SANTIAGO, CHILE —The early excitement and enthusiasm that infused the marches that day had deteriorated into violence and confusion as police clashed with protesters throughout the city. As I walked home to my apartment, I saw flaming barricades glowing in the streets. Groups of people hurried back to their homes, a napkin or lemon pressed against their noses to subdue the choking effects of the tear gas drifting through the air. The ground was littered with discarded, crescent-shaped yellow peels.

There was a knock at the door. When I opened it, I saw a group of about five young Chileans clad in the gray pants and blue sweater uniform of colegio students. They explained to me that their professor had told them to come stay at our apartment for the night since it was too dangerous to make the trip home in such an unpredictable environment. I let them into the apartment, and a few minutes later my roommate came through the door followed by another small group of students. Many were coughing violently and taking long, labored gasps of air.

We set about distributing water and lemon slices dappled with salt. One of my roommate’s friends helped me prepare a large bowl of mashed up avocado, which we handed out with slices of toast and as much pasta as we could boil. Someone had wheeled our television into the living room to put on the news, which broadcast aerial images of the still smoldering streets of Santiago.

The students, scattered across the couches, chairs and floor, were whispering excitedly to each other. They let out large groans and sharp catcalls at any reference to the government or police response. They frequently broke out into nervous giggles, enthralled by the unlikelihood of their current situation. Occasionally, they tore their eyes away from the television screen to throw a quick, curious glance in my direction. I’m sure they were wondering about what I was doing here and what my involvement was in their own, very personal fight. It’s something that I’ve been trying to figure out for myself since these protests began.

It seems like everyone these days is, to some extent, supporting the push for education reform. Large protests lumber down Alameda, students march back and forth across intersections waving homemade flags and asking for donations and, up until a couple of weeks ago, the sound of the cacerolazos could be heard at least a few times a week. From street-level to the top floors of apartment complexes, their tinny echoes would ring well into the night. The movement has gained broad popular support and widespread attention, even making its way into international headlines.

Any foreigner living or traveling through Chile is well aware of this seething political issue that has torn at the fabric of Chilean civil society for months. But for those of us who are living and working abroad here in Chile, who have built strong personal connections and who support education reform, the desire to show solidarity with the student-led movement raises a complex set of questions.

To what extent can or should a foreigner, living in another country on a temporary basis become involved in a domestic or national political issue? Does that person have a moral obligation to support the cause if they think it is just? Is strong, sustained involvement worth the risk of deportation?

To be honest, although I had kept an eye on the issue as it developed, I had not seriously considered my own position until the nationwide two-day strikes on Aug. 24 and 25. As I was leaving my apartment to go to work on the first day of the protests, my roommate casually suggested that I stay home and go on strike with her. At the time, I chuckled at the idea. But as I rode the uncharacteristically empty metro during morning rush hour, I found myself lingering on her proposal. Why not join the strikes? I believed in the student cause, and of course I wanted to support my friend, and all the other Chileans I had met who argued so passionately for reform.

As the day wore on, the idea became more and more plausible, especially as I witnessed students confronting police trucks firing water cannons and spewing tear gas along Alameda. I briefly felt the thrill of civil disobedience, at least by proximity, as I ducked behind vacated newsstands to avoid getting sprayed by the arcing jets of filthy water spewing from the tops of roving police vehicles. Why not get off the sidelines and invest something more than curiosity in this most important of issues?

On the other hand, the idea of calling my boss and telling her I would be going on strike seemed preposterous. Worse, I was afraid that my impulse to help was really just an excuse to jump on the bandwagon of a fashionable social movement. After all, education reform is a major issue in the United States as well, but I had never so much as signed a petition in support of any initiative to improve the system. How much of my interest was based on the cool, cosmopolitan idea of joining a social movement in a foreign country? These concerns weighed on me to the point of paralysis, and in the end I decided to continue working.

But with the early momentum and enthusiasm that drove the protests beginning to stall, and the real work at the negotiating table just getting set to begin, it is now more important than ever that the students and their allies muster every last scrap of support in order to achieve their objectives. At this point in the process, the participation of foreigners both inside and outside of the country could play an important role in drawing more international attention to the issue, putting increased pressure on the government to craft a legitimate response, and sustaining the level of urgency that has driven this latest push for education reform in Chile.

At the end of that long, strange night back in July, I came into the living room one last time to say goodnight to our unexpected guests. It was well past midnight, but they were still wide-awake, laying across the pillows and blankets we had set on the floor in a small pow-wow-like circle, as they talked animatedly about the day’s events. They paused their group reverie for a moment to blurt out a brief “thank you” before turning back to more important matters. Although I was standing outside their circle I felt, at least for one night, like I was a part of something exciting, essential and absolutely worth fighting for.

This is the fourth in a series of excerpts from Jim Gober’s book titled “Deep in the Heart of Occupy Austin.” A new excerpt will be published at OccupiedStories.com every Wednesday, so come back next week to follow Jim though the evolution of Occupy Austin.

Today was Sunday, and since it had rained the previous night, the trees, so desperate for rain after a year of drought, were engorged with water and the hills beyond the occupied city hall plaza were a deep luscious green. The urban forest for which Austin depends to protect itself from the tortuous summer heat was at peace. The balmy air felt nice as I arrived at the occupation. As I prepared to cross the street to enter the plaza, a young man handed me a flyer reiterating the latest Occupy Wall Street demands.

I positioned myself along a limestone wall behind what I now call the “Honk if Yer Horny” line. That’s where the sign-holding folks stand on the curb inciting everyone to honk if they agree to what their sign might say. For example, there was: We Need You, Get Corporations out of our Government, We Love You, If You Are Thinking-You Are Winning, Stop Being A Battery for the 1%, and my favorite: Watching TV is Like Taking Black Spray Paint to Your Third Eye. Somebody rented a stretch Humvee limo to continuously circle the block to irritate the protesters, and it was becoming a source of - well, irritation. It must have cost 100 dollars or more an hour to rent, but I guess someone thought irritating desperate people was a better idea than buying schools supplies or helping the food bank.

Earlier in the day, a redneck driving a type of diesel pick-up truck called a dooly in Texas, because it has dual tires on each side of the back axle, downshifted and with one foot on the brake and another on the gas, drove slowly along the honk if yer horny line spewing thick black smoke over the protesters. The black carbon waste obliterated the entire occupation. It was looking like the real threat was beginning to come from folks who think they are the rich ones, but are up to their ass in debt and worry. Putting a face on their misery is getting us spit on, cursed at or worse. Although the truth hurts and is often ugly, somebody needs to be a representative of truth in our world. The lies are too great for a counterbalance to not appear. And here the truth was - right in everyone’s face.

One may ask, “Why would anyone hate to think someone might be trying to throw people lifeline?” Maybe it’s because it’s so easy to ignore suffering in America. Most everyone believes they’ll never need help-that death is an option, until one day they can’t stop coughing or that nagging pain doesn’t seem to go away and they can’t go to work or the Doctor, or even wipe their ass. Maybe they’ll have a handicapped child, or they’ll wreck their car in a fit of road rage and end up disabled for life. Or they just get old. Then they will bury their face in their hands and wonder why they are being forsaken by a system they worked so hard to support all these years. The answer is because they worked for the system rather than fighting so the system will work for them. The system is not infallible. People change every day to accommodate the system, such as adhering to some ridiculous new law that inconveniences them or costs them money. Isn’t it time the system changed to accommodate the people? Look at all the laws that have us in a straitjacket now. Just think what the next 20 years will bring.

After a while, I walked over to meet two 35-40 year old women sitting in a two-seater canvas lawn chair with an American flag draped on the back. One of them was holding a sign that said, “We want our Country Back.” Their names were Kazel and Shea, and we talked a little about why they were there.

Then out of nowhere, a couple in their 50’s strutted up to Kazel as she was reclining, chatting and minding her own business. The man stood over her with his crotch one inch from her face and angrily asked, “Take back your country from whom?” And she said, “The corporations.” Then he angrily proclaimed, “The corporations have given you everything,” and stormed off with his wife. This less than lovely pair, disheveled from drinking too much, looked like they were originally out for a nice afternoon, but decided to make a special trip through the plaza to blow off some steam. I fell in behind them as they huffed and puffed through the plaza. I shouted, “Can I ask you a few questions?” I pulled out my pen and pad as they turned to speak. My assumption about the drinking was correct because they reeked of alcohol and they were obviously a couple of mean drunks who haven’t fucked each other in years. I decided to draw them out.

“What do you mean corporations give you everything?” I asked. “Well, they do!” he answered. He became nervous when he saw me scribbling down his response, as if I was a major news organization and he was finally going to tell the world his position-or show the world how to be an asshole. I could sense he was choosing the latter, so I pressed. “Everything?” I asked. “What about life, happiness or love?” He replied, “Well, not that.” And I said, “So without corporations that would be all you have? He said, “Yes, that’s right.” So I asked, “Does it look something like this?” I stepped back so he could get a clear view of the plaza and protesters who were laughing, dancing, visiting and obviously working to make others happy.

