A Movement Without a Home: The Future of OWS

Future of OWS remains uncertain after its eviction By [Matt Harvey] Zuccotti Park?Immediately after the Occupy Wall Street encampment was forcibly removed by the New York Police Department (NYPD) in the Nov. 15 pre-dawn sweep, the ground lights were flipped back on. The now barricaded plaza has shimmered like an ice rink every night since, with Brookfield Properties? security guards in yellow vests manning the two entranceways and patrolling inside. (Brookfield Properties is the owner of Zuccotti Park.) Once in a while someone haggard-looking will risk putting his head down on one of the benches only to be jolted by one of the many guards saying, ?You?re not allowed to lie down here.? While a handful of hardcore activists stay in the park through the night, Brookfield Properties? new prohibitions against ?tents,? ?tarps? and ?storage??enforced jointly by private security and the NYPD?have effectively stymied re-occupation. And without its 24/7 physical anchor, the movement has lost exposure. These new circumstances also beg the question: Without an encampment at Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the ?Occupy? actions, will this media sensation still turn into a political and social revolution? Or will it slowly lose steam not only in New York City but across the nation and become a distant memory of a much-buzzed-about story? And, if the protesters are vigilant in continuing their efforts, where will the movement move next? Some haven?t lost hope of re-inhabiting the park and many former occupiers promise they have not gone away. Charlie Meyers, a 20-year-old who dropped out of college in his home state of Arkansas to be a part of the movement?and spent 40 hours in central booking after being arrested during the sweep?estimates there are ?between 500 to 1,000? OWS folks hunkered down locally waiting for ?the next occupation.? They?re revolving through churches, the New School ?Occupation??where Meyers is bedded down?and the United Federation of Teachers building at 62 Broadway, which serves as an OWS main storage facility. They?ve got their eye on permanently taking Duarte Plaza, a space on Sixth Avenue and Canal Street owned by Trinity Church. But if that plan falls through, one thing is for certain. According to Meyers, ?All these people have gotten a taste of a progressive utopian vibe and they?re not going home.? Meyers himself can?t go home even if he wanted to because his lawyer has advised him not to leave the state until the trespassing and obstruction charges he racked up the night of the sweep are dealt with. ?I was thinking of going home to start the next semester, but now I?m staying to August,? Meyers said. But money is tight and an occupation is the only way that the movement can attract the necessary donations to survive, because it ?shows transparency.? He added: ?Without that we?re just like Greenpeace begging for money on corners.? No one?s connection to the former camp was stronger than that of Gary Williams, an 18-year-old former foster kid who sports cornrows and hails from Queens ?by way of Virginia.? Williams?a member of the long-silenced drum circle who still carries his drums on his back?had nowhere else to live but the OWS settlement for two months. That?s where he ate his meals. That?s where his friends lived. On the morning of the eviction he was handcuffed by the cops, then let go. Since then he?s been sleeping at a ?church on West Fourth Street,? but as of Nov. 20 he said that?s no longer an option: ?I don?t know where I?m going tonight.? Asked what he misses the most, he put forth a flurry of examples showing that the jury-rigged community represented a ?time of sharing.? Asked if he?s optimistic as to whether OWS will survive, he gave it some thought and replied, ?It definitely has slowed down, but maybe it?ll come back. But not as big.? Looking at the ground for a moment, he added, ?If they let something like that fail it will be a shame.? Meanwhile, despite the relative quiet, the plaza remains the hub of the OWS movement, if only because it is here that the General Assembly?the movement?s highly democratic main governing body?meets nightly to show that things are business as usual. At 9:30 p.m., Nov. 20, the scene was a miniature version of the plaza in the freewheeling incarnation that led up to the eviction. At the time of the sweep, estimates of the number of activists and hangers-on who were there vary wildly from roughly 200 to as many as 800 people. Meanwhile, 50-some protesters attempted to ratify a mission statement affirming OWS? collective interest in abolishing ?unchecked corporate power and unjust government,? in the interest of a ?truly free democratic and just society.? It would seem like a shoo-in for a progressive group to sign off on a pro-democratic, anti-corporate governance statement that one activist called ?uncontroversial,? but it quickly got bogged down under the group?s critique. Some complained that the statement was too ?flowery,? while others noted it omitted any mention of ?institutional racism? and a few doubters even wondered whether it was in keeping with the spirit of ?true democracy? to have a mission statement at all. After an hour or so of further discussion, points of procedure, friendly amendments and threatened blocks, the facilitator, Jarod Shelton, announced that further discussion of the proposal would probably have to be shelved until the following day because the group couldn?t reach the necessary consensus. ?The process can be tedious but it?s worth it in the end,? he announced evenly. Shelton?s statement to the crowd was just the latest reminder that with more than two months under its belt?months that have included