This is the first 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. 

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“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 29, 1938.

Chapter 1 The Thinking Tree

It was a blistering hot afternoon at the end of September, 2011, and I convinced a long-time friend named David to give me a ride to my first Occupy Austin planning meeting. It was taking place under a huge pecan tree in Austin’s Zilker Park, near the famed Barton Springs. We brought along a cooler filled with ice and a twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon to drink while waiting for the meeting to begin. As the Occupy Austin contingent arrived, they disturbed a handful of grossly intoxicated homeless men seeking refuge in the shade of this massive pecan tree, now known as The Thinking Tree by the occupiers.

Thankfully, the summer of 2011 was drawing to a close. It had not been a typical Austin summer. With no rain for almost a year and daily temperatures well over 100 degrees, the city looked like an overcooked cheese pizza. As the 50 or so occupiers settled in, they sat cross-legged or lounged on fresh blankets among the bewildered and bedraggled homeless. The occupiers appeared very optimistic, as if they were the super-warriors who were finally going to slay the fire-breathing hydra of Corporatism, Fascism, Oligarchism and Plutocracy that not only ate their future, but the lives and fortunes of millions of others throughout history.

So on this screaming hot September afternoon, the Occupy Austin arm of the Occupy Wall Street movement was born, for me anyway, although there was an earlier meeting at the La Zona Rosa coffee shop a few days before. The occupy group was as serious as any I’d ever seen, and true to Austin’s form, the homeless alcoholics who peppered the crowd were being surly and uncooperative. When a list went around for people to sign up and speak, a shirtless bum named Tommy signed up, but when his name was called to speak-at least five times-he awoke from a drunken slumber, and then slowly and clumsily sat upright. He wiped the slobber off his chin with the back of his hand and mumbled, “You gonna have to give me a minute,” then he fell back and passed out again. His hairless white beer belly was aglow in the slanting afternoon sun. He looked like a dead goldfish floating belly-up in an old fish bowl, dusty and forgotten on the bottom shelf of humanity.

I watched the Occupiers, mostly young people in their 20’s and 30’s, get things arranged to suit them. A recording device had to be put in the right place. Then they had to make sure the sun wasn’t in their eyes, so they could see the person speaking, play with Facebook or text somebody on their iPhones while the speeches were being done.

Then a dreadlocked mediator started with the hand signal thing that would be pervasive throughout the occupation. Today was mostly an introduction to the sparkle fingers. That’s where you wiggle your fingers above your head if you like something, at waist level when you are neutral, and down low when you don’t like something.

A discussion began about how we intended to post pictures and record everything on Facebook. This went on for 10 minutes, and I suddenly lost my patience and shouted out of turn. I loudly stated it was ludicrous to feed all your personal information into Facebook, a giant corporation, while using a device made in a sweatshop in China for another giant corporation, Apple. This outburst was met by a shirtless man, refreshed from a dip in the springs, who yelled, “Well, you’re drinking a beer!” I replied, “Well at least this beer’s not taking all my personal information and storing it for the fascists we are trying to fight in this movement to use against us.” That was met with plenty of down-low sparkle fingers. Was I missing something here? A fat young man, with an impressive Jew-fro, ran over and attempted to calm me down. He was very nice as he tried to find “common ground,” and I apologized for floating such a far-out idea and for being a little drunk myself.

While the older radicals, like myself, would have given up right there, I swore I was going to see this thing through and record the lives of these people. To dig deeper and see what motivates them, and maybe find out more about myself in the process. And of course, there is something to be said about what you can learn from seeing a society develop from the ground up. Maybe we can find something we missed the first time around. And I also knew the story of Occupy Austin would have an end, just like it had a beginning.

David and I became frustrated with the slow pace and irony of everything the group talked about, and the fact we hadn’t experienced this type of ordered meeting since grade school-so we were out, for that day anyway. On the way home, I told David regardless of how things went today, I believed in what the Occupy Austin people are trying to accomplish and wanted to be part of it.

David screamed, “You’re crazy, you know that! You are fucking insane!” Then we made fun of a few of the characters we saw so he would settle down and stop calling me crazy. But in my heart, I knew there was something more to the movement than just a few drunks and posers. I knew there were people with a lot of passion involved and this was serious business for plenty of folks, not just in Austin, but around the world.

The fact is, our world is in crisis and the occupy movement is like a festering boil. At some point, it will make the fascists uncomfortable and will have to be removed by any means possible. But on this late-summer day, and seared by the Texas sun, I was as optimistic as any of the occupiers, and as happily drunk as my homeless counterparts. I was ready to roll.

-Jim Gober-

This is the first 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.