“NO!” the woman suddenly screamed. When I looked at her, her half-crossed drunken eyes set in a bird’s nest of premature wrinkles surrounded by a curly mass of dyed jet-black hair startled me. Not because of how she looked, but because of the sheer ugliness and meanness that exuded from her persona. “These people are all on drugs!” she yelled. “They have to be! Just look at them! These are not normal people. What are they doing?” “Just living and loving,” I replied. She shut up and fumed. So I asked the man, who had bags of worry under his eyes, “You are a small business owner right?” I asked him that because unemployed Republicans are always “small business owners” while unemployed liberals are just losers or bums. And of course he said he was a “small business owner.” In reality, he was a dead-ringer for the long-term unemployed who had eaten through his savings and was now becoming desperate as society cast him aside.

So I asked, “How many times do you hear politicians talk about helping the small business owner, all the time-right?” And he agreed. Then I asked, “And how many times did that talk turn out to be crap while the big corporations that compete with you got all the breaks?” And he answered, “All the time.” Then, I stated, “That’s why we are here. To stop that behavior and give people like you a chance.” That made him angry; because I trapped him into agreeing, which is so easy to do with conservatives it shouldn’t be considered a sport. So to finish him off I asked him, “Is it fair the American taxpayer pays for bad corporate decisions while the corporations enjoy all the benefits when they win? For example, should we offer tax breaks when an oil company drills a dry hole or if an investment bank makes a bad investment? Is that fair to the taxpayer or the small business?” He became confused, “That’s a hard one to figure out,” he replied. He was quiet for a few seconds then suddenly became angry. I obviously short-circuited something in his head. His wife, noticing her husband’s retreat in order to grope for more mental ammo, decided to draw fire and reiterated the occupiers were crazy, on drugs and needed to be at work. I said, “It’s Sunday, for one and two, why are you talking about drugs when both of you are stinking drunk? She screamed, “We just had a couple of glasses of wine for dinner!” And the smell of strong liquor poured from her maw that glowed with the embers of hatred, years of disappointment, frustration and anger.

“I guess you want to fight about it,” said the man, who was so vulnerable to a smashing fist in the middle of his drunken pallid face it took everything I had not to pull the trigger. Then, a young guy, maybe 19 years old, named Brighton, had overheard the situation-and rushed over with his eyes aglow and asked if we were working on “common ground.” Which of course we were, but it was making the drunk very angry to know he was one of us and was now standing on common ground whether he liked it or not. I asked the man, “Do you really want to go to jail for fighting?” and he said, “Hell yeah!” and stumbled backwards as if he was already suffering from a TKO. Then I asked his battle axe if she wanted her husband to go to jail tonight, and she timidly agreed that, “Yes, it would be OK,” as though only a fragment of the meaning of my question had entered her besotted brain. I just shook my head and walked away because for one, going to jail would throw my schedule way off and ban me from the plaza, and two, today was not the day. So, they teetered off, deflated, to the land of drunken meanness, and I moved on through the crowded plaza.

Suddenly there was a commotion from a small parade of Latin Americans who were representing the Worker Defense Project which protects construction workers from accidents. It’s a problem where immigrants are hired and the general contractors give them crap equipment to do their jobs. Occasionally, they fall a really long way to their deaths or get hurt and spend the rest of their days paralyzed on a dirt floor in a poverty-stricken village. Of course, in America it’s not an outrage if they work under substandard conditions-because they’re illegals, of course. But these guys knew how to make a lot of noise with a little bit, and they had a great banner. After a few laps around the plaza they walked north on Lavaca and their chants were swallowed up by the sounds of the big modern city. A city they built with their tough brown hands, under dangerous conditions, with no overtime pay while undoubtedly trying to make each other laugh the entire time.

While I was listening to a lecture about alternative currency from a young man, who looked like a Coblynau, I spotted an old girlfriend of mine from college named Wendy. She seemed a little disjointed and frazzled, but she still had her contagious smile and beautiful mane of thick blonde hair. She had spent the day prepping and serving food for the charity, Food Not Bombs. I worked with them in San Francisco, so I know she worked brutally hard that day. We hung out together for quite a while and I gave her some water and we caught up a bit. She was at the plaza because she works with autistic and severely handicapped children in their home. It’s mostly charity work because there is not a state agency to help and the medical expenses for families are so high, they can barely afford to pay her. Wendy is very frail herself and complained about fibromyalgia. You could see the chronic pain taking its toll on her thin body. But still, this hero for those who literally do not have a voice, was there, not for herself, but to talk about help for the severely disabled. This was what I saw all around me. This was not a selfish exercise; most everyone at the plaza was there was because someone they knew needed help and did not have a voice.

I invited Wendy over to spend the evening and meet my partner, Frank. Once we got home-I drove her car as she was so exhausted-I noticed her inspection sticker was expired two months ago. We drank a few beers and I learned she had been through a terrible ordeal after college, when a man broke into her apartment one night. Then her mother died two months before the trial. And sweet Wendy, with the entire world before her the last time we parted, had struggled with this disaster for 25 years along with debilitating chronic pain while helping the most helpless people in our society. I was heartbroken, because she was always so happy-but I still got her to laugh a few times because of course, I still love her. Who wouldn’t?

The action at Liberty Plaza, New York, began on September 17th 2011. Inspired by the indignados of Spain and the brave Egyptian souls of Tahrir Square and others in the Middle East, the Occupy movement in the U.S.A. is not yet 4 months old. In that brief period of time we have traversed incredible territory and achieved almost unbelievable success. Political conversation in the U.S. has been transformed, the majority of the U.S. electorate now say they support the changes Occupy is calling for, and cities throughout the nation are home to nightly General Assemblies and long-term encampments – at least in those cities without over-zealous mayors or police departments.

I have been involved in my local Occupy Santa Fe movement since our first day of action, outside Bank of America, on October 1st. I was struck then by the hope and inspiration that lit up the 60 or so faces of the people around me, and the almost constant sound of honking horns as passing drivers enthusiastically signaled their support. Since then we have held further rallies, organized marches, mic checks, workshops, teach-ins, and begun political campaigns. We have gathered for General Assembly three times a week, we have launched countless Working Groups, and we maintained a physical occupation almost consistently for three months.

However, the Occupy movement is not without its struggles. The energetic honeymoon period of those first few weeks, when revolution and transformation was on everyone’s lips and appeared eminently possible, even inevitable, is over, and we are now dealing with the stark reality of all that we must confront and all that we must transform.

We have attempted to bridge the gap between the highest aspirations and values of the movement and the reality of the culture in which we live. We have not always succeeded.

The harmony of the early actions and meetings has given way to division and arguments over tactics, strategy, process, and identity. General Assemblies have at times become fractious, and on one occasion even violent, and have led some of the founders of the local movement to walk away in despair at ever creating a better world. The structure and process of General Assembly and Working Groups have attracted criticism, complaint, obstruction and sabotage. Activists have turned on one another, and it sometimes seems as though we spend more energy fending off personal attacks and responding to spurious gossip than we do working for change.

Santa Fe had one of the longest-running camps in the U.S.A., which inspired community support and opprobrium in roughly equal measure. Though the camp attempted to model itself on that of Liberty Plaza, with zero tolerance of drugs, alcohol and inebriation, the reality was a series of disturbing alcohol-fueled episodes, occasional outbreaks of violence, theft, and discord. Camp was the source of much disagreement in General Assembly, with those wishing to withdraw support pointing to the dysfunction of the camp, while others focused on historical oppression of those marginalized by our society – the homeless and the victims of alcoholism and addiction – and their right to our support. In the end, just as the City of Santa Fe started to make noises about closing down the camp, the General Assembly of Santa Fe took action and withdrew funding and logistical support. An incredibly difficult and painful decision for many to take, it was ultimately supported by consensus, including some of those who had been campers.

What is happening? Why has this movement, that began with the vibrant fall colors reflecting the depth of our belief and hope, so quickly lost its luster? What has happened to the promise of Occupy?

I believe that the transformation we are trying to bring about is huge and that the problems we are facing are an inevitable result of the size and nature of the task.

Occupy is trying to bring our community together, to reconcile, to welcome all voices, and to work together toward common values. But participatory, consensus-based, grassroots democracy is not easy, and we are not practiced in it. Rather we are conditioned to give away our power to others or to scapegoat.

We live in a culture that has forced us all to turn away and suppress our natural inclinations toward compassion, relationship, and respect. It is a culture so violent and oppressive that we have grown to believe it is natural to make war on those we disagree with. It is a culture so greedy that we don’t hesitate to exploit the riches and beauty of the earth for our own comfort and pleasure. It is a culture so individualistic and selfish that we barely blink at the vast inequalities in material wealth that surround every one of us. It is a culture so riven by fear and dominated by power that true social justice for all is a dream that seems all but impossible to achieve. And, most importantly, it is a culture that has become enslaved to the impersonal systemic forces of economics that, at some level, exploit us all.

To transform such a culture requires that we transform ourselves and our political and social processes. And transformation is, at best, disorienting, and at times destructive in its process of upheaval and change. Having grown up in this culture, so far from what our hearts know is possible and continue to long for, we all carry within us internalized anger, fear and distrust. In relation to the dominant culture and the established power elites, those emotions are not misplaced. On the contrary, they are both understandable and rightly placed.

