Why We Occupy

November 8

Marsha

Well, I saw something about Occupy Wall Street on Facebook, and I was really curious. I don’t live that far away—midtown on the West Side—so I came down a couple of evenings. It was the first weekend that they were predicting the weather was going to be getting cold at night. I had a few hats at home that I had knitted, and I thought, “I’ll bring them down and donate them so people can keep warm.” But after being down here a few evenings, I felt compelled to participate.

This is really important. I think people here have the right idea, and what we’re trying to accomplish is good for the country and good for the people. That’s what America’s all about: for the people, by the people. I think we’ve lost that along the way. It seems like our government is now bought and sold by the corporations. They serve the corporations, and that’s got to change. They’re talking once again, this morning on the news, about cutting social services for the people that need it the most to help fund the wars that we don’t need.

I have five grandchildren. That began as my main focus of why I want to be here. Their future, right now, looks very bleak. The oldest one is sixteen, and only two years away from college. I don’t see her ever being able to achieve her goal of becoming a doctor without going into extreme financial debt with student loans. Her parents, between the two of them, have three jobs off and on, and a lot of part-time jobs just to help make ends meet. They have four other kids at home that they need to take care of, so how are they going to help her pay for college? She’s so bright and so ambitious, and she really has focused goals in her life. I would love to see her be able to achieve those.

I grew up on a farm in Michigan. Farmers don’t make a lot of money, but back in the sixties and seventies, my parents were able to afford to send all five of us kids to college. That doesn’t happen anymore. So if we could end the war and funnel some or all of that money into education, we wouldn’t have to worry about our lower-income children being able to get a higher education and a good job.

But then we have to worry about the job market because so many of our jobs have gone overseas. Even if they do get a good education, where are they going to get a job?

There’s so many things that are wrong right now. It’s because a lot of Americans have been asleep for the last twenty, thirty years, and just let these things occur. Little by little, they snuck all this in on us, with the whole trickle-down theory way back from Reagan’s time.

So you know, when I first came down here forty-one days ago and started knitting in the park, I was mostly talking about, “I want things better for my grandkids.” But now that I’ve talked to so many people, and heard a lot of different issues and a lot of information about what’s going on . . . to effect those changes that I want, people have to vote.

We’ve just got to take back our country. Half the people in this country that are eligible to vote, don’t vote. If all those people got together, that would be more voters than the Republicans and Democrats put together, who are not doing us any good right now because all they can do is fight about the issues. So I have become a huge advocate for voting. Registration, information . . . it’s very important you’re an informed voter, and then you just have to go vote.

All the politicians that have been there for years and years—that have gotten out of touch with their constituents—they’ve got to go. Vote them all out! People say, “Well, what if the people you get are worse.” Then you vote them all out. Eventually, the politicians will get the idea. If they’re not serving us, the people, they will lose their job.

It’s the only job I know of in the world where you can get elected and you’re pretty well set for the next four to six years. There’s hardly any chance at all of you getting fired. Most people, you get a job and you work really hard to keep your job by the person paying you. We pay for them, but they’re not working hard for us right now, so that has to change. I think, if we vote enough of them out, they’ll finally get the message that they’re there to serve the people. We are the people. The people have the power, and that power is in our votes.

The more information we can get to voters so they’re an informed voter, the more we can really start to effect change, if not within this particular round of elections, then definitely the next one. The country’s been going downhill now for more than a generation, so it might take a generation to fix it. When I say things like that, some of the younger people I talk to—this has become such a country of now, now, fast food, instant 4G Internet, this and that—they go, “I want change now. That’s why I’m here.” I say, “It’s going to take some time, and a lot of people, and a lot of effort.”

So that’s why I’m in this park.

How many items have you made so far?

Oh, I’ve been able to make and donate over fifty items to the Comfort station, or to the individual people I’ve met since I’ve been down here. It’s becoming more and more an individual thing for me because I’ve met so many wonderful people here that are so dedicated to this cause and have been here from day one, practically. They need to be taken care of, and kept warm, and appreciated. So I like to appreciate them with a gift of something I made for them.

Okay. So you came down . . . you’ve been here forty-one days—not since the beginning, but quite a long time—

Well, I don’t sleep here. I have a warm place to go home at night—a warm bed. I really appreciate that because some of these people here don’t have that. There is definitely a wide contingent of everybody in this park right now: all ages, all races, and all levels of economic status.

