This is a report about my experiences so far at the Albany NY occupation. We started the occupation Friday October 21 at Lafayette/Academy Park across from Albany's historic City Hall. We were bit behind is starting our occupation, however, the Capitol of New York State is well represented by some fine people! Within 5 minutes we had our first Agents Provocateurs carrying offensive signs. For the next several hours I experienced democratic action and participatory democracy and it felt sooooooooo good! Follow me below the Fleur de Kos for the details.
As a point of process, this is my first diary. I started reading and commenting here several years ago; at first, I was too intimidated by the great writers here, then I went through many life changes keeping me away from writing. I've always been a fan of Meteor Blades, OPOL, bondad, and nyceve; recently I have been a fan of MoT's and have had a transformation in which I knew participating in the process is more important for me than staying on the side lines.
My first interaction with the OWS movement was after the first weekend, I made a monetary contribution and have kept my brain in tune to the reports in the media. Then I found out from my local food co-op's manager that the Albany occupation was going to start on last Friday. I planned to be there right at Noon. I re arranged my work schedule so I could spend all afternoon there and began to make my sign. My sign reads:Corporations Are NOT People; Money Is Not Speech; We are the 99%. Within 5 minutes I had a round green sticker on the sign supporting local teachers.
Minutes later, the four Agents Provocateurs showed up. They came across the street carrying two HUGE signs, one saying "Kill Whitey". They started to get in the line of site of the two or three media cameras present and some of the savvy protesters went over and we asked them what the signs meant. I asked, "Hey man, who is Whitey, is he a friend of yours?" A guy not holding the sign answered with the lame, "It's a friend of mine's name and he will laugh that our sign we made in two minutes will be on TeeVee." Basically, we shamed them off the premises with the help of the three NYS Troopers who were there on the sidewalk with us. Moments before, the Troopers had just told us there was an 11 PM curfew on the state side of the park and that we would not be allowed to camp. He suggested the city side of the park may allow us to stay after curfew.
There have been a few diaries about our wonderful Governor 1% Andrew Cuomo and his missive to Mayor Gerry Jennings to not allow the protesters to camp out. The Police decided not to follow orders and did not move or arrest anybody. The occupation did decide to make the city side of the park the site where tents are pitched. The first day, I believe about 300 non media were present. As of tonight there are about 75 people spending the night; men, women, and children.
Tonight, I was standing on the street waving my sign next to a great gentleman who is a state worker and belongs to one of our beleaguered Public Employee unions. We had a great give and take about the why, what and did you ever think this would happen aspects of the occupation. He feels that the root cause of the system failure is greed to accumulate money. He thinks the 1% don't get it, that they are cutting off society's nose to spite it's face. We had a great discussion about the system of employment, the meaning of "work" and his views that the current system is slanted toward the gathering of possessions and trying to prove "who has more". I mentioned the book Walden 2 by B.F. Skinner, which he had never read, using it's premise as an example of the fact that work has become the end goal rather than a means to the end goal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He claimed to be more socialist in his thinking and I said Anti-Capitalism was more like my inner philosophy.
I will leave you with this mental image: Immediately after the first General Assembly Friday night a man came up to the location where we had staged the GA, which happened to be a Vietnam Veterans War Memorial Statue. We had bungee corded signs over the statue showing the various non verbal cues used during the GA (Block is folded arms, approval is upward wiggling fingers, disapproval is downward wiggling fingers, etc). He acted furious and mentioned he was a Veteran and that we were defacing the memorial. The facilitator repeated what he said using the peoples mic, and he got mad saying we were mocking him. Someone took him aside and spoke with him for a short while, and I am not sure what was said. However, the next day at the GA, a new working group was formed for Military Veterans and their issues. Participatory democracy at it's finest. I am proud of my brothers and sisters who are standing tall and facing up to the ills of our system acting and protesting the inequalities which keep the system rigged in favor of the oligarchs and their faceless corporations.
Power to the Peaceful!