So much for veritas.

Having planned it for weeks, on Wednesday students at Harvard University moved to set up tents in Harvard Yard and hold their first Occupy Harvard general assembly meeting.  But before you could say "safety and security concerns," all entrances to the yard were either locked tight or guarded by police officers demanding to see Harvard ID. I was one of a contingent of non-Harvard types who showed up to support Occupy Harvard and found ourselves barred from the proceedings by university officials.

This is what democracy looks like at Harvard

By now this is getting to be an old story. An occupation crops up and before anything troublesome occurs, the police roll in like storm troopers. By the time I got to Harvard somewhat after the 7 p.m. scheduled start time of the GA, the campus was crawling with police. Granted, these were not the bogeymen we've seen at other occupations. They were not wearing riot gear or toting mean-looking "less-than-lethal" weapons. Their demeanor ranged from merely stern to somewhat affable. Still, the presence of dozens of officers from Harvard, the city of Cambridge and a private security firm seems an extreme response to plans for a peaceful assembly by a a couple hundred people. But as I said, we're getting used to this.

I approached police at Johnston Gate, across from Church Street, and was told that the yard was closed for "a special event." A check of my Twitter feed confirmed that Occupy Harvard was on the move, seeking a place to hold the General Assembly that would be accessible to all. I continued around the periphery of the yard, questioning police at each gate as to why I couldn't enter. Several claimed not to know why the yard was locked down. When pressed as to why the public was being excluded from  an event in the yard, one officer  (who did admit to knowledge of some sort of demonstration) replied sheepishly, "Uh, I'm not sure, but I think some of them may be over at Holyoke Center." So much for veritas.

 

I saw police cars everywhere during my walk through the neighborhood. It was if a criminal was on the loose. Meanwhile, Occupy Harvard had completed its General Assembly and repaired to Boylston Gate, across from a busy section of Massachusetts Avenue, to figure out its next move. When I  joined the group, there were perhaps 150 people gathered outside the gate and spilling into the streets. Another crowd of Harvard ID holders was assembled inside the gate. We sat before our police sentries--the flickering strobe lights of parked squad cars illuminating the proceedings--as possible strategies for thwarting the lockdown were broadcast via human microphone for all to hear.

This must have seemed comical to the police. To me, it was emblematic of Occupy. Here is an explicitly non-violent, utterly transparent movement that models democracy at every step. Somehow, this is so threatening that police departments everywhere are compelled to send in the storm troopers rather than have an occupation take root in their jurisdiction. (Police raids on Occupy Oakland alone have cost an estimated $2.4 million so far.) It's worth noting that Harvard Yard has been locked down only rarely in the past, once during the Vietnam War when about 500 students took over University Hall, expelling administrators, including an associate dean who was carried out by students when he refused to leave voluntarily.

Nothing like that happened on Wednesday. After getting word that tents had been set up inside the yard, we left Boylston gate to march around the yard, chanting. "Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" among other slogans. There were a few taunts from students on the other side of the gate claiming to represent the 1%. They might have just been goofing off, or they might have been serious. This was Harvard, after all.

All quiet in the yard (photo by Jason Pramas)

There's been a fair amount of commentary on the supposed irony of having an occupation at Harvard, where so many children of the 1% are educated. Despite the divisive-sounding rhetoric about the 99% versus the 1%, the Occupy movement is not about demonizing the rich, many of whom support Occupy's goal of economic justice. Harvard has a long tradition of liberalism which dovetails nicely with Occupy. It has, as well, been quite permeable to the surrounding community. Who hasn't taken a continuing ed class, attended a lecture or visited a museum at Harvard? Who hasn't walked through Harvard Yard?

If there's an irony it's that an institution so grounded in the community is now attempting to keep the public from joining with students in a meaningful and vibrant display of democratic protest. But Harvard kids are smart. On Thursday night, they held another General Assembly at Johnston Gate. Everyone was invited and facilitators were on hand to assist in using the human mic across the locked gate. As I stood on the civilian side of the gate with two Egyptian revolutionaries who had come to address the GA, watching through iron bars as the Harvard continguent moved quietly toward us in the dusk, I thought, "This is what democracy looks like."

Is it the 60s yet? A watershed week in review.

