Why We Occupy

November 3

Jordan

I was on the road in Philadelphia when I heard about Occupy Wall Street. I was on my way to New York, and then back to San Francisco, where I’m from. I figured I’d come here and see what was going on. As soon as I got here, I realized that I wasn’t going to go back to San Francisco—within, like, a minute of being here.

That was also really influenced by what happened on the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ve seen these kinds of things start up a lot. The feeling here is similar to the antiwar protests in 2004: “We can do anything!” That fizzled out, but here it’s really sustained. So when everyone got arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge—after this being around for two weeks, seven hundred people got arrested—it really showed me that this was serious. Then when I came here and actually checked it out, I completely gave up all my plans.

I would say that I’ve been looking for something like this probably since I was fourteen, when I first started talking to people who have a critical analysis of capitalism, of the way our country is structured and the way our society is structured. There’s an artist, Seth Tobocman, who sums it up really well. He made this piece that says, “You don’t have to fuck people over to survive.” That’s a real fundamental aspect of what this is about.

The standards that we have in this country, in my opinion, are designed to keep us feeling insecure and always wanting more. And the way in which we get more is by subjugating other people. Up until now, I’ve been trying to cultivate better standards for myself and the people in my community, so that we’re screwing over people less.

I would like the option of living in a culture and a society that isn’t based on oppressing other people in order to have our day-to-day stuff. I feel that that’s impossible in the United States right now, and it’s impossible globally for someone who’s privileged like I am. Obviously, we can’t get rid of that privilege, but we’re trying to create dialogue around that, and create something different.

What have you been doing in the way of living differently?

I was doing Food Not Bombs when I was in high school. We collect food that grocery stores throw away because it’s past it’s expiration date, or because it’s an apple with a little brown spot on it or something like that. And then the food gets cooked and served for free as a demonstration against food waste. It’s not a food production problem in the world, it’s a food distribution problem. There’s no one who needs to be hungry. There’s enough food for everybody. So there was that.

I live in collective houses with a lot of people. We share space. Recently, I lived in a room with three of my friends. People would ask me, “How do you do that? How do you manage in a room with three other people?” But they are really good friends. I don’t need my own personal room 24/7. I’m from San Francisco, so rent is really high. Sharing space is a way of mitigating rent. When I pay less rent, I need to make less money. I can work a job that’s part of the system less, and I can put more time and energy into community projects.

In San Francisco, I was part of this collective called the Bike Kitchen. It’s a volunteer-run spot. People go there and learn how to fix and build bikes. We collect scrapped bikes and old bikes from people who are throwing them away, and then it’s a tool workshop. No one gets paid to be there, so that’s part of creating a different kind of culture. And Occupy Wall Street is, in my mind, a big wake-up call trying to announce that culture to other people.

Everything that’s going on here is built on the shoulders of lots of other movements that have been going on and lots of other work that people have been doing. This is a big expression of that—for many people, an introduction to that.

That’s true. I think there’s a bike collective here in New York.

Oh, yeah. Time’s Up! does a similar thing. Those bike collectives exist all over the United States, and in other countries as well. That model is something that has been reproduced a lot.

Are there other kinds of things that run like that?

Totally. ABC No Rio is this really good resource in New York that’s been around for many, many years. They have a photography studio, and screen printing, and they have shows there. They have a zine library in there—like, independently published things. It’s a collectively-run thing. People don’t get paid to be there, and you pay what you can to use those services. It’s like A.A. meetings, in many ways.

That is a different way of interacting with people. Ultimately, I think, a healthier way for us, as humans, to interact. It’s definitely healthier for me than buying all my own stuff, and having my own place, my own workshop—like, my own screen printing workshop.

Financially, it makes sense to share that kind of equipment.

Exactly.

You can’t necessarily have a photography studio on your own.

Especially my context in San Francisco, where rent is really high. So when you can have fun by spending less money, then you don’t have to work as much. When you don’t work as much, you have more time to do things that are ultimately fulfilling.