We come to Occupy carrying all of this cultural baggage with us. No wonder then that the growth of this movement is challenging and fractious. No wonder that common ground is hard to find when the dominant culture has so divided us.

But Occupy’s struggles are necessary and beneficial. The disagreements and challenges we face are the “grist for the mill,” the vehicles by which we learn, the opportunities to take another step in our growth as a movement and society.

In order to support that transformation, we must come to see these moments for what they are – opportunities to grow and learn. And we must find a place of equanimity and gratitude within ourselves in the face of each learning experience, both towards the situation itself and to the people who are challenging us. We only start to go astray when we perceive what is happening as the problem, and we start casting about for the people who are to blame, the forms and procedures that are wrong. Instead, we must all examine ourselves and our own capacities to rise out of the dominant culture of violence and oppression.

This is not to bring a Pollyanna perspective. When we disagree with someone, we must tell them; when we see the flaw in a strategy or tactic, we must say so; when a step in consensus decision-making has been missed, we must name that; and when personal agendas trample over process and consensus, we must not stand by silently in progressive, liberal apathy.

This is a call to invest in the integrity of our actions and the moral focus of the movement. Gandhi’s teaching is now so oft-repeated that it has become a cliché, but right now the necessity to “be the change we want to see in the world,” is paramount. That is true for each individual activist and for the Occupy movement as a whole. We are not there yet, I am not there yet, but this aspiration must be our guiding star, for under that light we will occupy the moral high-ground and catalyze a societal transformation that will be so much more than cosmetic change.

Occupy is about evolution and transformation, not revolution. We will not replace existing leaders with new leaders or attempt to fix what is broken in the existing power structures; instead we must bring forth a new story. The root of this new story is love — love for ourselves, love for each other, love for our planet, and a deep and profound love and longing for justice.

That love is backed by a fierce commitment to seeing this through. I know that because I feel it in my own heart and I see it in the eyes of all the beautiful, brave souls alongside whom I am so proud to work. And it is that quality of love that I believe must guide our interactions with each other as we find our way through the storms of challenge and the disorienting dilemmas of these early days of our transformation. In that love and commitment rests the hope that Occupy will become truly worthy of the 99%.

- Thomas Jaggers

This is the third in a series of excerpts from Jim Gober’s book titled “Deep in the Heart of Occupy Austin.” A new excerpt will be published at OccupiedStories.com every Wednesday, so come back next week to follow Jim though the evolution of Occupy Austin.

The next day, as I clustered with a group of strangers waiting to cross Lavaca Street on my way toward the plaza, there was a sculpture of an armadillo on the sidewalk, which is Austin’s unofficial official mascot. A little girl asked her daddy, a 40 year old tough-guy with jail-house tattoos and a mullet, what it was. In his most authoritative voice he announced to her, and everyone else waiting to cross the street, that it was an armadillo, and it also has leprosy, a terrible disease that you get from armadillos. And in fact, he boisterously informed us, the last great epidemic of leprosy in the US was in Louisiana where a whole bunch of people got it from eating armadillos. When the walk sign came on and we started moving, he topped off his story with a “go figure” as if all the people in Louisiana are so much more stupid than himself they must all eat armadillo, and of course we were all supposed to go along with it, and I imagined some of us did. But at least he was being a good dad, which is more than I can say for a lot of men. And I’ll bet that’s not the first bullshit story a father ever told to impress a child with his worldly knowledge, however flawed it might be.

Since I wrote most of the day, it was about 4 p.m. as I neared the plaza. It was swarming with people and the scene was chaotic. The first thing I saw was a dreadlocked young man I recognized from one of the first meetings. He came across as a trustafarian; expensive “hippie” clothes, dreadlocked hair- the works. I watched as he charged up to a group of bored policemen slumped against a piece of art, commissioned by the city, that must have cost a quarter million dollars. It was of a uvula carved out of granite. Yes, it was a large piece of grey granite with a hole cut in the middle and a highly polished uvula hanging into the center of the circle. The entire 10-foot tall monstrosity was mounted on thick hand-hewn wooden skids.

As the trustafarian approached the policemen, he demanded they stop all people from smoking, “over there and over there and over there,” because, “the wind is blowing the smoke toward my pregnant girlfriend.” The police let him know that smoking is allowed as long as it’s 15 feet or more from the building. The police didn’t move nor change expression much as they offered this disappointing news to a young man who looked like he was used to having what he wanted. As I started to make a note, the trustafarian came over to me. I said, “Hey Mon!” as a thinly veiled insult to his Rastafarian/rich boy appearance. He pointed his nose at me, and with his pupils no larger than molecules in the center of two blue pinwheels, asked if I was the guy with the beer and with a lot of passion at the meeting in Zilker Park a few days before. I didn’t know where he was going with it, but the vibe was negative because no one of the younger set liked me comparing Facebook and Apple to fascist mega-international corporations who operate sweatshops in China. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to engage me intellectually or let me have it because the police told him to buzz off.

Thank goodness, my cell phone rang. It’s one of those tiny pay-as-you-go jobs and was all tangled up in my pocket. I told Hey Mon I would get back to him in a second, and to please go sit back down and I would catch up with him. I got back to wrestling the phone from my pocket and in the interim missed the call. Since I couldn’t figure out how to get the number back on my cheapo cellie, I went ahead and sat down under a tree next to Hey Mon who introduced himself as Joshua, then introduced me to my new best friend for the night, John. I mentioned the grassy lawn area and landscaping we were sitting on was going to be destroyed in a few days, and Joshua said, “Yeah, we should protect the environment or something.” Then he got up and walked away and I didn’t see him for the rest of the evening. After a while, Joshua’s girlfriend came back and gathered up a few things. She was brilliantly beautiful even while pregnant, and I liked the idea of the occupiers procreating. Somehow, it gave me a tiny ray of hope.

My new best friend, John, was a cool guy-a perfectly shaped 5’ 7.5” middle-aged male full of intelligence and insight mixed with the most mischievous laugh you ever heard. Although childlike, it had a patina of maturity and enrapturing finish. He offered it freely without being disingenuous. This guy had plenty of good light to share, which was amazing since he was going through a divorce, had 2 daughters and had to pay mortgages on two places. He is in the building business and it’s not going so well right now. But as he explained to me, you always look at the world from the inside out and not let the outside get in and mess with you. The inside must remain at peace. This is how you should look at the world; from a peaceful place. I could tell he had been on a long personal journey and was seeing the light after a long time in the rough.

John shared his blanket with me for a minute or two, but I couldn’t get too relaxed, because although I really liked him, I didn’t want to miss out on all the other fun. The plaza was overflowing with exciting and interesting people. And besides, I had to find a bathroom. And I did find one in fast order. It was clean and air conditioned, right beside the city hall plaza. You just can’t beat that. After the bathroom visit, I poked around the plaza. One lady had a huge sign that said, “It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking system. For if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning-Henry Ford.” It must have taken her forever to make it because the words were made out of some sort of tissue and thick glue. I was thinking it was a long quote for a sign, and Henry Ford was more loquacious than I thought. The number of people holding signs along the sidewalk was also quite impressive and cars coming from all directions were honking in support.

I found myself listening to a guy who recommended that someone-he didn’t say who-should take all the money out of the banks and buy gold with it. I turned to a man next to me and said, “That doesn’t make sense.” Lucky for me, a hippie girl about 16 and still full of baby fat turned and explained,” During times of hyperinflation, people buy gold and silver as a hedge. But that’s what they did in the eighties and it crashed and everyone lost a bunch of money.” I asked, “You mean like the Hunt brothers?” But she didn’t know who I was talking about, and her eyes crossed a bit before she looked back at the speaker, who I had listened to long enough. I turned my attention to an achingly Asian guy dripping with acne who was explaining the difference between dialoguers and monologuers in a mix of languages so foreign some of them must only be spoken on the sun. About then, a rough-looking woman walked by with dyed jet-black hair that fell into her face to make her almost unrecognizable. Emblazoned on the back of her pink t-shirt with the arms ripped out was the handwritten statement, “This is only the beginning.”

A group of cute young girls hula hooping on the corner were definitely attracting attention. So much attention that two cops had to saunter over to their location to make a phone call. A middle-aged lady next to me pointed out, “See-the cops are going over there because those girls are attracting too much attention on the corner with those hula hoops and might cause a wreck.” When it was obvious the men in blue had no intention of stopping the show, but were in fact getting a front row seat to look down the tube tops of those little cuties, I felt the older woman shrink a bit. But, I didn’t look. It would have been too painful to watch.

Then it was time for a meeting and we had to go over even more hand signals than back at the Thinking Tree. Not only was there twinkle fingers in the air if you like a comment, medium height twinkle fingers if you feel mediocre, and down low twinkle fingers when you don’t like something, there was a shape you make with two hands resembling a vagina, which means you have a point. And there was crossing your arms at the wrists, which means you are blocking a motion, and there was making pointy guns with your forefingers and shooting them in the air used to shoot down an idea. Making a “C” with one hand means you have a concern. Then there was “Mic Check,” which is how occupying camps without a PA system communicate. It works by someone yelling, “Mic Check,” then everyone yells “Mic Check” to get everybody’s attention. Then the speaker tells everyone what to say-or yell-and they repeat it so everybody down the line hears the message. Since we had a PA, we didn’t do too much of the mic check unless something very important needed to be heard way across the plaza. It is a painstakingly slow way to communicate, but keeps the speeches short and sweet. If someone is not acting correctly, everyone is supposed to clap loud three times. And there was a bunch of other signals I didn’t catch, because all of a sudden there was a chaotic scene.

