Yesterday had so many twists, turns, surprises, and blessings that it will be a challenge to recall the events in their entirety, but here it goes…
The planned action was to meet throughout the morning, speakers at Noon, march on the banks at one.
The turnout, even for the speaking time, was really heartening. On a fabulously beautiful day in Santa Barbara, with most people looking forward to the Lemon Festival in Goleta and beach time, we had hundreds of people show to give support and participate. Vets spoke, American Indian Movement folks spoke, a couple of SEIU shirts speckled the audience, and the silverbacks of our community were interacting with our energetic youth.
Kudos to our two MCs! They helped to facilitate positive, focused, and uniting discourse. We even had a song called “It’s a Corporate Loophole” sang to the tune of Disney’s “It’s a Small World” with most of the crowd joining in! Our Organizational committee distributed pamphlets covering everything from the Wall St. Statement, the two statements that have originated from our General Assemblies/Synthesis Committee, event schedules, as well as our General Assembly meeting formats, with diagrams describing all relevant hand gestures. Awesome outreach! Spanish version, anyone?
With printouts of our route distributed to our march route guides, the SBPD (who was, again, incredibly cooperative/supportive), and various other 99% in attendance, we marched. For those who don’t know, this was our fourth (or fifth?) march in the past 12 days, with the previous two Saturdays’ being the largest marches. In this particular action, OccupySB increased our numbers some 35% versus last weekend for a grand total of 450-ish shutting down our State Street, which is our main street, (crowd counts provided by our Organization/Media Committees).
As I’ve related via other communication methods, I’ve never been a part of any protest, political, or public movement where I’ve witnessed such astounding support from the collection of folks bearing witness. Fists are pumped in the air from two middle-aged Latino women. Peace signs are thrown from a family who, based on the number of cameras hanging off their necks, appeared to be on vacation. Lips start silently mouthing the chants as we walk by finding their own voices with a rising chorus of, “We are the 99% and so are you!”. Young couples drag each other into the street and join us in inspirational fits of rising consciousness. These experiences, for me personally at least, really is beyond description. Intra-human communication-power.
At the banks people wanted to close their accounts but were denied entry by door-locking managers, ironically resulting in other legitimate customers being locked-in. Side note: Is it feasibly possible that the multi-national banks’ customer service could get any worse? I guess they could always arrest us for closing our accounts….
Picking up more people and momentum on the way back down to the Plaza, we returned, victoriously celebrating our people power. A workshop near-immediately commenced (I, inexcusably, forget the topic) on one side of the plaza while open forum people’s mic was happening at the other.
Then we had some challenges. A local fella, who the group had self-policed out of a GA earlier in the week for incidents of hate speech against women and minorities, showed back up, like a moth to a flame, needing, desiring, and having to have his voice heard again.
So we let him speak. It’s a public park. What can you do? He proceeded with reading an email exchange he had with yours-truly following his horrible first appearance at the GA earlier in the week. After reading verbatim his long email to me about why “Liberal Fascism” will make our movement irrelevant, (one specific reason being his belief that we potentially have undocumented workers in our ranks that shouldn’t have a say in our proceedings) he proceeded to read my response email, again in verbatim.
Reading my response in a condemning voice dripping with sarcasm he read my words back to the group, "I guess at the end of the day I think we have such unifying problems, that include and even go beyond immigration issues, regarding the corporate oligarchy that has taken over our public institutions/policies, that I have little patience for topics that would divide us."
To his surprise, people were clapping at my responses, not seeming to find them nearly as offensive as dehumanizing people by calling them “Illegal aliens”. At any rate, as he noticed that he was losing the crowd, (majority of people were in workshop meetings so not that many of us were giving him attention anyway), suddenly this upset soul started hurling hate speech at our female 99%’ers. I will not repeat what he said here, just rest assured that it is exactly the type of misogynist language that people who have underlying issues with the opposite gender (or are just mentally unstable) are known to utilize.