I happen to be unemployed at the moment, which allows me to be here during the day, but there are people with chronic unemployment problems here. They’re fighting in the job market. There are a few homeless people here, and they’re fighting for better benefits.

One person put it really well: The people who deal with him in the system have a job because he’s homeless and out of work. If they get him a job and get him a home, they’re out of a job. The system is set up to make it very hard for you to get out of that cycle of joblessness and homelessness, and get back into what most people consider a normal lifestyle. It’s just built that way, because if you get a job, they’re out of a job. That’s his main focus is changing the way that people who are in dire straits like that are dealt with and treated.

I was on food stamps once. I depleted my savings. I depleted my retirement account that I had built up. I waited until I was in dire straits before I applied for help, and I just felt so badly treated. I just wanted to eat, and I wanted to get some help with my medical bills and my medications I take. I’m type-two diabetic, and I have high blood pressure and arthritis.

It’s completely demoralizing to have to ask for help, and I’ve been working on and off since I was seventeen years old. I have paid my taxes. I have given a lot of money to this government, and the one time I ask for it back in over forty years, it’s hard to get it. That’s just not right. People should not be treated like that. I’m a human being just like you are, even if I’m applying for help from you. It makes you want to not go back, and I think that’s their goal. If you don’t go back and ask for money again, they get to keep it.

It’s so hard, once you get down to that level, to get back out of it. People go, “Well, don’t you have any family who can help take care of you?” I’ve got plenty of family, but they’re in almost the same straits as I am. They’re working really hard; they’re barely making their bills. Their jobs are disappearing, so how are they supposed to help me? You’re supposed to, because I paid my taxes all these years.

And now they want to cut all those services. That’s another reason a lot of people are in this park. For every person you talk to, they’re going to have more than one issue.

I also would like to see them abolish the death penalty because I don’t think we have that right to kill someone. I don’t care what you did, I don’t have the right to kill you. God will take care of you when that time comes. Put them in prison for the rest of their lives. Don’t let them out if they’re that bad of a person, but I don’t have the right to kill you. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If you killed someone, that was wrong. I’m not now going to do wrong against you.

And of course, end the wars. Take that money, put it in education. It would help a lot of things. It all boils down to money. That’s why people are here in the Wall Street area. This is where the money is. ❖

Max

Why don’t you start by telling me about your many roles here?

Well, technically I’m with Facilitation and Organization. Organization is recently-formed, and we do inter-group coordination. Now, most people in Organization are involved in getting office spaces for Press and Media and Information, stuff like that. What I’ve gotten really involved with is coordinating the on-site groups around safe spaces.

Safe spaces?

Safe Spaces is its own group, and I’m not saying I’m part of that. I just mean lowercase. What I mean by that is nothing vague. I mean communal tents where no one is going to get sexually assaulted.

Honestly, I kind of look at this as “What’s the most important and most urgent issue at any given moment?” and that’s what I’m trying to tackle. But of course, each of them takes a lot of work. So we met for the first time about eight days ago. About three or four days ago, we put up that thing. [Points.] And so women’s safe space has gone up.

This happened through Organization?

Capacity is in Organization.

[Pho approaches.]

Max: Hey, Pho. How are you?

Pho: I’m good.

[To Olivia.] This is the man right here.

Max: Thank you.

Pho: We got them up!

Max: That’s awesome.

Pho: We got them erected, and . . . what’s next? I guess Comfort? I don’t know what’s next.

Max: Um, I think we have one or two more to go up. There’s a trans tent, and it’s not clear where that’s going or even who’s going to run it. It was going to be Razor who was going to be our point person, but Razor’s very frustrated with stuff that’s happened, so I don’t know what his plan is. And then we have one more eleven-by-eleven that’s going to either co-ed or intentional community, depending on which ones those are. We do need to do more outreach for the next batch. We’ve already ordered, apparently, twenty more.

Can you fit those all in here?

Max: No.

Fair enough.

Pho: [Laughs.] I love that answer.

Twenty more of these, like, the army-style?

Max: Ten big, ten little. So we have to do outreach to get buy-in for all of that.

