Zuccotti park is where the action is contained. This is a miserable excuse for a park. It’s about the size of a football field. Not a blade of grass to be found. As you will see from the pics, this place is already jammed. The limited space may prove to be an issue for this demonstration. You can’t get more than a few thousand in this cramped area.
The park is sandwiched between Broadway and Church. It’s bounded by Liberty St (and some other street I forgot the name of). On one side is the Brown Brothers Harriman Building (talk about white spats).
On the other is the rapidly rising world trade building.
The cops have the place surrounded. But it was very clear that these policemen were not looking for trouble. Two blocks away, I found where the police had set up a command post. I suspect the guys with the helmets were resting over there.
Congressman Eric Cantor made a foolish remark over the weekend. He referred to the happenings in lower Manhattan as a “Mob Scene”. Cantor’s an ass. He has no clue what is going on. This was just a dumb sound bite. He will regret it.
There was no mob. There were no professional provocateurs. There was festive attitude. There was no anarchy. The following pictures are the scenes that I saw. Look at the people in the background; you will not see anything threatening at all.
There was some attempt to bring order. A library, medical area, kitchen, a media center, legal aid and even a store for “essentials”:
Some people were painting signs:
Others were just painting people:
Wherever you looked there were signs. Just a few of the many:
There was one sign that caught my eye. I’m willing to bet it has also caught they eye of the FBI.
I left the area thinking that this very small group of people couldn’t possibly make much of a difference. It’s a rag tag demonstration. More a party than a serious effort to change the financial system. But as I walked north I thought of a different time in history. One that I participated in. To me, there was a very similar feeling in Zuccotti Park in 2011 to what existed in San Francisco in 1967.
The 1967 Summer of Love was a period where social/political changes began. The allure of sex, drugs, and rock and roll were very powerful magnets for this 17 year old. I crossed the country and spent a few memorable months in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury District.
I slept in a crash pad. I went to the Fillmore West and watched Jim Morrison of the Doors sing “Light My Fire” till the sun came up. And yes, there were drugs. And yes there was “Free Love” in the park. And yes, it was a hell of a party. And yes, there was not much relevance to the whole thing.
But three years later a million people marched on D.C. and it altered the outcome of a war. It also tore the country inside out. It would be a big mistake to dismiss what is going on in Zuccotti Park. Whatever is happening there, it's not going to go away. It’s going to get bigger.
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In July 1967 I was 21 and just released out of Oakland, Calif from my tour of duty in Vietnam and the U.S. Army. I had a friend in San Francisco so I visited and went to Haight and found a party but I was not an urban kid but from the farm and uneducated I didn't have time to party. In Vietnam I become close friends to various college grad draftee's and they all encouraged me to use my GI bill and get an education which I did.
ReplyDeleteYour description of Haight at that time is a good one and it defines what had happened to America, it was an urban culture, the youth had grown up shopping not bucking hay or feeding pigs. The so called culture wars didn't exist a media mistake because in reality the country no longer cared about the old west which still dominated the tube but instead wanted more of the urban lifestyle for itself.
The current protest is about over expectations of the American Dream generated by government and private industry using credit and leverage to induce extreme consumer demand that cannot be maintained. The protesters want there lifestyle dreams back only crumbs are left.
Yes, clearly this is gaining momentum. I find all the media/politico talk of this not having a cohesive message, blah, blah, blah, to be very shortsighted and naive'. These things (true grass root, populist movements, etc.) don't hit the ground running like a well oiled machine. They evolve from a small point of mixed messages and downright chaos at times (as you've alluded to about 1967).
ReplyDeleteIt puzzles me that so many can't see that, or are blinded to it for some reason(s).
And of course there are those who have predicted this for some time. And the Tea Party was just the start of this social unrest and change. It's just getting started.
I spoke with a hedge fund fellow in his 50's over the weekend:
ReplyDelete"Ah... Their 200 weeks of unemployment has run out and now they want everyone else to loose their jobs."
I was stunned. This is a very bright guy. Who apparently hasn't a clue.
Your connection between the summer of love and the march on Washington feels right for OWS. Whatever's going on there, it feels very important to me.
I was in a small post office on Roosevelt Island in New York when I overheard the only other people in the room say something about, "Going down to check it out." (Two middle aged men, one black, one white and me, another older retired white guy.) I asked if they were talking about OWS and the black fellow said he was going to go the next day. This was before the mace, before Brooklyn Bridge before any real news coverage: early days.
I mentioned I'd been down the day before and the three of us talked for ten minutes about something the "news" wasn't covering. OWS is clearly resonating among the 99%.
(On the day I was on Wall Street there were hundreds of uniformed pilots walking in lines that went on for blocks, a work action to call attention to their upset over new work rules. Their demonstration didn't touch the place in my gut that had been stirred by the OWS crowd.)
[Bruce, I passed your Ecuadorian story on to a dozen friends from Peace Corps days in Ecuador forty years ago. We all understood that it was simple chance that it was our old country that was mentioned - could have been any one of most of Latin America, all of Central. We all agreed that your description, your sensitivity, was appreciated. (I went from PC to grad school to 399 Park but left to follow Tim L., Richard A and the boys :>) ]
Bill M
thank you for being there. I know that you know that this is a very important moment.
