September 28, 2021 • 39 mins
We talk to writer and agitator Vicky Osterweil about the emergence of Occupy, the 2011 revolutions, and the perils of non-violence
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome. It could happen here pod a podcast that is
today about the fact that ten years ago it did happen.
And when when when I when I say it did happen,
I mean we occupied an extremely large number of places,
and we did so in interesting and incredibly bizarre ways.
And with with with me to talk about this is
Garrison as always. I like that you used the Twitter
(00:25):
handle for our podcast, not the actual name, but that's fine.
Where can it where can it go for it? But
hello with me, I have I have my special guest,
Vicky Ostrowil, who is an agitator, who is a writer,
who has done many many things, probably most famously writing
(00:47):
the book In Defense of Looting Um from Bold Press,
Bold Type Press, Bultypress. Yeah, very good book. People got
very bad, people got very angry. Yeah, thank you. It's
it's really I'm really excited to be here to to
talk about the the anniversary of Occupy from which is
basically you know when I when I all got this
(01:08):
whole train rolling, So yeah, and the the other the
other thing um that that it is probably relevant here
is that Vicky was one of the first people at
Occupy and and little correct me if I'm wrong about this.
I found an oblique reference to this in one of
the things I read. You facilitated the first meeting, Yes,
the yeah, yeah, I got it's on the record now,
(01:30):
yeah I I uh yeah during UM, during the general
New York City General Assembly it was called in August. UM,
there was you know, uh, ad Busters hopefully called for
a general assembly, and you know, a bunch of us
sort of went down there and there was a tanky
party there um doing a general assembly, which was just
them on speakers, UM, doing their regular ranting. Um hadn't
(01:53):
changed much in ten years, um and uh and we um. Yeah.
So a bunch of us just went and sat down, uh,
you know, to the side of it, and started an
actual general assembly. And by by by happenstance, I I've
associated that meeting and it was the first and last
occupy media amor fassilitating. Yeah. Okay, so I want to
(02:14):
rule back a little bit too, just before the start
of occupied because yeah, the more thinking about this, the
more have just realized that two thousand eleven was just
a profoundly weird time. In a lot of ways. I
think people are forgotten, Like the entire American security state
is at this point being terrorized by you joint anonymous
(02:35):
lull sick hacking campaign called anti Sick, the symbol of
which is a guy in a guy fox mask wearing
a monocle, in a top hat. And this was just
like normal, Yes, this was the thing that I was like,
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's the it's it's the it's
the anti seck top hat, full faced guy in a monocle.
Fun fact about that, just before we forget David Gramer
Rest in Peace, who was there in the early days
(02:57):
organizing claimed and um that he had he had heard
and talked to the some of the like overheard the
police talking about the reason they didn't sweep the occupying
encampment the first day when we were pretty weak, frankly,
or the first week, was because there were a bunchet
guy fox masks and they were scared. They were scared
they were going to get hacked. If they were scared,
they were going to hack them and steal there. Yeah.
(03:18):
So it was a weird time indeed. Yeah. Yeah, And
I think that the other thing that's you know, I
think important about this time period if we're looking back
at what occupied was, is that so this is this
is three years after the the financial collapse, and you know,
so I think this is you know, in the room
to two eleven. There's been a few there's been a
(03:39):
few protests. There's been there was a big thing increased
two eight that was kind of related, kind of unrelated.
But I think in my sense of you know, I
was like, I don't know, I was like thirteen. I
was like I was like an actual baby child. But
my sensitive was kind of just like there's that there's
this like sense that everyone just kind of waiting for
something to happen. Yeah, and it's just like hadn't and
(04:00):
it's just like kept going and kept going and kept going,
and then you know, and and then and then Genesia
starts and suddenly there's you know, they're there. There's Protestant Tenessia,
there's part in Egypt. There's like people fighting tanks in
the street in Bahrain, and you know, and this this
is you know, this this becomes down at the up
spring and it starts to spread to a lot of places.
(04:22):
And Vicky, I want to talk I want to ask
you about this because because you were in Spain when
it started started there when talking about what what what
was going on there. And yeah, so I wasn't there
when it started. Um but but but yes, um basically
you know, and then and I want to shout out,
like there were there were a bunch of like movements,
Like in two thousand eight, right after the crash, there
(04:43):
were a bunch of protests like outside Wall Street. They
were very small, but they were like sort of the
like produced some images. And then there was you know,
in two thousand uh nine, there's the Oscar Grant rebellion
in Oakland, and you have the Madison occupation earlier in
two thousand eleven, um where they where the workers unions
took over the state House. Yeah, everyone does. It was
actually really important at the time. Um but yeah, so
(05:06):
so you know, so I think I'm glad you brought
up Greece because I think actually Greece really that that
sort of anarchist rebellion thousand nine really kicked off the
cycle in a certain way, but also didn't quite It
wasn't quite the first domino, you know, it was sort
of more of a like forecast. So yeah, so Arab Spring,
uh you know, is huge. It's this huge, huge event,
and the US media is loving it because obviously like
(05:29):
these sort of old you know, quote unquote Marxist dictators
are falling um, and so of course the US is
like all about it um, which of course later later
on the return of the tankies will use to um
to confuse everyone on the US left and destroy all
solidarity with Syria anyway. UM. But that's neither here nor there. UM.
So then then in Ah, then in that summer, UM,
(05:51):
you get this this wave of early summer like May
and June. In fact, the fifteenth of May was when
the movement started in Spain, and then it starts soon
again in Greece. And it was similar to occupy in
that there was these people coming together in these sort
of encampments in the center of the city. UM. I
don't know if people remember um or or know this
history economically, but Spain and Greece had recently been sort
(06:13):
of going through these like big big booms, economic booms
just for about five or six years that turned out
to be real estate bubbles funded by their entry into
the EU, and two thousand and age just smashed that
and they were just like incredibly impoverished. I mean, like
Spain was facing some fifty youth unemployment Greece was like similar,
Spain has recovered more than Greece has in the intervening years,
(06:33):
but it's still bad. Um. So so yeah, so you
had all these It was it was you know, predominantly
young folks who were um you know, had been pushed
out of the economy, who had been pushed out of
their homes, whose families had loft their homes. Um, gathering
together and it was all over both countries and it
was huge. Um. I happened to just be in Barcelona.
I had been on a planned vacation with some friends.
(06:54):
Um you know that we had we had planned like
sort of six months earlier when it while popped off.
And I had also just started my writing Um, I
would say career, but that's very generous. Um. I had
started technically being paid for writing things. And they were like, oh,
right about it, Like let's like cover it while you're there.
And because no one in the US was talking about
what was going on in Spain when my article popped up,
(07:16):
like and this is like this is really strange. But
it was like the early days of Twitter as well,
um two eleven, Like I guess Twitter started two nine
or something, and so like so the the one of
the accounts from the camp tweets out my article. So
I went there the next day. I was like, I
wrote that article and then I was like embedded for
a week, and I was there for like kind of
the height of the popular power of the movement in Barcelona.
(07:37):
Only for a week, but I was there on the
day when there was a two and a half million
person march through Barcelona, just like still probably the biggest
march I've ever been part of it and probably ever
will be. Um was like lat and so you know,
so that goes on for for a few months in
Greece and Barcelona, it sort of hits similar limits that
Occupied would eventually hit, which is that like you know
that that if you can take the space away from people,
(07:59):
that that's that's the common ground, and like you can't
really have the movement without the encampment. And also all
the way in which the camps sort of force a
kind of internal naval gazing and people like get really
obsessed with maintaining the camp rather than the struggle with
the city at large. All of those, all of those
contradictions sort of like came up in Spain and Greece
as well. But at the time, you know, I was
(08:21):
there for the height of it. I come back to
New York, I'm like, this is going to happen in
the US, like it has to. Um. I think a
lot of folks who had been watching felt that way
as well. UM. I actually took part in this thing
called bloomberg Ville, which was like, yeah, fifty people on
a sidewalk. Um was quite from Michael Bloomberg, right, Um,
fifty people on a sidewalk. Fifty people was general. I
was like, when we were doing really well and mostly
(08:43):
fifteen of us is like fifteen of us on a
flidewalk um in the financial district, like getting yelled at
by cops. Um, you know, sleeping on cardboard, you know,
occupy style, but without any attention or solidarity. Um. And
But because I had been in Barcelona and I still
have these carbrads in Barcelona, was like, oh my god,
we're doing it in New York. So we had this
thing where Bloombergville, which like twenty people like got to
(09:05):
talk to a general assembly in Barcelona at the height
of its power, like on a like internet link, like
a really early internet link, you know. Um, and you
know so so so so there was all this energy
that was happening. And then I think really crucially the
London riots pop off, and that doesn't get talked about
very much and anymore partially because of the UK left
really stabbed Here's the bath during that and and and
(09:28):
have and and repressed the memory of it largely, um
and have suffered ever since, in my opinion, strategically. UM.