A small group of people decided to erect a tent on a grassy spot at the edge of the plaza. Occupy was told by the police only one tent was allowed, and that was to keep the protest signs dry if it rained. But these guys wanted to set up another tent and were hell bent about it. There was a round of mic checks, a series of three loud claps, pointy guns, down low sparkly fingers and people just flat out yelling at them to take it down, but nothing mattered. They set it up right in front of the facilitators while the hand signal lecture was being given for the millionth time. Those hand signals were meant to control everything, but these damn tent people were screwing everything up and no amount of hand signals had the slightest effect on them. At one point, everyone surrounded the tent and started pulling on the poles. The four interloping instigators, one of them a tow-headed child of 4 or 5, all managed to wiggle inside the tent and hold on for dear life until they exhausted the crowd. You had to hand it to them-they were the real deal. When everything settled down, they propped up the tent, repaired the damage with a roll of duct tape and hung out a sign that said “Tent City.” And that was that.

Then there was a dust up where somebody locked their bike to someone else’s, which resulted in at least a dozen mic checks until the police cut it off with a bolt cutter. After a while, it looked like everything was settling down for the evening. The smell of high-grade marijuana, incense, alcohol and burning ether from meth pipes wafted by in the warm and heavy evening air. A few people carried in stacks of donated pizza and people eagerly lined up to grab a slice without being pushy. There were lots of bottles of water and just about anything else needed to stay comfortable on the hard floor, steps and mezzanine of the city hall plaza, which was now home to hundreds of occupiers. As the night progressed, the mood became edgy, and in the darkness I couldn’t tell who was friend or foe, but it didn’t matter. I chatted endlessly with drifters, occupiers and curiosity seekers about philosophy and economics until I thought my head would explode. Tonight I could feel Occupy breathing as one, and I was finally part of it. About 3 a.m., I was down to just enough energy to make it home and collapsed on the couch with the front door wide open. I was so happy.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Ryan Rice’s blog.

“I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I’d do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.” -Fidel Castro

Los Angeles, CA-Occupy Los Angeles began with 50 people in Pershing Square. There are now nearly 50,000 “likes” on the Facebook page, yet it was Castro’s scenario that occupied Bertha Herrera’s backyard in Van Nuys in early January. Fifteen people with absolute faith that knew a part of changing the world was to be found in a two-bedroom house in the valley.

Bertha had been a resident of this cozy slice of home for over thirty-one years. She was blindsided by trouble when she was denied her workers’ compensation and found herself with no alternative except a second mortgage. The cold and indifferent bank floored Bertha with an illegal notice to evict after mishandling her payments.

There will be ten million more cases like Bertha’s this year. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, Latinos make up the majority of loans delinquent or in foreclosure in California. When examining completed foreclosures, African-American and Latino rates in Los Angeles County are double those of whites. The report, titled Lost Ground 2011, states, “Minority borrowers were disproportionately targeted for mortgage products that were inherently more difficult to sustain, which has resulted in higher foreclosure and serious delinquency rates in communities of color.”

It is clear that Bertha’s situation is far from unique. City, state, and federal government programs have failed to offer real relief, characteristically choosing giveaways to banks and empty rhetoric. The L.A. City Council extended protections for renters but ignored homeowners. Bertha paid an advocate $1,500 but was left unrepresented in court and handed a default judgment. The state legislature failed to pass SB 1137, which would have prevented this robbery. Had those in Sacramento truly cared about struggling Americans, they certainly would have passed this bill to require servicers to make contact with borrowers before initiating foreclosure action.

This brings us to D.C. and the shortcomings of federal foreclosure protections. A total of $29.9 billion has been set aside from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to go towards the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Of the 1.2 million California homes foreclosed upon in the last three years, only ten percent have seen that funding and help. What is abundantly obvious is that our elected officials care more about the banks’ bottom lines than homes for their “constituents”. It was with this realization that Bertha Herrera reached out to Occupy Los Angeles for help.

This writing was partially complete when the sheriffs cut the dead bolt and cleared Bertha’s house room by room. I was feeling a child-like euphoria over occupying a foreclosed home. The movement was transitioning from the symbolic to the real. We all agreed that housing was a human right as we sat cross-legged in our respective tents at Occupy LA, funky protest music thumping from the South Steps. Now we were doing something about it beyond raising awareness on the issue and “changing the national dialogue”. If occupying City Hall had been boot camp, this was our first mission.

The Joy was written before the police came with their guns, before the realtor measured for remodeling, and before the carpenters scurried in the darkness to board up the home.

The Joy

It was Day 97 of Occupy Los Angeles and Day 111 for Occupy Wall Street. For Bertha in Van Nuys, this was day one of her occupation. Her nephew watched us make signs, erect tents, and talk into the night as her patio became a microcosm of Solidarity Park. We were experts at occupying by now. Tents materialized out of thin air and were arranged in a community-oriented circle. A smoking zone was designated for a far corner of the yard as cell phones and cameras occupied the charging station. We were livestreaming the action, tweeting for pizza, and grinning.

Sitting on her back porch as crickets chirped, I noticed a marked absence of noise at this special occupation. In the silence, I was struck by the differences and similarities between occupying public space as a statement versus a foreclosed ninety-niner’s home as a measurable act. I knew I was part of a revolution when I was at Solidarity Park. The drums, the mic-checks, the sirens, and the honking horns told me so. But this quiet suburb, in all its normalcy, was also now a focal point to this movement.

The goals of a public occupation are attacked as oftentimes oblique. This critique has incessantly confused me. I simply want all the things dismantled. I want health care for all, an end to war, fair and just fiscal policy, free education, immigrant rights, and an end to foreclosures. By the way, I also want to abolish capitalism and radically redefine how we live and what our values are. How does one pragmatically go about this? The raw truth is that I want to take down every facet of the oppressive power structures… and that’s daunting. How does one raze the structures of subjugation?

As it turns out, we start at Bertha’s two bedroom house in Van Nuys. Among the multitude of issues, the foreclosure scam has risen to the top as a primary weapon of the one percent. Our marches and rallies are uplifting and empowering, but what do they do, really? If we’re lucky, a frightened security guard locks the doors as we wail and scream;

Bank of America!

Bad for America!

I sometimes question just what a march accomplishes, other than hindering business for a few dozen annoyed ninety-niners. It doesn’t stop the robo-signing on the twentieth floor, the derivative deals on the ninth floor, the slashing of thirty thousand jobs on the forty-second floor, or the decadent million-dollar bonuses in the board rooms.

Foreclosures, however, can deliver guerrilla victories and win the ‘hearts and minds’ of America. This fight offers that same inspiring message of defiance and People Power. It gives the same opportunity for pitching tents, communal living, and battle with the Vampire Squid. What foreclosures do so uniquely is cause real economic harm to the banks that manipulate capitalism to seize and control. They have spun a wonderfully clever web of public losses and private gains that is now, finally, being exposed.

Occupying a home in danger of foreclosure has a palpable goal, a digestible morsel of triumph. The protest encampment was filled with dreamers, drunkards, and die-hard policy wonks. So it is with Bertha’s home. But now there is a resolute tightening of the jaw on all these activists. Now we’re seeing a grandmother’s home in danger of being stolen from her and sold to the highest bidder. And we’re seeing this elusive idea of resistance spread to a woman who has instructed her two adorable dogs to treat these unwashed and penniless occupiers as family. We’re witnessing someone stand up and say, “NO!” I feel honored to shrug off my pack and call this house my home, too.

The Misery

“Wow. What the fuck happened today?” I asked to no one in particular as I finished a cigarette on the decrepit back stairwell of the “Occupartment”. It was midnight, and I was at a loss for words. Our collective has a painfully clear view of the skyscrapers and banks that make up the Los Angeles skyline. As I exhaled the smoke, I wondered just how much resistance it was going to take to have those behemoths rendered obsolete and seized by the people.

The day began with a conspicuous locksmith’s truck across the street. Bertha had just made me a cup of coffee and we were tip-toeing around the house as occupiers lay sprawled on the floor, the couch, and the yard in the back. I had just finished talking with public radio about foreclosures, general strikes, and the future of the occupy movement. Bertha and I were both nervous that the police would show up. This action had been hastily thrown together and we had not had a chance to discuss the diversity of tactics open to us.

Did she want us to chain ourselves to the fridge?! Blockade the doors?

Or did she want us to pack up and exit, providing court support and raising neighborhood awareness instead?

