NYC: Occupy Wall St. Protest, a Day 1 Recap, #occupywallstreet

Thousands of people converged on the financial district in downtown Manhattan on Saturday to protest the influence of Wall St. on our nation's politics.  Billed as the US Day of Rage by organizers, the protesters' united being one single, simple demand: free and fair elections.  An excerpt from the original call to action:

Legitimate government is born of the self-interest and will of the people expressed by its citizens in free and fair elections. It does not spring from a tyranny of special interests, patronage, or a system or ideology that runs counter to the aims of life.

The institutions of government were designed to protect the principles of our democratic republic and to serve the will of citizens.

Corporations, even those owned by foreign shareholders, use money to act as the voices of millions, while individual citizens, the legitimate voters, are silenced and demoralized by the farce.

Free and fair elections inspire good citizenship and public service, because they engage the intelligence and genuine good will of the American people.

Protesters can be found on Wall St. on any given day of the week. And large demonstrations against the big banks and the undue influence of corporate interests take place in the financial district on a fairly regular basis.  The Occupy Wall St. protests are different, however.  The protesters have not gone home.  In fact, they are still there right now.  They are streaming their assemblies live if you want to check in.  Here are some of my pics from the day. 

Their immediate tactical goal is to occupy a space in the financial district and hold it.  None of their actions have been technically permitted, in the sense that no permits were obtained ahead of the protest action, as would normally be the case for a fairly large protest and demonstration.  But, aside from a couple tense moments over the course of the day, the NYPD appear to have been fairly accommodating to the protesters thus far, though they did shut down all the streets immediately surrounding the New York Stock Exchange to all traffic except for those who live or work in the area.

Around midday protesters gathered at Bowling Green for an impromptu rally with an open podium.  By 2pm, a few thousand people had assembled.  I happened to catch Rev. Billy, the Green Party's candidate for NYC mayor in 2009, speaking to a small group of independent media reporters who asked him about everything from the relationship between the major parties and the big banks, environmental policy, manufacturing and even the two-party duopoly.  I'm sure you can guess which question I asked:



At around 3pm, the assembled crowd marched from Bowling Green up Broadway to Zuccotti Park, also known as Liberty Plaza, in the shadow of the World Trade Center site.

Excelsior at the WTC site, from the NW corner of Liberty Plaza

At Liberty Plaza, folks milled about for a while, talking and chanting.  A quick general assembly was held, and people then broke up into smaller discussion groups.  So who was in the crowd? There were people from all over the country and, of course, New York City, which means that there were also people from all over the world.  There were no mass-produced signs, as one can often find at large demonstrations, a potential indicator that this was not a top-down organizational affair.  In terms of political ideology, there were anarchists, socialists, libertarians, Greens, Ron Paul supporters, Independents, and a fair number of folks from Anonymous in Guy Fawkes masks.  One Anon said he was a construction worker who helped dig out the Ground Zero site following 9/11, if I heard correctly.  He spoke about civil liberties and support for Ground Zero workers in one of the discussion groups at Liberty Plaza:

An Anon addresses a discussion group.

Discussion in the groups inevitably turned to the topic of what to do next.  Many decided to hold a spontaneous march back down to Wall St.  As Wall St. had already been walled off by the NYPD, the chaotic march snaked through the financial district.  The most tense moments of the march took place when protesters were blocked from heading up toward the stock exchange at the corner of Wall St. and William St.  That also just happens to be where Cipriani Wall St. is located.  Partiers at the posh restaurant headed to the balcony to see what all the ruckus down on the street was.  In formal attire, with more than a couple holding martini glasses, they were greeted with boos and chants from the crowd.  Eventually, the march made its way back up to Liberty Plaza.  People hung out until about 7pm, when another general assembly was called.  Hundreds of people remained in the park as darkness fell.

The assembly was very well-run, especially given the fact that there were hundreds of people there, and no amplification was allowed since there were no permits.  A handful of organizers moderated and facilitated the discussion within the large crowd using a consensus-based discussion and decision-making model.  People were fairly disciplined, maintaining both order and high spirits.  They discussed everything from organizational strategy to sleeping arrangements to NYC laws governing political protest on the streets, to media strategy, potential demands, strategy and tactics moving forward and so on.  I'm sure you can find it all on Twitter under #occupywallstreet, if you're so inclined. 

People gathered for the evening general assembly.

Two incidents in particular highlighted the discipline of the assembled crowd.  At one point, none other than Jimmy McMillan, former NY gubernatorial candidate for the Rent is Too Damn High Party, appeared at the edge of the assembly accompanied by two others.  Folks were initially excited about his appearance, but it quickly became apparent that he wanted to go "up on stage" and speak to the group.  What he didn't understand was that there was no "stage", that the people standing in the middle of the group were only facilitating the discussion for the rest.  People basically told McMillan to back off, yelling that if he wanted to address the group, he would have to follow the procedures that had been set out at the beginning.  He opted to leave instead, apparently.  A similar incident happened a bit later on when a local reporter from ABC News disrupted the proceedings by walking to the middle of the crowd with a camera and microphone.  They were shouted down and told to get in line if they wanted to talk.  They opted instead to leave the assembly and ended up interviewing a number of folks on the edge of the crowd.  

