Speaker 1: Welcome. It could happen here pod a podcast that is
Speaker 1: today about the fact that ten years ago it did happen.
Speaker 1: And when when when I when I say it did happen,
Speaker 1: I mean we occupied an extremely large number of places,
Speaker 1: and we did so in interesting and incredibly bizarre ways.
Speaker 1: And with with with me to talk about this is
Speaker 1: Garrison as always. I like that you used the Twitter
Speaker 1: handle for our podcast, not the actual name, but that's fine.
Speaker 1: Where can it where can it go for it? But
Speaker 1: hello with me, I have I have my special guest,
Speaker 1: Vicky Ostrowil, who is an agitator, who is a writer,
Speaker 1: who has done many many things, probably most famously writing
Speaker 1: the book In Defense of Looting Um from Bold Press,
Speaker 1: Bold Type Press, Bultypress. Yeah, very good book. People got
Speaker 1: very bad, people got very angry. Yeah, thank you. It's
Speaker 1: it's really I'm really excited to be here to to
Speaker 1: talk about the the anniversary of Occupy from which is
Speaker 1: basically you know when I when I all got this
Speaker 1: whole train rolling, So yeah, and the the other the
Speaker 1: other thing um that that it is probably relevant here
Speaker 1: is that Vicky was one of the first people at
Speaker 1: Occupy and and little correct me if I'm wrong about this.
Speaker 1: I found an oblique reference to this in one of
Speaker 1: the things I read. You facilitated the first meeting, Yes,
Speaker 1: the yeah, yeah, I got it's on the record now,
Speaker 1: yeah I I uh yeah during UM, during the general
Speaker 1: New York City General Assembly it was called in August. UM,
Speaker 1: there was you know, uh, ad Busters hopefully called for
Speaker 1: a general assembly, and you know, a bunch of us
Speaker 1: sort of went down there and there was a tanky
Speaker 1: party there um doing a general assembly, which was just
Speaker 1: them on speakers, UM, doing their regular ranting. Um hadn't
Speaker 1: changed much in ten years, um and uh and we um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a bunch of us just went and sat down, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to the side of it, and started an
Speaker 1: actual general assembly. And by by by happenstance, I I've
Speaker 1: associated that meeting and it was the first and last
Speaker 1: occupy media amor fassilitating. Yeah. Okay, so I want to
Speaker 1: rule back a little bit too, just before the start
Speaker 1: of occupied because yeah, the more thinking about this, the
Speaker 1: more have just realized that two thousand eleven was just
Speaker 1: a profoundly weird time. In a lot of ways. I
Speaker 1: think people are forgotten, Like the entire American security state
Speaker 1: is at this point being terrorized by you joint anonymous
Speaker 1: lull sick hacking campaign called anti Sick, the symbol of
Speaker 1: which is a guy in a guy fox mask wearing
Speaker 1: a monocle, in a top hat. And this was just
Speaker 1: like normal, Yes, this was the thing that I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's the it's it's the it's
Speaker 1: the anti seck top hat, full faced guy in a monocle.
Speaker 1: Fun fact about that, just before we forget David Gramer
Speaker 1: Rest in Peace, who was there in the early days
Speaker 1: organizing claimed and um that he had he had heard
Speaker 1: and talked to the some of the like overheard the
Speaker 1: police talking about the reason they didn't sweep the occupying
Speaker 1: encampment the first day when we were pretty weak, frankly,
Speaker 1: or the first week, was because there were a bunchet
Speaker 1: guy fox masks and they were scared. They were scared
Speaker 1: they were going to get hacked. If they were scared,
Speaker 1: they were going to hack them and steal there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was a weird time indeed. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that the other thing that's you know, I
Speaker 1: think important about this time period if we're looking back
Speaker 1: at what occupied was, is that so this is this
Speaker 1: is three years after the the financial collapse, and you know,
Speaker 1: so I think this is you know, in the room
Speaker 1: to two eleven. There's been a few there's been a
Speaker 1: few protests. There's been there was a big thing increased
Speaker 1: two eight that was kind of related, kind of unrelated.
Speaker 1: But I think in my sense of you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, I was like thirteen. I
Speaker 1: was like I was like an actual baby child. But
Speaker 1: my sensitive was kind of just like there's that there's
Speaker 1: this like sense that everyone just kind of waiting for
Speaker 1: something to happen. Yeah, and it's just like hadn't and
Speaker 1: it's just like kept going and kept going and kept going,
Speaker 1: and then you know, and and then and then Genesia
Speaker 1: starts and suddenly there's you know, they're there. There's Protestant Tenessia,
Speaker 1: there's part in Egypt. There's like people fighting tanks in
Speaker 1: the street in Bahrain, and you know, and this this
Speaker 1: is you know, this this becomes down at the up
Speaker 1: spring and it starts to spread to a lot of places.