Before we could form any kind of plan, sheriffs began banging on the door, threatening arrests to anyone inside. Having no instructions from the distraught homeowner, I decided to just sit and put the onus to act on the police officers. They cracked the door and came in with guns drawn. We met them with defiance and our cameras. Once they saw the tents and the camera-phones, they holstered their weapons with an awkward acknowledgment that made clear they knew about the occupy movement. The sheriffs still cuffed all three of the men in the house, prodding and pushing the women out the door as well as they struggled to regain their alpha status in the home.

I was cuffed and as the deputy walked me into the driveway, I could feel his whole body shaking with adrenaline. We were all oddly calm though, resolved to spend more time in jail for… whatever they felt like smearing us with. As only a protester can, I was absentmindedly comparing the weight and feel of these metal cuffs to the cutting plastic zip-ties I’d previously been detained in. This occupation was over before it really began, and I was talking with another cuffed comrade about the lost opportunity.

I had plans to turn the palm tree in front into a totem pole devoted to social justice!

I couldn’t wait to meet the neighbors and hold block party teach-ins as we radicalized the street!

I was ready to set up Occupy Lemonade Stands and neighborhood day care and, and, and…!

But then I saw Bertha. She was being forcibly removed from her home. A bank with zero claim to the house was ordering the police to evict this grandmother of five. They gamed the system to seize yet another property. Disgustingly, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent was on hand to take measurements for remodeling. This was really happening. Our bold new front in the Class War was being squashed. Bertha was now without a home.

The sheriffs eventually calmed themselves down and released us, allowing us to get our occupy gear as we gathered, groggy and tense on the front lawn. We comforted Bertha and held an impromptu assembly to decide what to do. The nearest Coldwell Banker branch was just a short ride away, so it was settled that picketing the real estate company’s role in selling stolen homes would be a solid action in response to the eviction.

The action was a success, with a police presence symbolically guarding the bank, drivers honking and waving, and occupiers marching with a tent and signage. We got some of our spirit back, shouting chants at the employees and the police. It was a kind of therapy for the failure at Bertha’s, a medicine to restore our indignation. The valley hadn’t seen much occupy action so far, and it was a welcome boost to see the bank manager flustered and worried by our presence.

We reconvened at Bertha’s home, where occupiers had helped her draft a letter that they were now distributing throughout the neighborhood. The letter was a cry for help that acknowledged the occupy movement had answered her plea. Behind each door was a friendly face, supportive of Bertha and of the foreclosure work occupiers were doing. It turned out I would not have to wait long to find other foreclosed homes to occupy. Six – SIX – in the neighborhood were facing foreclosure in the near future.

As the sun set, we vowed that the day was not yet over. A political debate was going on, so about half of us went to fill out comment cards to demand what each candidate was going to do about the foreclosure crisis. I stayed behind and witnessed one of the saddest moments to date of this movement. Under the cover of darkness, eight LAPD officers showed up to “keep the peace” as a construction crew came in to board up the house. Bertha’s nephew pleaded in Spanish to the workers, asking them in their native tongue if they had a grandmother, if they had a heart. We stared in disbelief as the front door’s Christmas wreath and “Jesus Loves You” sign were covered by plywood.

Thankfully, Bertha had not stayed around to witness the travesty. But as I stood there, I was granted a healthy dose of perspective. Here I was, traumatized and enraged that we had been evicted from Solidarity Park after a mere sixty days. The Fascist Fence continues to separate me from the public space I used to live in and love. It makes me cringe in anger that the thugs dared to lock up our home. I tear up every so often when I look beyond the fence at that hollow expanse.

This movement is so much bigger than a park. We must desperately defend Bertha and the millions of families that see that same thing happen to their homes! We all knew Occupy LA was a fleeting and temporary beauty, sure to be shut down by the elites and the pigs they order around. However, this is a home of thirty-one years. It isn’t a provocative display of the First Amendment, its a place to be warm, to hang pictures on the fridge, and place inspirational quotes by the coat rack.

To see the home boarded up meant the property values of every house on the street instantly fell by the thousands. To see those plywood sheets nailed across her windows was proof that the corporations and the puppets they control do not give a shit about us. Another American was joining the ranks of the wretched refuse and capitalism marched on. I was miserable. We were all miserable over the blatant pillaging the morally bankrupt oligarchy is doing to the 99%.

Everything For Everyone, And Nothing For Ourselves

The spirited occupiers in Solidarity Park roundly rejected a facade of city support in late 2011. In a series of closed-door ‘negotiations’, City Hall and the Mayor awkwardly offered a small building space, too few beds for the houseless, and an undetermined corner of farming land somewhere (eventually). Instead, we audaciously crafted a response that we felt best supported the ninety-niners in Los Angeles. We didn’t need to be placated with 100 beds when Angelenos need 18,000. It is in this vein that the occupy movement will take the power from the oligarchs.

The above Zapatista slogan, “Para todos todo, para nosotros nada,” has been emblazoned across each of our hearts. However, there is a fascinating muddling between us and the “everyone” we’re helping. In the radio interview that morning, I was questioned about the existence and role of the homeless within Occupy Los Angeles. I answered simply, “You’re talking to a homeless person.”

This is the dichotomy inherent to the movement. I am fighting for a person who was denied health care coverage, drained of her life savings, and kicked out of her home. The fact is, I have no health insurance, am penniless, and houseless. Under most assumptions, a Latina grandmother living in the suburbs would have nothing in common with a young white man floating around the urban sprawl of downtown Los Angeles. This is what class war is, though. The erosion of the middle class and the oppression we’re all facing is blurring the line between occupiers as activists and victims.

So is the Occupy Movement the megaphone or are we the ones needing amplification? Under the umbrella of Money in Politics, we are oftentimes both. An individual’s struggle may be over foreclosures, but it could just as easily be over skyrocketing tuition, a relative lost to the Drug War, a friend killed in wars for profit, or a vaporized retirement plan. Omar Barghouti, a human and Palestinian rights advocate, said connecting the issues “is not a nicety, it is a necessity”. The absurdity of profits over people as standard operating procedure is deplorable. If we are going to stop any one injustice, we must come together to stop them all.

I’m reminded of a few quotes from the inspiring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said:

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”

And, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The point is that we the ninety-niners are facing an existential threat and if we hope to not just survive but thrive, it means occupying every home, boycotting every exploitative corporation, and re-learning to lean on our communities. Like occupiers across the globe, we must take charge of our lives and be incessantly indignant at the oppressions we each face.

Despite being unable to prevent the erection of some fences and boards, the fight is just beginning. One day soon these foreclosures are going to stop and we’ll finally acknowledge housing as a human right. This is because there is no stopping Bertha, my fellow occupiers, or this global movement. We’ve taken the Wall Street bull by the horns and there’s no going back. If anyone falters in their resolve for breaking these heinous chains, they can just look to someone like Bertha Herrera. She thanked us, saying, “I wouldn’t have been able to get through this without you (all). I know I’m not alone in the fight, and that gives me the strength to fight for others who are going through the same troubles.” Let’s give her what she and the rest of the ninety-niners deserve. Each day will continue to be filled with both joy and misery. Yet each day is worth it as we continue to see victories where before there were none.

- Ryan Rice -

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on thisiswhyioccupy.tumblr.com as a two-part post. Part 1 - not included in this story - gives a detailed outline of the consensus process. For readers unfamiliar with consensus process, you can see the author’s explanation here.

Consensus is a process. I laid it out as best I could – tried to make it bite-sized and accessible.

At the heart of consensus is discussion.

Communally we develop the proposal. Ask questions to make sure we understand it, but also to make sure the proposer hasn’t missed any opportunities or details – not to question the motives of the proposer, but to help the proposal be better.

We express our concerns so as to take any opportunities for oppression and place them out in the open for everyone to see and address. To move forward together.

Our greatest asset – as a movement, as a community – is the individual experiences, feelings, and knowledge that each person brings to the collective.

The ability of a group to reach consensus on anything is dependent on the group having some level of shared goals, visions, and principles that bring it together. It doesn’t have to be explicitly stated or documented, but at least on an individual level, we have to acknowledge what brought us here, and assume that some part of that brought everyone else here too.

… in a nutshell …

In its broadest sense, Occupy Wall Street seeks social and economic justice – an end to the systems of oppression that consolidate wealth in the hands of the extreme few at the expense of everyone else. Obviously there is so much more. But if you want my sound byte of what OWS stands for, there you go.

Occupy Wall Street wants to liberate space – both physical and ideological. Without public space in the hands of the people, the community, can a public sphere truly exist? And ideological space, taken up for generations by the moneyed few, utilizing violence and systematized pillars of oppression to hold power over women, people of color, and gender queer (to name a few), is being opened up for those voices to be raised – by taking their rightful place in this discussion,we shape a more inclusive and just society.

… morality …

To be perfectly honest, yes, our system of consensus can be abused. The way it is currently set up, we can only accept a block at face value, as the blocker explains it. Regardless of how well that block is explained, whether it is along explicit moral, ethical or safety lines, or someone only having a few words to say why they can’t let the proposal pass, the block stands.

As a community, we can take their explanation, try to understand it, and try to empathize with their position, their feelings, their experience and offer an amendment that might be found agreeable to both the blocker and the proposer so that as a community we can move forward toward consensus.

What we cannot do – what we must not do – is question the block itself.

And this brings me to my first block.

