Last night, I got to thinking about Occupy Wall Street(OWS) and the time my wife and I spent visiting with the NYC protest group, back in 2011 and 2012. It inspired me to write a short post on "Waking Up".
https://steemit.com/redpill/@wakeupsheeps/what-was-your-red-pill-moment
Back then, we were so excited about joining forces, with a protest group, that was really sticking their thumb in the eye of Wall Street. Making a visible stand in Zuccotti Park, right across the way from the biggest banks and the NY Federal Reserve.
Whenever we could match our schedules with OWS marches, we would hop on a New Jersey Transit train and head for lower Manhattan. We quickly made a few friends, there were plenty of regulars in the OWS movement that were, essentially, full time protestors, even after the tents were removed. These people were living all around the city, on whatever couch or floor they could crash on.
The marches we joined were generally well attended, it was always hard to figure exact numbers, but there were always 500-1000 people involved. We marched from park to park, repeating protest chants, deviating our routes to avoid getting "kettled" by the NYPD. People would walk out of their buildings and join the marches, midstream.
We saw plenty of violence from the NYPD, they were out for blood. OWS was a pain in their collective asses and their dislike was quite apparent. I saw guys have their heads smashed through windows, batons used with impunity and arrests that were far rougher than could be justified. The beat cops were for the most part, very accommodating of OWS, it was their bosses, in the white shirts, that were out for scalps. They must have been told to make an example of the protesters by NYC Brass, because they were quite dangerous.
In one instance when they raided Zuccotti Park, one of the regulars, a very petite young woman was roughed up to the point that she was having convulsions, on the sidewalk, in handcuffs. My wife and some others finally were able to find some EMS workers among the cops to assist her. She had to be in that condition for twenty minutes before she was attended to.
May Day March
Our favorite trip into the city was on May Day, May 1st, 2012. We met up with a big crowd in Bryant Park, that crowd roused around 1:00 pm to march down to Union Square, where the crowd was enormous. Union Square was a permitted protest. They had live music and activist speakers. Groups from differing rallying points were pouring into the park by the hundreds. This is what I would imagine it was like in the middle ages, when the Nobles brought their armies together, to join the King's Legion of Forces, before a battle was fought.
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I'm not sure what the trigger was, but the crowd in Union Square began to slowly start the March around 4:00 pm. The crowd started heading South down Broadway. The whole of Downtown Manhattan was at a standstill. No vehicles could cross Broadway. The crowd was enormous. It was only 3 miles from Union Square to Battery Park, but it took us nearly four hours to get there.
Walking down Broadway, in the late afternoon, on a perfect Spring day, was pretty magical. The residents were hanging out of their windows, cheering support, same with people still in their offices. The NYPD was nearly invisible for the bulk of the walk.
The parade route brought us directly in front of City Hall and right through the heart of Wall Street. As you meander towards Wall Street, there is a bit of an uphill slope, the further South you go. As we were near the apex of the little hill, I turned around and looked back up Broadway, there was a phalanx of protesters as far as I could see, the roadway was completely blanketed. There had to be 40,000 people involved, official numbers say 15,000, but I beg to differ. It was such an awesome sight to see that many people, essentially saying, that there is something wrong with the system, just with their presence that day.
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As we were nearing the end of the route, it was getting dark, about 8:00 pm. We were passing by Zuccotti Park, heading towards the slight slope on Broadway, that filters traffic towards Battery Park, the Southern tip of Manhattan. This is where the police had been laying in wait all day. Looking down each side street, you could see the hundreds of cops mounted on bicycles, scooters and horses. There were empty transit buses transporting reinforcements to the scene and now waiting to transport any arrested protesters to jail.
You could feel a sense of claustrophobia in the air. I have never seen that many cops in one spot before. I knew that there was going to be a showdown in Battery Park. The marchers were heading into a fish trap set by the NYPD. I made a decision at that moment, our day of protest was over. I wasn't going to let my wife get injured in a police skirmish. I grabbed her by the wrist and we ducked into the Bowling Green Subway Station, the last escape before entering Battery Park, which the NYPD was going to evacuate, with menace, in about an hour.
Tom Morello's Guitarmy - We were with them all day Source
We missed the last 1/4 mile of the march, but we also lived to tell about it. We watched live-streams on our phones during our train ride home. We saw people we knew being arrested and roughed up. I guess I wasn't that much of a protester if I wasn't really excited about being arrested, but I wasn't. We went again on the one year anniversary of OWS, but that was the end of our times with the group.
I still believe that Occupy Wall Street frightened the Deep State to their very core. If the media hadn't done such an amazing job of portraying the group as dirty hippies with no agenda and no jobs, the general public may have taken a shine to the movement. Instead main street America, as per usual, sided with their invisible masters and decried the movement to be just a bunch of discontented deadbeats, getting in the way of real commerce. Just another example of how the beat-goes-on and the Powers-That-Be can maintain their control of the everyday man, simply by using the controlled media to spin the narrative in their favor.
Somehow the Wall Street Banks were able to paint themselves as the victims in this charade and gain the support of the people. It literally makes me shake my head when I think about how close that movement was to gaining real traction that could've made real change a possibility. It was that close to being the impetus that could have changed the world for the better.
What were your thoughts on the Occupy Movement?
Did you participate in any of the World Wide protest actions?
Were you rooting for the Big Banks or the Protesters?
- (There are no wrong answers)
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I wanted to be there so bad but I was in japan at the time, one of e few places where the movement failed to take off. Part of his was due to the anti nuke movement after the big earthquake which I did take part in, also around 40,000 people if I remember correctly, also 4000 as quoted by the media.