A lot of us have a job that is a means to an end, not something that we inherently enjoy or believe in. I’ve been in that position myself. I don’t want to trade forty hours a week of my time in order to have all of these material goods. These things don’t bring me as much happiness as building my own bike and going on a bike ride. Obviously, there’s layers and layers of privilege inherent in my situation. Even if I don’t have a job—even if I squat, and I never pay for food—my existence is still fundamentally based on the oppression of other people.

Why do you say that?

If you live in the United States, your existence is based on the oppression of other people historically, in the form of slavery.

I was recently in Guatemala, so this is a good example. In the fifties, there was a democratically-elected president who wanted to do a lot of land reform, but United Fruit Company owned most of the land. The top people in United Fruit Company were also involved in the C.I.A., and in the cabinet for the presidency at the time. They created a campaign to say that what was going on in Guatemala was a communist threat. They ousted that democratically-elected leader and put in a dictator. The dictator removed all the land reforms. People were really poor. They had absolutely nothing, so they created a civil war, and there was a civil war in Guatemala for thirty years. The problems that existed during that civil war still exist in Guatemala today. The whole political system is entirely corrupt.

People in Guatemala are subjugated so that United Fruit Company can turn a huge profit. Every time you eat a banana, it’s typically coming from some really screwed-up situation down there.

That’s one of many things. We create all these oil wars. We have this weird situation where we have these borders that we don’t want people to cross, but at the same time, our economy is entirely dependent on people working at wages that United States citizens don’t want to work at. We’re willing to subjugate these other people because they were born on the other side of a line that we drew in the sand years ago.

I cannot escape that. Every second that I live, that is a part of my existence. It’s a part of all of our existences, and we need to come to terms with that. When I think about it that way, it’s not worth it for me to try to participate in that system. Having my own room and having a flat-screen T.V. and owning a car is not worth it for me, when I look at the real cost of those things.

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What’s going on here [at Occupy Wall Street] is an attempt to base a culture and a society on the idea of mutual aid and respect for each other as opposed to insecurity and fear. What capitalism thrives on is creating insecurity and fear in ourselves.

A really base-level analysis of this is general advertising. We’re a captive audience to a lot of advertisements. In order to secure money to pay for our shelter and our food, we have to move through places where advertisements are, and they catch our eye. The people who create those advertisements create a culture that says that one type of body is good. So, like, skinny is good, fat is bad. That creates insecurity about our bodies that I actually don’t have any control over. I was born into this body. I didn’t pick this body. I can work out, I can eat a bunch of junk food, but regardless, I was born into this body.

There’s also the huge class ramifications of the whole vilification of the poor, the overweight poor.

Right. We create this scenario that thrives on building insecurity in us in order to create a “need” for certain products. If you read about the history of advertising, that happened at the turn of the century as products were being made more and more efficiently. There was a time when advertising was designed to sell you a product based on the merits of that product. Advertising was text-based. It was information: “You should buy this.” What advertisers began to realize is that it was more effective to sell a lifestyle or an idea with their product.

Products were being made at such a rate that they couldn’t be sold fast enough. They were being made well enough that they would last, and you wouldn’t need to buy any more of them. There wasn’t enough of a need for all these things that were being made. So advertising went from informing someone about what exists to trying to create a need for that thing.

“You will be more attractive if you wear these clothes.” They tell us what attractive is, and the problem with that is that you have to make a certain amount of money in order to then be attractive. Not all of us can be making that amount of money, so it creates this cutthroat system, right? But who’s to say what’s attractive?

What I like about what’s going on here is that we’re redefining those standards. This has been going on in the do-it-yourself anarchist community for a long time, this rejection of traditional standards of beauty and body image. The gender binary is part of that as well. We’re creating something that’s more human and more accepting, something that’s based on compassion and love.

That’s my fundamental reason for being here is that I want to encourage other people to think critically about capitalism, and about the images that we’re told to believe in. It was really liberating for me to critically examine those things, and then release insecurity I had about my body and my place. I still carry those insecurities, and it’s going to be a long time of undoing all that learning, but it’s been really liberating for me to realize that. I want to encourage other people to look at that, so that we can make a choice. The way capitalism works is that it just takes and takes and takes and takes. There’s no space that’s left for an alternative, you know?

Describe your day-to-day experience here.