Speaker 1: And Vicky, I want to talk I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about this because because you were in Spain when
Speaker 1: it started started there when talking about what what what
Speaker 1: was going on there. And yeah, so I wasn't there
Speaker 1: when it started. Um but but but yes, um basically
Speaker 1: you know, and then and I want to shout out,
Speaker 1: like there were there were a bunch of like movements,
Speaker 1: Like in two thousand eight, right after the crash, there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of protests like outside Wall Street. They
Speaker 1: were very small, but they were like sort of the
Speaker 1: like produced some images. And then there was you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand uh nine, there's the Oscar Grant rebellion
Speaker 1: in Oakland, and you have the Madison occupation earlier in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, um where they where the workers unions
Speaker 1: took over the state House. Yeah, everyone does. It was
Speaker 1: actually really important at the time. Um but yeah, so
Speaker 1: so you know, so I think I'm glad you brought
Speaker 1: up Greece because I think actually Greece really that that
Speaker 1: sort of anarchist rebellion thousand nine really kicked off the
Speaker 1: cycle in a certain way, but also didn't quite It
Speaker 1: wasn't quite the first domino, you know, it was sort
Speaker 1: of more of a like forecast. So yeah, so Arab Spring,
Speaker 1: uh you know, is huge. It's this huge, huge event,
Speaker 1: and the US media is loving it because obviously like
Speaker 1: these sort of old you know, quote unquote Marxist dictators
Speaker 1: are falling um, and so of course the US is
Speaker 1: like all about it um, which of course later later
Speaker 1: on the return of the tankies will use to um
Speaker 1: to confuse everyone on the US left and destroy all
Speaker 1: solidarity with Syria anyway. UM. But that's neither here nor there. UM.
Speaker 1: So then then in Ah, then in that summer, UM,
Speaker 1: you get this this wave of early summer like May
Speaker 1: and June. In fact, the fifteenth of May was when
Speaker 1: the movement started in Spain, and then it starts soon
Speaker 1: again in Greece. And it was similar to occupy in
Speaker 1: that there was these people coming together in these sort
Speaker 1: of encampments in the center of the city. UM. I
Speaker 1: don't know if people remember um or or know this
Speaker 1: history economically, but Spain and Greece had recently been sort
Speaker 1: of going through these like big big booms, economic booms
Speaker 1: just for about five or six years that turned out
Speaker 1: to be real estate bubbles funded by their entry into
Speaker 1: the EU, and two thousand and age just smashed that
Speaker 1: and they were just like incredibly impoverished. I mean, like
Speaker 1: Spain was facing some fifty youth unemployment Greece was like similar,
Speaker 1: Spain has recovered more than Greece has in the intervening years,
Speaker 1: but it's still bad. Um. So so yeah, so you
Speaker 1: had all these It was it was you know, predominantly
Speaker 1: young folks who were um you know, had been pushed
Speaker 1: out of the economy, who had been pushed out of
Speaker 1: their homes, whose families had loft their homes. Um, gathering
Speaker 1: together and it was all over both countries and it
Speaker 1: was huge. Um. I happened to just be in Barcelona.
Speaker 1: I had been on a planned vacation with some friends.
Speaker 1: Um you know that we had we had planned like
Speaker 1: sort of six months earlier when it while popped off.
Speaker 1: And I had also just started my writing Um, I
Speaker 1: would say career, but that's very generous. Um. I had
Speaker 1: started technically being paid for writing things. And they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: right about it, Like let's like cover it while you're there.
Speaker 1: And because no one in the US was talking about
Speaker 1: what was going on in Spain when my article popped up,
Speaker 1: like and this is like this is really strange. But
Speaker 1: it was like the early days of Twitter as well,
Speaker 1: um two eleven, Like I guess Twitter started two nine
Speaker 1: or something, and so like so the the one of
Speaker 1: the accounts from the camp tweets out my article. So
Speaker 1: I went there the next day. I was like, I
Speaker 1: wrote that article and then I was like embedded for
Speaker 1: a week, and I was there for like kind of
Speaker 1: the height of the popular power of the movement in Barcelona.
Speaker 1: Only for a week, but I was there on the
Speaker 1: day when there was a two and a half million
Speaker 1: person march through Barcelona, just like still probably the biggest
Speaker 1: march I've ever been part of it and probably ever
Speaker 1: will be. Um was like lat and so you know,
Speaker 1: so that goes on for for a few months in
Speaker 1: Greece and Barcelona, it sort of hits similar limits that
Speaker 1: Occupied would eventually hit, which is that like you know
Speaker 1: that that if you can take the space away from people,
Speaker 1: that that's that's the common ground, and like you can't
Speaker 1: really have the movement without the encampment. And also all
Speaker 1: the way in which the camps sort of force a
Speaker 1: kind of internal naval gazing and people like get really
Speaker 1: obsessed with maintaining the camp rather than the struggle with
Speaker 1: the city at large. All of those, all of those
Speaker 1: contradictions sort of like came up in Spain and Greece
Speaker 1: as well. But at the time, you know, I was
Speaker 1: there for the height of it. I come back to
Speaker 1: New York, I'm like, this is going to happen in
Speaker 1: the US, like it has to. Um. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who had been watching felt that way
Speaker 1: as well. UM. I actually took part in this thing
Speaker 1: called bloomberg Ville, which was like, yeah, fifty people on
Speaker 1: a sidewalk. Um was quite from Michael Bloomberg, right, Um,
Speaker 1: fifty people on a sidewalk. Fifty people was general. I
Speaker 1: was like, when we were doing really well and mostly
Speaker 1: fifteen of us is like fifteen of us on a
Speaker 1: flidewalk um in the financial district, like getting yelled at
Speaker 1: by cops. Um, you know, sleeping on cardboard, you know,
Speaker 1: occupy style, but without any attention or solidarity. Um. And
Speaker 1: But because I had been in Barcelona and I still
Speaker 1: have these carbrads in Barcelona, was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're doing it in New York. So we had this
Speaker 1: thing where Bloombergville, which like twenty people like got to
Speaker 1: talk to a general assembly in Barcelona at the height
Speaker 1: of its power, like on a like internet link, like
Speaker 1: a really early internet link, you know. Um, and you
Speaker 1: know so so so so there was all this energy
Speaker 1: that was happening. And then I think really crucially the
Speaker 1: London riots pop off, and that doesn't get talked about
Speaker 1: very much and anymore partially because of the UK left
Speaker 1: really stabbed Here's the bath during that and and and
Speaker 1: have and and repressed the memory of it largely, um
Speaker 1: and have suffered ever since, in my opinion, strategically. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know that was for us in the US,
Speaker 1: that was huge. It was huge watching um, watching those
Speaker 1: riots unfold, like you know, again, this was like early
Speaker 1: live streaming, so like we were like watching live feeds
Speaker 1: of the riots, you know, which like was not a
Speaker 1: thing that you could really do without a TV before.