But you know that was for us in the US,
that was huge. It was huge watching um, watching those
riots unfold, like you know, again, this was like early
live streaming, so like we were like watching live feeds
of the riots, you know, which like was not a
thing that you could really do without a TV before.
(09:50):
There was just like there was a lot of stuff
going on that felt exciting and and it was and
really important and inevitable that it would come to the
US because things were so messed up over here. I
(10:10):
think we should talk about what a general assembly actually
is because I think a lot of people are we're
going to have like never actually ran into what exactly
is going on, or have sort of forgotten in the
last ten years after they sort of fallen out of favor. Sure, yeah,
I mean it's um, it was never my favorite either, honestly.
But it's a it's a meeting style UM designed. UM.
(10:31):
It actually does largely actually come from from European anarchist traditions, UM,
from from Spain and Greece. But as as many of
us know, UM, a lot of those traditions go back
further UM and have crossed crossed the water general sumbis.
Actually there's a long history of them in indigenous communities
in Turtle Island, for example. So it's an old meeting
style UM, in which um, the Quakers also the Quakers
(10:54):
UM famously also sort of uh sort of co opted
it from from indigenous folks out here on the East coast. UM.
But UM, it's a meeting style in which, uh, you know,
with the exception of a facilitator which is occasionally but
not always present, UM, everyone is able to speak UM together.
There is something, there's an agenda sometimes, but it's basically
(11:14):
a meeting designed where everyone present in the meeting has
like an equal voice, And it's not really designed generally
for UM decision making specifically or with like really specific
goals in mind. Often, although there will be sort of
like things that are trying to get settled UM but
it's it's it's it's designed to allow, you know, a
(11:37):
very very multi vocal approach and for everyone to sort
of put in their their thoughts and their ideas. UM
and often is connected, although not necessarily, but is often
connected to consensus UM operation where UM things can't get
sort of decided on unless everyone sort of agrees UM.
And in occupy UM that was the general assembly was
(11:58):
sort of UM was bit controversial because it was just
whoever showed up obviously participates in it, so, you know,
unlike unlike you know, an organizational meeting where you you know,
everyone knows each other and you have to have a
you know, you have to be there with an invite
or whatever. UM, you know, whatever cranky wing nut UM
wanted to show up could UM. And that had pluses
(12:20):
and minuses. It was charming sometimes, but it was also
very frustrating. UM. And in New York where I was UM,
it was made almost impossible to function by this thing
called the people's Mike UM oh, which I think still
happens sometimes people even Mike check UM and and then
everyone repeats what was said. But that means that it
takes four times as long to talk as normal so
(12:41):
when you have a wing nut, you know, like advocating
for wrong Paul, and then you've got thirty people echoing
him every four words, it makes it makes discussion completely impossible.
And a microhistory of the People's mic. The reason that
happened was because in the first week in Zukkati Park, Um,
whenever we got on a megaphone, police would come and
arrest whoever was on the megaphone because you weren't allowed
(13:01):
to use amplified sound in New York. And one organizer
was like, oh no, no, we can like use the
people's mic. We can repeat back to each other. And
this is when we they're still mostly like thirty to
forty people in the park at any one time. It's
very small. That didn't feel so bad, but then when
the movement really got big, the People's mike became completely unwieldy.
And also was a response to a was a cowardly
(13:24):
response to police repression frankly um and was a way
of So the people's mic is is, in my opinion,
reactionary form anyway that is hit. So it's been ten years.
I haven't been able to complain about this in like
eight years, thank you, so much um anyway, So yeah,
so the general Assembly is just a meeting form um
that often often associated with anarchy, anarchist practice or radical
democratic practice UM, in which sort of consensus is aimed
(13:46):
for by allowing everyone to speak there much. I would say, Yeah,
So this, this, I think gets us back to where
we opened this episode, which is ed Busters calls an
event with literally no plans to like could do anything.
They're just like, yeah, everyone, we're occupy in Wall Street.
And then yeah, and you know, as it's talked about
(14:07):
the beginning of it, you guys basically hijack well sort of,
I mean, so Adbusters. Adbusters doesn't show up like you said,
there's I've never met an Adbusters person um. And it
was funny, like we would do jokes about it. But
I think it's also thinking about this in preparation for
this interview. It's also interesting because Adbusters, in their culture
(14:28):
jamming is kind of like one of the results of
the sort of altar globalization movement of the like late
nineties and early two thousands, the summit hopping stuff um,
the energy movement of like one generation ahead of occupy UM.
So I think it's sort of appropriate that Adbusters sort
of like you know, was present in this legacy in
a certain way, and a lot of those organizers were
as well. But yes, I'm sorry, I did I just
(14:49):
jump in for you. No, no, no, it's okay. UM
the yeah, so so so so a bunch of people
I don't actually know who calls for an August second,
you know, general only to talk about the call for
September seventeenth to occupy Wall Street. UM. And at that,
at that point, that's when the thing I was describing
earlier like happens where where UM. You know, we a
(15:11):
bunch of folks and and I really want to underline
that most of them were people who had been in
Spain or Greece. UM. David Graber was also. There was
like a lot of old heads. There was like a
there was a comrade from Japan. UM. It was a
very international crew who had like had experience in these movements.
Over the summer, UM came and had this general Assembly
and sort of ran it that way and broke out.
We had we broke off working groups and then there
(15:34):
was meetings sort of once a week and then working
group needs within that UM and general assemblies. From August
two until September seventeenth, at which point, um, you know,
occupy the date, the date that Adbusters had called for
actually happened. So my my impression of this, and I was,
I was very small. I had very limited idea of
what was going on. The way I remember in the
media is that like the the the media was weirdly
(16:00):
interested in it in a way that I've never seen them.
I've never seen them cover another social movement that wasn't
like literally burning their offices down, And it was like
it was like in the beginning, it was I mean,
you know, obviously the right wing media is losing their minds,
but they were kind of kind of supportive of it,
and I think, I don't know, I always say, you
(16:21):
think about this. One of the things that that happens
in both in both Greece and in Spain is that
the product movement of the squares is these electoral movements,
and these electoral movements just fail like catastrophically, like Starsia
takes power, like like the they like you, they they
have they have they have a like their their finance
minister is a left communist. He's like he is the
(16:41):
most fire left person ever like to hold office since
like the Spanish anarchists in ninety six and they employed austerity. Anyways,
in Spain you get Potamos and it's like, wow, okay,
you have you know, they had this thing called the
electoral war machine. They're they're gonna take over the Spanish
but because some then they just it collapsed. It just
doesn't work. They've they've never like they've they've they've they've
never taken power, They've never really got anywhere. They they
(17:03):
successfully evicted a bunch of squats in Catalonia. But yeah,
but and I think this is my impression if it
was that I think the US media thought they could
they could do this to occupy and and I think
they kind of it's weird because looking so you know,
like I I come in and like to to this
kind of stuff fromund On seventeen, and I think it
(17:24):
it's like it weirdly worked. But it worked because they
were able to create the anti occupy people. Yeah, so
it's like yeah, and so they did finally get their
like cadre of like pseudo left organizers so they could
used to build Democratic party. It's just it was like
Jacobin and then I'll think the whole the whole sort
of anti occupy group. Yeah, so those folks were actually
(17:45):
UM active during Occupy UM critiquing the people who now
most loudly UM claim the legacy of Occupy UM. You know,
as you said, Jacobin, a lot of those sort of
social democratic groups UM at the time, UM, and those
of us who were there, remember they hated Occupy. They
would show up, but they like would critique it constantly.
They would write all these articles about how it was terrible,
(18:05):
there were no demands, it was too disorganized. And then
I think, you know, when Black Revolt got put on
the table, they were like, bring back Occupy. We liked
that better. But but I think to be as harsh
as possible, but UM, I think like, UM, you know, yes,
there was there was a lot of media coverage. It
didn't feel super friendly at the time. UM, there was
a lot of There was a lot of media coverage,
(18:27):
Like the media was very curious, it was very interested,
but a lot of that coverage was like why do
they have no demands? Like why are they so disorganized?
Why are they so smelly? Whatever? Like there was a
lot of like there was a lot of slander in
the press, but also a lot of attention UM, which
you know, it turned turned out was as good as
you could get, but at the time didn't didn't feel
very good particularly, I think. Yeah, but yes, those those forces,
(18:48):
those forces were already present um in you know, in
in occupy itself, UM, you know, sort of denouncing it
um for its disorganization UM and then eventually claiming that
it was the reason that Bernie Sanders happened, which isn't
totally wrong. Yeah, I want to be really clear, like
I think, and I think what we'll get into this more,
(19:08):
but I think like the thing that about the thing
that was important about occupy and the thing that the
people who in my opinion, like my comrades during occupy
or people I meet who were like doing Occupy stuff
but like who I didn't know, but like now we
I you know, I roll with them. Most of us
have the have the you know, the analysis, like it
was really important that we were doing politics in the street.
