NYPD attacks Occupy Wall Street

Saturday March 17th marked the six month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. It was a beautiful and joyous day despite a dozen or more arrests for crimes like laying down and dancing. Despite the heavy police presence spirits were. That evening we had a great General Assembly with hundreds present, using two waves of the People’s Mic to make sure everyone could hear what was being discussed. We reached consensus to sign a petition to urge the attorney general to investigate the NYPD’s spying on Muslims in New York City.

It was a beautiful evening with lots of smiles and laughter. The drum circle was doing it’s thing. There were lots of hugs and shouts of, “Happy anniversary.” We had some amazing break out groups regarding what we hope to see during May Day; what we hope to accomplish. It was a beautiful moment in a movement with lots of ups and downs over the past six months.

Around 10:00pm, Michael Moore showed up with a huge contingent of folks who had marched over from Left Forum. The numbers at the park probably surged over a thousand people. People chanted and sang. Banners were erected. Blankets were brought. The mood continued to be joyous and peaceful.

At some point past 11:00pm the NYPD claimed some of the ridiculous park rules Brookfield has made up were being broken. Rules, like, no laying down in a public park. Or even better: No setting you personal property down on the floor. Rules that any sane person would laugh at. And so this is the context given to set the NYPD loose upon unarmed, peaceful people. You can watch an interview I conducted by clicking here.

The NYPD reall seemed to ratchet up the violence, particularly against women. Cecily McMillan, a 23-year-old graduate student at the New School was savagely beaten unconscious by the NYPD and then denied medical care for nearly 20 minutes. When they finally took her to the hospital they wouldn’t let her family or her lawyer see her.

By Monday afternoon the everyone who had been arrested on M17 (March 17th) was released. Dozens of supporters stayed on jail support for hours on end to make sure that when those folks got out they would be greeted with hugs, food, and lots of love and attention. Some of the arresttees talked about how wonderful it was to hear people outside chanting, knowing they weren’t alone in this.

Everyone that came out of the Tombs had similar stories of violence and threats. Threats for not submitting to iris scans, which are voluntary. Threats that if you keep protesting we’re going to beat you worst next time. The NYPD only knows violence. And it’s evident that it can’t quite figure out why that’s not working, but rest assured it’s only making us stronger. And I’ll leave you with one of my favorite chants, one we chanted as folks were coming out of the Tombs today:

1. We are the People

2. We are united.

3. This Occupation is not leaving.

Occupy Wall Street. Open Spaces

OWS Open Space Commons

I finally made it to my first Open Space event. What a breath of fresh air. In recent weeks we have reduced the number of decision-making meetings and opened up space for different types of meetings/events, like Open Spaces where we foster dialogue rather than focus on making any decisions. This was only the third Open Space event we’ve had so far but it was really great, well attended and definitely renewed my love for Occupy Wall Street and the community we are building.

For a long time after the eviction people were left without a place to soapbox and have dialogue with each other. Most of the meetings being held tended to focus on decision-making and were process driven. And this often manifested itself in the form of people speaking out of process in order to be heard about something they felt passionate about. Open Spaces provides a great venue for this.

The night started out with people able to post anything they wanted to talk about. You could post a brief description to the wall and let people know where you would be. For instance, one talk I attended was on our monetary system in section A (basically a group of chairs in a circle.) So the room was divided into little circles with each having some interesting discussion. You could stay as long or as short as you like. Some people just floated around the room from one discussion after another. Others kind of stuck it out in a handful of conversations. Each has their merit and it was interesting to hear people’s responses when we wrapped up.

As the conversation about our monetary system wrapped up I happily stumbled upon a discussion on Anarchism! There were probably about a half-dozen or more conversations going on on a variety of topics. During the conversations we had giant sheets of paper to write down our thoughts and observations that we could later share with the group.

What’s always blown me away about our Occupy community is that people really want to listen. During the occupation of Liberty Square I could sit at our labor table and just marvel at the amazing, intense, and very deep conversations happening all around me. And that beautiful spirit was very much alive at Open Space where people listened just as passionately as they spoke.

At the conclusion of the night we came together and shared what we took away from the night. One after another our beautiful community shared some nugget of insight with heartfelt sincerity. When it came to me I said, “I’m filled with grattitude for being here with all of you and I’m taking with me the importance of having space like this to dialogue with each other so that we can continue to learn and grow.”