Speaker 1: There was just like there was a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: going on that felt exciting and and it was and
Speaker 1: really important and inevitable that it would come to the
Speaker 1: US because things were so messed up over here. I
Speaker 1: think we should talk about what a general assembly actually
Speaker 1: is because I think a lot of people are we're
Speaker 1: going to have like never actually ran into what exactly
Speaker 1: is going on, or have sort of forgotten in the
Speaker 1: last ten years after they sort of fallen out of favor. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's um, it was never my favorite either, honestly.
Speaker 1: But it's a it's a meeting style UM designed. UM.
Speaker 1: It actually does largely actually come from from European anarchist traditions, UM,
Speaker 1: from from Spain and Greece. But as as many of
Speaker 1: us know, UM, a lot of those traditions go back
Speaker 1: further UM and have crossed crossed the water general sumbis.
Speaker 1: Actually there's a long history of them in indigenous communities
Speaker 1: in Turtle Island, for example. So it's an old meeting
Speaker 1: style UM, in which um, the Quakers also the Quakers
Speaker 1: UM famously also sort of uh sort of co opted
Speaker 1: it from from indigenous folks out here on the East coast. UM.
Speaker 1: But UM, it's a meeting style in which, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: with the exception of a facilitator which is occasionally but
Speaker 1: not always present, UM, everyone is able to speak UM together.
Speaker 1: There is something, there's an agenda sometimes, but it's basically
Speaker 1: a meeting designed where everyone present in the meeting has
Speaker 1: like an equal voice, And it's not really designed generally
Speaker 1: for UM decision making specifically or with like really specific
Speaker 1: goals in mind. Often, although there will be sort of
Speaker 1: like things that are trying to get settled UM but
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's designed to allow, you know, a
Speaker 1: very very multi vocal approach and for everyone to sort
Speaker 1: of put in their their thoughts and their ideas. UM
Speaker 1: and often is connected, although not necessarily, but is often
Speaker 1: connected to consensus UM operation where UM things can't get
Speaker 1: sort of decided on unless everyone sort of agrees UM.
Speaker 1: And in occupy UM that was the general assembly was
Speaker 1: sort of UM was bit controversial because it was just
Speaker 1: whoever showed up obviously participates in it, so, you know,
Speaker 1: unlike unlike you know, an organizational meeting where you you know,
Speaker 1: everyone knows each other and you have to have a
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be there with an invite
Speaker 1: or whatever. UM, you know, whatever cranky wing nut UM
Speaker 1: wanted to show up could UM. And that had pluses
Speaker 1: and minuses. It was charming sometimes, but it was also
Speaker 1: very frustrating. UM. And in New York where I was UM,
Speaker 1: it was made almost impossible to function by this thing
Speaker 1: called the people's Mike UM oh, which I think still
Speaker 1: happens sometimes people even Mike check UM and and then
Speaker 1: everyone repeats what was said. But that means that it
Speaker 1: takes four times as long to talk as normal so
Speaker 1: when you have a wing nut, you know, like advocating
Speaker 1: for wrong Paul, and then you've got thirty people echoing
Speaker 1: him every four words, it makes it makes discussion completely impossible.
Speaker 1: And a microhistory of the People's mic. The reason that
Speaker 1: happened was because in the first week in Zukkati Park, Um,
Speaker 1: whenever we got on a megaphone, police would come and
Speaker 1: arrest whoever was on the megaphone because you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to use amplified sound in New York. And one organizer
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, no, we can like use the
Speaker 1: people's mic. We can repeat back to each other. And
Speaker 1: this is when we they're still mostly like thirty to
Speaker 1: forty people in the park at any one time. It's
Speaker 1: very small. That didn't feel so bad, but then when
Speaker 1: the movement really got big, the People's mike became completely unwieldy.
Speaker 1: And also was a response to a was a cowardly
Speaker 1: response to police repression frankly um and was a way
Speaker 1: of So the people's mic is is, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: reactionary form anyway that is hit. So it's been ten years.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to complain about this in like
Speaker 1: eight years, thank you, so much um anyway, So yeah,
Speaker 1: so the general Assembly is just a meeting form um
Speaker 1: that often often associated with anarchy, anarchist practice or radical
Speaker 1: democratic practice UM, in which sort of consensus is aimed
Speaker 1: for by allowing everyone to speak there much. I would say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this, this, I think gets us back to where
Speaker 1: we opened this episode, which is ed Busters calls an
Speaker 1: event with literally no plans to like could do anything.
Speaker 1: They're just like, yeah, everyone, we're occupy in Wall Street.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, and you know, as it's talked about
Speaker 1: the beginning of it, you guys basically hijack well sort of,
Speaker 1: I mean, so Adbusters. Adbusters doesn't show up like you said,
Speaker 1: there's I've never met an Adbusters person um. And it
Speaker 1: was funny, like we would do jokes about it. But
Speaker 1: I think it's also thinking about this in preparation for
Speaker 1: this interview. It's also interesting because Adbusters, in their culture
Speaker 1: jamming is kind of like one of the results of
Speaker 1: the sort of altar globalization movement of the like late
Speaker 1: nineties and early two thousands, the summit hopping stuff um,
Speaker 1: the energy movement of like one generation ahead of occupy UM.
