otherwise.  The trial provided a focus for organizing for the past eighteen months or so, as supporters forged ties with sympathetic lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and journalists, and made their case broadly.  With an appeal on the horizon, this will continue, as activists plan next steps in response to the verdict.  (See http://www.irvine11.com/ for details.)  I expect that they will organize around the selective prosecution of this protest, which surely looks to be based on the ideas, rather than the actions, of the protesters, and make extremely credible charges about the DA’s political motivations.  In short, DA Racklaukas did more for the protesters’ cause than they were able to do on their own.

DA Rackaukas should have to answer questions about his office’s resources, when there are quite serious crimes (one recent example) that demand his office’s attention.  Judge Wilson’s sentence, taking into account the actual magnitude of the crime and the sincerity of the students’ beliefs, hardly justifies the past year’s effort by the DA’s office.

[We’ve discussed this case before, here, here, here, and here.]

Meantime, we should wait a second before signing onto all the claims the defendants are making about their actions and the law.  Just because DA Rackaukas is wrong, it doesn’t mean that the Irvine 11’s supporters are all right.  Free speech, as my colleague Erwin Chemerinsky has noted, doesn’t mean unrestricted freedom to shout down another speaker.  (Were the proto-Tea Party shout-downs at health care town meetings the best expression of American democracy?)  Sincere beliefs don’t immunize a person from criminal prosecution–even if we agree with those beliefs.  Stop for a second and think about someone whose views you despise who could make exactly those arguments.

And calling an action “civil disobedience” doesn’t protect the disobedient from trial or penalty.  (Henry Thoreau went to jail before someone paid his poll taxes; Martin Luther King went to jail dozens of times.)

I think the American Civil Liberties Union’s reaction, as reported by the Daily Pilot, was only partly right:

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said he is “deeply troubled” by the conviction and by the district attorney’s decision to charge the students with a crime.

“If allowed to stand, this will undoubtedly intimidate students in Orange County and across the state, and discourage them from engaging in any controversial speech or protest for fear of criminal charges,” Hector Villagra said.

“The extraordinary resources required for the criminal prosecution and trial of these 10 young men — including having the head of the district attorney’s homicide division leading the effort — would have been better used to fight crimes that endanger the residents of Orange County than to chill speech and discourage student activism,” he said.

Will the prosecution and sentencing have a chilling effect on free speech on campus, as Mr. Villagra suggests?  I’m not convinced.  Student activists for any cause will have learned that a small splash on campus can garner national (and international) attention and provide a stable platform for their ideas and organizing efforts.

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