Pho: And that’s next week, right?

Max: We were going to be doing it this week, but I’ve honestly been putting out so many more sudden fires . . . we had a two-hour emergency meeting about that today that was the most inefficient meeting I’ve sat in on in a while. I walked out of it.

[To Pho.] You know what? I don’t have the paperwork right now.

Pho: Give me the gist. I’m taking the day off.

Max: Cool. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

Pho: All right.

Max: Have a good one.

In my capacity as a member of Organization, this is my solo project. Solo only because I’m the only person from Organization involved. There is a team . . . it’s something rotating, but there’s, like, you know, maybe seven or eight core people who have been involved in this, and we’re trying to expand it out now and get more buy-in.

Passer-by: Are you one of the core people?

Max: I suppose I am, yeah.

Passer-by: Because I never met you. [Walks away.]

Max: Not the movement . . . I don’t mean the movement. Sir! I was talking about something else!

They’re really desperate to find those leaders.

I think he thought I was claiming to be a leader when I’m not.

Well, I think the leaderless-ness is to be upheld at all costs.

I agree. I think everyone’s pretty committed to that, but this was a situation where we felt we needed to move very quickly.

Winter-wise?

No, safety-wise. And in some ways, we moved too quickly. We pissed some people off—moved some stuff that shouldn’t have been moved without getting permission. That’s what happens. But there’s nothing like precedent to convince people. “It’s happened. It’s through. Get over it. Stop complaining about it.” I don’t want to do it that way. We’re trying to get a lot more buy-in for the next batch.

Like I said, I’m looking at the biggest issue, and the biggest issue is camp culture. That’s one of the biggest issues, anyway. This is an attempt to address camp culture; it’s not just about security. It’s getting people in communal spaces where you don’t have closed doors. You can’t be doing drugs, you can’t be committing crimes, and you’re living with other people. You’re interacting with other people. You’re sharing spaces, maybe getting served meals together. Your space is communal in the daytime, so it’s not, “This is mine!” It’s like, “I sleep here, and I go out and do stuff there.”

We want to get the G.A. area cleared out. There’s a whole bunch of projects in that regard.

So that you can have a cleaner meeting?

So that we can have a meeting. There’s no space to have a G.A. We’ve been having them, but they’re really small. They used to be much bigger. It’s down to about a little over a hundred people. It used to be, like, five hundred a night.

Out of how many people in the park?

In the park? I don’t know, but that’s not all the people in the movement. I don’t live in the park. The estimates are around maybe one fifty, two hundred. Maybe a little more like two fifty.

Pho: I’d say there are more than that. I’d say it’s probably, like, four.

Max: Really? That’s not the estimates I’ve heard, but I don’t doubt it.

Pho: It’s at least two hundred, three hundred.

Max: Yeah, I think you’re right. But I’d say there’s probably a thousand people working on the movement. At least.

Pho: At least.

Max: Just on O.W.S., not counting other occupations.

Pho: It would be cool to get a whole movement-wide tally, but that would be impossible.

Max: That would be hard, but it would be awesome. Well, you know, who’s in the movement? Someone who shows up once every three weeks?

Pho: Yeah, that’s true.

Max: But the thing about the G.A. is: It’s largely a tourist attraction. Of the people who are there, a lot of them are just there to watch.

They’re not participating?

Well, no, they might participate, but they’re not actually on working groups. They’re not actually committed to the movement. It’s still a decision-making body, but it’s just become a little bit of something no one wants to go to. We have trouble finding facilitators because no one wants to stay for the whole thing. It’s a big mess.

How long does a General Assembly last?

Anywhere from two to five hours. I mean, five is rare, but it happens. We’re moving towards a Spokes Council—you’ve probably heard about that—so hopefully, that will improve things. We also need to streamline the G.A. There’s a group that’s getting together to work on that.

How would you streamline the G.A.?

Well, I think you’d set time limits on agenda items, and table them or go to vote when you get to the time limit. And therefore, there would be a time limit on the whole thing. There’s probably a couple of other things, but that’s the main idea.

Anyway, so there’s seven or eight people who were heavily involved in getting the tents coordinated and organized and up—figuring out the process for that—and there are a lot of really good people. It’s a great, great team of people. The people who were actually involved with planning the whole thing were really solid, and continue to plan the whole thing, try to get buy-in, try to get people to sign up.

