How Long?

How long did America think this could last?

How long can we have a health care program biased by greed?
How long can students enroll in college, with no prospect of finding a job after graduation?
How long can national agendas be co-opted by the few?
How long can we have 1-in-6 Americans living in poverty?

How long did America think humanitarians would tolerate two simultaneous wars?
How long did our parent's generation think we would be silent?
How long did you spend studying for standardized tests?
How long did we wait to begin a movement?

How long will Zuccotti Park be Liberty Plaza?
How long will the answer to 1984 be 1776?
How long will we argue about taxes?
How long will the answer to 9/11 be 9/17?

How about we come together?
How about we get a message and commit to change?
How about we stay off the couch?
How about we STAY CONNECTED!

Defining the Undefinable

I'll begin by saying, as a blogger, I've found it challenging to describe what I consider undescribable.  Nationwide movements are sprouting so quickly and the focuses within Zuccotti Park, leap omnipotently on a whim.  At the General Assembly meetings, there is an overarching agenda of containment and cohesion.  Tonight, the GA was held at 7pm and the human microphone (people repeating what the speaker says, in unison and in waves, known as "generations") was being drowned-out by a nearby drum-circle.  It was directly suggested by a demonstrator that we ask the drum circle to wrap it up and a someone was dispatched to speak with them.  They returned, speaking--via the human microphone--from the periphery of a crowd of about 800 people, and said that the drummers were playing a sacred Native American song and needed another ten minutes.  The General Assembly speaker proposed we continue our meeting, adding an extra generation of the human microphone, to ensure all demonstrators could hear proposals and announcements over the drumming.  It worked. 

Occupy Wall Street is still not 100% clear on goals or a means by which to attain them.  This apparent weakness to some, is in fact the very nature of this democratic demonstration and affords OWS the ability to jump from the digital world, into physical form in a square in Boston...or Cincinnati...or Atlanta.  The glue feels strongest during General Assembly meetings, where tough love will result in someone who speaks out of turn being drowned out via the human microphone.  It works remarkably well.

The fact is, my generation does not know how to demonstrate.  We read it during our high school global studies class and we joked about our parents attending Woodstock at the dining room table, but these were mere fairy tales.  Shackled and submerged by computers, video games and MTV, we spent much of our youths in a virtual isolation.  Sure we played little league and maybe even varsity ball.  We joined frats and had keg parties when we got to college.  We never knew what it meant to mobilize as a single unit until right now...

Screens tell us our grades, our bank balance and what to do at work.  Clearly, we are still relying on them as one was recently installed in Zuccotti Park, in an effort to improve communications and assist hearing impaired demonstrators.  But these screens we grew up on are tied to monolithic institutions, relegated to their own private islands where the sole commodity is profits.  Our generation was effectively buying-in to the corporate agenda; it's no wonder our skills shrank and our jobs were outsourced. 

As millions of students pump our economy with billions of dollars of student loans, with little prospect of finding a job to repay their debt, Occupy Wall Street appears the closest thing to an answer.  Right now, for the future of America, the buck stops at Occupy Wall Street.  Whether this movement can coalesce to create substantive change remains to be seen.  As I said, we are new to this.  Furthermore, the media is new to covering something like OWS.  Gen-Xers at the helm of media insitutions are not nimble enough to contemplate these uprisings--they grew up during a time of relative peace and prosperity and frankly do not have the experience, nor the skills to process the spectacle that has bloomed in Zuccotti Park. 

Grassroots activism in Zuccotti Park has a heavy emphasis on infrastructure.  Kitchen (which is currently outsourced and paid for by donations), Media, Volunteering, Finance and of course the Library.  The audacity of our generation to form our own democratic "society" is bolstered by the very spectacle of the location.  While banks or big business may not be the end-all villain, Occupy Wall Street is clearly an affront to their very being.

Tearing the fabric of history

The idea to grow a movement from an occupied Manhattan park is proof that many millenials wish to hit the proverbial reset button on their emotional, intellectual, professional and political lives.  As of Monday night, they have been given carte blanche to do so by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  The only caveat to this deal appears to be a new construction project, on the corner of Broadway and Liberty, where jackhammers may be jostling the nerves of demonstrators all night.  It is unlikely that this will drive protesters out.  However, with news breaking that the OWS movement in Boston is being raided, construction should be the last thing on our minds. 

My generation is growing up

In New York City, it is miraculous to see the civility, organization and cohesion of this movement as it is still taking shape.  It is, in fact, in an incubation period and very much in its infancy.  As one of the speakers stated at tonight's General Assembly, "It's time to GROW UP!"

After having successfully garnered the constant attention of the mainstream media...

...and fundraising $5,000 overnight for just one of the dozen-plus sub-groups that Occupy Wall Street has birthed...

...for an Art show (I know, the businessman in me finds it funny too, but still).  Plenty of clean cut people in their late twenties and early thirties are supporting:

I will not deny there is plenty of radical activism occuring...

...this is begotten by fear, anger and outrage...

