Author Archives: Nick Mirzoeff

About Nick Mirzoeff

Writer and critic

The Beloved Community After the Disaster Of Capitalism

Posted on by

I led a workshop at the Free University of New York City on Strike Debt and one of the participants was an African American woman who had been active in the civil rights movement. She exhorted us to remember Dr King’s idea of “the beloved community” and to follow the lead of groups like the Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee. Then yesterday the activist and writer Rebecca Solnit proposed that Occupy was precisely a form of beloved community, one that came together in response to disaster.

In her book A Paradise Built in Hell, Solnit offered a stunning reversal of the fundamental neo-liberal worldview. As Mitt Romney so disastrously confirmed in his 47% video, neo-liberalism believes people to be fundamentally “brutish.” The term comes from the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose distate for the “multitude” has been much noted of late. Hobbes argued that only a centralized, authoritarian state could mitigate the fundamental violence of the human animal.

Solnit shows how this presumption structures official responses to disaster and catastrophe, such as the wildly inaccurate claims of mass looting, murder and rape in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Solnit describes how, not only are such charges wrong, but what actually transpires after disasters are remarkable instances of mutual aid. At her teach-in yesterday, she proposed that OWS was one such instance of this response. There had been a disaster, in this case, a financial one. People responded by providing shelter, food, clothing, medical care and other fundamentals, free of charge and in a collective fashion. It was clear to all that such provision was a direct challenge to the normative capitalist economy, leading to the evictions on the (spurious) grounds of “brutish” dirt and disease.

Illuminating NYU

In her book, Solnit develops this contrast into a theoretical distinction that she borrows from the apparently unlikely source of William James. In his lectures on Pragmatism, James asked:

What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true?

Solnit applies this to disaster and reformulates it:

What difference would it make if we were blasé about property and passionate about human life?

That’s a great way to pose Occupy’s challenge to neo-liberalism. Its radicalism was the palpable sight of all kinds of people placing the beloved community as a higher value than material goods, not in the name of a renunciation of the world, but of a radical change to it.

It might also suggest that the local and small-scale nature of Occupy is in fact an apposite response to the disaster of capitalism. As an Oxfam report on Cuban responses to disaster put it, there is a:

distinct possibility that life-line structures (concrete, practical measures to save lives) might ultimately depend more on the intangibles of relationship, training and education

than the wealth so beloved by neo-liberals.

So small-scale organizing centered on community, training and teach-ins is not a utopian alternative to capitalism but the best available response to its disaster. Lessons to be learned here by Strike Debt as it moves from being a campaign to a movement.

Freedom, Justice and Privilege in NYC

Posted on by

The intense last few days in New York City have reminded us of the interaction between the desire for freedom, the operations of legally-sanctioned justice, and the workings of privilege that constitute the moment. The social order functions, but it does so in ways that are palpably out of joint. In the cracks of capital, a desire for radical change has emerged that is not unmarked by these contradictions.

Late on S17, a group of us headed to 100 Center Street, where arraignments are held in Manhattan, to do jail support for some of our friends, who had been arrested for protesting in a bank. Note that this bank, which was one of the most culpable during the crisis, has not yet had any of its operatives arrested. We walked a surreal trail through winding walkways and a maze of buildings to a Rite-Aid under the Brooklyn Bridge, where, somehow, a police officer returned one arrestee’s personal possessions to her spouse. In our tired state it seemed for a moment that those arrested would emerge from the pharmacy as well. In fact, we had to return to Center Street, which turned out to be complicated because no-one could remember the way and none of the many police officers on duty knew. Once finally there, we discovered that none of our friends were on the docket for night court.

We returned the next day in greater numbers but it was not until 5pm that the OWS people were scheduled for arraignment. We entered the court and sat on the unforgiving wooden benches. A theater of the absurd played out at the front as lawyers muttered to the judge and their clients, while officers of the court walked this way and that with endless sheaves of paper. Thick files appeared for each person, visualizing the density of the carceral bureaucracy. People appeared for arraignment through a door, behind which bars and cells painted that depressing shade of official cream could clearly be seen.

As is common in such arraignments, the protestors appeared very late on the docket. As we sat in this bleak space, we witnessed a seemingly endless parade of people of color, mostly men, mostly African American. From the widely-available literature, everyone knows that the prison-industrial complex is a central component of the apparatus of racialized segregation. We know that 2.3 million people are currently behind bars and another 5 million or so under some form of correctional supervision. Seven times as many African Americans as “whites” are in the system.

Even knowing all this, it is something else to see it in action, to see shackled bodies, the bruises on one woman’s face that shocked her defense lawyer into taking photographs, a man with his hands bound behind his back in such a way that to sit caused an involuntary rictus of pain, still another hobbling up the aisle to the arraignment, barely able to walk.