The the thing is, occupy didn't fail, it just slowed down and went underground. Besrnie sanders would not have become a household name. That is just the most obvious result, many topics that were once taboo are no acceptable to talk about in public.
I was lucky to meet some of the core people of a certain city, they are still doing amazing things, More productive things than they were doing before 2011.
So nice to know that you were there.
Interestingly enough, while at Occupy, I was interviewed by two separate Japanese reporters. You may have actually have seen me on the news!
Haha I was too busy worrying about radiation poisoning. I did keep up with the live streams from inside the camp though and was quite active in the chat
How many times did you make it out there?
Had to be ten trips up to NYC. We even sent a couple pizzas to the guys in D.C. with confirmation that they got them. Those must've been stressful times in Japan.
That was another red pill moment for me, the way the media covered the earthquake as well as the way they covered Wikileaks and occupy, oh man, I knew they bent the truth, I just never realized how much you could bend it without blatantly lying sometimes, though I'm sure they do that too.
Thanks for the post. I think OWS was close, but they didn't have it quite right. The true source of our problems is with the Federal Reserve Banking system. Once you dig into that and understand that well, you'll see that Wall Street is a symptom of the problem created by the Federal Reserve. Wall Street is really a misdirection, and of course, OWS wanted more regulations on Wall Street, which wouldn't have changed anything, which is why the media pushed that narrative. The powers that be love directing our energy into sinkholes that ultimately reflect power back to the government and change next to nothing for the common person.
Take it one step further and look into the Exchange Stabilization Fund - The ESF is the Treasury Dark Pool of money that dictates to the Federal Reserve. It's a very deep rabbit's hole.
OWS wasn't perfect, but closer to the truth than any other group that decided to take action. They were also subverted in the end, as they tried to streamline their platform.
The only problem I ever had with the Occupy Movement is that they were blaming the 1% for things the 99% are doing. Take Steemit for example - people are Volunteering to use Facebook and other platforms that keep 1%'ers wealthy; rather than tap into streams like these where we have a chance to Distribute money better ....
People do not support their friends' business ventures --
People do not get together with friends to discuss business ideas, or purchasing real estate, or even investing in Cryptocurrencies.
But people will turn around and blame those 1%'ers for not giving them more money??? For not making health care a better option for more people?? Well why would they when our society puts NO Pressure on them to change, or improve??
We saw just how much of a threat to society it was for these people simply to assemble; But they stopped?
Why? -- and there in lies the entire problem. Society itself is made up of too many people who seemingly Do not have what it takes, to go up against Systematic levels of Oppression; and in fact often society participates in the very issues we 'should' be against.
Good point on not practicing what you preach but it's kind of a generalization, I think the people who were deeply involved avoid McDonald's and support local business.
I have always wondered why there hasn't been more of an effort to rekindle the flame, but I think going underground might have been a better decision in the long run.
You're right about that as well; While in the public limelight too many opportunities for greed emerge; I.E. an issue within the 'black lives matter' organization; which isn't all that organized; there are several people who use it as a great way to collect a check for photo opps; while they get absolutely nothing done; and accomplish no progress at all.
A lot of the people who "represent" black lives matter seem like a fringe of the movement who make them look a lot more wacky than they are, it's a pretty common tactic from the media. So this may be why we don't see ows2.0 but I think if you seek it out you find the movement lives on today, however fragmented
Please give me a specific example of a person who represents black lives matter, that makes them look like a Fringe of the Movement; also if you don't mind explain how someone you label as a 'fringe of the movement' - can also make the movement look wacky; when they are clearly not part of the movement (by definition that's what fringe means) ---
thanks
I can't give specific examples. I don't know of anyone who was supposed to represents the movement, from what I know it was a decentralized movement like ows. But the media often doesn't know how to comprehend something that doesn't have a leader so they create leaders or heros to interview. I was not in the US st the time so it's hard for me to figure out exactly what was happening....But the few times I saw it on mainstream news, it seemed to be represented very differently from what I was seeing on Facebook, which isn't surprising. I just remember some white people who are a bit culturally isolated talking how nuts the movement was always referring to really overly dramatic instances, videos of people from the movement making really ridiculous remarks and such to defend or explain the movement...meanwhile the friends who were part of the movement posted stuff that seemed really balance and justified. This seems to happen to every movement. The media and even social media find ways to make it look nuts.
It's kind of like how he media will make you think anarchists are all violent when in fact many of them are community driven peaceful people....represented as being more fringe than it is.
I can't say that I was 100% behind everything OWS was doing, hell, they used Deutsche Bank's lobby as meeting space, a slight conflict of interest. It is near impossible to keep a protest movement when TPTB have decided to systematically remove it. They will attack from every direction. Society ends up backing the oppressors.
Occupy Wall Street was just a bunch of dirty hippies with no agenda and no jobs, or at least that is what my master wants me to think. ;)
Honestly, though, my red pill did not come until after that, so unfortunately that is not far from the truth, even though I joke about it now. It is a good reminder about how you have to be ready to receive the truth, and that any of the zombies walking among us may at any time wake up. We just need to be available to assist when that time comes.
Thx for the story. :)
What you said is true. People don't need to go out and try to wake people up in a missionary fashion, just be ready to help others who start having real questions. Thanks for reading @sminchow.
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Thanks for sharing your experience at OWS! I was just thinking back to those days and decided to share some photos on my first Steemit post.
https://steemit.com/photography/@ryan.thompson/hello-steemit-community