Anti-Corporate sentiment is high and one mantra adopted by the participants hails from Ghandi's movements:

Many feel America's values have been and are currently askew:

At the Southwest corner of Zuccotti Park, drums are banging and flags are flying, as a nearby sign at a commercial establishment reads "Internet"



"There's something happening here"

"There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people."  --Paul Krugman

This blog is an examination of the recent events occuring nationwide called "Occupy Wall Street."  It is an attempt at disambiguation of the mixed messages, a forum for unedited discussion/comments and a quest for clarity as to where individuals stand with respect to this movement. 

Submissions for photographs, video and audio will be accepted via email at occupiedblogger@gmail.com

I am in no way affiliated with Occupy Wall Street and the only 2 connections I recognize as being representative of this movement are:

http://nycga.cc/

http://occupywallst.org/

After attending the protest at Zuccotti Park (which is now dubbed "Liberty Square" by the protesters) on Friday, 10/7, from 12:30pm - 10:30pm, I am compelled to write. 

The vibe on the sidewalks, as well as inside the park (an area which has been turned into a modern version of a hippie commune), is something I have never felt in my 29 years on this Earth.  I imagine this is as close to a 1960s protest as America has come since the audaciousness of the 1967 "Levitate the Pentagon" demonstration.
 

This protest was spawned by Abbie Hoffman and a coalition of 150 loosely intra-connected organizations, with a goal of levitating the Pentagon into the air, turning it a different color and exorcising "evil spirits."  However unlike this remarkable event, the goals of Occupy Wall Street have yet to be established and the initial organization of todays demonstration were minimal. 

Occupy Wall Street began when a protester named Bob, along with about a dozen members/enthusiasts of the Canadian Culture Jamming group AdBusters, setup sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, on September 17th, 2011.  Over 3 weeks, it grew exponentially in New York City, garnering support from unions such as 1199, the UFT, Transit Workers as well as Pilots.  It is now ground zero for the largest American movement since the anti-war efforts during the Vietnam War era. 

The median age amongst protesters appears to be 30.  Many protesters are gainfully employed, while some are students and all are unified by a cohesive rage, which has been building for the past decade.  These are people who pay taxes, vote and have seen their economic security shaken, since 2008 (and possibly before).  Unlike the Levitate the Pentagon demonstration, the US is now engaged on two warfronts.  Trillions of taxpayer dollars have been used to wage war in an unstable region of the globe.  These wars have questionable intentions and grew from a single event, on 9/11/2001. 

This event, half of which occurred a mere block away from Zuccotti Park, has now defined a generation of American's experience with our nation.  It lead to the enactment of The Patriot Act, whereby government grew while civil rights and privacy eroded.  As America plodded along during the early-mid 2000s, with flags flying high, our economic prosperity, closely tied to the housing sector, blossomed.  The War Machine revved and the Dow Jones Industrials Index soared, as a result of exploitation of the deregulation during the 1990s.  While America flew 1960s era warplanes over the Middle East, state-of-the-art financial instruments, particularly derivatives, set new benchmarks in the equities, real estate and commodities markets.  Control over the international and domestic agendas narrowed to the squint of shortsightedness. 

Suddenly, in September 2008, the party ended.  Large insurance, banking and financial institutions came to the realization that the numbers on their statements, systems and blackberries did not add up to anything positive.  Intrabank lending, the heart of America's financial system, ground to a halt.  Our government was informed that unless a limitless amount of cash was immediately infused into the financial sector, ATMs would stop spitting out bills, credit cards would not function and there would be martial law.  The fear was reaffirmed, when on Monday, 9/28 2008, the "bail out" plan was rejected by Congress--the Dow lost 777points. 

During 2009, the housing sector--the anchor for the most popular derivatives--plummeted.  Hard working homeowners soon realized that the value of their home was less than the dollar amount on their mortgage statements--they were effectively underwater on their homes.  This became known as the bursting of the housing bubble.  Worse yet, during 2010, unemployment began to skyrocket to a point of immeasurable levels--persons underemployed, those who had given up looking for work and those whose unemployment benefits had lapsed were left out of our equations. 

2011 saw an uptick in all markets, except housing.  This flash of hope was leveraged by Quantitative Easing ("printing" funds backed by the auction of treasuries to foreign nations) and cheap money.  For a few months, unemployment numbers tapered.  This anomaly occured irrespective of systemic economic problems, such as fractional reserve banking, recently retweaked derivatives and general insolvency. 

On September 17th, when the occupation of Wall Street began, a new bubble burst.  Today, America is entrenched in a call to action that is growing so rapidly, that specific goals and demands cannot yet be established.  This bubble cannot be measured by computers, it cannot be quantified by quarterly reports and it cannot be captured by the mainstream media.  Occupy Wall Street is the explosion of average American frustration, leveraged by the age of digital information.  It is the plurality of disaffected citizens, who are now finding parities of this movement close to their homes.  Occupy Wall Street has put the idea of demonstration back into democracy.  As Marshall McLuhan stated, "The medium is the message."