An early image from the Brooklyn Bridge arrests

A week ago, I was considering posting a link here with instructions about what to do if you're taken into police custody. Those grainy black-and-white photos of Vietnam-era protesters being hauled away by cops--which only recently seemed like artifacts from a distant time--had been suddenly brought back to life by the Occupy movement. As arrests of Occupy protesters mounted (the current total stands at 2885 worldwide), the images proliferating online were eerily familiar, yet somehow surreal. Impossibly sharp, flush with digital color and seeming to strain at the confines of their frames, they both echoed the iconic photos of the 60s and brought home the realities of the current struggle. One of those realities was that you could get arrested.

Now I wonder if I should be looking for information about how to protect oneself from tear gas, rubber bullets and other "less-than-lethal" weapons that comprise the riot-police arsenal. Yes, the ante was upped dramatically when police went medieval on Occupy Oakland last Tuesday. In the aftermath, a protester, former marine Scott Olsen, lies hospitalized with a brain injury and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is fighting for her political life. Despite considerable fallout from Oakland, police departments across the country stepped up crackdowns on Occupy protesters last week, raiding camps and evicting protesters. And it was hardly a kinder, gentler police presence that greeted protesters after Oakland. On Saturday, police dismantled the Occupy Denver encampment and used mace and pepper pellets to clear out occupiers. Here's some footage of the Denver incident.

The crackdown seems only to have galvanized and emboldened protesters, who are currently holding their own in battles with authorities. Last week's raids were almost invariably followed by attempts by protesters to retake lost ground, literally and figuratively, often with a measure of success. City officials--and even police--are in some cases pushing back when ordered to interfere with protesters.  A municipal judge in Nashville refused to sign arrest warrants for demonstrators taken into custody there. The mayor in Albany, NY, declined to enforce a curfew at the park where Occupy Albany has set up camp despite a request from Governor Cuomo to do so. A few police officers in Denver reportedly refused to participate in that raid because they were disturbed by the level of force that was used.

Meanwhile, Mayor Quan of Oakland has invited Occupy Oakland back to its camp, presumably in an attempt to repair her image, but possibly because she decided to reread the part in the Constitution about free speech. A major union has joined Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike in the city on Wednesday. Oh, and did I mention that pro-democracy activists in Egypt marched on Saturday in support of Occupy Oakland? 
 

The thought of Egyptian freedom fighters marching in solidarity with Americans struggling to end corporate despotism is powerful for many reasons, not the least of which is that it begs the question: Is this our revolution? Certainly we haven't seen anything remotely like Occupy Wall Street since Vietnam. More than a few people told me that the events in Oakland reminded them of the 1970 National Guard massacre of student anti-war protesters at Kent State University. Thankfully, no one died in Oakland and Scott Olsen will likely recover fully from his injuries. But I thought about Kent State, too. Watching video footage of protesters gathered around Olsen's motionless body after he was hit by a police projectile, I couldn't help but recall the famous photo (seen above) showing 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling next to the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of the students killed at Kent State.

In the end, I think Occupy Wall Street will eclipse the Vietnam movement, but not for violence. There is a strong commitment to non-violence from within the movement and during the past week there were there were repeated calls for protesters to remain peaceful. OWS will eclipse Vietnam because its issues are bigger and broader than any single war. The infiltration of the government by corporate money--one feature of which is a war economy--is like a creeping weed that has grown roots in major American institutions, causing the very foundations of our democracy to crumble. If this movement becomes as big as the issues it encompasses, this will be the revolution that some people are talking about. And Oakland will stand as its Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Oakland: A Blow-by-Blow

It started in the wee hours of the morning on October 25 when officers in riot gear summarily trashed the Occupy encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza near Oakland City Hall and evicted protesters using tear gas.  Mayor Jean Quan said the raid was necessitated by safety and sanitation concerns, commending the Chief of Police Howard Jordan for using "peaceful" means to "close the encampment." There ensued a sort of rolling protest, with marchers attempting to return to City Hall and retake the plaza, while police cut them off at every turn. Public transportation was shut down to prevent more people from joining the march. The demonstrators continued on, continually changing their course and destination to shake police.

Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, seriously injured by Oakland police

Late that evening they converged back at City Hall. More than a thousand  demonstrators, unarmed and predominantly peaceful, were met by hundreds of police--not just from Oakland, but from some 15 surrounding communities--firing tear-gas grenades and bean-bag rounds. Police say that was the extent of their artillary, but they have been variously accused of deploying flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and wooden-dowel projectiles, all of which are technically non-lethal but potentially very dangerous. Police initially claimed that no one was injured in the melee and continue to insist they used the least force necessary.