Speaker 1: So I think it's sort of appropriate that Adbusters sort
Speaker 1: of like you know, was present in this legacy in
Speaker 1: a certain way, and a lot of those organizers were
Speaker 1: as well. But yes, I'm sorry, I did I just
Speaker 1: jump in for you. No, no, no, it's okay. UM
Speaker 1: the yeah, so so so so a bunch of people
Speaker 1: I don't actually know who calls for an August second,
Speaker 1: you know, general only to talk about the call for
Speaker 1: September seventeenth to occupy Wall Street. UM. And at that,
Speaker 1: at that point, that's when the thing I was describing
Speaker 1: earlier like happens where where UM. You know, we a
Speaker 1: bunch of folks and and I really want to underline
Speaker 1: that most of them were people who had been in
Speaker 1: Spain or Greece. UM. David Graber was also. There was
Speaker 1: like a lot of old heads. There was like a
Speaker 1: there was a comrade from Japan. UM. It was a
Speaker 1: very international crew who had like had experience in these movements.
Speaker 1: Over the summer, UM came and had this general Assembly
Speaker 1: and sort of ran it that way and broke out.
Speaker 1: We had we broke off working groups and then there
Speaker 1: was meetings sort of once a week and then working
Speaker 1: group needs within that UM and general assemblies. From August
Speaker 1: two until September seventeenth, at which point, um, you know,
Speaker 1: occupy the date, the date that Adbusters had called for
Speaker 1: actually happened. So my my impression of this, and I was,
Speaker 1: I was very small. I had very limited idea of
Speaker 1: what was going on. The way I remember in the
Speaker 1: media is that like the the the media was weirdly
Speaker 1: interested in it in a way that I've never seen them.
Speaker 1: I've never seen them cover another social movement that wasn't
Speaker 1: like literally burning their offices down, And it was like
Speaker 1: it was like in the beginning, it was I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the right wing media is losing their minds,
Speaker 1: but they were kind of kind of supportive of it,
Speaker 1: and I think, I don't know, I always say, you
Speaker 1: think about this. One of the things that that happens
Speaker 1: in both in both Greece and in Spain is that
Speaker 1: the product movement of the squares is these electoral movements,
Speaker 1: and these electoral movements just fail like catastrophically, like Starsia
Speaker 1: takes power, like like the they like you, they they
Speaker 1: have they have they have a like their their finance
Speaker 1: minister is a left communist. He's like he is the
Speaker 1: most fire left person ever like to hold office since
Speaker 1: like the Spanish anarchists in ninety six and they employed austerity. Anyways,
Speaker 1: in Spain you get Potamos and it's like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: you have you know, they had this thing called the
Speaker 1: electoral war machine. They're they're gonna take over the Spanish
Speaker 1: but because some then they just it collapsed. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't work. They've they've never like they've they've they've they've
Speaker 1: never taken power, They've never really got anywhere. They they
Speaker 1: successfully evicted a bunch of squats in Catalonia. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but and I think this is my impression if it
Speaker 1: was that I think the US media thought they could
Speaker 1: they could do this to occupy and and I think
Speaker 1: they kind of it's weird because looking so you know,
Speaker 1: like I I come in and like to to this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff fromund On seventeen, and I think it
Speaker 1: it's like it weirdly worked. But it worked because they
Speaker 1: were able to create the anti occupy people. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, and so they did finally get their
Speaker 1: like cadre of like pseudo left organizers so they could
Speaker 1: used to build Democratic party. It's just it was like
Speaker 1: Jacobin and then I'll think the whole the whole sort
Speaker 1: of anti occupy group. Yeah, so those folks were actually
Speaker 1: UM active during Occupy UM critiquing the people who now
Speaker 1: most loudly UM claim the legacy of Occupy UM. You know,
Speaker 1: as you said, Jacobin, a lot of those sort of
Speaker 1: social democratic groups UM at the time, UM, and those
Speaker 1: of us who were there, remember they hated Occupy. They
Speaker 1: would show up, but they like would critique it constantly.
Speaker 1: They would write all these articles about how it was terrible,
Speaker 1: there were no demands, it was too disorganized. And then
Speaker 1: I think, you know, when Black Revolt got put on
Speaker 1: the table, they were like, bring back Occupy. We liked
Speaker 1: that better. But but I think to be as harsh
Speaker 1: as possible, but UM, I think like, UM, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: there was there was a lot of media coverage. It
Speaker 1: didn't feel super friendly at the time. UM, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of There was a lot of media coverage,
Speaker 1: Like the media was very curious, it was very interested,
Speaker 1: but a lot of that coverage was like why do
Speaker 1: they have no demands? Like why are they so disorganized?
Speaker 1: Why are they so smelly? Whatever? Like there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like there was a lot of slander in
Speaker 1: the press, but also a lot of attention UM, which
Speaker 1: you know, it turned turned out was as good as
Speaker 1: you could get, but at the time didn't didn't feel
Speaker 1: very good particularly, I think. Yeah, but yes, those those forces,
Speaker 1: those forces were already present um in you know, in
Speaker 1: in occupy itself, UM, you know, sort of denouncing it
Speaker 1: um for its disorganization UM and then eventually claiming that
Speaker 1: it was the reason that Bernie Sanders happened, which isn't
Speaker 1: totally wrong. Yeah, I want to be really clear, like
Speaker 1: I think, and I think what we'll get into this more,
Speaker 1: but I think like the thing that about the thing
Speaker 1: that was important about occupy and the thing that the
Speaker 1: people who in my opinion, like my comrades during occupy
Speaker 1: or people I meet who were like doing Occupy stuff
Speaker 1: but like who I didn't know, but like now we
Speaker 1: I you know, I roll with them. Most of us
Speaker 1: have the have the you know, the analysis, like it
Speaker 1: was really important that we were doing politics in the street.