From the DA’s office, a lawyer intoned the terms “the people” and “justice” with regularity. We were not so convinced. Does it serve the people to have a woman incarcerated for fifteen days for the alleged crime of stealing a bottle of shampoo? Would this have happened if she had been “white”? My soto-voce comments on all this caused me to be expelled from the courtroom for “talking,” as if it were a school assembly.

Of course, you may be thinking that it is a reflection of my own privilege that this sight was new to me. Yesterday at the Free University in Madison Square Park, which continues until Saturday, the subject of privilege was raised in a discussion hosted by Tidal. Facilitating the discussion, Rosa L., who happens to be a person of color, pointed out that OWS has its own privilege by virtue of being in New York City. As I have often recalled, Arundhati Roy made exactly this point when she visited. She also insisted that it was, paradoxically, all the more important that we continue to make visible the lack of consent, even at the very heart of neo-liberal capital.

Nonetheless, the intensity of the media attention to New York does mean that OWS receives more coverage and discussion than is equitable in relation to other Occupations and radical actions. The discussion explored how we might best make use of that attention by stressing global initiatives and other interfaces outside New York.

In the Strike Debt teach-in that I facilitated later on, I again felt this double-bind. The participants looked to New York for models, perhaps even for leadership, but there are inevitable tensions that follow from that. Is the way forward, then, to create the best movement we can in New York and see if and how it inspires others? This was the pattern set by the original occupation. Or should there be an attempt to create an organization that reaches outside New York? I tend to the former, others to the latter. It’s such tensions between how to claim freedom while recognizing privilege that create the need for new practice and new theory.

The Many Futures of Occupy

Posted on by

In its first year of life, Occupy has transformed the American political landscape by opening a space for radicalism. By radicalism, I mean a questioning of the fundamental ways in which life is lived. It has done so by defining and executing a form of political practice that is a hybrid of grass-roots organizing, direct action and digital-era networking. The new radical opening created by Occupy is now proliferating in four main directions that were represented by the four “zones” of action on September 17: debt, the ecological crisis, education and the 99%. There are, then, many futures for Occupy.

A year ago, the tactic of occupation brilliantly visualized what has become Occupy’s signature gesture: to put bodies into public space where they are not supposed to be. In so doing, Occupy called attention to exclusion and inequality in public affairs in a manner that had become unsayable in American life. By making themselves visible, the occupiers made it possible to speak once again about the extraordinarily divided society in which we live.

To realize what a difference this has made look at this New York Times editorial on Mitt Romney, which uses language unthinkable a year ago:

The shame is not that those people don’t pay income taxes. The shame is how many poor people there are when the top 1 percent can amass uncountable fortunes fed by tax breaks and can donate tens of millions of dollars to political candidates to keep it that way.

If, as seems likely, this video moment turns the Presidential election from a close-run race to a canter for Obama, Occupy can take a slice of the credit.

Occupy now sees itself as a “movement of movements.” These were represented in the different clusters that took action around Wall Street. Let’s look at these futures.

Debt

In the past two months, a key theme for many activists has become what economists call “household debt,” meaning the range of personal debt from credit cards to mortgages, student loans and medical debt. Fully 75% of Americans are in debt. The other 25% are mostly too poor to qualify them for credit, excluding them from access to everything from airplane tickets to home ownership. 14% of Americans are being pursued by debt collectors. So it’s not surprising that The Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual published this weekend by the Strike Debt collective has become an instant hit. The Manual gives detailed practical information on how to deal with debt and what to do if you can’t. As yet another bailout for the banks was announced by the Federal Reserve with its purchase of $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities, there has still been no debt relief for the 99%. Expect to see a debt refusal movement in the US, following the precedents of Quebec, Greece, Spain and Portugal.

Ecological Crisis

Nowhere is the gap between the planetary crisis and the current governing solutions more in need of radical rethinking than the environment. As scientists struggle to get their heads around the enormity of the acceleration of global warming, which now suggests that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer very soon, all global government can do is squabble over drilling for yet more hydrocarbons in the newly-revealed land. While the Obama administration is mocked by Republicans for wanting to slow the rise in the oceans, they have given all possible encouragement to Shell’s efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic, even after the company failed to complete its safety devices. In the face of this consensus, direct action is the only option remaining, such as that taken by Greenpeace when it occupied an Arctic drilling rig, or the successful encircling of the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Carbon-based capitalism is now a threat to life itself and Occupy can make the connection to create a politics of the living.

Education

From all sides, we hear that education is the key to success in the global economy. Unfortunately, someone seems to have changed the lock. In K-12, neo-liberal education seeks to inculcate data for multiple choice tests, rather than educate people to evaluate. The measure of their success is precisely that climate-change denial continues to flourish. Higher education is presented as a customer-driven, goal-oriented service economy. Hard to reconcile this with $1 trillion in student debt, 41% of the class of 2008 in default on their loans, and mass unemployment of graduates. The Bar Association is actually recommending students not to go to law school because of the combination of debt and unemployment. In Quebec, students took strike action against tuition hikes and won. In Chicago, teachers have just ended their strike against teacher evaluations based on tests with a deal whose terms are as yet unclear. In Chile, high school and university students continue to revolt against tuition-based secondary and higher education. The goal is now clear: a free public system that educates for life, rather than indoctrinates for work.