By the end of the general assembly, the group had decided to pursue a non-confrontational posture toward the police, and to march on Wall St. if they were ordered to disperse from Liberty Plaza before the night was through.  They plan on continuing their protests tomorrow and into the workweek on Monday.  Many state that they are prepared to maintain the protest for days, weeks and even months.  There were probably well over a thousand people still there Saturday night.  I'll head back down in the coming days to see what's up. Stay tuned.

I left the protest at around 10pm, shortly after the nearly three hour assembly broke up into smaller working working groups focused on practical and organizational concerns such as acquiring bedding and food, developing media and communications strategy, and so on.  You might be wondering what I did all day between the marches and assemblies.  I was handing out copies of the first and second issues of Third Party Independent, which you can find embedded below:

On Socialism, Corporatism and Democratic-Republican Party Government: Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, For the Corporations

Partisan Republican propagandists of the corporatist two-party state and duopoly system of government continue to press their long-standing talking point that the Obama administration and Democratic-majority congress are on a steady "march toward socialism". In the last week, for instance, Newt Gingrich has offered an explanation for "How America became a secular-socialist-machine" in the Washington Post. In Commentary Magazine, Jonah Goldberg asks, "What kind of socialist is Barack Obama?" and concludes:

Still, the question remains, What do we call Obama’s “social-ism”? John Judis’s formulation—“liberal socialism”—is perfectly serviceable, and so is “social democracy” or, for that matter, simply “progressivism.” My own, perhaps too playful, suggestion would be neosocialism.

One might predict two potential unintended results of this rhetorical-political tactic: 1) supporters of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration may become more comfortable with the term itself, if not also more supportive of an explicit, aggressive socialist agenda; 2) opponents of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration may compare their policies and proposals with those of the Republican Party and draw the conclusion that the GOP is also to be rejected for its socialism. Glenn Beck, for instance, recently denounced George W. Bush for his progressivism. Via Think Progress and Memeorandum, Beck states:

What has [Obama] done that is different? I think he’s done exactly what George Bush was doing, except to the times of a thousand. I mean we’re talking about a progressive. And George Bush was a progressive. It’s the difference between a steam train and the space shuttle.

A recent post at the American Conservative argues that Barack Obama is the most socialist president since George W. Bush:

Barack Obama is the most socialist president in American history. Before Obama, George W. Bush was the most socialist president in American history. Before Dubya it was Bill Clinton, then Bush, Sr., Reagan, and so on . . . Conservatives who continue to make the case that Obama is worse than Bush are right, but that Rush and like-minded pundits and politicians still can’t find fault with the last socialist Republican president, is a pretty good indication as to what you can expect-and what they’ll tolerate-from the next one.

Of course, not all Republicans are in agreement with this take on socialism. Ron Paul, for instance, has consistently argued that, like those of the Republican Party, Democratic Party policies are more appropriately termed 'corporatist'. At the SRLC, Paul stated:

The question has been raised about whether or not our president is a socialist…. I am sure there are some people here who believe it. But in the technical sense, in the economic definition of a what a socialist is, no, he's not a socialist . . . He's a corporatist. And unfortunately we have corporatists inside the Republican party and that means you take care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.

Paul elaborates on this position a bit more in a post today at Lew Rockwell on "Socialism vs. Corporatism." Interestingly, actual avowed Socialists would seem to agree with Paul's assessment. CNN recently interviewed Billy Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, who stated that Obama "isn't even a liberal":

Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA . . . [has] seen people with bumper stickers and placards that call Obama a socialist, and he has a message for them: Obama isn't a socialist. He's not even a liberal. . . . Obama's opponents have long described him as a socialist. But what do actual socialists think about Obama? Not much, says Wharton. "He's the president whose main goal is to protect the wealth of the richest 5 percent of Americans." He and others say the assertion that Obama is a socialist is absurd.

In a recent interview with John Michael Spinelli of the Examiner, Socialist Party candidate for US Senate in Ohio, Dan La Botz, concurs, stating that the Obama administration has followed the Bush administration's lead in privileging the interests of multinational corporations over the interests of the people of the United States. I contacted Mr. La Botz by email, asking for his response to the claim that the Democrats are on a "march toward socialism." In his reply, Mr. La Botz writes, in part:

The Obama administration, which came to power in the midst of a severe economic crisis, has demonstrated that its principal preoccupation has been to save American capitalism, the banks and corporations. Billions of working peoples’ tax money has been redistributed to banks, insurance companies and corporations, but we have not gained any control over those institutions. On the contrary, they continue to exploit working people and to block the road to reform.

This excerpt, however, cannot do justice to Mr. La Botz's lengthy response, which I have published in full at Third Party and Independent Daily.