Speaker 1: It was really important that we were back together they
Speaker 1: were talking politics. And then there were really really intense,
Speaker 1: extreme limits to what Occupy could have done. UM. And
Speaker 1: I think Oakland really pushed those UM and and you know,
Speaker 1: and got to those but UM and I think the
Speaker 1: folks who are like no, no no, Occupy was good at
Speaker 1: the time, we're like Occupy is terrible. Um, And I
Speaker 1: think that's worth notice, noting and thinking about. So I
Speaker 1: think yeah, before were sut go into talk a bit
Speaker 1: about what happened Oakland to talk about some of their stuff,
Speaker 1: so on on day to day basis, like what is
Speaker 1: occupy actually doing? Because I think that's also been sort
Speaker 1: of lost in this whole. Like everyone remembers like the slogans,
Speaker 1: and every remembers fact that there's a thing, but you know,
Speaker 1: like that there's there's a bunch of working groups and
Speaker 1: they're doing things, So like what what was that like
Speaker 1: like day to day? And then on a sort of
Speaker 1: brought her lifel Yeah so so um So, first of all,
Speaker 1: again I was only in New York. I spent some
Speaker 1: time at Occupied Boston as well. Um, but like I
Speaker 1: don't have a sense of what other places were like,
Speaker 1: so I I really can't, I mean other than having
Speaker 1: heard from people. So I want to be very clear
Speaker 1: that I'm like mostly addressing that. Um. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that was going on was that Zaccatti Park, Like
Speaker 1: the park was like total chaos. Um. Part of that
Speaker 1: was because there was a drum circle that basically was
Speaker 1: going twenty four hours a day um there, which meant
Speaker 1: that whenever you were down there, and it was like
Speaker 1: a canyon. Zacotti Park is surrounded by skyscrapers, so it
Speaker 1: was just this incredible cacophony all the time, um, which
Speaker 1: I think was cool. It really ruined a lot of
Speaker 1: finance bros, like like like orally with an a there
Speaker 1: um but I think like, but it also was pretty
Speaker 1: intense and unpleasant. Sometimes you were like please stop, oh
Speaker 1: my god, like that's at one point in general Assembly
Speaker 1: I think decided that drums were like only acceptable during
Speaker 1: certain hours, like near the end of the movement, like
Speaker 1: the drums the drum circle got reproached, when in fact
Speaker 1: they were like actually the biggest agents of chaos in Zuccati,
Speaker 1: which is another important lesson. But um, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: So you know. Also, because I had been in bloomberg Ville,
Speaker 1: because I've been in Barcelona, I didn't invest myself very
Speaker 1: heavily in camp management stuff, so I mostly was doing
Speaker 1: um work. One of the things that I think it's
Speaker 1: forgotten about is that there were snake marches, basically three
Speaker 1: or four a day every day after after the first
Speaker 1: week when we were really small, when it got big,
Speaker 1: they were just constant, constant marches through the city, just
Speaker 1: like always going off, like you would run and you'd
Speaker 1: be on one march, you run into another march, like
Speaker 1: on a Saturday or Sunday, when like people were really
Speaker 1: like out there like it was, it was really like
Speaker 1: there was a lot of mayhem. There would be big
Speaker 1: planned marches that would then be bigger. Um. So there
Speaker 1: was like a lot of like, um, what people now
Speaker 1: would call direct action, what I would call largely like
Speaker 1: sort of symbolic practice for direct action. Mostly, UM, I
Speaker 1: don't mind, I like marches. I certainly got my miles
Speaker 1: in then like I don't feel like I need to
Speaker 1: do that again. But um, but you know, so then
Speaker 1: at the camp people were just living there. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of like a lot of punks, a lot
Speaker 1: of like you know, a lot of homeless folks obviously,
Speaker 1: and some and some encampments had more at a higher
Speaker 1: concentration about house people. Some in New York because of
Speaker 1: all the media spectacle and all the money that came in,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of nonprofit drifters. By the end
Speaker 1: in the encampment. But there's also like a library, um,
Speaker 1: a free library with all these books that like would
Speaker 1: be donated. Um. There's a lot of like you know,
Speaker 1: political agitation. There were people standing around the um the
Speaker 1: you know the corners of the park, you know, with
Speaker 1: with signs and you're yelling at people. And it's also
Speaker 1: important to remember that like Zuccati Park in New York
Speaker 1: is tiny. It's tiny. We had originally wanted to do
Speaker 1: it on this big plaza, like City Bank plaza, UM,
Speaker 1: and the cops had heard about that and fence it off.
Speaker 1: So on the seventeenth we just like we just, um,
Speaker 1: what's the word we we we did a oh my
Speaker 1: god football metaphors. This we called an audible thank you.
Speaker 1: So we said, Zuccati is this tiny little park. It's
Speaker 1: incredibly dense, and it's surrounded by you know, like I said, skyscrapers.
