I spent three days in Washington, DC last week. I was part of the Wisconsin contingent that marched into Freedom Plaza on October 6th to great cheers from the crowds who had gathered to “Stop the Machine” and help occupy the nation’s capital. It was a humbling and exhilarating experience, and there were many more moments that I will never forget. I had soul-shifting, one-on-one conversations with people from all over America including a young woman from Buffalo who wants PEACE for her 30th birthday, a retired doctor and Vets for Peace member from northern Minnesota, a woman from Chicago who lost her job to layoffs then her house to foreclosure. She was in Washington for a family wedding but was grateful to have one day to spend in Freedom Plaza.
There were more. A retired couple who had driven their RV from Montana to Washington, activists from Madison I recognized but had never been formally introduced to, a man who serves on a Maryland state commission on education, a hotel doorman whose son plays football for the University of Nebraska and who was able to joke about the recent Nebraska loss to the University of Wisconsin Badgers, a street vendor who prepared a hot dog for me (kraut and mustard) then asked me what we were protesting. I answered “For me, it’s about stopping the wars and using the money to take care of people and put people to work here in America building schools and roads.”
“That’s good,” she said. “We need that.”
The man who really opened my eyes, though, was a man I never spoke to. He was, and I presume still is, homeless and severely mentally ill. On Saturday morning I was in Freedom Plaza talking with a young man from Virginia who suddenly said “Ooh, that’s not good,” and motioned toward the trash cans set up near the food tent. I turned around to see a very large puddle of vomit on the plaza stones. The homeless man I mentioned above had just spewed his guts out and was standing nearby, talking to himself and drinking something from a coffee cup.
The young man from Virginia excused himself from our conversation and went to summon some help to clean up the mess. He asked the homeless man if he was OK, but the man was not really able to engage. So, while I stood by, the young man found some plastic gloves, some paper towels, and a piece of cardboard and went back to start cleaning up the vomit. When he did, the homeless man knelt down to help – by scooping up the vomit in his hands and eating it. He continued scooping and consuming his vomit while people went to find some of the event organizers for assistance. Someone called 9-1-1 to get the homeless man some medical care.
It was nearly impossible to persuade the ill man to stop, but he eventually got up on his own and found his way into the middle of the large assembly/discussion circle that was going on among participants. People were prepared to let him walk in circles until help arrived, but when he began to vomit again it became a health hazard, so a few people were able to gently shepherd the man to another space, where he continued to walk in circles and vomit occasionally on the pavement.
EMT’s from the fire department were the first responders to arrive, but they couldn’t persuade the man to go with them and said there was nothing they could do without police. Eventually three or four police officers showed up but were initially hesitant about what to do. One who appeared to be more experienced (or perhaps a supervisor) agreed with some of the event organizers that the vomiting made the situation dangerous to public health. They eventually cajoled the man into letting them put him on a gurney and take him…somewhere.
Reflecting on this incident since it happened, I get very angry. At the time it happened, I was carrying a sign I made with the word FAIL in big letters, and an arrow pointing to my copy of “The Idiot’s Guide to Health Care for the Uninsured” which I had strapped to the sign. The book is actually a serious but heartbreaking effort to document where people can go to beg for health care in America, how to bargain with doctors (answer: cash), why you shouldn’t do dangerous things that might hurt you, and some basic first aid techniques.
It occurs to me now that even that earnest Idiot’s Guide, which serves as both an intentional self-help book and an unintentional expose’ of America’s corrupt and cruel health care system, was useless to that obviously critically ill man. This is America! The man chooses to walk around with no shoes in cold weather? Let him die. The man chooses to suffer from severe mental illness, walk in circles, and talk gibberish? Let him die. The man chooses to eat vomit off the sidewalk? Let him die. Who cares what pathogens he ingested, what diseases he might contract or have already. He can’t pay? He smells bad? He can’t engage in conversation? He has no ability to make a rational decision about his own well-being? Tough. LET. HIM. DIE.
I don’t blame the first responders who were enforcing limits dictated by a system that has no incentive to provide care to someone who can’t pay. The EMT’s and the police are often just gatekeepers, and their bosses tell them who to let in and who to turn away. On most days, that sick, homeless man would have been turned away, or forgotten. When he needed help that day, though, a team of 21st-century hippies, war veterans, organic farmers, exhausted peace activists, and angry, laid–off workers insisted that society provide the man some assistance. They did not give up. They did not shake their heads and walk away. They didn’t say “Fuck the police!” They formed a wall to get the man away from a place where he could injure others, then they engaged with emergency responders and helped find a justification for taking that ill man to a hospital. Finally, they cleaned up the vomit and disinfected the pavement with bleach. All volunteer. All leaderless, just a consensus on what needed to be done and some people willing to do it.
Did it matter? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the ill man is feeling a little better. I hope so.
We are the 99%. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that. The ill man, the police, the activists – we are all the 99%. We have to stick together. We have to be patient with each other. We have to watch out for each other. We have to be willing to say to authority “No, we do not accept that answer. We have to find another way. You must help this person.” We must insist. We must stand together, sit together, stop traffic together, and start to occupy the spaces where evil is carried out and say we’ve had enough. We need to keep showing up, keep turning to each other and asking “What’s your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?” We must stop the machine, each of us contributing what we can to the effort and appreciating every small gift that someone else brings to share.