It was really important that we were back together they
(19:30):
were talking politics. And then there were really really intense,
extreme limits to what Occupy could have done. UM. And
I think Oakland really pushed those UM and and you know,
and got to those but UM and I think the
folks who are like no, no no, Occupy was good at
the time, we're like Occupy is terrible. Um, And I
think that's worth notice, noting and thinking about. So I
(19:50):
think yeah, before were sut go into talk a bit
about what happened Oakland to talk about some of their stuff,
so on on day to day basis, like what is
occupy actually doing? Because I think that's also been sort
of lost in this whole. Like everyone remembers like the slogans,
and every remembers fact that there's a thing, but you know,
like that there's there's a bunch of working groups and
they're doing things, So like what what was that like
(20:11):
like day to day? And then on a sort of
brought her lifel Yeah so so um So, first of all,
again I was only in New York. I spent some
time at Occupied Boston as well. Um, but like I
don't have a sense of what other places were like,
so I I really can't, I mean other than having
heard from people. So I want to be very clear
that I'm like mostly addressing that. Um. I think the
thing that was going on was that Zaccatti Park, Like
the park was like total chaos. Um. Part of that
(20:34):
was because there was a drum circle that basically was
going twenty four hours a day um there, which meant
that whenever you were down there, and it was like
a canyon. Zacotti Park is surrounded by skyscrapers, so it
was just this incredible cacophony all the time, um, which
I think was cool. It really ruined a lot of
finance bros, like like like orally with an a there
(20:57):
um but I think like, but it also was pretty
intense and unpleasant. Sometimes you were like please stop, oh
my god, like that's at one point in general Assembly
I think decided that drums were like only acceptable during
certain hours, like near the end of the movement, like
the drums the drum circle got reproached, when in fact
they were like actually the biggest agents of chaos in Zuccati,
which is another important lesson. But um, yeah, I think so.
(21:21):
So you know. Also, because I had been in bloomberg Ville,
because I've been in Barcelona, I didn't invest myself very
heavily in camp management stuff, so I mostly was doing
um work. One of the things that I think it's
forgotten about is that there were snake marches, basically three
or four a day every day after after the first
week when we were really small, when it got big,
(21:43):
they were just constant, constant marches through the city, just
like always going off, like you would run and you'd
be on one march, you run into another march, like
on a Saturday or Sunday, when like people were really
like out there like it was, it was really like
there was a lot of mayhem. There would be big
planned marches that would then be bigger. Um. So there
was like a lot of like, um, what people now
(22:03):
would call direct action, what I would call largely like
sort of symbolic practice for direct action. Mostly, UM, I
don't mind, I like marches. I certainly got my miles
in then like I don't feel like I need to
do that again. But um, but you know, so then
at the camp people were just living there. There were
a lot of like a lot of punks, a lot
of like you know, a lot of homeless folks obviously,
(22:24):
and some and some encampments had more at a higher
concentration about house people. Some in New York because of
all the media spectacle and all the money that came in,
we had a lot of nonprofit drifters. By the end
in the encampment. But there's also like a library, um,
a free library with all these books that like would
be donated. Um. There's a lot of like you know,
political agitation. There were people standing around the um the
(22:47):
you know the corners of the park, you know, with
with signs and you're yelling at people. And it's also
important to remember that like Zuccati Park in New York
is tiny. It's tiny. We had originally wanted to do
it on this big plaza, like City Bank plaza, UM,
and the cops had heard about that and fence it off.
So on the seventeenth we just like we just, um,
what's the word we we we did a oh my
(23:09):
god football metaphors. This we called an audible thank you.
So we said, Zuccati is this tiny little park. It's
incredibly dense, and it's surrounded by you know, like I said, skyscrapers.
It's in this really weird part of the city that
no one would ever spend any time and if they
didn't have to otherwise. UM. So that's sort of So
there's all this stuff going on, and they're all these
their general assemblies twice a day, um, which as I said,
(23:31):
in New York, were particularly unhelpful. UM. But I think
anarchists and a lot of cities we have talked to you,
like I had a comrade down and d C one
in Denver. They sort of said that the general assemblies
either quickly like got shifted or got or became irrelevant. UM.
I think the general ssemblies were not We're not in
the end, We're we're symbolically important but not but not
really driving force um of my experience. UM. And then
(23:53):
there would be there would be, like I said, there'd
be a lot of organizing outside of the park. There'd
be a lot of like meetings and you know, talks
and um, direct actions and marches, UM. And then there
would be you know, uh, I guess that's kind of
the extent of it, right, is that there was like
a lot of direct action that but there was always
this park where you could go and like run into
(24:14):
people and like hook up with people, meet people and
like do a weird thing. And I think that was
really like the heart of the movement was the fact
that there was this place you could go meet someone
and like link into something weird and maybe cool and
maybe not, it doesn't matter, but like there was always
something to do kind of and it was constant, was
like this or twenty four hour right like experience. And
I think that was really what UM what separated it
(24:36):
from from other from other movement waves that we've had,
we've had since UM, and was was was probably I
think it's greatest strength in many ways. Yeah, I think
that that was that was the deep person that I got.
(24:58):
And part of this also was when I when I
was in college, like every once in a while, you
just get assigned like some person writing but occupy and
it was like most of them, which is extremely cranky
about the whole thing, but you know, one of one
of the things I think was interesting about it is
that everyone seemed to e gree at least to some
(25:20):
extent that part of what was going on was that
it's it's it's this way to do I don't know
if I had any formation is quite the right word
for it, but it's it's this way to sort of
like rebuild social connections and rebuilds like social sort of
bonds in a way that just had you know, as
public space becomes just the cops and like there's there's
(25:44):
a table in Chinatown that I like call the Cops Table.
And I'm really mad about that. Like, like I said,
this is Chicago, Chinatown. I would like go, there'sar in
from the library and there's a sign sign on the
table that says, if you loiter at this table, you
will be arrested. It's like this is a picnic table.
Like the cops. This table is threatening that it is
going to arrest you if you use it for what's
(26:04):
using you know, for what you're supposed to use tables for. Yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. And I think I think that's right. I
think like it was, you know, there was a lot
of UM at the time. A lot of people were
talking about UM uh embarrassingly about heart and degrees sort
of like multitude stuff. Really really a much better book
that was important was also UM David Graber's debt UM.
(26:24):
But I think, like, you know, and there was like
a lot of like people saying things about like the
Agora you know, UM democracy list sort of political the
political encounter space of encounter UM, and that stuff wasn't
all wrong. Like I mean, I'm sort of being a
little sarcastic with a lot of it, but like, but
I think, like, like there there was a lot of
you know, UM part of how we should I think
(26:46):
we should understand, um, the over discussed under under you know,
like over analyzed word neoliberalism like has largely become meaningless.
One of the things I should I think, I think
it's valuable for understanding is a process by which capitalism
responded to the Sixties by disorganizing its production process such
to the long Sixties could never happen again, right, so
like like the four the the control the like the
(27:09):
concentration of workers within within production in such a way
that they could be agitated by students and then like
sort of radically unionized wildcat and sort of like almost
overthrow a government, right, Like the neoliberalism is like you
know it smashes the unions, yes, but it also it
also like distributes out the active production. Right so that
(27:30):
so that that's not so easily done. And I think
one of the real problems of you know that was
facing social movement. Um, you know in the in the period,
you know, the the long period, like you know, you
had stuff like in the U s Again that this
is where you know the best. But like you know,
you have the l a uprising which is huge, um,
and you have you know, the globe, the summit hopping
movement and anti globalization, which you know what could attack
(27:51):
a target, but there wasn't really a sense of like
how it felt hard to do a local struggle, UM
beyond like really like a revolutionary riot like l A,
which you know you can't really precipitate. UM. I mean
you can't really precipitate a movement either, obviously, But I
think like but like like a uh a political political movement,
(28:11):
a form of political organizing that didn't require something on
the level of George Floyd, which is what the l
A rebellion was, right, UM, but that also didn't require like,
uh an action from capital that you were like striking against,
right like the the uh you know, the Summits or whatever. Um.
And that that again and like all of these eras
are very important. This is not to like you know,
(28:32):
obviously like this is with with respect for those movements, UM,
but yeah, we felt I think it felt like we
were in a political wilderness. And I think that that
like UM occupy really and the movement of the squares globally,
I think UM really like demonstrated that it was possible
to practice a kind of street politics even without UM
(28:52):
you know, a shop floor where you can organize even
without um, you know, a a capital p party to
organize within UM and I think that was really important.