I’ve regularly been attending General Assemblies since October 17th. When not on a Facilitation team, I have rarely spoken to the Assembly. I tend to think that if I give it enough time, someone else will say what I’m thinking. Often I’m right, sometimes not.

This is what we call, “Step Up, Step Back.” If those of us with male, white-skin privilege step back, opening up the space for those who have traditionally not been encouraged to take it, someone will have the opportunity to step up and say pretty much exactly what we would have said.

There have been proposals I haven’t agreed with, or don’t particularly like, so I down-twinkle them in the temperature check. If I really don’t like it, and it moves to modified consensus, I’ll vote no.

There was a proposal a few days ago requesting the GA to ask two members of the Housing Working Group step down from leadership and coordination roles. I have serious concerns with recent decisions and actions of the individuals in question and supported the concept of this request, but the individuals were not present during this proposal or the discussion surrounding it. I think it’s extremely problematic to essentially put people on trial in absentia.

I stood aside. I had serious concerns with the proposal, but defaulted to the community to make the ultimate decision.

… the proposal …

A proposal that has been bounced around and discussed amongst individuals for a while now, possibly in part instigated by people’s reading of CT Butler’s “On Conflict & Consensus,” is that the community should be able to evaluate the validity of a block and decide if it meets certain criteria. For the record, I have never read CT Butler. I’ve heard him speak some, but have not read his book. Also for the record, I don’t really care what he has to say on this topic. OWS is like nothing anyone has ever seen before, and previously held notions or ideas have to adapt to OWS, not the other way around.

The blocking proposal has gone through various forms, and has come before the GA at least twice. I happened to be on the Facilitation Team both times and therefore couldn’t participate in the conversation. This past Sunday, it came up again, and I was finally able to add my voice to the conversation.

In its current form, the proposal wanted to empower the community to call a point of process on a block if any member of the General Assembly felt that the block was not meeting the criteria of an ethical, moral, or safety concern. The Facilitator would then take a straw poll to see if the community considered the block to meet those criteria. If 75% of the Assembly were in agreement that the block is valid, then it would stand. If not, it would be collectively removed.

… concerns …

I have many concerns with this proposal and the direct and implied effects it would have on the movement as a whole and the individuals that make it up.

I expressed my concerns during that point of the process and being that the proposer or the subsequent friendly amendments did not alleviate them, I chose to block the proposal. I tried to articulate my concerns as best I could, both during that stack and again when I explained my block.

I’ve thought about it extensively in the days since and had conversations with people who were not in attendance, in preparation for when this proposal eventually comes up for consideration at a future General Assembly.

… blocked …

I blocked this proposal because it so antithetical to everything this movement stands for, in my eyes.

Occupy Wall Street, as a movement, is about addressing root causes. We seek to create social and economic justice.

This is not a charity and this is not about bandaging symptoms. If we can address symptoms, and alleviate suffering along the way – as a byproduct of our work – that is great, but our focus has to be deeper – our path must be laid out and must be long-term.

Taking a temperature check on the validity of blocks is not a means to build more meaningful consensus.

This proposal is designed to deal with individuals who make our process more difficult than some feel it needs to be. It is in effect putting a bandage on people’s discomfort and frustration. It is not dealing with, acknowledging, or seeking to remedy the root causes that might result in someone feeling the need to obstruct our process in the only definitive and powerful way we have – the block.

Consensus is about discussion, debate, dissent, concessions, questioning, all with the intent of resolving conflict.

This proposal is a cop-out.

This proposal adds process in place of building community. We need to put in the time and hard work to get to know each other, as people, in order to build this community. It will, and should be, hard, slow work.

But, it will be worth it.

… prefigurative …

As a movement, we must be prefigurative. It is our obligation to embody the ideals and values of the world we seek to create. The ends do not justify the means. We cannot build a new world on the groundwork of an ugly movement.

We can only hope to drown out the negative voices with the even louder voices of positivity. Attempting to silence the voices we find disagreeable is re-creating the systems of oppression we are trying to topple.

Because this is a movement of incredibly diverse people with different backgrounds, upbringings and experiences, we need to acknowledge that different people have different communication styles and unconventional articulation abilities, or prior access to education. But that doesn’t mean their input is less valid.

I think we’ve seen quite often that – while I love this community passionately – it’s not always a safe space. I would like to have faith that in some cases, when someone blocks, they do have a moral or ethical concern, but perhaps they don’t feel safe expressing those concerns, for fear of being a dissenting voice, or facing hostility from the other members of the Assembly.

At some point, we need to trust that people come here to act in good faith.

Obviously not everyone does, and I’m not talking about provocateurs or infiltrators, but people who traditionally haven’t been given the space to have their voice heard and perhaps are acting out now that that space has been provided.

But that doesn’t seem like a good reason to me to add in additional punitive process.

In the absence of community agreement and shared values, which I am conflicted about documenting this early in the life of this movement –this occupation - this proposal feels exclusionary to me.

I’m not quite sure we’re ready to say definitively what our community values are, or our shared ideals, or goals. The Safer Spaces Community Agreement for Spokes Council is a good start for our code of conduct, but I don’t think that’s exactly the same as defining what our values are.

Occupy Wall Street has only been around for four months and our scope is huge. There has to be room for dissent and disagreement and discussion within our movement. We need to be inclusive, not codify punitive measures of exclusion.

There are individuals in this movement who have been labeled disruptors or agitators. People who recently have taken the position of blocking just about any proposal asking for funds that do not address the basic needs of the homeless Occupier population – food, housing, and Metrocards, for example. There is an argument that can be made that these blocks are made along ethical lines – that this occupation has people dependent on it, and we have an obligation to care for them; with funds depleting we must focus on their needs.

You don’t have to agree with this line of thinking, but agreement is not the issue.

… misdirection …

This proposal is clearly a way to target individuals and not the issues at hand. Already we see adverse reactions to certain individuals, regardless of the content. Either their presentations, or they themselves, are enough to make people tune out before they even begin speaking.

Taking a temperature check to evaluate a block feels punitive, and I’m not sure we have a right as community to address the concerns of specific individuals as it pertains to a block.

We should not debate the validity of anyone’s individual concerns. Rather, we can decide communally, having heard the blockers’ concerns and the stand asides’ concerns, that we still want this proposal to move forward. We can do that. We have a process for it – modified consensus.

But what we should not have is a system in place to validate or nullify someone’s moral, ethical, or safety concerns, however effectively they are communicated.

I’d rather have modified consensus at the expense of consensus than consensus at the expense of an individual.

… unfriendly …

A friendly amendment was suggested – and accepted by the proposer – to put in place a one-week trial period to see how this whole process would play out. When I restated my concerns to explain my block the proposer reminded me of the amendment to see if I would be willing to delay my block a week. To allow this trial period to happen so as a community we can evaluate it based on practice.

My response was, “I do not feel comfortable putting a trial period on what I feel is immoral.” I stand by that.

This proposal is ugly. I don’t blame the people who wrote it or the people who support it. I understand why they want this failsafe in place. It would be convenient. It would make things easy. But the more embedded I get with OWS, the more I learn about the history of radical and revolutionary movements and organizations, the more I truly believe this should not be easy.

If it were easy, it would have been done already.

If it were easy, we’d be living in a more just world.

If it were easy we would have toppled the pillars of oppression that uphold the empire.

We have to be willing to put in the hard work – to live better now – to create a better world as we go.

I’m willing to put in the work. I’m willing to struggle. I’m willing to be frustrated and angry and exhausted.

I’m willing because I am looking forward to the eventual victories of our collective struggle.

This – this very difficult struggle – is why I occupy.

 

- Brett Goldberg (@PoweredByCats on Twitter)

Last night was the most amazing night of my life…

The day started like any other. We woke in the truck in Brooklyn to find Julie outside her apartment. She let us take some quick showers and gave us a cup of coffee while we chatted about anything from what we do for a living to the movement-small talk, really, but nice small talk. After that, we put in our time at Milk & Roses to knock out some work as fast as possible to get down to the protest a little earlier. Unfortunately, I had a good amount of work to sift through, so we didn’t make it down to Liberty Park until about 6pm.

As has become our tradition, Joe and I walked around the park to check out any new additions to the grounds. One small table was set up near where we entered the park. They were passing out food separate from the people’s kitchen. It was the second time I’d seen them, so I was curious. When I asked who they were and what they were up to, they said they were from the shelter (they lived there, not worked there) and they were serving food to anyone at the park. They’d made it, donated it, and served it, and they were living in the shelter, themselves! Incredible!

Joe and I hung out for a while with nothing much happening. David Peel was back leading sing-a-longs, so I hung around that circle and sang and filmed for a while. I found Joe after that, having gotten separated at some point, and he was busy grubbing on dinner. I wandered off while he ate his food and we became separated again for an hour or so, until I spotted him on the south end of the park talking to a couple people-an old Italian woman and a younger friend or relative of hers. I didn’t get their names.

After talking with those folks for 45 minutes or so, my feet were anxious to move, so I told Joe I was going to go get a couple slices of pizza since I’d missed the dinner servings in the kitchen. We said our goodbyes and Joe and I headed down to Pronto Pizza, where they overcharged me for three slices of pizza, a soda, and a beer.