We were talking about trying to change the whole park culture. One of the things we’re doing with the tents is asking people to sign on to our community guidelines. They’re all basically legal things, I mean, you know, no drugs and alcohol . . . it’s pretty obvious stuff, but I think if people have buy-in when they go in, it’ll help.

Is it normal to have high-ranking police officers walking through?

No, I don’t know what’s happening.

How do you know they’re high-ranking?

They look it.

They sure do.

They have medals.

Do they? Oh, yeah.

People's Mic: We have two high-ranking officers in the park! That’s all I have to say!

Pho: Looks like we have three, because one’s not in his uniform.

Max: Oh, yeah. The guy in the suit.

All right, well, as long as everybody else feels relaxed about it, I too am going to feel relaxed about it.

If they were going to clear us out, this isn’t how they’d go about it. There was a bomb scare earlier. It might relate to that.

Let’s move on. Can you tell me about your beginnings in the movement? How long have you been here?

I got here three weeks ago, and I’ve only been full-time for, like, a week and a half, but I’ve been doing a lot in that time. I’ve been pretty disillusioned with political movements for a long time. I went to some protests when I was younger. I just felt like they weren’t effective ways of making change. When this got started, I thought similarly about it. And then when it stuck around, I started to think there was something else going on. I came down here—it was pretty exciting. I came again, saw the General Assembly in Washington Square Park on the Saturday night of the Times Square protest. I was really . . . moved by that, the way people got together and cooperated to make a decision under very pressured circumstances. Without a microphone, it was three thousand people with a deadline—deciding whether to stay in this park and get arrested—and they listened to each other. People got to speak. There were moments when it wavered, and you thought, “Is this going to become a mob?” But it didn’t. It stayed a movement, and that was incredibly exciting. ❖

Kyle

I work in the kitchen. I do a lot of community outreach for the kitchen, like, talking to people in the camp. You get the concerns. We talk to a lot of people who donate stuff. I do little prep work in the kitchen nowadays. I’m mainly just taking donations, and talking to people who have concerns and issues, and trying to coordinate volunteers and stuff like that.

How long have you been here?

I came the first day. I was here a couple of hours the first day. I left for a week, came back, and it was, like, every three days, every couple days, now it’s every day. So it just gradually progressed to me being here every day.

Are you sleeping here, or just working?

I work, and I sleep here occasionally. I’ll sleep here some nights, but I’ll go home some nights.

Are you from New York?

I’m from L.A., originally. I lived in San Francisco for five years, too, before I lived here. I just moved here a couple of months ago, actually. I guess it’s almost three months now.

So you didn’t come here specifically for the occupation?

I was here two, three weeks before it happened. I moved just in time, as I like to say.

How did you hear about it?

Well, the first day I came, I just stumbled upon it. I was going to see the World Trade Center, and then I came here. I walked through the park on the way to the subway. It was like, “What the fuck is going on?” And I was like, “This is cool!” And you know, I’ve always liked going to protests. I’ve always liked stuff like that, so I stuck around for a little while, talked to people about it. And then I left to visit my ex-girlfriend for a little bit, and it blew up, you know, exponentially. It’s awesome.

Can you tell me a little bit about your experience day-to-day?

I work a lot, honestly. I’m always doing something in the kitchen. There’s always something that has to be done. I used to like going on marches more, and just being out there and talking to people about politics, but now I just really don’t even have the time for that. I’m just trying to make sure everything goes smoothly here, so . . .

Is there anything that you’d like to put on the record?

I mean, I think it’s beautiful. It’s hopefully going to really change some things in our society. I hope we just completely flip the table on the entire United States government and start it again. So hopefully, that’s what we’re going towards. It would be kind of amazing to be one of the only nonviolent revolutions to succeed. [Laughs.] So that’d be cool, but we’ll see. That still remains to be seen. We’re still babies, you know?

What’s your game plan for the winter?

I just got a brand-new North Face sleeping bag. Hopefully, we’ll get a new tent for the kitchen staff.

Do you guys sleep in the kitchen?

There’s a tent right behind the tree over there that all the kitchen people who sleep here use. Some people sometimes sleep in here. [Points.] We’ll let some people slide and sleep in here, but it’s mostly just us.