I think it also scared a lot of people who
and and continues to who are committed to those politics
UM and UM to the twenty century workers movement or
the nineteen and twenty century labor movement, which they somehow
(29:13):
fantasized will come back UM if they just wish hard
enough and writing though books or whatever. UM. And I
think like, um, so, I think that was powerful. I
also think like like, yeah, sorry, we can move on
to legacy later. But yes, I think that was like,
I think that was very much like an important thing.
Was was just like and you know, um, I graduated
college in two thousand nine, um so I was like
(29:35):
part of that millennial generation that like, you know, had
gone into incredibly deep debt. Like we'd have a college
degree and then like the bottom fill out of the
economy there were no jobs. Um And Like I think
there were a lot of you know, like people who
like had anticipated a middle class life UM of some kind.
Not that I really had at that point, but whatever, Like,
but but a lot of people like in my economic
(29:56):
cohort like had um suddenly facing you know, proletarianization, right,
and I think that was one of the strengths of
the movement. I think that was that, you know, like
I mentioned the statistics in great in Spain and Greece, like,
I think that was a global aspect of this kind
of movement um uh Arab Spring to like there was
there was a lot of like that was really a
(30:17):
response to the economic crisis. Obviously, those folks were already
more proletarian than the people who are the young people
and in the squares movements, UM. But they they innovated,
they created the tactics in in Arab Spring right UM
Terrer Square, most famously in Cairo, UM and UM. I
think like those creating a meeting place where um, you
(30:38):
didn't require a preconstructed like political community UM in order
to engage was a strength and a weakness UM. And
I think it it also you know, as a result
of the dynamics of the general Assembly, the dynamics of
the sort of voluntearist nature of that what I'm describing, UM,
it led to a lot of people who were already confident,
(30:58):
who are already feeling good, being able to like take
more power, right like um uh. And I think it
also was a very white movement. Um. Certainly in New York,
but but I think I think across the country, UM,
it was largely it was largely you know, it was
it was majority white in a way that you know,
by higher percentages than any movement that we've really been
part of since um was UM. And that was obviously
(31:20):
a limit um for for reasons that will be obvious
to everyone, including the idea that like a lot of
people pushed that like the police are part of the right. Um. Okay,
so let's let's talk about the police, because you know,
like that's you know, that's that's the one of the
other extremely important aspects of this is this immense militarization.
I mean, okay, so I think that the militarization of
(31:41):
the police as a phrase, I think it's somewhat misleading
in that like the cops have always like shot people. Yeah,
but you know, there there's yeah, there there's there's there's
still like there's an intense sort of ramp up of
the prison sector. There's you have this sense boom in
(32:01):
the size of prisons. You have, Yeah, you you have
increasing parts of the economy that are just the entire
towns that used to be sort of manufacturing sectors you
used to be sort of involved in sort industrial production
that are just like the economy is now just there's
a prison there. And and I think this is also
looking back, one of the things that look like occupy
(32:21):
kind of r ran up into because you know, occupies
this attempt to like you know, form a democratic space,
and it relies crucially on this this thing that is
nominally in the Constitution but doesn't exist, which is the
like the right to freedom of speech and the right
to freedom of assembly and freedom assembly like that is
that is like that is bullshit. It does not exist.
(32:43):
If you like, if you actually believe that this exists,
like try getting like seventy people into a space and
see how like just like I don't know, like into
a street or just just like into into like have
one of people on a park and just like see
how fast the cops show up, because you know, it's like, yeah,
the first time yeah that I was I was at
any kind of protests, cops immediately wanted to take anything
(33:05):
I was holding. You're not You're not allowed to the
first thing, if if if if you have anything in
your hands, that's that that is a that is a problem. Yeah,
it's like the First Amendment is just it's super completely
superseded by traffic laws, like laws about like sidewalk maintenance,
like no, it's it's all fair, like none of it,
like you're you're not you're not allowed to. And this
is this is I think is partially this is kind
(33:25):
of a talk, but this is part I think why
there's so much focused on the right about the first
moment because they want to they want to draw attention
away from the fact that, like the actual thing that's
fake about it is that you can't gather people in
meat anywhere, and they want to draw it into these
like inane like this professor like said the N word
a bunch of times in class. Isn't it bad that
people are mad at them? But but if I think
(33:46):
also go to time, this sort of back to occupy.
You know. Okay, So, so occupy functions right insofar as
there is a a physical location where people can go
and physically interact with each other. And that's a problem
because at some point the police are just like no,
(34:07):
and they start clearing the encampments and I think this
is this is the other thing with occupy is that
outside of like parts of Oakland and that that's a
whole other thing that. Yeah, but it's it's it's incredibly
studiously non violent in a way that like nothing I've
ever seen before since is yeah. So so so there's
(34:30):
a lot there. I'm gonna I want to talk about
it because that's there's a lot um but yeah, so
I think I think the militarization of the police thesis
um is is incomplete if you don't also talk about
the policification of the military. Right, so, like part of
what happens with with the great expansion of them of
the carcerel state, part of that is also a response
to the Vietnam War um and and mass resistance within
(34:54):
you know, the troops they were like in the Vietnam
the in like the last two years when ground troops
are there in Vietnam, there's like fourteen hundred fragging incidents
where where um you know where where privates and recruits
killed their officers. The US Army during the during Vietnam
was on the brink of the of collapse in the
way that like like the Russian Army was looking in
(35:15):
it was like like like the numbers, I think, I
think I'll number At one point there was like forty
of the army by the end of Vietnam was either
on strike or just like not following orders. Yeah, no,
it was. It was complete. There was the reason that
that Nixon pursues Vietnam sizzation, which is when they just
start doing air campaigns, bombing and napalm, is because they
couldn't rely on ground troops anymore. They just they were useless.
They were all high um, you know, to talk about
(35:36):
you know, there's a lot of talking about like Heroin,
but like that was actually kind of a former resistance
within the lines in a complicated way whatever. Okay, that's
all very So the military realizes that it can't function
as a mass military in the model that nation states
have done since the Napoleonic Wars, right, which is like
the mass you know, the mass recruitment of the citizens soldier. Um,
that's sort of how wars fought between you know, eighteen
(35:59):
ten and nine seventy. And then it becomes clear that
that's not gonna work anymore because because the aims of
the countries and the power of nationalism have become too abstracted.
Fascism has done too much damage to that image. There's
just like there's it doesn't really work anymore. So the
military turns into a sort of what it always was also,
which is like a colonial policing force, and so the
(36:19):
police the military drift towards one another in form and function. Okay,
So in occupy Um, one of the microhistories that I
think it's forgotten is that, like, I mean because because
it took a week, and like, who remembers this week
except for like weirdos like me who were there? Um?
Is it like there was no one at Zuccati in
the first first week. And one of the big things
that happened was these these these you know, young white
(36:41):
girls got caught in a police net and pepper sprayed,
and there was this video that went around with them
getting pepper sprayed and screaming. Is particularly this woman on
her knees, you know, screaming with with tears and pepper
spray going down her face. And that really outraged people
because you know, they were you know, it was police
depression and police violence. So in terms of the question
of non violence, yes, Um, there was a lot of
non violence. It was a constant fight that took honestly
(37:04):
took until the George Floyd Uprising for the right outside
to win. Frankly, but but but but during Occupy there
was you know, there was a lot of non violence nonsense.
Um and I think like, but but another thing that
happened though was that like you know, like I said,
people were marching every day. So even in New York,
where I think the political height was kind of achieved,
(37:25):
October one when we took the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, I
think I think New York never really like had a
big moment again, Like it was largely sort of like
smaller things after that. But um, but like and there
was a mass arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge. We marched
over the Brooklyn Bridge, the brookn Bridge got shut down.
They arrested seven hundred of US. Um. It was the
first big infrastructure shutdown that happened in the US since
(37:46):
the l A Riots. It was it was a big
deal at the time. Now it happened. Can I put
a note doubt though specifically for the Brooklyn Bridge if
you're because people I've seen every every single time there's
one of these movements, people try to take the Brooklyn
Bridge and they all got arrested. It's like, can can
you all like please, I am begging you. If you're
going to try to take a bridge, make sure you
have a way out, like, yeah, you have to hold
(38:06):
one of the sites. That's the problem. We're going to
get arrested. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you got a way out
a bridge design, do not have a way out? Exactly?
Please please don't all get arrested. It's it's in fact
bad and yeah, sorry, exactly. I haven't seen a few
people successom we take bridges a few times, but that's
(38:28):
because there was like three cop cars and like people,
if you have like a block with two hundred kids,
you're not going to be able to hold the bridge. Yes,
it could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
(38:50):
cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone to dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Welcome. It could happen here pod a podcast that is
today about the fact that ten years ago it did happen.