We attempted intervention inviting him to come talk to some of us about his concerns and to relinquish the floor. The Disconcerted Dude seemed to be inviting conflict and continued to yell hate speech to whomever was near. Our heroine-harpist was shoulder to shoulder with a couple of others confronting him with verbal reasoning techniques. Since we recently addressed self-policing actions and policies in a GA (ironically inspired by this specific individual’s first visit to our occupation), we went to reach out to the majority of our occupiers, who were still in workshop-mode.
Suddenly a flashpoint: he lashes out in an angry kick, which is absorbed/blocked by one of our amazing members standing in front of the harpist (who was a primary target for his invectives and, also, the physical kick). Our law liaison (in this case me) asked for consent/informed the body that, based on the prior GA laying the groundwork for when the SBPD should be called, (which boils down to anytime someone is trying to commit violent acts on anyone nearby) I made the call to the watch commander.
I want to go on record right now by saying a couple of things:
1. I only called the police as a last resort, especially since I believe this person suffers from mental health issue and a night in county never does anything to really give people suffering from such issues proper support and/or treatment.
2. I have overwhelming sympathy for this person. There was a deep sense I got from him of pain and of being wronged on fundamental levels. I reminded myself that we all try to find scapegoats for our own personal pains. This urge is further exacerbated by a media too willing to help us create a circular firing squad where our angst regarding our life-issues is artificially channeled and blamed on our fellow citizens, (when, as we are all figuring out while the blinders are removed, that the underlying system is really what is to blame and needs to change).
Having said that, when I see someone yelling hate speech at the women occupying, as well as performing a front kick on one of our members, it took every ounce of my will to stay peaceful. The SBPD was there in under five minutes. They worked professionally and efficiently, speaking with our 99%’er who was kicked as well as Captain Chip-on-Shoulder. I personally and simultaneously mourned and celebrated that moment. We had stayed to protocol as a group. We had stopped someone who, while not coming anywhere close to an agent provocateur, was a disruptive and hateful presence to our occupation. On the other hand, we had also routed another person suffering from under-recognized mental illness issues into one of our systems in society that exacerbates said issues. Seeing the muddy grays in life’s events are a constant for me and sometimes I have to envy those who are color blind to said grays.
And so camp-OccupySB resettled. People continued talking. Hot food was made. I bounced in and out of the Plaza, going off to meet with people helping us to work on our organization regarding taking donations and jumping into an interview on our local public access station.
By the time the 6pm GA rolled around we still had 50ish people reviewing a host of topics. I’ll leave the exact report on that up to the folks who were taking notes, but the process we put in place is working, (albeit still slower than some of the newcomers are yet-willing to have the attention span for). Side note Highlight - Pizza Guru’s owners sending in 10 large pies in support! <3
Night falls. The plaza’s long shadows make our live stream dark, but still fully operational. The GA ends with certain individuals expressing intentions to occupy all night regardless of police opposition. Tents suddenly multiply from two to four to five, the projector and documentaries begin running against City Hall’s wall, and the euphoria that was so prevalent during our first night of the occupation (the only night so far where we had been able to truly occupy) is found once again in droves.
Food is continually distributed. The water station is well-used. An expectant calm settles over the camp. Similar to the resoluteness of the first night, but with a calm knowledge of what to expect when the SBPD does come. The night’s lesson, however, would again prove that trying to expect or anticipate anything with this movement is (as was said in GA this week) like trying to put butter on a dolphin….
The hours tick by. Time does that funny stretchy-thing that it always does in self-perceived beautiful moments. Friends of mine from Portland show up and come over from Elsie’s to the occupation.
There is music being played from guitars, flutes, banjoes, vocal chords, and our amazing harpist. The information sharing had gotten down to brass tacks with people in various states of repose sharing thoughts, visions, experiences, actions plans, ideals, fears, perceived challenges, messages of reassurance, and generally just connecting with their fellow persons. Groups occupy Tony Ray’s, donning our consumer hats and supporting a local business who has been incredibly supportive of us.
We are well past ten now….well past 1am actually. No police presence had shown up since 9:30 and our resident scout, P. Kennedy, was reporting back from the lower State Street scene that the police probably had plenty to keep them busy. People continue to take turns at the live feed answering questions from viewers in our city, county, state, country, and world!