Speaker 1: It's in this really weird part of the city that
Speaker 1: no one would ever spend any time and if they
Speaker 1: didn't have to otherwise. UM. So that's sort of So
Speaker 1: there's all this stuff going on, and they're all these
Speaker 1: their general assemblies twice a day, um, which as I said,
Speaker 1: in New York, were particularly unhelpful. UM. But I think
Speaker 1: anarchists and a lot of cities we have talked to you,
Speaker 1: like I had a comrade down and d C one
Speaker 1: in Denver. They sort of said that the general assemblies
Speaker 1: either quickly like got shifted or got or became irrelevant. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the general ssemblies were not We're not in
Speaker 1: the end, We're we're symbolically important but not but not
Speaker 1: really driving force um of my experience. UM. And then
Speaker 1: there would be there would be, like I said, there'd
Speaker 1: be a lot of organizing outside of the park. There'd
Speaker 1: be a lot of like meetings and you know, talks
Speaker 1: and um, direct actions and marches, UM. And then there
Speaker 1: would be you know, uh, I guess that's kind of
Speaker 1: the extent of it, right, is that there was like
Speaker 1: a lot of direct action that but there was always
Speaker 1: this park where you could go and like run into
Speaker 1: people and like hook up with people, meet people and
Speaker 1: like do a weird thing. And I think that was
Speaker 1: really like the heart of the movement was the fact
Speaker 1: that there was this place you could go meet someone
Speaker 1: and like link into something weird and maybe cool and
Speaker 1: maybe not, it doesn't matter, but like there was always
Speaker 1: something to do kind of and it was constant, was
Speaker 1: like this or twenty four hour right like experience. And
Speaker 1: I think that was really what UM what separated it
Speaker 1: from from other from other movement waves that we've had,
Speaker 1: we've had since UM, and was was was probably I
Speaker 1: think it's greatest strength in many ways. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that was that was the deep person that I got.
Speaker 1: And part of this also was when I when I
Speaker 1: was in college, like every once in a while, you
Speaker 1: just get assigned like some person writing but occupy and
Speaker 1: it was like most of them, which is extremely cranky
Speaker 1: about the whole thing, but you know, one of one
Speaker 1: of the things I think was interesting about it is
Speaker 1: that everyone seemed to e gree at least to some
Speaker 1: extent that part of what was going on was that
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this way to do I don't know
Speaker 1: if I had any formation is quite the right word
Speaker 1: for it, but it's it's this way to sort of
Speaker 1: like rebuild social connections and rebuilds like social sort of
Speaker 1: bonds in a way that just had you know, as
Speaker 1: public space becomes just the cops and like there's there's
Speaker 1: a table in Chinatown that I like call the Cops Table.
Speaker 1: And I'm really mad about that. Like, like I said,
Speaker 1: this is Chicago, Chinatown. I would like go, there'sar in
Speaker 1: from the library and there's a sign sign on the
Speaker 1: table that says, if you loiter at this table, you
Speaker 1: will be arrested. It's like this is a picnic table.
Speaker 1: Like the cops. This table is threatening that it is
Speaker 1: going to arrest you if you use it for what's
Speaker 1: using you know, for what you're supposed to use tables for. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. And I think I think that's right. I
Speaker 1: think like it was, you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of UM at the time. A lot of people were
Speaker 1: talking about UM uh embarrassingly about heart and degrees sort
Speaker 1: of like multitude stuff. Really really a much better book
Speaker 1: that was important was also UM David Graber's debt UM.
Speaker 1: But I think, like, you know, and there was like
Speaker 1: a lot of like people saying things about like the
Speaker 1: Agora you know, UM democracy list sort of political the
Speaker 1: political encounter space of encounter UM, and that stuff wasn't
Speaker 1: all wrong. Like I mean, I'm sort of being a
Speaker 1: little sarcastic with a lot of it, but like, but
Speaker 1: I think, like, like there there was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, UM part of how we should I think
Speaker 1: we should understand, um, the over discussed under under you know,
Speaker 1: like over analyzed word neoliberalism like has largely become meaningless.
Speaker 1: One of the things I should I think, I think
Speaker 1: it's valuable for understanding is a process by which capitalism
Speaker 1: responded to the Sixties by disorganizing its production process such
Speaker 1: to the long Sixties could never happen again, right, so
Speaker 1: like like the four the the control the like the
Speaker 1: concentration of workers within within production in such a way
Speaker 1: that they could be agitated by students and then like
Speaker 1: sort of radically unionized wildcat and sort of like almost
Speaker 1: overthrow a government, right, Like the neoliberalism is like you
Speaker 1: know it smashes the unions, yes, but it also it
Speaker 1: also like distributes out the active production. Right so that
Speaker 1: so that that's not so easily done. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the real problems of you know that was
Speaker 1: facing social movement. Um, you know in the in the period,
Speaker 1: you know, the the long period, like you know, you
Speaker 1: had stuff like in the U s Again that this
Speaker 1: is where you know the best. But like you know,
Speaker 1: you have the l a uprising which is huge, um,
Speaker 1: and you have you know, the globe, the summit hopping
Speaker 1: movement and anti globalization, which you know what could attack
Speaker 1: a target, but there wasn't really a sense of like
Speaker 1: how it felt hard to do a local struggle, UM
Speaker 1: beyond like really like a revolutionary riot like l A,
Speaker 1: which you know you can't really precipitate. UM. I mean
Speaker 1: you can't really precipitate a movement either, obviously, But I
Speaker 1: think like but like like a uh a political political movement,
Speaker 1: a form of political organizing that didn't require something on
Speaker 1: the level of George Floyd, which is what the l
Speaker 1: A rebellion was, right, UM, but that also didn't require like,
Speaker 1: uh an action from capital that you were like striking against,
Speaker 1: right like the the uh you know, the Summits or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: And that that again and like all of these eras
Speaker 1: are very important. This is not to like you know,
Speaker 1: obviously like this is with with respect for those movements, UM,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we felt I think it felt like we
Speaker 1: were in a political wilderness. And I think that that
Speaker 1: like UM occupy really and the movement of the squares globally,
Speaker 1: I think UM really like demonstrated that it was possible
Speaker 1: to practice a kind of street politics even without UM
Speaker 1: you know, a shop floor where you can organize even
Speaker 1: without um, you know, a a capital p party to
Speaker 1: organize within UM and I think that was really important.