Well, in a day here, I swing between being completely inspired and excited about this place to being completely dejected and frustrated. There’s a lot of awesome things going on. Every time I have an idea about a way this place can be better organized, I find out that three other people have already had that idea and are talking about it in a group, and I’m totally invited to join that group and talk about it with people. So there’s a lot of people here who are really committed, and thinking really creatively, and willing to try out new ideas, willing to make mistakes, willing to be wrong. People are making themselves really vulnerable, and that’s exciting, you know?

Also, seeing a lot of people who are willing to be homeless is really inspiring to me. That’s what I’m doing. I’m sleeping on the street, and eating food out of the garbage can. It’s really inspiring to see people who are willing to do that because this is so meaningful to them.

I don’t say those things to elicit pity. Those are all choices that I’m making, and this is worth it. This is more fun than having those other comforts, even as winter approaches. People are like, “What do you do when it rains?” And it’s like, “Well, you get wet.” So now I’m soaking wet. Whatever.

Some other highlights I’ll touch on real quick. The Oakland Solidarity March was a highlight for two reasons: One, we approved to send Oakland twenty thousand dollars and a hundred tents to help them rebuild their camp after the police raided it, and also to help them bail people out of jail. That was exciting to me because there was less of this greedy ownership over the money that we’ve been donated here. People are starting to realize that these resources aren’t ours at Occupy Wall Street in New York; they’re all of ours. That’s exciting because it really challenges state power. It challenges police power. It’s like, “Okay, you can go and bulldoze the camp. That’s fine. We’re going to put a bunch of money in and rebuild that camp.”

Point number two is: That night we had a big solidarity march for Oakland. We walked off of the sidewalk and into the street, and we marched against traffic. We split up into several groups and marched all through Manhattan, and people were really stepping it up. At one point, the police tried to corral a bunch of people behind an orange net, and we ran up behind them and grabbed the net and tore it out of their hands.

Wow, really? When was this—yesterday?

This was a week ago yesterday. The night that Oakland retook Oscar Grant Plaza, which is the place where they’re at.

People were getting de-arrested. I was in the process of being arrested by an officer. I was blocking a motorcycle cop from cutting us off. He pushed me over. I tried to get up; I got pushed over again. I was in the process of being arrested and someone grabbed me and yanked me away. Then the police tried to grab my feet, and a bunch of other people grabbed my arms and pulled me into the crowd.

Later that night, I did Community Watch here. Not to toot my own horn, but the point is: I’m doing something to protect people. The police aren’t doing anything to protect people. They’re doing things to keep us in line. People are really starting to step up to that, so that is a real highlight for me.

Also, that happened in a really nonviolent way. I don’t consider tearing away a police net violence. People weren’t attacking the police. It was just like, “You can’t take our people.” I wasn’t the only person who got de-arrested that night. It happened to a lot of people. It’s really exciting to see that kind of stuff happening because it’s us saying we have some autonomy, and we’re taking responsibility for ourselves, and we’re serious about this.

And then all of the projects that people are putting together here are exciting. We’re gearing up for the seventeenth—the general strike here—and a bunch of unions are going to take over some bridges, and we’re putting out a public call to shut down Wall Street. The call is: The Stock Exchange will not open on the seventeenth!

We’re doing a bunch of Direct Action trainings up until then, just to introduce people to direct action. What it’s going to mean if you’re blocking the streets. What it’s going to mean as far as getting arrested, you know, blah, blah, blah. Dealing with tear gas and all that shit. And I’m getting the feeling that people are really willing to do that to make this big statement. All of those things are really, really exciting.

One of the downsides is the way this camp functions. Not a downside, but just a recognition of how far we have to go. We don’t have leaders here, which I think is great. It’s really important that this is a leaderless situation, and collectively organized. But based on inherited ideas of power and oppression and hierarchy, there are leaders that emerge here, and people that are listened to. We’re trained from our culture to look for leaders, and we’re also trained to fill those roles. So some of the hierarchy that’s based on gender divisions and racial divisions and sexual orientation divisions is getting reproduced here.