And then there were red and blue lights in the air. A traffic stop pulled into the street that rounds the De La Guerra Plaza. Excited apprehensive chatter breaks out among the collective: “Is this the first of many?” “I think he is just doing a traffic stop…” “Be careful” “Cops, Cops, Cops!” “It’s just a traffic stop, people!”
The first car waits patiently for his second car backup, which appears to be the standard operating procedure for the SBPD. The second officer arrives. They very briefly speak to the driver. In the meantime our GP friends in the camp break out into an anti-establishment song and start dancing around in a impromptu display of Snoopy-dancing-style freedom.
We collectively held our breath and wondered what’s next. Which equipment do we grab first (media station!)? Will our camp crew be able to facilitate the removal of tents and personal property so that it doesn’t get confiscated? Are the cops hungry, because we still have extra food…?
Then something amazing happened. The first cop on the scene, a clean cut officer seeming to be in his late twenties, walks into our sign gallery. With tens of signs posted all over the park he stands among them like a patch of blue water among the brown cardboard landscape. I approach and shake his hand. He smilingly says, “I guess we aren’t enforcing the no camping ordinance anymore?”, I respond, “Apparently not tonight.” Mutual respect permeated our communication like pinpricks in a star map.
The young woman officer with him from the second cruiser has his phone and appears to be ready to take a picture. The young male officer asks, “Do you mind if I pick this up?” with the most beautiful and goofy smile on his face, indicating a sign that reads, “Who will protect us from the police?”. Of all the signs, chalk sidewalk art, and installations in the park, the officer picks this specific sign to hold while smiling and pointing, just like any of us do when we are having fun with a photo op that we know will eventually be shared with our family, friends, and loved ones. He asked one of our members if he was the person who had made public comment at the last City Council public statement session, stating that he had seen it online and obviously dug the message.
The crowd, who was collecting to witness this display of surprising solidarity, brought the live feed and media over, the officers became a bit more shy, remarking, “Oh crap! Am I being recorded?” With that they departed to cheers and chants, playfully flipping on and off their sirens as they left the DLGP. Responses resulting were solidarity fists, hollers, and random expression of joy at the fact now-dawning on our occupiers that we were going to have our second 24hour occupation at day 12!
We settled in further with a central-ish group who was laying in blankets, sleeping bags, makeshift bedding constructs, sharing their ideas long into the night with passion and reverence. The remaining group, who hadn’t succumbed to the sandman, ended up listening to MLK Jr. speeches, watched occupation videos from across the globe, and continued to interact with our viewers on the live stream.
At about 4:30 one of the occupiers came out of his tent and asked to have the current MLK speech turned down a bit. After a little back and forth the volume was reduced to the point where only those still excited enough not to get shut-eye stayed up communicating out a continuation of our communal consciousness. “Educational experience” isn’t a proper description of those events, but it comes close.
Sleep took me as the sky was beginning to light up. Wedged between a few other people I felt like one of the penguins from the “March of The…”, with us all checking with the others regarding who was feeling too cold and redistributing comfort accordingly.
I woke up to people doing morning yoga, breakfast being cooked on a grill, and people tearing apart our local daily newspaper for reporting on the Occupy Lompoc (in our county), plus the national/international occupations. The reporting seemed to conveniently never mention the local OccupySB. Another disappointing performance, Santa Barbara News-Less.
So here we are. On the other side of October 15th, 2011. A day that saw over 1,000 towns and cities across the world have active occupations of some size. They were everything from symbolic and cute, to epic and even violent (in the case of Rome and others). Europe has been pissed about austerity measures longer than most of us in the U.S. have been paying attention, and Italy particular is suffering from a 40% unemployment rate for College graduates. In short: Sh*& is Fu%^ed! History was made yesterday, but the really good news is that (imho) it will continue to be made until there is some very fundamental changes in our society.
At this time there is no denying that this has become one of the most connected and massive human movements in history. Eat it, industrial revolution. There truly is no stopping us now.
In love, peace, and enjoying the view of a better future,
Marshall Getto
marshall.getto@gmail.com
OccupySB.org
https://www.facebook.com/OccupySB