Speaker 1: I think it also scared a lot of people who
Speaker 1: and and continues to who are committed to those politics
Speaker 1: UM and UM to the twenty century workers movement or
Speaker 1: the nineteen and twenty century labor movement, which they somehow
Speaker 1: fantasized will come back UM if they just wish hard
Speaker 1: enough and writing though books or whatever. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think like, um, so, I think that was powerful. I
Speaker 1: also think like like, yeah, sorry, we can move on
Speaker 1: to legacy later. But yes, I think that was like,
Speaker 1: I think that was very much like an important thing.
Speaker 1: Was was just like and you know, um, I graduated
Speaker 1: college in two thousand nine, um so I was like
Speaker 1: part of that millennial generation that like, you know, had
Speaker 1: gone into incredibly deep debt. Like we'd have a college
Speaker 1: degree and then like the bottom fill out of the
Speaker 1: economy there were no jobs. Um And Like I think
Speaker 1: there were a lot of you know, like people who
Speaker 1: like had anticipated a middle class life UM of some kind.
Speaker 1: Not that I really had at that point, but whatever, Like,
Speaker 1: but but a lot of people like in my economic
Speaker 1: cohort like had um suddenly facing you know, proletarianization, right,
Speaker 1: and I think that was one of the strengths of
Speaker 1: the movement. I think that was that, you know, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned the statistics in great in Spain and Greece, like,
Speaker 1: I think that was a global aspect of this kind
Speaker 1: of movement um uh Arab Spring to like there was
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like that was really a
Speaker 1: response to the economic crisis. Obviously, those folks were already
Speaker 1: more proletarian than the people who are the young people
Speaker 1: and in the squares movements, UM. But they they innovated,
Speaker 1: they created the tactics in in Arab Spring right UM
Speaker 1: Terrer Square, most famously in Cairo, UM and UM. I
Speaker 1: think like those creating a meeting place where um, you
Speaker 1: didn't require a preconstructed like political community UM in order
Speaker 1: to engage was a strength and a weakness UM. And
Speaker 1: I think it it also you know, as a result
Speaker 1: of the dynamics of the general Assembly, the dynamics of
Speaker 1: the sort of voluntearist nature of that what I'm describing, UM,
Speaker 1: it led to a lot of people who were already confident,
Speaker 1: who are already feeling good, being able to like take
Speaker 1: more power, right like um uh. And I think it
Speaker 1: also was a very white movement. Um. Certainly in New York,
Speaker 1: but but I think I think across the country, UM,
Speaker 1: it was largely it was largely you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was majority white in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: by higher percentages than any movement that we've really been
Speaker 1: part of since um was UM. And that was obviously
Speaker 1: a limit um for for reasons that will be obvious
Speaker 1: to everyone, including the idea that like a lot of
Speaker 1: people pushed that like the police are part of the right. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's let's talk about the police, because you know,
Speaker 1: like that's you know, that's that's the one of the
Speaker 1: other extremely important aspects of this is this immense militarization.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so I think that the militarization of
Speaker 1: the police as a phrase, I think it's somewhat misleading
Speaker 1: in that like the cops have always like shot people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, there there's yeah, there there's there's there's
Speaker 1: still like there's an intense sort of ramp up of
Speaker 1: the prison sector. There's you have this sense boom in
Speaker 1: the size of prisons. You have, Yeah, you you have
Speaker 1: increasing parts of the economy that are just the entire
Speaker 1: towns that used to be sort of manufacturing sectors you
Speaker 1: used to be sort of involved in sort industrial production
Speaker 1: that are just like the economy is now just there's
Speaker 1: a prison there. And and I think this is also
Speaker 1: looking back, one of the things that look like occupy
Speaker 1: kind of r ran up into because you know, occupies
Speaker 1: this attempt to like you know, form a democratic space,
Speaker 1: and it relies crucially on this this thing that is
Speaker 1: nominally in the Constitution but doesn't exist, which is the
Speaker 1: like the right to freedom of speech and the right
Speaker 1: to freedom of assembly and freedom assembly like that is
Speaker 1: that is like that is bullshit. It does not exist.
