No - not MinistryOfTruth. As many Kossacks know I've been camping out pretty much indefinitely down here at OccupyWallstreet. I've slept on the steps, by the media center, but the sides of the halal carts, by the squatter kids that have drifted down here from the east village - all about the park I've found a place to lay my head and rest. The weather has been rainy in new york and many have been unprepared for enduring a night of rainfall.
Thankfully I was a boy scout when I was a young boy and learned a great deal about how to form a structure that will resist the elements. I've been warm, and dry, though over tired and seem to never be able to catch up on all the events that have been swirling around me.
Jesse and I have seemed to go on adventure after adventure in the last few weeks but this is something that happened a few minutes after I had left him.
For a few nights I had decided that sleeping on the outside of the park might be preferable to sleeping on the inside. The crowds, the voices, the groups of teenage girls wanting to pull all night loud conversations, the homeless drunk guys, the homeless squatter kids, all tend to gravitate to the inside of the park at night. Sleep can be difficult but I take it in stride considering all these people belong to the 99 percent.
Frankly it is galling to me to imaging turning these people away. There are several people with severe mental illness there. When you have a place in New York City offering free food, free supplies, free love, free knowledge, free space, free conversation - you will attract everyone and that includes the homeless. Less than four blocks away is an office for the homeless coalition.
To me it means trying to find the most quiet space because I work downtown and have to have at least five hours of sleep so I can function properly.
Not all the homeless have metal illness problems.
This woman has been here for a week with her husband and is trying to figure out how they can survive when she has lost her job, her husband is on disability and they can't afford to save money to even rent an apartment. The barriers to them being able to recover their lives is huge and one of the reasons I continue to fight for OWS.
Well MoT and I were having a beer at the Irish Pub down the block from OWS after a long day. I was tired and feeling a bit cranky. I had not slept much in the last few days and decided that at 11 pm was my cut off time. I bid him and our compatriots goodnight and walked back to the park with my 60 pound pack strapped to my back. For a few nights I had camped by the Medical tent as I had had two good experiences sleeping near there. The night before I had been kept up most the night by a man who was mentally ill and screaming at the top of his lungs wishing to fight people for at 3 am.
So I picked the opposite side of the medical on the side where the cops have been turning on their high beams at three am and the construction workers drill from 7 pm till 11 pm almost every night. I saw a Jewish Sukket and set my little structure up near it. I was waiting for a friend to arrive but I heard a bunch of commotion by the medical tent. I didn't at first rush over because of all the arrests I have witnessed and the sheer fact that I just wanted to sleep. People began chanting and screaming and I decided then it was time to go over.
I cut my way through the park and headed to the other side. There was gathering of maybe thirty or forty occupiers in a heated confrontation with a couple of cops. Apparently they had decided that the the medical tent was not fit to stand in the park and were going to take it down.
I've seen the people who work in the medical tent. I've talked to some of them. They are volunteer emt's, volunteer dr's and people who have real experience in the medical profession. If I am hurt down here I can expect a quality of healthcare that for several years was denied to me because of lack of insurance.
It was cold and I joined the throng of people there. The cops were going to move in telling us that if we did not leave right now from the medical section that we would all face arrest. I was prepared to be arrested then. It would not be the first time and I know what strife it would cause me in my life. My career and all that I've tried to work for would be in jeopardy. However this is not what goes through your mind when confronted with police seeking to forcibly remove one of the structures that have helped OWS since the start.
You don't think about the if's the whats, and what will happen to you in a holding cell. I am brave but I am not that brave and I fear prison. From spending 36 hours in a holding cell I vowed I didn't want to return.
It seemed though that a miracle happened.
Jesse Jackson walked down the side of the street at the sound of the commotion. It has not been the first time he has been down here nor do I think it will be the last. He walked right up and tried to intervene with the police officers. They did not seem to know who he was right away - hell nether did I. But within a minute or two it became clear and we started shouting for him to join the chain we had created around the medical tent.
He did not hesitate.
He did not avert his eyes.
He walked straight in and stood fast. That picture on the front page only captures some of it. I wish I had been able to record or take pictures but sometimes you aren't thinking like that at all. Not when you have seen the brutality of the last few weeks up close and person.
Many of the people in the chain were homeless and many were die hard protesters like myself but it was a chain of the 99 percent standing up for a basic right to have healthcare that is free for the occupation.
Jesse Jackson was my hero that night. He talked the cops down and they just decided to walk away. No bells, no whistles, no calling for backup, they just walked away. I guess they decided the images of Jesse Jackson being arrested for trying to defend the healthcare of the occupation wouldn't be good for their careers.
Whatever it was - they left and he saved us. We thanked him and I returned to my small tent to finally get some sleep. I havn't even processed much of what I have witnessed. Only knowing that my life is changing and I hope that the world is changing with it.
We have a brand new starkly white tent clearly indicating it is a medical tent and it has so far been allowed to stand.
If they come for it again - we will defend it - we will defend our right to have a better life and to fight for all people who have been shit on, been beaten down, and who by no fault of their own have been cast into a life of poverty.
We will not stop.
Winter is coming.
Bring it on.