After dinner we wandered back to Liberty Park, a mere block away, not expecting much to happen for the night. The crowd was relatively small compared to other nights, and it was generally quiet. A small march in solidarity for Oakland passed by once, but it was tiny, so I figured it was just a marginal march, but when they came back around the park with slightly more people, I decided to join in. I grabbed Joe and we jumped into the march.

We circled the park one more time, gathering a larger crowd, then headed off down Church past the 9/11 Memorial. We paused in front of it for a moment to gather together, chanting, “New York is Oakland! Oakland is New York!” and chants of every other sort, like “Hey hey! Ho ho! Police brutality has got to go!”

From there we made our way to city hall, trying to take the streets at every opportunity. A block down, a fireman opened a fire hydrant and yelled out, “If you stand here, you’re going to get wet! I’ve gotta open it!” “Bullshit!” I yelled at him, sticking a camera out at him.

By the time we made it to City Hall, we’d become quite a large group of people. Hundreds, if not a thousand. We circled City Hall slowly two or three times, gathering together in a close-knit group to make it harder for police to drag one of us out of the crowd. On the second trip around City Hall, people started spilling into the streets, and the cops quickly took out their clubs and threw a guy to the ground, jumping on him like a swarm of jackals, beating him, throwing their elbows and knees at everyone, pushing us all back with wild looks in their eyes as we tried to drag the person being arrested to safety and the group. That guy didn’t make it and was hauled off. A few steps beyond that, I saw three or four police officers, including a detective in a plain suit violently pushing and throwing a young girl and two young guys toward the sidewalk. The girl wasn’t taking any shit, swinging at the police officers with her fists, but they didn’t arrest her, they just violently shoved them onto the sidewalk with their clubs.

I screamed everything I could in those cops’ faces when they arrested that guy moments before. “Shame! Shame!” “The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” and every foul thing I could think of. I was literally nose to nose screaming in their face. When they pushed me with their clubs, I linked arms with the people around me and yelled as forcefully as I could, “Don’t you fucking touch me! Don’t you touch me!”

We made our way a few blocks away from there and by then we were riled. We were peacefully marching in solidarity against the police brutality in Oakland and here the police were beating the hell out of people and arresting them for stepping into the street. In most cities, under normal circumstances that constitutes a whistle blow and a dirty look from a traffic cop, or at worst, a ticket. Now that we were riled up, we were absolutely determined to take the streets, and we did, but we were quickly pushed back onto the sidewalk. But now, whenever they pushed us onto the sidewalk, people would run ahead of the cops and take the street again, then we’d all rush forward and we’d completely control the street, stopping traffic and chanting. It was incredible!

Another man was thrown down and beaten by at least six or seven policemen, and even more formed a circular wall around the arrest to keep us from seeing what they were doing and to keep us from trying to drag the victim away from them. The guy next to me took a club to the gut, but we all held our ground and surrounded the cops, yelling in their faces exactly what we thought of them, who they work for-anything we could think of to shame them into seeing what they are doing is wrong, but many people also, such as myself, were so disgusted and sickened by what we saw, anger took over and we very aggressively yelled in their faces, nose to nose. I’m talking centimeters away. As long as you don’t touch them, you’re good. But if you even accidentally bump them, they’ll call it assault and beat you down.

After we had to give up and let the man be arrested, we turned to continue the march, but the police had blocked off the intersection with one of their plastic orange net barricades. People plowed through over and under it. They couldn’t stop us. Once we burst through, we grabbed it and won a tug of war match with the police. I somehow ended up at the front of it, leading the way through the streets, screaming and chanting with the crowd, holding the police netting above our heads and peace and victory signs above our heads, pumping our fists, smiling and in love with life and our brief grasping of freedom. I could feel it in my hands and heart as real as the police netting. Cabbies and truckers were honking in solidarity with us, slapping us five out their car windows as we walked by. Traffic was completely shut down. Every time I passed a cab with open windows in the back, I ducked my head in and thanked the passengers for their patience.

By then, the police were largely helpless. A way up the street, there was a bottleneck in the middle of the street between to cabs. People were spilling all around them, but the people who tried to go between the cabs were suddenly met by a singular cop out of nowhere. All the other cops were somewhere else, trying to set up another block and ambush for us, but this guy was suddenly right there. “Ah, we’ve got a fucking hero over here!” I yelled. The cop started violently pushing and punching at the protesters who came his way. We yelled, “Go around! Go around!” and kept marching. I don’t know what became of that.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were marching toward Washington Square Park. We held and controlled the streets from City Hall to Washington Square Park and back to Liberty Park. The police were absolutely ineffective and helpless. They couldn’t control us. We chanted, “Whose streets? Our streets!” changing it up now and then with “city” and “world”, rather than streets.

Everywhere you looked people were cheering, chanting, skipping, jumping, announcing updates from other Occupancies. Someone yelled out, “Oakland just took back the park!” and we all cheered and chanted as loud as we could.

We wandered through the village and everyone came out of the bars and restaurants in awe of us. Some joined in. People leaned out their windows to watch what was happening. I blew kisses at everyone I saw and yelled to them, “We’re making history! Join us!” Then we all chanted, “Join us! Join us!”

We wound our way through the streets in many directions to keep the police guessing as to where we were going. I hadn’t seen the mounted police since city hall, where we chanted, “Get that pig off that horse!” but the motorcycles were suddenly everywhere-the same motorcycles that have been used to run us over in the past. The police would head us off at each intersection and form a wall with their bikes, but we’d just run around them. Some people ran and tried to leap over them, but they were quickly snared by police and beaten to the ground.

Joe told me the guy who tried to talk us into getting arrested at Washington Square sidestepped one motorcycle that tried to run him over, only to have another come up on the other side of him trying to do the same thing. He then kicked down a police bike, knocking over several more, and the cops spilled over him in a massive horde and beat the hell out of him.

On the way to Washington Square, one guy in the march a few people in front of me suddenly started pissing on a car parked next to him and he almost got his ass kicked by fellow protesters for doing something so stupid and foul. We took care of him instantly and reigned in any violence that might have erupted from it.

In trying to evade the cops with their cars, vans, and motorcycles, we ran down one street and dragged wooden police barricades into the road to block their path. As soon as people saw what was happening, everyone started grabbing anything they could to do the same-garbage cans, many garbage bags, more barricades-anything we could find. Then we would run forward and always stay ahead of the police. They couldn’t do a damn thing.

At one point, I got a charlie horse in both of my calf muscles at the same time. I thought, “Ah hell; not now!” I just kept moving forward the best I could and was able to jog it off, thank god.

That Sgt. who’d made national news for chewing out the NYPD at Times Square marched with us, too, as did another man in uniform.

After controlling the major streets in downtown NYC, like Broadway, we decided to head back to Liberty Park and seize our victory before something unfortunate happened, or before police figured out a way to break us up. We marched back toward Liberty Park chanting, jumping, hugging strangers… Oh! and we WERE able to drag one victim out of the police’s clutches, to which we all cheered massively.

As we made our way back to Liberty Park, we dominated the streets, linked arms, slowed down, seizing our power, and sang “Solidarity Forever”.

We entered Liberty Park arm in arm in solidarity and everyone met us with cheers, applause, and noise of all kinds. It was an incredible night! The march was followed by a few speeches of love and devotion to the people. I was exhausted and drenched with sweat. I gave absolutely everything I had in me to that march. We wanted to show Oakland serious solidarity for their dedication and we did just that. We made history, and Oakland took back the park!

We are the 99%! We are too big too fail!

-Dylan Hock

This is the second in a series of excerpts from Jim Gober’s book titled “Deep in the Heart of Occupy Austin.” A new excerpt will be published at OccupiedStories.com every Wednesday, so come back next week to follow Jim though the evolution of Occupy Austin.

Today was Thursday, October 6, 2011, the day the occupation officially started at the Austin City Hall Plaza. City Hall faces south on busy Cesar Chavez Street, which runs east to west through downtown Austin. South First Street, which runs north to south, dead ends into Cesar Chavez directly in front of the City Hall Plaza, so it makes the plaza a highly visible location for the occupation. So far, the rules set forth by the APD did not allow tents, so Austin was going to need a few adjustments, I could see that straightaway.

I spent the afternoon trying to rally support from my my partner, Frank, and our friends hanging around the house, who were very apprehensive about going, and didn’t share my view of the state of affairs, even though they could see I was super-excited about going and desperately wanted to see a real protest in action. I even wrote a speech airing my grievances I was determined to give the minute I arrived. I imagined myself as Winston Churchill, FDR or even Cesar Chavez himself. I thought about the adoring and heady applause and the look of wonderment on the enraptured crowd. I was going to make everyone stop and listen to me! I alone would lead the people of Occupy Austin out of the woods and single-handedly save the world with my obvious stroke of genius that no one present could deny.

As the time to go arrived, and I became more excited and animated, everyone became more tense and apprehensive. I think they were afraid I was going to give my speech and create a cascade of social unrest that would get us all beaten and arrested. For nearly an hour I tried to convince someone to come along with me. I just wanted to get my freak flag on and give my damn speech. Humanity needed me.