Typically, a lot of white men are people in power. The media prefers to talk to those people. So there’s not a strong gender analysis. We’re really caught in this gender binary here. We’re not acknowledging trans people. We recreated systems of hierarchy because the police are in our heads and our hearts, and so firmly ingrained in our beings. It’s going to take a long time before we can break them out.

The police as a more metaphorical—

Yeah, exactly.

The Man, so to speak.

Sure, the Man is in our heads. That system is taught to us as normal. That’s why the General Assembly is such a messy function right now. It took me a long time before I realized that I can go to a consensus-based meeting and not say anything, and still participate in the meeting. I go to lots of meetings. A lot of times I may say, like, two sentences, because my ideas are being voiced by the group consciousness, you know what I mean? It takes people a long time to realize that, because consensus is so different. I’ve been involved in consensus-based processes for a long time, so I feel like I’m more used to it. For a lot of people, this is brand-new. That’s just a hurdle we have to clear.

There’s also been assault here. Women have been raped here, and the way I look at that is: We exist in a culture of violence, and we’re building this within that culture. As we unlearn that culture, it still exists here. Those atrocities happen throughout New York every day, so it’s no surprise that they happen here. But it is really disturbing. My understanding is that it’s happening in a population here that is using substances irresponsibly. I used to be a mental health and substance abuse counselor, and the way I see that population is as a consequence of the society that we’re trying to change. An unacknowledged consequence of capitalism is that people are in these positions.

We have free food and clothing, and there’s zero bureaucracy to access services here. We have free medical. Of course people are going to come here, because to go to a shelter or any other service . . . I was telling people, “If I still had my job, I would send my clients here because they don’t have to deal with any bullshit. You don’t have to deal with any sort of humiliating anything. Just show up, you’re not judged, you’re given what you need.” Obviously, we’re attracting those people here, and we’re trying to come up with ways to deal with . . . not the people, but the problem behavior that sick people bring.

One idea is that we don’t serve free food all the time. What I’m a big fan of is that each working group has people within that working group who get food for the group. What the kitchen does is maintain the food storage. So if I’m doing food for my group, I go to the kitchen before our meetings, and I make sure that we get a bunch of food prep for everybody. And there can be a group of people who only occupy and live in this camp; I’m not saying that they have to do something that I deem useful or not. The point is: That’s how to get services in this non-hierarchical, horizontal decision-making process.

That is a way of integrating people with problem behavior into our culture, and modeling a different kind of thing for them, saying, “You can hang out here and not be judged and have everything for free and I love you. You can do that, but if you’re going to be a part of this community, you have to engage with people respectfully. And that means no putting me in danger by bringing the police in here because you’re using drugs irresponsibly.” That also means not assaulting people. If those people get pushed out of this park—if they get pushed into the criminal justice system . . . I’m not saying we shouldn’t use that when we have a real threat right here, but the criminal justice system creates the people in that scenario. It keeps people there because it’s a profit-making thing for the people who run it.

That’s the disheartening factor: There’s all that stuff going on, and there’s the ways in which we recreate hierarchy. I just need to remember that what we’re fighting against has been ingrained in people’s minds for generations. For many people, this is, like, one day old. So that’s a long road to walk, but it’s what I’ve committed my life to.

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What working group did you say you were in?

I’m with Direct Action. That’s the main group I spend my time with.

So you plan the actions?

Yeah. The way Direct Action works right now is: It’s like a hub. People show up, and they bring ideas they have for different actions, like this [flyer] came out of Direct Action.

This is a great idea.

Yeah. Or, like, Bank Transfer Day is Saturday, so that’s a thing that Direct Action’s working on. Direct Action’s working on the seventeenth. They planned the Oakland Solidarity March.

It’s like a hub. You show up with your action idea. You’re like, “I want to do this action. My group wants to do this thing.” And that gets workshopped and people discuss it, people join you in planning it or whatever. Official days of action that O.W.S. puts on go through the Direct Action Working Group as, like, “This is what we’re doing today.”

Do you guys plan the teach-ins also?

Mm . . . we may plan some teach-ins, but there’s an Education and Empowerment group. They’re an Outreach group. I mean, anybody plans teach-ins. We don’t only do that, but we may do that.