In fact, many people were bruised and bloodied by police tactics that night. The most visible face of the injured is 24-year old marine veteran Scott Oldsen, whose skull was fractured. While now alert and cognizant (he was upgraded from critical to fair condition on Thursday), he is so far unable to speak. The injury is believed to have affected the area of his brain controlling speech. Both the Occupation Wall Street movement and the veterans community have rallied around Olsen.

It's official: The police have joined in.

I still haven't seen any confirmation for the Twitter post by Michael Moore claiming police in New York City were participants in Friday's Occupy Wall Street march with Pete Seeger, at times singing along with the crowd. He compared it to the police joining the protesters in Egypt during the Arab Spring. I blogged about it here. At this point, I'm inclined to think the incident didn't happen, but no matter. Something wildly more significant is unfolding right now on that same front. Organized factions of the police--and the armed services--have begun to proclaim their support for OWS--loudly and resolutely.

@OCCUPYMarines and @Occupy_Police have active Twitter feeds and thousands of followers despite having been up and running for just a few days. Both groups also maintain websites and Facebook pages. The uniformed presence in the Occupy movement has seeds in the October 15 confrontation in Times Square between Sargeant Shamar Thomas and police officers who were threatening to arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters. The video of the incident immediately went viral and Thomas became an overnight folk hero.

According to the website Business Insider, the OccupyMARINES organization initially reached out to former marines but eventually put out a call to veterans in other branches of the military asking them "to lend their support to help 'talk sense' to police and recruit them into supporting the Occupy movement." The effort is aimed at veterans only because active armed-services members are prohibited by military law from joining protests.

Now the boys in blue have stepped up with Occupy Police. The first posting to the group's website declares, "We are in open Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and all Occupy movements across the nation. We’re starting off Day 1 with a mass e-mail to all police departments throughout the US. We want them to know that they ARE part of the 99% and to get involved with the movement. We openly support positive communication between Police/People and we encourage you to do the same."

In addition to the planned e-mail, @Occupy_Police deluged police departments across the country with Twiiter requests to support the Occupy movement. Here's the tweet: "YOU are the 99% PROTECTING 100% - Join us in open #Solidarity with #OWS & the people of our nation #OcPo."

I've been dabbing my eyes all day as I read the @Occupy_Police Twitter feed with its grateful shout-outs from civilians and thanks from the police in return; wary posts from rank-and-file officers followed by entreaties from OcPo to join the movement along with reassurance that the organization will ensure anonymity; and requests to "please send us your photos of police in #solidarily with the people."

Besides the inspirational value, this whole thing is perhaps the most powerful refutation yet of the attempt by the right wing to paint OWS as a fringe movement made up of (depending on which right-wing source is talking) slackers, criminals, anarchists or drug addicts. The newest talking point from the Right says that the protesters just wanna have fun. Zuccotti Park is party central for the disaffected.

The truth is that there are people hanging out at Occupy sites who use drugs, who are homeless or have been unemployed long term. (I might point out that this doesn't mean they deserve our scorn or that they necessarily shouldn't be there.) Also part of the movement are humanitarians, store clerks, teachers, geeks, ditch diggers, marketers, burger flippers and CEOs--and, now, officially, police and ex-military women and men.

It's a very big tent and getting bigger.

What do Bigfoot and the Occupy Wall Street movement have in common?

Two years ago, performance artist Jonathan Doyle decided to go skulking around the top of New Hampshire's Mount Monadnock in a Bigfoot costume he picked up at iParty. Mostly it was a lark, but the 31-year-old hoped the stunt might bring attention to his other work. So he hiked to the summit, donned the full-body suit and posed for photos with amused hikers. Looking to get some hits on YouTube, he filmed mock-serious interviews with backpackers describing their encounters with Bigfoot. (See the video here.) When he went back a year later to make a sequel, "The Capture of Bigfoot," Monadnock State Park officials put the kibosh on it.