And when when when I when I say it did happen,
I mean we occupied an extremely large number of places,
and we did so in interesting and incredibly bizarre ways.
And with with with me to talk about this is
Garrison as always. I like that you used the Twitter
(00:25):
handle for our podcast, not the actual name, but that's fine.
Where can it where can it go for it? But
hello with me, I have I have my special guest,
Vicky Ostrowil, who is an agitator, who is a writer,
who has done many many things, probably most famously writing
(00:47):
the book In Defense of Looting Um from Bold Press,
Bold Type Press, Bultypress. Yeah, very good book. People got
very bad, people got very angry. Yeah, thank you. It's
it's really I'm really excited to be here to to
talk about the the anniversary of Occupy from which is
basically you know when I when I all got this
(01:08):
whole train rolling, So yeah, and the the other the
other thing um that that it is probably relevant here
is that Vicky was one of the first people at
Occupy and and little correct me if I'm wrong about this.
I found an oblique reference to this in one of
the things I read. You facilitated the first meeting, Yes,
the yeah, yeah, I got it's on the record now,
(01:30):
yeah I I uh yeah during UM, during the general
New York City General Assembly it was called in August. UM,
there was you know, uh, ad Busters hopefully called for
a general assembly, and you know, a bunch of us
sort of went down there and there was a tanky
party there um doing a general assembly, which was just
them on speakers, UM, doing their regular ranting. Um hadn't
(01:53):
changed much in ten years, um and uh and we um. Yeah.
So a bunch of us just went and sat down, uh,
you know, to the side of it, and started an
actual general assembly. And by by by happenstance, I I've
associated that meeting and it was the first and last
occupy media amor fassilitating. Yeah. Okay, so I want to
(02:14):
rule back a little bit too, just before the start
of occupied because yeah, the more thinking about this, the
more have just realized that two thousand eleven was just
a profoundly weird time. In a lot of ways. I
think people are forgotten, Like the entire American security state
is at this point being terrorized by you joint anonymous
(02:35):
lull sick hacking campaign called anti Sick, the symbol of
which is a guy in a guy fox mask wearing
a monocle, in a top hat. And this was just
like normal, Yes, this was the thing that I was like,
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's the it's it's the it's
the anti seck top hat, full faced guy in a monocle.
Fun fact about that, just before we forget David Gramer
Rest in Peace, who was there in the early days
(02:57):
organizing claimed and um that he had he had heard
and talked to the some of the like overheard the
police talking about the reason they didn't sweep the occupying
encampment the first day when we were pretty weak, frankly,
or the first week, was because there were a bunchet
guy fox masks and they were scared. They were scared
they were going to get hacked. If they were scared,
they were going to hack them and steal there. Yeah.
(03:18):
So it was a weird time indeed. Yeah. Yeah, And
I think that the other thing that's you know, I
think important about this time period if we're looking back
at what occupied was, is that so this is this
is three years after the the financial collapse, and you know,
so I think this is you know, in the room
to two eleven. There's been a few there's been a
(03:39):
few protests. There's been there was a big thing increased
two eight that was kind of related, kind of unrelated.
But I think in my sense of you know, I
was like, I don't know, I was like thirteen. I
was like I was like an actual baby child. But
my sensitive was kind of just like there's that there's
this like sense that everyone just kind of waiting for
something to happen. Yeah, and it's just like hadn't and
(04:00):
it's just like kept going and kept going and kept going,
and then you know, and and then and then Genesia
starts and suddenly there's you know, they're there. There's Protestant Tenessia,
there's part in Egypt. There's like people fighting tanks in
the street in Bahrain, and you know, and this this
is you know, this this becomes down at the up
spring and it starts to spread to a lot of places.
(04:22):
And Vicky, I want to talk I want to ask
you about this because because you were in Spain when
it started started there when talking about what what what
was going on there. And yeah, so I wasn't there
when it started. Um but but but yes, um basically
you know, and then and I want to shout out,
like there were there were a bunch of like movements,
Like in two thousand eight, right after the crash, there
(04:43):
were a bunch of protests like outside Wall Street. They
were very small, but they were like sort of the
like produced some images. And then there was you know,
in two thousand uh nine, there's the Oscar Grant rebellion
in Oakland, and you have the Madison occupation earlier in
two thousand eleven, um where they where the workers unions
took over the state House. Yeah, everyone does. It was
actually really important at the time. Um but yeah, so
(05:06):
so you know, so I think I'm glad you brought
up Greece because I think actually Greece really that that
sort of anarchist rebellion thousand nine really kicked off the
cycle in a certain way, but also didn't quite It
wasn't quite the first domino, you know, it was sort
of more of a like forecast. So yeah, so Arab Spring,
uh you know, is huge. It's this huge, huge event,
and the US media is loving it because obviously like
(05:29):
these sort of old you know, quote unquote Marxist dictators
are falling um, and so of course the US is
like all about it um, which of course later later
on the return of the tankies will use to um
to confuse everyone on the US left and destroy all
solidarity with Syria anyway. UM. But that's neither here nor there. UM.
So then then in Ah, then in that summer, UM,
(05:51):
you get this this wave of early summer like May
and June. In fact, the fifteenth of May was when
the movement started in Spain, and then it starts soon
again in Greece. And it was similar to occupy in
that there was these people coming together in these sort
of encampments in the center of the city. UM. I
don't know if people remember um or or know this
history economically, but Spain and Greece had recently been sort
(06:13):
of going through these like big big booms, economic booms
just for about five or six years that turned out
to be real estate bubbles funded by their entry into
the EU, and two thousand and age just smashed that
and they were just like incredibly impoverished. I mean, like
Spain was facing some fifty youth unemployment Greece was like similar,
Spain has recovered more than Greece has in the intervening years,
(06:33):
but it's still bad. Um. So so yeah, so you
had all these It was it was you know, predominantly
young folks who were um you know, had been pushed
out of the economy, who had been pushed out of
their homes, whose families had loft their homes. Um, gathering
together and it was all over both countries and it
was huge. Um. I happened to just be in Barcelona.
I had been on a planned vacation with some friends.
(06:54):
Um you know that we had we had planned like
sort of six months earlier when it while popped off.
And I had also just started my writing Um, I
would say career, but that's very generous. Um. I had
started technically being paid for writing things. And they were like, oh,
right about it, Like let's like cover it while you're there.
And because no one in the US was talking about
what was going on in Spain when my article popped up,
(07:16):
like and this is like this is really strange. But
it was like the early days of Twitter as well,
um two eleven, Like I guess Twitter started two nine
or something, and so like so the the one of
the accounts from the camp tweets out my article. So
I went there the next day. I was like, I
wrote that article and then I was like embedded for
a week, and I was there for like kind of
the height of the popular power of the movement in Barcelona.
(07:37):
Only for a week, but I was there on the
day when there was a two and a half million
person march through Barcelona, just like still probably the biggest
march I've ever been part of it and probably ever
will be. Um was like lat and so you know,
so that goes on for for a few months in
Greece and Barcelona, it sort of hits similar limits that
Occupied would eventually hit, which is that like you know
that that if you can take the space away from people,
(07:59):
that that's that's the common ground, and like you can't
really have the movement without the encampment. And also all
the way in which the camps sort of force a
kind of internal naval gazing and people like get really
obsessed with maintaining the camp rather than the struggle with
the city at large. All of those, all of those
contradictions sort of like came up in Spain and Greece
as well. But at the time, you know, I was
(08:21):
there for the height of it. I come back to
New York, I'm like, this is going to happen in
the US, like it has to. Um. I think a
lot of folks who had been watching felt that way
as well. UM. I actually took part in this thing
called bloomberg Ville, which was like, yeah, fifty people on
a sidewalk. Um was quite from Michael Bloomberg, right, Um,
fifty people on a sidewalk. Fifty people was general. I
was like, when we were doing really well and mostly
(08:43):
fifteen of us is like fifteen of us on a
flidewalk um in the financial district, like getting yelled at
by cops. Um, you know, sleeping on cardboard, you know,
occupy style, but without any attention or solidarity. Um. And
But because I had been in Barcelona and I still
have these carbrads in Barcelona, was like, oh my god,
we're doing it in New York. So we had this
thing where Bloombergville, which like twenty people like got to
(09:05):
talk to a general assembly in Barcelona at the height
of its power, like on a like internet link, like
a really early internet link, you know. Um, and you
know so so so so there was all this energy
that was happening. And then I think really crucially the
London riots pop off, and that doesn't get talked about
very much and anymore partially because of the UK left
really stabbed Here's the bath during that and and and
(09:28):
have and and repressed the memory of it largely, um
and have suffered ever since, in my opinion, strategically. UM.