The Occupy the Boardroom thing—that was you guys?

[To Ari.] Occupy the Boardroom was people from D.A., right? With the letters and everything?

Ari: Yeah, some of those jobs—Austin and Align have been planning this from a while ago—use this network that was set up for people sending letters to the C.E.O.’s who destroyed their lives. They came to Direct Action, and we coordinated this whole action together, and made it the Occupy Wall Street Event of the Day that day by getting consensus in Direct Action.

Maybe you could talk a little bit about some of your upcoming actions you have planned?

Jordan: Seventeenth, general strike. Groups are participating nationwide, shutting down bridges and occupying their cities. We’re going to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. It’s not going to open. The open call is: “Come down here and take part in a big march that surrounds Wall Street and doesn’t let people in.” Within that, there’s going to be all sorts of little groups that are doing things that might be more high-risk. I don’t even know what those are, but they’re going to happen. The middle of the day is going to be filled with teach-ins, and people are occupying the subways. They’re riding from all different boroughs, having little General Assemblies in different subway stations, and Soapboxes to tell their stories. Then there’s going to be a big meet-up in Foley Square. There’s going to be marches from there to occupy different bridges. So that’s coming up on the seventeenth.

On the thirtieth, there’s a big meeting in Manhattan between people in the Department of Defense, Wall Street financiers, and aerospace contractors. So the people who make, like, drone planes and stuff like that. They’re meeting for two days at Madison Square Park, and so we’re going to shut that down.

It’s a conference?

Yeah. So we’re going to shut that down because that is a real prime example of what I said, like, “Why are our tax dollars going into building these weapons and creating these wars so that these defense contractors can turn all these profits off of killing people? That doesn’t really produce anything good for us.” And there’s going to be teach-ins associated with that. What I’m trying to organize to go along with that is a regional convergence of different Occupys, all converging here the weekend before, for us to meet and greet. And then we all shut that down together with thousands of people in New York.

That sounds wonderful.

Yeah, I hope it happens. That’s what we’re moving towards. So those are two big things that are coming up.

Oh, on the eighth, this guy is scheduled to be deported, and he has committed no crimes. He’s a community activist and a father of three. It’s all bullshit. They’re going to deport him because they’re racist or something like that. I don’t know why they think it’s okay to do those things. So there’s going to be a big march to his hearing, and then I think the idea is that people are not going to let anyone leave that building until he is not going to be deported.

And then there’s Stop Stop-and-Frisk. There’s this policy in New York City called Stop-and-Frisk which predominantly targets youth of color. Something like ninety percent of youth of color who are stopped for Stop-and-Frisk aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re being systematically traumatized by police. So a bunch of people have a little teach-in about it, and then they go and sit down in front of a precinct, and then they get arrested and taken away. It’s happened twice now. Cornel West was part of the first one, in Harlem. They did another one in Brooklyn two days ago, and we’re going to keep on doing that to raise awareness about it until they stop that policy. ❖

Mike

Around the second week, I learned not to take anything personal. Just let every day be, and learn from this organic movement. Every day’s new, so every day I wake up and I literally put on my thinking hat—put on Michael—and say, “Okay, you’re going to go through that tent door now and everything’s going to be different. It’s going to be flooded with snow or something.” This is an organic, ever-changing franchise that we’re working on. Acknowledging that we don’t have the kinks perfect yet helps me deal with it on a day-to-day basis.

So how’s it going for me? It’s going extremely well. That’s just a personal decision—kind of a mental personal coping mechanism—because I’m very, very organized, almost to an O.C.D. level. Further than that, I’m a biochemistry/Spanish major, which requires a lot of organizational and other skill sets that you just don’t normally need.

Are you at school this semester?

Yeah, well . . .

Took a leave?

No, I didn’t. I’m still working on papers right now.

How’s that going?

It’s not going. [Laughs.]

You’re not trying to write papers in your tent, are you?

Well, yeah. I can get emails on my Blackberry and I can type on my laptop, although it dies every now and then. I have a really nice light—a photographer’s light. I’ll show it to you.

Have you been going to class?