There’s one more thing, but it slipped my mind . . . it’s hard with the noise.

I know, dude! Those drums annoy the shit out of me sometimes.

Do they?

Yeah. It’s like, all right, I mean, I get it, but they’re so offbeat!

[Laughs.]

It sounds like fucking banging pots and pans on New Year’s.

It’s good to have the drums on the marches.

Yeah, the people who lead at the front of the marches are cool. I like that.

So what happened with the bomb threat this morning?

I woke up, like, right for the tail end of that, but there was a bomb in the subway station, so they made everyone get back.

Was there actually a bomb?

No! There’s never actually a bomb! New York’s just like that. They’re like, “Oh, my God! There’s a brown box! There’s a bomb in it!” If there’s any bag or package that someone is not just right next to, they think it’s a bomb in this city . . . which is understandable. There’s been a lot of bombs that have gone off in this city. Anyway, it’s over now. It wasn’t that big of a deal, I thought.

People's Mic: The Think Tank is about to begin! The topic of the day is mental health in Occupy Wall Street!

Kyle: That needs to happen!

[Laughs.]

There’s a lot of fucking crazy-ass people here. Like, I thought I was crazy, and then I moved here, and now I’m just like, “Oh, yeah . . . no, I’m not.” ❖

Clementine

I’m Clementine. I come from Paris, France. I study photography in New York. Originally, I came to just check it out, and I stayed—it was two and a half weeks ago—because . . . I fell in love with the community, and also with their fight. I don’t know . . . there’s something about this place. I wanted to be a part of the fight.

Can you tell me a little bit about what your day is like here?

Well, it’s between here and school. Occasionally, I go back to my place in Brooklyn, shower and all that. And I admit that when it’s too cold, I also go back home. But most of the time I’m here.

I’m working on this photo project with the community and for the community. A big part of my day is to talk with people about the project and get them to participate. And then a big part of my days here is just to interact and have great conversations with people. Sharing ideas, you know? A lot of that, yeah.

Is there anything specific that you’d like to put on the record about the movement?

Yeah, well, coming from France, which—the system in France is not perfect, either, but it’s a lot more social. Personally, I’m hoping to see the U.S. copy the European systems, so the people here have a better access to health care and education. That’s my main concern, and what I would like to see changed in America.

What has been the reaction in France?

Since I’ve been here, I haven’t been so much on the Internet, but I checked a little bit and my parents told me. Right now in Europe, they’re so preoccupied with Greece and the European Union . . .

Oh, those issues. [Laughs.]

Right, those, you know, big issues. It’s not that they don’t take it seriously, but it’s not a big topic right now in France. And I see that there are some movements, apparently, growing in France, but they’re . . . a little shy, which is very surprising because there are a lot of protests in my country. I thought that they would follow right away and start, like, burning cars and stuff—the French way, you know?

[Laughs.]

[Laughs.] But it’s been pretty shy in France. It’s really surprising! They just love going in the street and shouting, protesting, you know, for any reason!

[Laughs.]

I’m still waiting for it to happen.

What do your parents think about your involvement?

Well, my dad was involved in May ’68, so . . . he was young, though. He was sixteen back then, though he did spend the night in jail, and my grandma was very pissed off! [Laughs.] But no, he understands. He understands that being young, I have a revolutionary spirit. Rebel. Having lived that himself, he gets it, you know? And he respects it.

I think they’re a little concerned about my balancing my involvement here and school, but I’m at school for photography, and as I said, I’m working on a photography project with the people, so it’s okay. It’s still doing pretty much what I’m here for: photography. At first, they were a little concerned, but they’re starting to get that this is, you know, not a very dangerous place to be. I mean, when you’re away, you don’t really know. They’re parents, so they freak out, but no, they’re okay with that now. They were very curious about all this, actually. ❖

Colin

My name is Colin. I’m from Pennsylvania. I’m twenty years old. I was a student before I came here, but now I’m here.

Were you a student up until you came here?

Yeah.

Okay, so you dropped out to do this?

Yeah. I mean, I was just going to community college—just kind of going for the sake of going.

How did you hear about Occupy Wall Street?