But you know that was for us in the US,
that was huge. It was huge watching um, watching those
riots unfold, like you know, again, this was like early
live streaming, so like we were like watching live feeds
of the riots, you know, which like was not a
thing that you could really do without a TV before.
(09:50):
There was just like there was a lot of stuff
going on that felt exciting and and it was and
really important and inevitable that it would come to the
US because things were so messed up over here. I
(10:10):
think we should talk about what a general assembly actually
is because I think a lot of people are we're
going to have like never actually ran into what exactly
is going on, or have sort of forgotten in the
last ten years after they sort of fallen out of favor. Sure, yeah,
I mean it's um, it was never my favorite either, honestly.
But it's a it's a meeting style UM designed. UM.
(10:31):
It actually does largely actually come from from European anarchist traditions, UM,
from from Spain and Greece. But as as many of
us know, UM, a lot of those traditions go back
further UM and have crossed crossed the water general sumbis.
Actually there's a long history of them in indigenous communities
in Turtle Island, for example. So it's an old meeting
style UM, in which um, the Quakers also the Quakers
(10:54):
UM famously also sort of uh sort of co opted
it from from indigenous folks out here on the East coast. UM.
But UM, it's a meeting style in which, uh, you know,
with the exception of a facilitator which is occasionally but
not always present, UM, everyone is able to speak UM together.
There is something, there's an agenda sometimes, but it's basically
(11:14):
a meeting designed where everyone present in the meeting has
like an equal voice, And it's not really designed generally
for UM decision making specifically or with like really specific
goals in mind. Often, although there will be sort of
like things that are trying to get settled UM but
it's it's it's it's designed to allow, you know, a
(11:37):
very very multi vocal approach and for everyone to sort
of put in their their thoughts and their ideas. UM
and often is connected, although not necessarily, but is often
connected to consensus UM operation where UM things can't get
sort of decided on unless everyone sort of agrees UM.
And in occupy UM that was the general assembly was
(11:58):
sort of UM was bit controversial because it was just
whoever showed up obviously participates in it, so, you know,
unlike unlike you know, an organizational meeting where you you know,
everyone knows each other and you have to have a
you know, you have to be there with an invite
or whatever. UM, you know, whatever cranky wing nut UM
wanted to show up could UM. And that had pluses
(12:20):
and minuses. It was charming sometimes, but it was also
very frustrating. UM. And in New York where I was UM,
it was made almost impossible to function by this thing
called the people's Mike UM oh, which I think still
happens sometimes people even Mike check UM and and then
everyone repeats what was said. But that means that it
takes four times as long to talk as normal so
(12:41):
when you have a wing nut, you know, like advocating
for wrong Paul, and then you've got thirty people echoing
him every four words, it makes it makes discussion completely impossible.
And a microhistory of the People's mic. The reason that
happened was because in the first week in Zukkati Park, Um,
whenever we got on a megaphone, police would come and
arrest whoever was on the megaphone because you weren't allowed
(13:01):
to use amplified sound in New York. And one organizer
was like, oh no, no, we can like use the
people's mic. We can repeat back to each other. And
this is when we they're still mostly like thirty to
forty people in the park at any one time. It's
very small. That didn't feel so bad, but then when
the movement really got big, the People's mike became completely unwieldy.
And also was a response to a was a cowardly
(13:24):
response to police repression frankly um and was a way
of So the people's mic is is, in my opinion,
reactionary form anyway that is hit. So it's been ten years.
I haven't been able to complain about this in like
eight years, thank you, so much um anyway, So yeah,
so the general Assembly is just a meeting form um
that often often associated with anarchy, anarchist practice or radical
democratic practice UM, in which sort of consensus is aimed
(13:46):
for by allowing everyone to speak there much. I would say, Yeah,
So this, this, I think gets us back to where
we opened this episode, which is ed Busters calls an
event with literally no plans to like could do anything.
They're just like, yeah, everyone, we're occupy in Wall Street.
And then yeah, and you know, as it's talked about
(14:07):
the beginning of it, you guys basically hijack well sort of,
I mean, so Adbusters. Adbusters doesn't show up like you said,
there's I've never met an Adbusters person um. And it
was funny, like we would do jokes about it. But
I think it's also thinking about this in preparation for
this interview. It's also interesting because Adbusters, in their culture
(14:28):
jamming is kind of like one of the results of
the sort of altar globalization movement of the like late
nineties and early two thousands, the summit hopping stuff um,
the energy movement of like one generation ahead of occupy UM.
So I think it's sort of appropriate that Adbusters sort
of like you know, was present in this legacy in
a certain way, and a lot of those organizers were
as well. But yes, I'm sorry, I did I just
(14:49):
jump in for you. No, no, no, it's okay. UM
the yeah, so so so so a bunch of people
I don't actually know who calls for an August second,
you know, general only to talk about the call for
September seventeenth to occupy Wall Street. UM. And at that,
at that point, that's when the thing I was describing
earlier like happens where where UM. You know, we a
(15:11):
bunch of folks and and I really want to underline
that most of them were people who had been in
Spain or Greece. UM. David Graber was also. There was
like a lot of old heads. There was like a
there was a comrade from Japan. UM. It was a
very international crew who had like had experience in these movements.
Over the summer, UM came and had this general Assembly
and sort of ran it that way and broke out.
We had we broke off working groups and then there
(15:34):
was meetings sort of once a week and then working
group needs within that UM and general assemblies. From August
two until September seventeenth, at which point, um, you know,
occupy the date, the date that Adbusters had called for
actually happened. So my my impression of this, and I was,
I was very small. I had very limited idea of
what was going on. The way I remember in the
media is that like the the the media was weirdly
(16:00):
interested in it in a way that I've never seen them.
I've never seen them cover another social movement that wasn't
like literally burning their offices down, And it was like
it was like in the beginning, it was I mean,
you know, obviously the right wing media is losing their minds,
but they were kind of kind of supportive of it,
and I think, I don't know, I always say, you
(16:21):
think about this. One of the things that that happens
in both in both Greece and in Spain is that
the product movement of the squares is these electoral movements,
and these electoral movements just fail like catastrophically, like Starsia
takes power, like like the they like you, they they
have they have they have a like their their finance
minister is a left communist. He's like he is the
(16:41):
most fire left person ever like to hold office since
like the Spanish anarchists in ninety six and they employed austerity. Anyways,
in Spain you get Potamos and it's like, wow, okay,
you have you know, they had this thing called the
electoral war machine. They're they're gonna take over the Spanish
but because some then they just it collapsed. It just
doesn't work. They've they've never like they've they've they've they've
never taken power, They've never really got anywhere. They they
(17:03):
successfully evicted a bunch of squats in Catalonia. But yeah,
but and I think this is my impression if it
was that I think the US media thought they could
they could do this to occupy and and I think
they kind of it's weird because looking so you know,
like I I come in and like to to this
kind of stuff fromund On seventeen, and I think it
(17:24):
it's like it weirdly worked. But it worked because they
were able to create the anti occupy people. Yeah, so
it's like yeah, and so they did finally get their
like cadre of like pseudo left organizers so they could
used to build Democratic party. It's just it was like
Jacobin and then I'll think the whole the whole sort
of anti occupy group. Yeah, so those folks were actually
(17:45):
UM active during Occupy UM critiquing the people who now
most loudly UM claim the legacy of Occupy UM. You know,
as you said, Jacobin, a lot of those sort of
social democratic groups UM at the time, UM, and those
of us who were there, remember they hated Occupy. They
would show up, but they like would critique it constantly.
They would write all these articles about how it was terrible,
(18:05):
there were no demands, it was too disorganized. And then
I think, you know, when Black Revolt got put on
the table, they were like, bring back Occupy. We liked
that better. But but I think to be as harsh
as possible, but UM, I think like, UM, you know, yes,
there was there was a lot of media coverage. It
didn't feel super friendly at the time. UM, there was
a lot of There was a lot of media coverage,
(18:27):
Like the media was very curious, it was very interested,
but a lot of that coverage was like why do
they have no demands? Like why are they so disorganized?
Why are they so smelly? Whatever? Like there was a
lot of like there was a lot of slander in
the press, but also a lot of attention UM, which
you know, it turned turned out was as good as
you could get, but at the time didn't didn't feel
very good particularly, I think. Yeah, but yes, those those forces,
(18:48):
those forces were already present um in you know, in
in occupy itself, UM, you know, sort of denouncing it
um for its disorganization UM and then eventually claiming that
it was the reason that Bernie Sanders happened, which isn't
totally wrong. Yeah, I want to be really clear, like
I think, and I think what we'll get into this more,
(19:08):
but I think like the thing that about the thing
that was important about occupy and the thing that the
people who in my opinion, like my comrades during occupy
or people I meet who were like doing Occupy stuff
but like who I didn't know, but like now we
I you know, I roll with them. Most of us
have the have the you know, the analysis, like it
was really important that we were doing politics in the street.