ReplyDeleteMore of this please, this blog is like a lifeline
Watch out...! The current crop of demonstrators/partiers/protestors are after their own bailout. And not just their student loans.
ReplyDeleteThe allegation is that Wall Street and the banksters somehow 'stole' the public's savings. Stole their standards of living. Stole their future, their way of life - and are still stealing from future generations too...
But they don't understand economics on a WORLD level, monetary history, any links between producers and consumers, between productivity and supply, the real nature of DEMAND, or why debt levels have soared.
The wealth that is supposed to have been stolen was illusory in the first place. Does anyone understand that?? Counterparty risk. The difference between 'money' and 'wealth', between 'price' and 'value'...
Everyone "investing" in the same "assets". The impossibility of everyone selling at once, with the aim of converting their "wealth" into goods, wealth, a better living standard. And the impossibility of continuous REAL growth bailing everyone out.
Causes and events are far too large-scale and complex for the protest's ham-handed focus on corporations and banks. Targetting government AS AN INSTITUTION (not merely a particular party or administration) would be an improvement, though they haven't gotten that link yet.
Until they do, this is only amusing street theater...
damn! i saw you. i thought--"that guy looks like that blogger bruce krasting's photo." i walked right by the red lady being painted, around 4:30pm or so. would've loved to meet you, bruce.
ReplyDelete(i sent you an email a couple of weeks ago, regarding your story about danny, caeser and ruth.)
i've gone down to zuccotti park four times now. just to check it out. i do not pretend to know what if anything will come of this action. but any sign of any segment of americans waking up to the reality of our broken economic and political systems, i welcome and am interested.
next time i see someone that looks like your photo, i'll speak up.
Funny,I see all this anger directed at big banks, but I have yet to see anyone burning their BoA debit card. If you truly object to the way big banks conduct business, then simply close your accounts there. Move your money to your local credit union.
ReplyDeleteIf these people really represent "99%" of America and they do this then things will change in a hurry. Until then, it all looks like just a lot of hot air.
Howard,
ReplyDeleteDamn! I wish you would have said hello!
That would have made my day. Three years of this and 10mm readers and not one person has every stopped me in the street.
bk
For what it's worth, if you go during the day, it's relatively lame. It's also calmed down a bit since the original marches and events began the whole 'movement'.
ReplyDeleteThere's no question there is a party attitude down there, which is precisely why I don't take it seriously at all.
Furthermore, I see many similarities between these goofballs (and they are goofballs) and the Tea Partiers. Different sides of the same coin. Both use free speech, both opposed crony capitalism. The OWS movement, however, takes it to a ridiculous extreme.
To begin, they offer no solutions. At least the Tea Party offers a solution - reduce government.
Secondly, Tea Partiers are productive members of society, most holding jobs. As a result, they will congregate, then dissipate. The cost they are putting on the system of public funds is minimal. The OWS 'movement' are parasites. They seek to get bailouts of their own, and their protest is costing people like me quite a bit of money in police overtime. In these cash-strapped times, thank you very little you morons.
Finally, their 'list of grievances' is idiotic. They want free everything, and they have proclaimed their list is neverending - they reserve the right to file a grievance over whatever crosses their mind.
Was Cantor over the top in his description? Only slightly. They are a mob, following a mob mentality. But they are not as destructive as their opponents suggest. They are simply a drain on society in general.
Do they have legitimate gripes? In a few very rare cases, yes. Mostly, they are anarchists seeking to siphon what they can.
Will it grow? I hope not, but people are pack animals at heart. If it does grow, I weep for our nation. These people are a problem, not a solution.
I don't believe we should oust them or shut them up, but I believe it is unfair and wrong for MSM commentators to call the Tea Party "Terrorists" (thank you Krugman) while calling these people "legitimate".
The only "legitimate" protest should offer a viable solution. These people offer nothing.
Meh. The Ds recruited (and are paying) at least some of those unoccupied protestors.
ReplyDeletehttp://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html
But an Occupy K Street protest? Now that might get me excited.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/10/10/2011-10-10_dc_drove_up_your_student_debt.html
http://pajamasmedia.com/spengler/2011/10/06/wall-street-protesters-have-met-the-enemy-and-it-is-they/
The transition from "summer of love" to mass march on DC required the emergence of leaders. Thus far, we have seen no leader-figures representing the Occupy Wall Street initiative. No Abbie Hoffman or the like. (Also interestingly, there is still no one who can really be identified as a leader of the Tea Party movement.)
ReplyDeleteI distrust political leadership in all its forms. But, for better or worse, that's what it takes to turn a "be in" into a political movement. No leaders, no march.
It also helped that in the 1960s, college students were facing the threat of being killed in a war that they didn't believe in. That mobilized them. Right now, no death threat. Conscription or starvation may be necessary, in addition to leadership.
Yes, it will increase, along with the deterioration of the economy.
ReplyDeleteBruce, where have you been? You not in the "painted" lady's crib, are you?
ReplyDeleteThe blind leading the blind are trying to bury what is going to get bigger as you say. Justice will prevail, as this is not in keeping with America’s destiny to be a free nation in which our jobs are shipped to other countries to make the holders of Wall Street stocks richer at the expense of American people’s jobs.
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