Speaker 1: If you like, if you actually believe that this exists,
Speaker 1: like try getting like seventy people into a space and
Speaker 1: see how like just like I don't know, like into
Speaker 1: a street or just just like into into like have
Speaker 1: one of people on a park and just like see
Speaker 1: how fast the cops show up, because you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the first time yeah that I was I was at
Speaker 1: any kind of protests, cops immediately wanted to take anything
Speaker 1: I was holding. You're not You're not allowed to the
Speaker 1: first thing, if if if if you have anything in
Speaker 1: your hands, that's that that is a that is a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the First Amendment is just it's super completely
Speaker 1: superseded by traffic laws, like laws about like sidewalk maintenance,
Speaker 1: like no, it's it's all fair, like none of it,
Speaker 1: like you're you're not you're not allowed to. And this
Speaker 1: is this is I think is partially this is kind
Speaker 1: of a talk, but this is part I think why
Speaker 1: there's so much focused on the right about the first
Speaker 1: moment because they want to they want to draw attention
Speaker 1: away from the fact that, like the actual thing that's
Speaker 1: fake about it is that you can't gather people in
Speaker 1: meat anywhere, and they want to draw it into these
Speaker 1: like inane like this professor like said the N word
Speaker 1: a bunch of times in class. Isn't it bad that
Speaker 1: people are mad at them? But but if I think
Speaker 1: also go to time, this sort of back to occupy.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, So, so occupy functions right insofar as
Speaker 1: there is a a physical location where people can go
Speaker 1: and physically interact with each other. And that's a problem
Speaker 1: because at some point the police are just like no,
Speaker 1: and they start clearing the encampments and I think this
Speaker 1: is this is the other thing with occupy is that
Speaker 1: outside of like parts of Oakland and that that's a
Speaker 1: whole other thing that. Yeah, but it's it's it's incredibly
Speaker 1: studiously non violent in a way that like nothing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen before since is yeah. So so so there's
Speaker 1: a lot there. I'm gonna I want to talk about
Speaker 1: it because that's there's a lot um but yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think I think the militarization of the police thesis
Speaker 1: um is is incomplete if you don't also talk about
Speaker 1: the policification of the military. Right, so, like part of
Speaker 1: what happens with with the great expansion of them of
Speaker 1: the carcerel state, part of that is also a response
Speaker 1: to the Vietnam War um and and mass resistance within
Speaker 1: you know, the troops they were like in the Vietnam
Speaker 1: the in like the last two years when ground troops
Speaker 1: are there in Vietnam, there's like fourteen hundred fragging incidents
Speaker 1: where where um you know where where privates and recruits
Speaker 1: killed their officers. The US Army during the during Vietnam
Speaker 1: was on the brink of the of collapse in the
Speaker 1: way that like like the Russian Army was looking in
Speaker 1: it was like like like the numbers, I think, I
Speaker 1: think I'll number At one point there was like forty
Speaker 1: of the army by the end of Vietnam was either
Speaker 1: on strike or just like not following orders. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it was. It was complete. There was the reason that
Speaker 1: that Nixon pursues Vietnam sizzation, which is when they just
Speaker 1: start doing air campaigns, bombing and napalm, is because they
Speaker 1: couldn't rely on ground troops anymore. They just they were useless.
Speaker 1: They were all high um, you know, to talk about
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of talking about like Heroin,
Speaker 1: but like that was actually kind of a former resistance
Speaker 1: within the lines in a complicated way whatever. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: all very So the military realizes that it can't function
Speaker 1: as a mass military in the model that nation states
Speaker 1: have done since the Napoleonic Wars, right, which is like
Speaker 1: the mass you know, the mass recruitment of the citizens soldier. Um,
Speaker 1: that's sort of how wars fought between you know, eighteen
Speaker 1: ten and nine seventy. And then it becomes clear that
Speaker 1: that's not gonna work anymore because because the aims of
Speaker 1: the countries and the power of nationalism have become too abstracted.
Speaker 1: Fascism has done too much damage to that image. There's
Speaker 1: just like there's it doesn't really work anymore. So the
Speaker 1: military turns into a sort of what it always was also,
Speaker 1: which is like a colonial policing force, and so the
Speaker 1: police the military drift towards one another in form and function. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in occupy Um, one of the microhistories that I
Speaker 1: think it's forgotten is that, like, I mean because because
Speaker 1: it took a week, and like, who remembers this week
Speaker 1: except for like weirdos like me who were there? Um?
Speaker 1: Is it like there was no one at Zuccati in
Speaker 1: the first first week. And one of the big things
Speaker 1: that happened was these these these you know, young white
Speaker 1: girls got caught in a police net and pepper sprayed,
Speaker 1: and there was this video that went around with them
Speaker 1: getting pepper sprayed and screaming. Is particularly this woman on
Speaker 1: her knees, you know, screaming with with tears and pepper
Speaker 1: spray going down her face. And that really outraged people
Speaker 1: because you know, they were you know, it was police
Speaker 1: depression and police violence. So in terms of the question
Speaker 1: of non violence, yes, Um, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: non violence. It was a constant fight that took honestly
Speaker 1: took until the George Floyd Uprising for the right outside
Speaker 1: to win. Frankly, but but but but during Occupy there
Speaker 1: was you know, there was a lot of non violence nonsense.
Speaker 1: Um and I think like, but but another thing that
Speaker 1: happened though was that like you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: people were marching every day. So even in New York,
Speaker 1: where I think the political height was kind of achieved,
Speaker 1: October one when we took the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, I
Speaker 1: think I think New York never really like had a
Speaker 1: big moment again, Like it was largely sort of like
Speaker 1: smaller things after that. But um, but like and there
Speaker 1: was a mass arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge. We marched
Speaker 1: over the Brooklyn Bridge, the brookn Bridge got shut down.
Speaker 1: They arrested seven hundred of US. Um. It was the
Speaker 1: first big infrastructure shutdown that happened in the US since
Speaker 1: the l A Riots. It was it was a big
Speaker 1: deal at the time. Now it happened. Can I put
Speaker 1: a note doubt though specifically for the Brooklyn Bridge if
Speaker 1: you're because people I've seen every every single time there's
Speaker 1: one of these movements, people try to take the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Bridge and they all got arrested. It's like, can can
Speaker 1: you all like please, I am begging you. If you're
Speaker 1: going to try to take a bridge, make sure you
Speaker 1: have a way out, like, yeah, you have to hold
Speaker 1: one of the sites. That's the problem. We're going to
Speaker 1: get arrested. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you got a way out
Speaker 1: a bridge design, do not have a way out? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Please please don't all get arrested. It's it's in fact
Speaker 1: bad and yeah, sorry, exactly. I haven't seen a few
Speaker 1: people successom we take bridges a few times, but that's
Speaker 1: because there was like three cop cars and like people,
Speaker 1: if you have like a block with two hundred kids,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to hold the bridge. Yes,
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