It was really important that we were back together they
(19:30):
were talking politics. And then there were really really intense,
extreme limits to what Occupy could have done. UM. And
I think Oakland really pushed those UM and and you know,
and got to those but UM and I think the
folks who are like no, no no, Occupy was good at
the time, we're like Occupy is terrible. Um, And I
think that's worth notice, noting and thinking about. So I
(19:50):
think yeah, before were sut go into talk a bit
about what happened Oakland to talk about some of their stuff,
so on on day to day basis, like what is
occupy actually doing? Because I think that's also been sort
of lost in this whole. Like everyone remembers like the slogans,
and every remembers fact that there's a thing, but you know,
like that there's there's a bunch of working groups and
they're doing things, So like what what was that like
(20:11):
like day to day? And then on a sort of
brought her lifel Yeah so so um So, first of all,
again I was only in New York. I spent some
time at Occupied Boston as well. Um, but like I
don't have a sense of what other places were like,
so I I really can't, I mean other than having
heard from people. So I want to be very clear
that I'm like mostly addressing that. Um. I think the
thing that was going on was that Zaccatti Park, Like
the park was like total chaos. Um. Part of that
(20:34):
was because there was a drum circle that basically was
going twenty four hours a day um there, which meant
that whenever you were down there, and it was like
a canyon. Zacotti Park is surrounded by skyscrapers, so it
was just this incredible cacophony all the time, um, which
I think was cool. It really ruined a lot of
finance bros, like like like orally with an a there
(20:57):
um but I think like, but it also was pretty
intense and unpleasant. Sometimes you were like please stop, oh
my god, like that's at one point in general Assembly
I think decided that drums were like only acceptable during
certain hours, like near the end of the movement, like
the drums the drum circle got reproached, when in fact
they were like actually the biggest agents of chaos in Zuccati,
which is another important lesson. But um, yeah, I think so.
(21:21):
So you know. Also, because I had been in bloomberg Ville,
because I've been in Barcelona, I didn't invest myself very
heavily in camp management stuff, so I mostly was doing
um work. One of the things that I think it's
forgotten about is that there were snake marches, basically three
or four a day every day after after the first
week when we were really small, when it got big,
(21:43):
they were just constant, constant marches through the city, just
like always going off, like you would run and you'd
be on one march, you run into another march, like
on a Saturday or Sunday, when like people were really
like out there like it was, it was really like
there was a lot of mayhem. There would be big
planned marches that would then be bigger. Um. So there
was like a lot of like, um, what people now
(22:03):
would call direct action, what I would call largely like
sort of symbolic practice for direct action. Mostly, UM, I
don't mind, I like marches. I certainly got my miles
in then like I don't feel like I need to
do that again. But um, but you know, so then
at the camp people were just living there. There were
a lot of like a lot of punks, a lot
of like you know, a lot of homeless folks obviously,
(22:24):
and some and some encampments had more at a higher
concentration about house people. Some in New York because of
all the media spectacle and all the money that came in,
we had a lot of nonprofit drifters. By the end
in the encampment. But there's also like a library, um,
a free library with all these books that like would
be donated. Um. There's a lot of like you know,
political agitation. There were people standing around the um the
(22:47):
you know the corners of the park, you know, with
with signs and you're yelling at people. And it's also
important to remember that like Zuccati Park in New York
is tiny. It's tiny. We had originally wanted to do
it on this big plaza, like City Bank plaza, UM,
and the cops had heard about that and fence it off.
So on the seventeenth we just like we just, um,
what's the word we we we did a oh my
(23:09):
god football metaphors. This we called an audible thank you.
So we said, Zuccati is this tiny little park. It's
incredibly dense, and it's surrounded by you know, like I said, skyscrapers.
It's in this really weird part of the city that
no one would ever spend any time and if they
didn't have to otherwise. UM. So that's sort of So
there's all this stuff going on, and they're all these
their general assemblies twice a day, um, which as I said,
(23:31):
in New York, were particularly unhelpful. UM. But I think
anarchists and a lot of cities we have talked to you,
like I had a comrade down and d C one
in Denver. They sort of said that the general assemblies
either quickly like got shifted or got or became irrelevant. UM.
I think the general ssemblies were not We're not in
the end, We're we're symbolically important but not but not
really driving force um of my experience. UM. And then
(23:53):
there would be there would be, like I said, there'd
be a lot of organizing outside of the park. There'd
be a lot of like meetings and you know, talks
and um, direct actions and marches, UM. And then there
would be you know, uh, I guess that's kind of
the extent of it, right, is that there was like
a lot of direct action that but there was always
this park where you could go and like run into
(24:14):
people and like hook up with people, meet people and
like do a weird thing. And I think that was
really like the heart of the movement was the fact
that there was this place you could go meet someone
and like link into something weird and maybe cool and
maybe not, it doesn't matter, but like there was always
something to do kind of and it was constant, was
like this or twenty four hour right like experience. And
I think that was really what UM what separated it
(24:36):
from from other from other movement waves that we've had,
we've had since UM, and was was was probably I
think it's greatest strength in many ways. Yeah, I think
that that was that was the deep person that I got.
(24:58):
And part of this also was when I when I
was in college, like every once in a while, you
just get assigned like some person writing but occupy and
it was like most of them, which is extremely cranky
about the whole thing, but you know, one of one
of the things I think was interesting about it is
that everyone seemed to e gree at least to some
(25:20):
extent that part of what was going on was that
it's it's it's this way to do I don't know
if I had any formation is quite the right word
for it, but it's it's this way to sort of
like rebuild social connections and rebuilds like social sort of
bonds in a way that just had you know, as
public space becomes just the cops and like there's there's
(25:44):
a table in Chinatown that I like call the Cops Table.
And I'm really mad about that. Like, like I said,
this is Chicago, Chinatown. I would like go, there'sar in
from the library and there's a sign sign on the
table that says, if you loiter at this table, you
will be arrested. It's like this is a picnic table.
Like the cops. This table is threatening that it is
going to arrest you if you use it for what's
(26:04):
using you know, for what you're supposed to use tables for. Yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. And I think I think that's right. I
think like it was, you know, there was a lot
of UM at the time. A lot of people were
talking about UM uh embarrassingly about heart and degrees sort
of like multitude stuff. Really really a much better book
that was important was also UM David Graber's debt UM.
(26:24):
But I think, like, you know, and there was like
a lot of like people saying things about like the
Agora you know, UM democracy list sort of political the
political encounter space of encounter UM, and that stuff wasn't
all wrong. Like I mean, I'm sort of being a
little sarcastic with a lot of it, but like, but
I think, like, like there there was a lot of
you know, UM part of how we should I think
(26:46):
we should understand, um, the over discussed under under you know,
like over analyzed word neoliberalism like has largely become meaningless.
One of the things I should I think, I think
it's valuable for understanding is a process by which capitalism
responded to the Sixties by disorganizing its production process such
to the long Sixties could never happen again, right, so
like like the four the the control the like the
(27:09):
concentration of workers within within production in such a way
that they could be agitated by students and then like
sort of radically unionized wildcat and sort of like almost
overthrow a government, right, Like the neoliberalism is like you
know it smashes the unions, yes, but it also it
also like distributes out the active production. Right so that
(27:30):
so that that's not so easily done. And I think
one of the real problems of you know that was
facing social movement. Um, you know in the in the period,
you know, the the long period, like you know, you
had stuff like in the U s Again that this
is where you know the best. But like you know,
you have the l a uprising which is huge, um,
and you have you know, the globe, the summit hopping
movement and anti globalization, which you know what could attack
(27:51):
a target, but there wasn't really a sense of like
how it felt hard to do a local struggle, UM
beyond like really like a revolutionary riot like l A,
which you know you can't really precipitate. UM. I mean
you can't really precipitate a movement either, obviously, But I
think like but like like a uh a political political movement,
(28:11):
a form of political organizing that didn't require something on
the level of George Floyd, which is what the l
A rebellion was, right, UM, but that also didn't require like,
uh an action from capital that you were like striking against,
right like the the uh you know, the Summits or whatever. Um.
And that that again and like all of these eras
are very important. This is not to like you know,
(28:32):
obviously like this is with with respect for those movements, UM,
but yeah, we felt I think it felt like we
were in a political wilderness. And I think that that
like UM occupy really and the movement of the squares globally,
I think UM really like demonstrated that it was possible
to practice a kind of street politics even without UM
(28:52):
you know, a shop floor where you can organize even
without um, you know, a a capital p party to
organize within UM and I think that was really important.