I heard about it because I saw the video of the girls being pepper-sprayed. I started looking into it after that. I just thought it was an amazing thing that this was actually happening. I mean, it was, like, the Revolution.

What’s your day-to-day life like here?

I kind of just float around. I try to experience a little bit of everything. I mostly came here to try to learn as much as I could, because I don’t really know about all the subjects that people are angry about. I mean, I know that things are bad. I don’t know how to fix them, but I’m going to try to get as much insight as I can.

What are some of the things you feel like you’ve learned since you’ve been down here?

I’ve learned a lot about fracking, a lot of little specific things about stuff that’s going wrong with the banking and economics in general, the justice system in this country, people going for profits in places where compassion would be better-suited.

How would you describe the experience of occupying?

It’s changed a lot. The first time I came was about six weeks ago. It was a whole different beast here. I feel like I’ve watched it go downhill a little bit.

In what way?

It just seemed more free and open to everybody. It seemed like a more welcoming environment then. It’s kind of closed up now. It just feels more . . . more instruction, I guess, which a lot of people were looking for, but it feels like it’s kind of made us deviate from our course.

I’m just odd. I become kind of disenchanted with the whole thing. Well, I mean, like, just being in the park; the movement is still a beautiful thing. I think it’s going to happen regardless of what happens in this park. It’s already started, and it’s going everywhere. It’s with everybody now.

So I’m not going to stay here much longer. Yeah, I’m just here for little while longer.

Are you sleeping in Sustainability?

Yeah, I mostly hang out with these guys. I try to help out where I can.

What has Sustainability been up to lately?

They’re trying to make our existence in this park more sustainable. The society we come from is very, very unsustainable, so we’re trying to bring some good practices into here. It hasn’t totally caught on yet. There’s still a lot of things we’re doing that aren’t sustainable, but . . .

We have these bike generators now, with power to the whole park.

They power the whole park?

Yeah. It’s the only power we have here now, because they took the generators that we had.

So there’s no chance of getting them back?

No, we’re not allowed to have them in the park. It’s kind of a blessing, though, because generators are really dirty anyway, so if we can do it this way, we ought to.

How much biking does it take?

I think it takes about four hours to power a battery.

You don’t need to have people on there all the time?

We have a whole bunch of batteries, so they kind of cycle them out whenever they’re needed somewhere. But it helps to have people going so you can keep them charged.

What are the batteries powering?

They’re powering everything that you pretty much see running off electricity here. Everybody can charge their computers and phones, their cameras. They run the Internet and everything out in Media. Everything they have to do up there is powered by the batteries. Also, all the lights in the kitchen.

Who set up the system?

It was a couple of guys from M.I.T.

Really? They came down here for that?

I think they’re involved, anyway. They’re involved, and there’s a group called Time’s Up!—I’m not exactly sure what they are, but I think they donated a lot of stuff, and they really put some time and effort into building these things. They kind of brought the know-how.

That’s huge. How’s the composting going?

They send it out to somewhere . . . I think they bike it out whenever we have a lot. They ride it out there on a bike. Also, we’re collecting all the recyclables, and they want to start getting some wind turbines in here—little ones.

Is that something that people would crack down on, or do you think you’d be able to do that?

No, I think we’d be able to do that. I mean, it’s clean. It’s efficient. It’s compact.

And it’s passive, right?

Yeah. It’s basically just another form—like the bike—for generating electricity: Harness the wind. We have a lot of it in here.

Yeah, it’s kind of a wind tunnel down here.

We’re, like, the garage here. We have all the tools. A lot of the tinkerers come around and try to fix things. That’s sustainable practice in itself, because you just get more life out of things if you fix them instead of getting new stuff.

What kinds of things are people needing repaired?

People have brought, like, tables and stuff. Everybody just kind of brings their crap here, like extra wood and stuff. We’ve got to try to deal with stuff like that. There are a lot of people that are building shelters. They’re kind of hoping we have all the tools and stuff here, but I think they’re going to tear all those down to get tents now.

Now that they have the fancy tents.

Yeah, now we’re getting the really big tents, so that’s our next step.

Are you going to get a big tent over here?

I think I’m going to be leaving. He’s leaving today. [Points.]

Balance is leaving?

Yeah. I’m going to be leaving before they actually get the big tents here, so I won’t be here for them. ❖