Occupy Wall Street Movement

Part 1: Occupy Wall Street movement: The background of the spark to talk that millions have been waiting for





It has been 3 weeks already so time is ripe for a first report on this historic process (sorry Wisconsin). This well may turn into a few part series.

As explained in a January article Economic Development Alternatives for United States, the fusionistic groundswell of dissident movements will start shopping for ideas on moving forward. Ron Paul's 19th century reactionaries (and the oligarch backed crypto-fascist republican flavored tea party that co-opted and grew around them) obviously do not provide any real framework when it comes to replacing the current imperial regime of finance capital. Being against something is not being for and therefore it was only a matter of time until the youthful intelligentsia provided another tea party type movement (only from the "left" this time if you're helped by a reference to that dead paradigm).

A catalyst like September 17th gathering was a matter of time considering the amount of various fed up manifestos and declarations that came out last year from organizations that now deserted Obama's power coalition (as the last 3 years have radicalized them and brought them into fusionistic/synergestic contact with post-scarcity and post-capitalist dissident groups and opinion makers).

Occupation of Liberty Park (formerly Zuccotti park) represents a qualitative divergence in tactics. Unlike a typical ineffectual temporary protest (that could be ignored even if there's millions marching such as during the run up to the aggression against Iraqi people), an occupation of a piece of parasite landlord's property is a direct primal drawing of a political border between "us" and "them". One must not forget that the Brookfield Office Properties that owns the park also owns 20 billion dollars in other assets and is now having a self sacrificial energetic crowd lay indefinite trespass claim on one of its properties.

In this regard, the occupy wall street project is similar to those incidences of laid off workers taking over (and continuing to operate) factories in United States and managing to keep the police from dislodging them. A post-financial collapse country like Argentina demonstrates such occupations on a much larger scale. Of course there's also been numerous cases of Americans refusing to leave their fraudulently foreclosed homes and actually managing to beat the cops back via community neighbor support.

This is different.

Liberty Park is in the middle of intense tourist and yuppie traffic and is just a block from the Federal Reserve itself. It is not a factory or some commune on the edge of town that can be left alone by powers that be. It is located in a city of millions that is heavy in talented and disgruntled youth regardless whether it is technical talent, artistic, informational, etc. The city functions as a magnet for key breeds necessary for a revolutionary wave. The emotionally idealistic ENFPs, the entertaining and physical ESFPs, the aggressive and risk taking ESTPs, the pragmatic aggressive ENTPs, and all others who provide critical logistical organization. And cavalry in terms of human resources is still flooding into the city perimeter to escape the economic desperation of the heartland. Thus the Liberty Plaza can continuously draw upon cutting edge skills from an endless pool of the unemployed, underemployed, and otherwise pissed off New Yorkers. Only limitations to sleeping space are the limit which present interesting further possibilities.

The occupiers secured support from a few unions and there is now 50,000+ union members to count on for some form of logistical and legal help. The recent debacle and total humiliation for police commissioner during the arrest of hundreds on the Brooklyn bridge has even shown class based break downs in chain of command. The NYPD armed police force numbers roughly 35,000 members (with roughly 5,000 unarmed ready to help if needed). Most of them are the poorly paid "blue shirts" who've been migrating to other boroughs for better pay for years. Thus we saw the higher paid "watch me guard this park and get paid $60 an hour for it" "white shirt" management having to tackle the demonstrators. The blue shirts are in the force often out of poverty and desperation themselves and are not as vigilant and energetic when it comes to arresting fellow poor people (ranging from elderly to war veterans).

This week we heard about the numerous copycat occupations beginning. This means we'll now see numerous pundits and reporters try to frame and describe this "tea party with brains" (props to MarketWatch for taking the time out for carrying water for financial establishment to try to frame in such positive manner). We'll hear various reports from journalists that could be copy and pasted from their previous reports on Tea Party's early days (no message, too many mixed messages, just venting rage, no clear goal, blah blah blah. Shut up mainstream imperial press and go off into the night already, that includes you NYT, New Yorker, and The Atlantic). Interestingly enough, on the ignore you/ridicule you/fight you/ you win sequence, by week 3 the movement rapidly went to the establishment ridicule phase. Just watch the popularly despised CNN (Fox News with brunettes) take on it. It's a hoot and a holler when 1% rich TV pundits report on anything.

More Occupy Wall Street stories and picture series to come. Yours truly was on the scene trying to do gonzo journalistic research on this shindig like many others. I better get into this framing business early on eh friends? ;) We're the 99%.