I think it also scared a lot of people who
and and continues to who are committed to those politics
UM and UM to the twenty century workers movement or
the nineteen and twenty century labor movement, which they somehow
(29:13):
fantasized will come back UM if they just wish hard
enough and writing though books or whatever. UM. And I
think like, um, so, I think that was powerful. I
also think like like, yeah, sorry, we can move on
to legacy later. But yes, I think that was like,
I think that was very much like an important thing.
Was was just like and you know, um, I graduated
college in two thousand nine, um so I was like
(29:35):
part of that millennial generation that like, you know, had
gone into incredibly deep debt. Like we'd have a college
degree and then like the bottom fill out of the
economy there were no jobs. Um And Like I think
there were a lot of you know, like people who
like had anticipated a middle class life UM of some kind.
Not that I really had at that point, but whatever, Like,
but but a lot of people like in my economic
(29:56):
cohort like had um suddenly facing you know, proletarianization, right,
and I think that was one of the strengths of
the movement. I think that was that, you know, like
I mentioned the statistics in great in Spain and Greece, like,
I think that was a global aspect of this kind
of movement um uh Arab Spring to like there was
there was a lot of like that was really a
(30:17):
response to the economic crisis. Obviously, those folks were already
more proletarian than the people who are the young people
and in the squares movements, UM. But they they innovated,
they created the tactics in in Arab Spring right UM
Terrer Square, most famously in Cairo, UM and UM. I
think like those creating a meeting place where um, you
(30:38):
didn't require a preconstructed like political community UM in order
to engage was a strength and a weakness UM. And
I think it it also you know, as a result
of the dynamics of the general Assembly, the dynamics of
the sort of voluntearist nature of that what I'm describing, UM,
it led to a lot of people who were already confident,
(30:58):
who are already feeling good, being able to like take
more power, right like um uh. And I think it
also was a very white movement. Um. Certainly in New York,
but but I think I think across the country, UM,
it was largely it was largely you know, it was
it was majority white in a way that you know,
by higher percentages than any movement that we've really been
part of since um was UM. And that was obviously
(31:20):
a limit um for for reasons that will be obvious
to everyone, including the idea that like a lot of
people pushed that like the police are part of the right. Um. Okay,
so let's let's talk about the police, because you know,
like that's you know, that's that's the one of the
other extremely important aspects of this is this immense militarization.
I mean, okay, so I think that the militarization of
(31:41):
the police as a phrase, I think it's somewhat misleading
in that like the cops have always like shot people. Yeah,
but you know, there there's yeah, there there's there's there's
still like there's an intense sort of ramp up of
the prison sector. There's you have this sense boom in
(32:01):
the size of prisons. You have, Yeah, you you have
increasing parts of the economy that are just the entire
towns that used to be sort of manufacturing sectors you
used to be sort of involved in sort industrial production
that are just like the economy is now just there's
a prison there. And and I think this is also
looking back, one of the things that look like occupy
(32:21):
kind of r ran up into because you know, occupies
this attempt to like you know, form a democratic space,
and it relies crucially on this this thing that is
nominally in the Constitution but doesn't exist, which is the
like the right to freedom of speech and the right
to freedom of assembly and freedom assembly like that is
that is like that is bullshit. It does not exist.
(32:43):
If you like, if you actually believe that this exists,
like try getting like seventy people into a space and
see how like just like I don't know, like into
a street or just just like into into like have
one of people on a park and just like see
how fast the cops show up, because you know, it's like, yeah,
the first time yeah that I was I was at
any kind of protests, cops immediately wanted to take anything
(33:05):
I was holding. You're not You're not allowed to the
first thing, if if if if you have anything in
your hands, that's that that is a that is a problem. Yeah,
it's like the First Amendment is just it's super completely
superseded by traffic laws, like laws about like sidewalk maintenance,
like no, it's it's all fair, like none of it,
like you're you're not you're not allowed to. And this
is this is I think is partially this is kind
(33:25):
of a talk, but this is part I think why
there's so much focused on the right about the first
moment because they want to they want to draw attention
away from the fact that, like the actual thing that's
fake about it is that you can't gather people in
meat anywhere, and they want to draw it into these
like inane like this professor like said the N word
a bunch of times in class. Isn't it bad that
people are mad at them? But but if I think
(33:46):
also go to time, this sort of back to occupy.
You know. Okay, So, so occupy functions right insofar as
there is a a physical location where people can go
and physically interact with each other. And that's a problem
because at some point the police are just like no,
(34:07):
and they start clearing the encampments and I think this
is this is the other thing with occupy is that
outside of like parts of Oakland and that that's a
whole other thing that. Yeah, but it's it's it's incredibly
studiously non violent in a way that like nothing I've
ever seen before since is yeah. So so so there's
(34:30):
a lot there. I'm gonna I want to talk about
it because that's there's a lot um but yeah, so
I think I think the militarization of the police thesis
um is is incomplete if you don't also talk about
the policification of the military. Right, so, like part of
what happens with with the great expansion of them of
the carcerel state, part of that is also a response
to the Vietnam War um and and mass resistance within
(34:54):
you know, the troops they were like in the Vietnam
the in like the last two years when ground troops
are there in Vietnam, there's like fourteen hundred fragging incidents
where where um you know where where privates and recruits
killed their officers. The US Army during the during Vietnam
was on the brink of the of collapse in the
way that like like the Russian Army was looking in
(35:15):
it was like like like the numbers, I think, I
think I'll number At one point there was like forty
of the army by the end of Vietnam was either
on strike or just like not following orders. Yeah, no,
it was. It was complete. There was the reason that
that Nixon pursues Vietnam sizzation, which is when they just
start doing air campaigns, bombing and napalm, is because they
couldn't rely on ground troops anymore. They just they were useless.
They were all high um, you know, to talk about
(35:36):
you know, there's a lot of talking about like Heroin,
but like that was actually kind of a former resistance
within the lines in a complicated way whatever. Okay, that's
all very So the military realizes that it can't function
as a mass military in the model that nation states
have done since the Napoleonic Wars, right, which is like
the mass you know, the mass recruitment of the citizens soldier. Um,
that's sort of how wars fought between you know, eighteen
(35:59):
ten and nine seventy. And then it becomes clear that
that's not gonna work anymore because because the aims of
the countries and the power of nationalism have become too abstracted.
Fascism has done too much damage to that image. There's
just like there's it doesn't really work anymore. So the
military turns into a sort of what it always was also,
which is like a colonial policing force, and so the
(36:19):
police the military drift towards one another in form and function. Okay,
So in occupy Um, one of the microhistories that I
think it's forgotten is that, like, I mean because because
it took a week, and like, who remembers this week
except for like weirdos like me who were there? Um?
Is it like there was no one at Zuccati in
the first first week. And one of the big things
that happened was these these these you know, young white
(36:41):
girls got caught in a police net and pepper sprayed,
and there was this video that went around with them
getting pepper sprayed and screaming. Is particularly this woman on
her knees, you know, screaming with with tears and pepper
spray going down her face. And that really outraged people
because you know, they were you know, it was police
depression and police violence. So in terms of the question
of non violence, yes, Um, there was a lot of
non violence. It was a constant fight that took honestly
(37:04):
took until the George Floyd Uprising for the right outside
to win. Frankly, but but but but during Occupy there
was you know, there was a lot of non violence nonsense.
Um and I think like, but but another thing that
happened though was that like you know, like I said,
people were marching every day. So even in New York,
where I think the political height was kind of achieved,
(37:25):
October one when we took the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, I
think I think New York never really like had a
big moment again, Like it was largely sort of like
smaller things after that. But um, but like and there
was a mass arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge. We marched
over the Brooklyn Bridge, the brookn Bridge got shut down.
They arrested seven hundred of US. Um. It was the
first big infrastructure shutdown that happened in the US since
(37:46):
the l A Riots. It was it was a big
deal at the time. Now it happened. Can I put
a note doubt though specifically for the Brooklyn Bridge if
you're because people I've seen every every single time there's
one of these movements, people try to take the Brooklyn
Bridge and they all got arrested. It's like, can can
you all like please, I am begging you. If you're
going to try to take a bridge, make sure you
have a way out, like, yeah, you have to hold
(38:06):
one of the sites. That's the problem. We're going to
get arrested. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you got a way out
a bridge design, do not have a way out? Exactly?
Please please don't all get arrested. It's it's in fact
bad and yeah, sorry, exactly. I haven't seen a few
people successom we take bridges a few times, but that's
(38:28):
because there was like three cop cars and like people,
if you have like a block with two hundred kids,
you're not going to be able to hold the bridge. Yes,
it could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
(38:50):
cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone to dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com