No. I’m currently working on a huge paper that will give me credit. Originally, I took this semester off to work, and I did work before the occupation started. I took a kind of semester abroad—an independent study. I’m working on some pieces by Federico García Lorca.

What’s the paper?

This is an idea I have for Lorca . . . it’s more than an idea, at this point. I’m talking about his history, his life. When Lorca first started writing, he would write about, “Oh, the countryside! How beautiful and how orgasmic and nice and lovely and fun!” Once he came here to New York, he was like, “Oh, New York! How fun and how orgasmic!” So I’m like, “Dude, make up your mind!”

I go to school in Wisconsin, and I’m here in New York. It’s kind of that similar paradox where you have countryside, “Oh, zone out on my bike,” and here in New York, “Oh, the train and the smell of smoke. Love it!” So yeah, it’s that kind of weird thing, and I’m just seeing how his poetry or his art changed, or became better or worse or whatever. It’s really just a survey of his work, and his transition from countryside to New York and back.

But it also has personal ramifications.

It has a little bit of personal, and I think that’s my experience for being able to do it. Just that little bit of personal tone I have that allows me to write about it. That’s what I’m working on with Lorca.

[A photographer snaps a picture of the baby.]

What’s that for?

Photographer: [Inaudible.]

Mike: [Laughs.] “I do that on a daily basis.”

That’s so fucking disrespectful!

Yeah.

I mean, I don’t care if he takes a picture of the baby. Obviously I don’t care, otherwise I wouldn’t bring the baby down here, but, like, you don’t need to be a dick about it.

Just asking to be polite is not a big deal, you know?

It’s not a big deal. If he asked me, I would have said yes.

Okay, let’s forget that and move on. We were talking about the ups and downs . . .

So yeah, that’s one of them! [Laughs.] If you’re going to do this for the long term, you just have to zone yourself out so much. I’ve come to realize that this is not my home. I do not live here. I currently just, you know, occupy this space. None of this belongs to me, so if the cops came and took everything, I wouldn’t be totally traumatized by it. The stuff that I need, I try not to have them here, and if I lost my laptop, that’s one thing I’m willing to risk losing.

You have it backed up?

Yeah, I store most of my stuff online. My important information I store online, so I could access it anywhere. That’s because I travel. So the deal is: Yeah, I just make these kind of conscious decisions that I’m going to make it not bother me. Regardless of what happens during the day, I’m not going to let it throw me.

It’s a very stressful environment. The drums beat, and I don’t get much sleep, and all the pressures I get: “Are the cops going to be coming to kick you out right now?” And people—just dealing with people on a day-to-day basis.

But it’s such a good vibe. It’s weird to me that some people bring a lot of hostility in.

Yeah, especially now. It’s become a show—a tourist environment, almost. People who are not quite in the loop with what’s going on are not doing this kind of open-ended journalism that you’re doing. Just, “Why are you here! Three questions, yes or no?” They get this kind of surface level, and they think it’s okay to smoke, and they just throw their cigarette butts on the floor. To some people that live here, it’s like, “No! That’s our back yard! Please don’t do that!”

Hostility does come through, and I think it’s from not understanding, not having a clear idea, really, of what’s going on. Or some people come with malintentions. And if you’re looking for that one shot that’s going to buy you a thousand bucks on the cover of the Daily News, then you’re going to run into problems with people.

“I’m still a person, see?” Especially if they’re a little snotty. I don’t mind taking a picture for someone or talking to someone, but I’m a person, so, “Hi!” you know? “I wanted to know you. I don’t care if you take the picture.”

So every day I wake up saying, “Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with it as we go along.” And just from working at this table—I work at Información en Español—we have our own little changes that come up on a day-to-day basis: “Oh, my God! What did I do with this document, this paper, this very important thing?” It’s a problem-solving-skills kind of deal. Anyway, it’s still a movement, you know?

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Can you tell me about when you first decided to come down here, and what your reasons were?

Honestly, just curiosity.

Were you in New York?