I called David, who was scared to come over and go to the protest once he learned I wanted to give a speech. Another friend, Tom, finally decided to go along with me, although he was surrounded by an air of apprehension about just what was going to go down, and asked pointed questions about my presentation to be sure it was not inflammatory in any way. I tried to reassure him no one was going to throw a Molotov cocktail at us or anyone else for that matter. Finally Tom and I left, and within five minutes were parking haphazardly in a tow-away zone by the South First Street Bridge that spans the Colorado River.

We walked north over the pedestrian bridge and by the time we got halfway across you could see Austin City Hall, a postmodern building with a token solar panel over the front. And best of all, there was the glorious Occupy Austin protest in full bloom. More than 2500 noisy and impassioned people were present. My head was dizzy with love, excitement and revolution.

As we entered the plaza, the police were standing around looking bored and there were-get ready for it-SPEECHES going on! One guy, dressed like Luke Skywalker, got in the speaker’s zone, which was on the first wide step that led up to the mezzanine from the plaza. He had a laser toy thing and closed his speech with, “May the force be with you-Nanu Nanu.” You would think he was a wet blanket, but he talked about love and light, and although few people were listening, it sounded pretty cool, especially the mixing of Mork and Mindy and Star Wars-since they were kind of from the same era and each one about as senseless as the other.

Then a blue-jeaned lesbian got up on the steps and gave a great rallying speech as if she had done it a million times. She reminded me of that masculine cheerleader everyone likes in high school, who no one suspects is a lesbian even though she acts like Don Rickles when she’s drunk. At the end of her speech, she yelled, “Unite! Unite! Unite!” and everyone went for it and yelled it too. She was so electric, I completely forgot about giving my speech. And by just looking around I could see occupy was not about me, it was all about us.

Ringing the speech zone were all kinds of people with home-made protest signs scratched with feeble attempts at original slogans. I’ll put it this way-if the saying was on Facebook last week it isn’t original today. Remember this one: “I’ll agree Corporations are people when Texas executes one?” That was so 10 days ago. But I did see one sign that was new to me. It said, “When we get screwed, we multiply.” I liked that one. The rest of the crowd was mostly younger with some older hippies around for spice and even tourists - some elderly - strolling through the places where less people were congregated.

A group of twenty or so yoga heads was sitting in lotus position while patchouli flavored kids, some with dread-locked hair extensions, stepped over and around them. One young woman, spectacularly pregnant, stepped through the yoga heads and somehow managed to become entangled in their crossed legs, which caused quite a stir before she was unceremoniously ejected.

Even though it was only hours old, you could see people driving by the protest giving the sign-holders standing along the sidewalk the middle finger and thumbs down. But here’s a little nugget for the people making fun of the those protesting the greed and corruption in our government: You will get any benefit that happens because the protesters put their necks on the line without you ever knowing how much work it takes to organize events like this. Sure it’s a little naïve. I mean-get rid of capitalism? Come on, get real. One young woman had a sign that said, “Capitalism is a Disease,” which was doubly hilarious because not too long ago I found a pamphlet from 1960 that my Goldwater Republican father was passing around in those days that said, “Communism is a disease.” But regardless, people are protesting being out of work-because they are out of work. They are protesting getting screwed by the system-because they were screwed by the system.

There were large numbers of handicapped people, veterans and everyday people at the protest that lost everything, because they fell into one financial trap or another set by huge corporations, who used every trick ever invented to pull them in and spit them out. Every road in the American experience now leads to poverty and the system is rigged against the middle class. Just because someone has managed to sidestep disaster so far, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

My friend Tom, who is a successful something-to-do-with-computers person, made it a point to talk to the policemen and say things like, “You won’t have any trouble,” and “Pretty docile crowd, eh?” But, I think Tom was getting on the cops’ nerves by acting so friendly, and I had this unsettling feeling he was trying to show me how many cops were in attendance so I wouldn’t do anything stupid - like give my little speech. Tom doesn’t know that acting too friendly weirds cops out too, but I didn’t say anything. While the cops were being all nicey-nicey now, I say let’s wait about two weeks when the cops and the protesters start getting tired of staring each other down. The cops were already ringing the rooftops and taking pictures of every single person there because they know this. But hey-it’s all peaceful. Right?

Tom finally decided he was bored and insisted on driving me home, but I didn’t want to go. I was like the rare kid who goes to the circus and isn’t interested in just going to the circus. I wanted to join the circus. But after he implored me to leave with him, I left. But the call of occupy was ringing in my ears all night, and I was more determined than ever to return the next day and help occupy our space

On Wednesday night, Jan. 4, 2012, #occupyoakland’s site at Oscar Grant Plaza was raided with little to no warning by armed, angry, & non-peaceful Oakland police officers. An estimated 14 occupiers were arrested with out any charges.

Minutes after the surprise raid, the occupiers held an emergency GA which led to a group of 50 – 100 people marching in the streets on their way to the local police station where the arrestees were being detained. Once there, we were met with a line of agitated “peace officers” who shouted at us to “get the fuck away from them.” Some were slamming their batons on the ground in a failed attempt to intimidate the growing crowd of protesters who began giving the “pigs” a piece of their mind.

After finding the entrance, a group of about 5 of us let ourselves in to attempt to have a reasonable conversation to gather information about those who were arrested earlier in the evening. Pratibha Gautam, an attorney and member of “The Fresh Juice Party,” offered her legal knowledge and engaged the clerk in a civilized manner. I began to film with my cell phone & within seconds a disembodied male voice firmly requested that we shut the door. As I began to walk over to shut the door, 15-20 armed police officers filled the space and instantly demanded that we pick one person to speak to the gang of officers and the other four of us were given a 10 second warning to leave the building or stay the night with our fellow occupiers in a jail cell for “trespassing.”

Gautam was chosen to speak to the officers while the rest of us waited outside the glass doors. Unfortunately the OPD was uncooperative and did not give her any useful information, but rather a lie designed to send us to an empty building in search of our abducted comrades.

Occupiers yelled messages of love & solidarity to the prisoners with a loud and clear collective “OCCUPY!”

-Fresh Juice Party

When I arrived at Liberty Plaza last night, a little lost, trying to find my way around the Occupy Wall Street camp, the first thing I did was find the line for dinner. I was hungry. I had worked 13 hours that day, and needed to eat. I had heard that brilliant local chefs have volunteered to cook these fantastic meals for the protesters at the communal kitchen, so I lined up behind a guy who looked almost exactly like me: lost, a backback loaded up, a peaceful, accepting look on his face. And as we turned the corner, edging forward, we got our paper plates loaded with rice and lentils, soup bowls loaded up with a brilliant spicy stew, bread pudding, and apple sauce. All donated by supporters.

Our supporters.

Eating, sitting on a curb in the park, I got to talking with the guy next to me; “Its my first night here. Where do you throw trash?” “You sleeping here?” “Yes,” I said, admitting I hadn’t brought a sleeping bag, not knowing how things were.

“Welcome brother.” A handshake. We kept eating. Everyone’s eyes said the same thing, “welcome brother,” not in a creepy cultish way but in that way people who have gathered together to change things say it with their eyes. Walking around the camp, my next step was to see if they had at least a pillow for me to use; at a distribution center for donated clothes and blankets, they handed me a fleece, rolled it up, and said, “This could make a good pillow, don’t you think?” It did, and it would.

I walked around, I joined in the people’s assembly discussions about representation; I browsed in the provisional library, set up in plastic bins-in which The Beat Reader and Noam Chomsky were marked as REFERENCE. Reference indeed-next to Whitman, as well. In a spontaneously gathered group on the steps, I sang Bob Dylan in a crowd with a famous singer who showed up to help out; more folk music flowed from his guitar. Everybody, it seems, had a guitar.

I found a shining granite bench to sleep on; I was getting tired, and almost all the ground-space was taken up by people camped in tents or under tarps. The wind was blowing. It was getting colder, but I needed sleep; so I set up my “pillow,” put on an extra layer under my jacket, put my gloves on, put my hood up, and curled up on the bench.

Nearly asleep, back turned on the “path” between other sleepers and protesters, I suddenly felt a blanket being placed over me. I looked up, gave a thumbs up and thanks, and she said, “Keep warm dude.” That thick donated blanket would keep me warm through the windy, 45 degree night. I’d awake in the morning to donated bagels, a cup of coffee, friendly directions to the subway, so I could get to work on time.

My night at the protest glows in my memory, sustains me; we were all cooperating; we were all, remarkably. generously supported by each other, and by all the unseen anonymous supporters who gave us food, blankets, books, time. A thousand strings of support seemed to stretch out from every moment I occupied the park. I think of my fellow protesters down there tonight, as it gets colder-as “family night” goes forward (kids are invited tonight to the camp).

As the sign says: no protest, this occupation is an affirmation of all that we can do for each other, an affirmation of the way things can be. You see somebody sleeping without a blanket; you find them one. You put it on them. You keep them warm. That’s how you occupy privatized public space, take it back.

When I return to do another night there, I’ll bring books, food, and some pillows for the next person who needs one.

- Spurgeon Thompson