several large-scale ?days of action,? hundreds of arrests and the dizzying eviction?the OWS movement has yet to set out even the thinnest sketch of its collective ideals, never mind undertaking the more difficult task of outlining a set of political demands to take to the powerbrokers, who have loudly raised doubts over whether OWS is a force to be politically reckoned with. But for the moment, at least, it seemed that the slow wheels of pure, unfettered democracy had come to a screeching halt. [ ](http://nypress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/shankbone_9fccdd27b0_o.jpg)Riffing on the theme that Sheldon had touched upon while speaking to the group, Michael Gottsign, a 50-year-old protester who lives in Manhattan, remained positive. He said that the ?slow? consensus-seeking process is necessary for the movement to gel around any ideas that stand the test of time. ?If everyone doesn?t agree,? he said, referencing the consensus, ?then they?ll be a split, which is antithetical to the movement.? Whether or not such a disparate group of voices (the original OWS contingent included liberals, socialists and anarchists) ever coalesced around anything, there are signs that despite the obvious idealism of Gottsign and others like him, the movement is already split. The most visible split is between those affiliated with OWS who recall the encampment fondly and a more media-savvy contingent who saw it as a potentially ugly impediment to the movement?s progress and are happy it?s now gone. The latter group felt that the camp had become so disorganized as to render it politically impotent and the crackdown was the only thing to tame it short of an Oakland-style tragedy. Going forward, the movement would have to rely less on a physical anchor and more on the grass-roots appeal of its anti-Wall Street message and marches. Summing up this strain of thinking, liberal commentator Matthew Yglesias blogged on Nov. 15 that ?getting kicked out of Zuccotti Park is probably good for Occupy Wall Street.? On the day after the crackdown, Brendan, a sometime-facilitator who preferred to use only his first name, said he was glad the NYPD had taken over, even though he had lived in the camp at times. ?The tents were becoming a liability,? he said, careful not to make too much about the problems the encampment also had with crime, ?and we were worrying about not getting through winter.? That same day, performance artist/activist Reverend Billy, resplendent in his usual white suit and upside-down black collar, said he was ?more optimistic about [OWS] than ever.? But in the ensuing days?especially after the Nov. 17 march on Wall Street?few in OWS could go on denying that the crowded encampment gave the movement a share of the public?s attention that it will have a difficult time otherwise filling. But for those sympathetic with the movement, the complaints against the encampment suddenly ceasing to exist are more heartfelt. After standing and listening to the mission statement discussion for a few minutes, a twenty-something man with longish brown hair and a ?99%? shirt walked away disappointed. ?Fucking bullshit GA,? he said, and wandered over to the empty side of the park. Meyers bluntly said, ?Park people aren?t GA people.? But he adds that he appreciates that the GA is filled with reasonable members who have ?four hours every day to talk about stuff,? and the two groups should theoretically complement each other. Meyers gives the GA credit for making decisions to allocate $3,000 for ?Halloween costumes,? and even thousands of dollars to send a group of OWS ?observers? to the Egyptian elections. ?I would have never voted for those proposals,? he said, but it turned out the media attention generated by these projects brought in an influx of donations far exceeding those amounts. There was some evidence Sunday night that perhaps OWS is moving a degree or two away from the form of democracy that currently decides its fate while trying to remain true to its collective vision. In response to a question by a protester who worried about ?not getting his voice heard,? one of the General Assembly?s facilitators replied that since the crackdown, the importance of ?working groups? (such as the one that drafted the as yet un-agreed upon mission statement) have grown in importance. Though there was an implication, however, that this would mean the GA was losing some power within the movement. If the GA is seen as a natural extension of Zuccotti Park, its own future in the center of the movement is now in serious doubt. While the loss of a 24/7 home base may have taken the teeth out of the GA as a governing body, it has also left some emotional scars for the movement?s most devoted followers. More poignantly, a 30-year-old woman in a black beret began to quietly cry after a few minutes of listening to the speakers at the Nov. 20 General Assembly. Asked what was wrong, the woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she was checking out the park for the first time after the sweep. She sobbed softly, ?These people talking are all that?s left of everything?? ?Everything,? of course, referring to the tents and signage and general utopian vibe that the camp gave off in its finer moments?as when an unnamed woman living in one of the tents offered a white rose and ?two empty spaces? to two men in suits who had claimed to have just been fired from Goldman Sachs 20 minutes before the eviction. Then, referencing the sweep, the woman in the black beret added, ?That?s all it takes to make people go away?? That, perhaps, and 200-some arrests in the following two days would at least put a damper on the movement. photos by David Shankbone | [Shankbone.org](http://www.Shankbone.org)