I was here in New York, and then curiosity killed the cat, so . . . I passed by and I saw . . . I think it was Chris. He was being hauled off by the cops, dragged on the floor. I was like, “Whoa! Cops can do that? No way! Cops don’t do that in Wisconsin!” The local sheriff comes in at two o’clock and kicks out all the college students because bar time is over. He’s, like, the cool sheriff guy who looks out for everyone, you know? Everybody knows him, Officer Pete, you know what I mean? That’s the kind of environment. I was riding my bike without the lights on, and he’s like, “Mike, I’m going to get you on that!” The cops are not this kind of hostile. I mean, I’ve been near it before, so I know they’re kind of N-Y-P-D—like, television cops—but the ones that I’ve seen are the ones in Times Square that take pictures of tourists, not the ones being super hostile and weird.

So curiosity brought me here, and then I saw stuff happening, and then I started having these conversations, and then I realized that, “You know what? I’m never going to have another opportunity to do this.” I’m only twenty-one—I’m still pretty young. I eat healthy, and health things are going pretty good; I might not get sick. Weighing all the pros and cons, I decided that, “You know what? Maybe I should get involved with this and spend a week.” And then a week became two weeks, and then two weeks became . . . I don’t know how long I’ve been here anymore.

So you were here from, like, the first week?

Yeah, from day four. I don’t think I slept that night here . . . I didn’t, but after a while, I started spending more and more time, and then eventually, it just became home.

What was it like at the very beginning?

It was more . . . almost survival mode, and people were pulling on their skill sets a lot more. During the first couple of weeks, you knew exactly what to do. Somebody needs to be at the Welcome Table? Okay, fine, let’s just sit there and tell people where stuff are. People need help in the kitchen? Okay, fine, let’s go help in the kitchen.

Now it’s organized itself into a movement. The kitchen has a face, the Información en Español . . . not that it’s less inviting, but it’s more organized. And it’s rolling, so one thing we have to work on is integration. What should happen is: Anyone who sits in that chair knows exactly what to do because there’s a booklet that explains everything. So that’s what happens here.

I’m still a kid, and this is probably the most fun I could have while doing something positive. I don’t know that, being in New York, you’re going to ever have an opportunity to do something like this, you know? Most people just get on the trains, work the entire day, and then head on home. So you’re never going to have the chance to make some kind of social impact.

And I think what we’re doing here is important. It’s a big deal. It’s kind of a big deal.

I agree.

Are you planning on staying through the winter?

Technically, I have to go back and finish school in January. I might stay through Thanksgiving. I might even spend Christmas or New Year’s, but then I really do have to start winding it down.

You could come back in the summer, I guess?

Well, no, I’m bringing what I’ve learned to Wisconsin. They already have an Occupy Wisconsin, but I mean, it’s a franchise. You could just bring it anywhere. I could bring it to my own little small town.

Right, of course. What are some of the things that you’ve learned that you would bring elsewhere?

Something like this, you don’t take mental health into consideration. All the things are awesome, you know? We have our own Internet, Media, LiveStream, everything! I think having a kind of a buddy-system mental health kind of deal—people looking out for each other—would help a lot. Exhaustion is a real huge deal here, and you don’t want people who are very active getting exhausted or becoming disillusioned, because: “Oh, no! That’s not what’s supposed to happen!” Kind of spoiled-brat disillusioned, and I suffer from that.

Another thing is that here in New York, people are getting embarrassed because homeless people, drug dealers, and sexual offenders are finding this spot very lucrative and very attractive. I don’t think that’s something we should be embarrassed about. That’s society’s problem. We’re just a movement, and we’re trying to fix those things, anyway. It’s sad that those things might have been in the park, but I don’t think that that’s our problem. We protest things we don’t like; I could protest those as well. Instead of an outreach, we could do an inreach, and protest things inside the park that we don’t like.

The media’s like, “Oh! Sexual offenders in here! Homeless people!” Yeah, but if you go two blocks, you could find that, too! If you just step right out of Zuccotti Park, there’s probably a homeless guy by Trinity right now, you know what I mean? It’s not our problem, that’s society’s problem. But we’re going to fix it, anyway. Just watch. That’s what my spin would be for the media. ❖

1. The 17th annual Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference was held on November 30–December 1 at the headquarters of Credit Suisse Americas. ↑