What does this have to do with Occupy Wall Street? Doyle was told that he would need a special-use permit to follow through with his plans. To obtain the permit, he was required to pay $100, post a $2 million insurance bond and undergo a 30-day waiting period--all just to have a little fun in the name of art. No one had complained about the previous filming, which the artist called "socially engaging." Doyle contends that his rights of free speech are being violated. The case is scheduled to be heard in the New Hampshire Supreme Court beginning November 10.

Granted, the right to parade around a mountain top in a gorilla suit and the right to assemble en masse to protest a corporate takeover of democracy seem very removed from one another. But take a look at this video of Naomi Wolf talking about her arrest in New York for joining with Occupy Wall Street protesters. She explains how over the past 30 years government entities have increasingly required permits for activities that formerly could go on without them. More and more rules apply to public gatherings. For instance, there were not always regulations against the use of megaphones in New York City. Wolf calls it a "stealth campaign" to erode citizens' ability to speak out against the government.

Back to Bigfoot. Maybe you think Doyle's art is frivolous. That's immaterial to the constitutional issues. But I rather like the guy. Today's Boston Globe describes a performance by Doyle that endeared me to his efforts:

"Last year Doyle created an elaborate, brilliant-white angel costume with feathered wings, a melancholy Venetian mask, and a gold crown. He wore the costume into St. James Episcopal Church in Keene--smack in the middle of Sunday services--spread his wings, and stood stump-still in the back of the church. 'The preacher, he just sort of grabbed it right away and started to work with it,' said Doyle. 'It was just so shocking. He just started to talk about certain concepts in the Bible and the mystery of God and how God is found in very strange ways and mysterious places'."

I would argue that the same thing is true of the fight for free speech.  

Pete Seeger marches with Occupy Wall Street. Did the police join in?

One couldn't help but be moved by the sight of 92-year-old folk-music legend Pete Seeger (making good time even as he used two canes for ambulation), marching through New York City's Upper West Side last night with throngs of singing and chanting Occupy Wall Street protesters. His grandson, Tao Rodriguez Seeger, accompanied the crowd on guitar and someone else was playing a flute. (The video feed that carried the event streams live around the clock from Zuccotti Park. I've added it to this site.) You didn't have to be an activist or a dyed-in-the-wool folkie for this to qualify as a three-hankie moment.

Michael Moore, who's making a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement, was there too. This morning I awoke to his tweet. "OMG! A few cops joined in the march tonite! A 1st! 2 of them were even singing along w/ the crowd! In Egypt, when cops joined in...game over." I'm new to Twitter, so my search skills are not yet honed, but I could not find any tweets to confirm the one from Moore. Predictably, there's been a lot of retweeting of Moore's initial report.

I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of Michael Moore. He's obviously done some good in the world with his unorthodox and incendiary documentary film-making. He would also seem to massage facts to suit his purpose on occasion. Because of this, I watch his movies with a certain skepticism. Moore has publicly called for the police to join Occupy Wall Street "the same way the Egyptian army joined the people in Freedom Square there in Cairo."

 
Did the cops join in last night? If they did, it's significant and should be reported on. Someone besides Michael Moore must have seen it. You won't find it in the Wall Street Journal, which said the protesters "marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines."
 
We'll see if the story of police officers falling in with the protesters turns up in a credible media source. In times like these, it's hard to know who to believe.

Things get dicey in Oz, the media shrug.

 From the Herald Sun

Last night, I added @OccupyMELBOURNE to my Twitter feed as news of a police crackdown in Australia began showing up in the Boston and Wall Street feeds. "Hands trembling. Incredible, unnecessary violence from police," said one @OccupyMELBOURNE tweet. "Protester dragged from square, by hair, today," tweeted an observer at the scene. "Multiple reports of Police taking off nametags prior to getting violent with protestors," tweeted @OccupyMELBOURNE. As seen in this video, even a reporter for Australia's Herald Sun seemed taken aback by the forceful approach of the police.
 
Coverage by the Associated Press was demure by comparison. "Riot police in Australia’s second-largest city broke up a demonstration linked to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement Friday, after a group of around 100 people protesting corporate greed defied an order to vacate a plaza," begins the AP story. The use of force by police is downplayed in the report and, if videos such as the one above are any indication, it significantly underestimates the number of protesters. (Read the full AP account here.) 
 
Is this just one in a long line of media fails regarding the Occupy movement or is it a sign of something more insidious? Remember, all the major news organizations are huge corporations.