The 99%

On September 17, the 99% action centered on the slogan “money out of politics,” perhaps Occupy’s most impossible demand yet. There are plans to occupy the Presidential debates. If the White House race becomes  a done deal, look closely at what happens in Wisconsin, where electoral activism has been the focus of the movement. Activists in Madison have long claimed to have started the Occupy movement with their action at the Capitol building. The occupation resulted in the recall of Gov. Walker but he was able to win re-election, seeming to set the movement back. Now Rep. Tammy Baldwin is in a close race for US Senate against former Governor Tommy Thompson. If the Republicans win, even greater gridlock is the likely outcome of the Obama second term. So what happens in the Dairy State may be a good indication of whether there’s a significant role for Occupy in electoral politics.

These are the fundamental issues of our time. Occupy’s many futures will continue to make radical solutions visible and sayable and thus newly possible.

 

S17: Celebration and Disruption, Mission Accomplished.

Posted on by

Unlike most of the mainstream reporters on OWS’s day of action for its first anniversary, I was on the street yesterday from 5.30am to 11.30pm. This is a report back on what I saw, with lots of pictures so you can see too.

At 5.30, I set off for the meeting point in the Financial District. Coming out of the subway in the dark, I was confronted with the most extensive police presence I have yet seen outside of the former East Germany and the military dictatorship in Colombia. Since 9-11 large metal barricades shaped like a half-moon have been set into the streets around the Stock Exchange to prevent vehicle access. Although no Occupy protest has ever used a vehicle, these were all raised. Around them were line upon line of metal barricades, tied firmly together with plastic. Present behind the barricades, rows of police and, in the streets nearby, police on horseback, in vans, and coaches, while helicopters clattered overhead. Walking through the streets, dressed in “civilians” to look like a possible Wall Streeter, I felt like a character in a spy movie. It did not seem as if I was simply going to a political demonstration.

Later in the day it looked like this at Wall Street:

Wall Street barricades

And police checked ID all day:

It was not as if the authorities did not know what was intended. All actions were posted online and the last Spokes Council was held outside One Police Plaza.

Despite all this, those protesting debt gathered at 55 Water Street in large numbers and good spirits. There were four such zones around Wall Street: debt, eco and education were the specific themes driving sections of the movement at the moment, with a general 99% zone taking on the direct engagement with Wall Street.

Gathering at 55 Water

Actions were agreed in a quick Assembly and the gathering departed to an intersection close to Wall Street. As chance would have it, other protestors had just visited the same intersection and there was a strong police presence. People returned to 55 Water and reconfigured the strategy. From now on, we would move in small groups doing actions that were shared only with other members of that group.

My group determined to engage in jubilant disruption of institutions that promote debt servitude. One example already discussed in the media was an intervention at JPMorgan Chase, one of the prime beneficiaries of the bailout. People simply walked into the lobby, danced, threw confetti.

From NY Daily News.

Then we mic-checked a letter of protest to Jamie Dimon, the notorious chairman of the bank.

Unfortunately, despite the peaceful nature of this protest in a public space, several people were arrested. Nonetheless, it was felt that the action had been a success and similar interventions were carried out at Citibank and Emblem Health.

The other tactic consensed by the group was to hold a traffic intersection to visualize the intent to disrupt Wall Street. Intersections were chosen because they were adjacent to major debt institutions. This action is a version of Occupy’s foundational gesture: to put your body into public space where it is not supposed to be. Traffic was delayed by no more than five minutes and far greater delays were caused by the NYPD lockdown of the Financial District.

From the Village Voice

Further, in this case, it reverses the doctrine on which financial neo-liberalism rests, that is to say, “move on, there’s nothing to see here.” By calling a halt to circulation in the financial center, we protest the markets’ claim to sole authority over our bodies and minds.

These actions (among dozens of others) celebrated the Occupy anniversary and disrupted Wall Street without causing injury to anyone or anything.

Tired people from all four zones regrouped at 11 at Bowling Green for a Spokes Council to determine the next actions to take.

We heard about the actions that people had carried out and decided what to do next. Our group decided to protest at the World Financial Center. It was totally successful in the sense that security immediately locked down all three towers and admitted only people with IDs from corporations working there.

The energy of the day moved from disruption to celebration. We returned to Liberty Plaza, held an assembly, swapped stories, distributed publications, sang songs and ate cake. We were protected by the OWS barricade–made from foam.

From here, I spent the end of the day doing jail support: over 180 people were arrested, including a number in our group. Let’s pause here and ask a question: if the media estimate of “over a thousand” (NY Times) protestors is accurate, are the NYPD really saying they arrested 18% of demonstrators? Of course, common sense suggests that this number indicates an attendance of about 3500-5000 all told, which would feel about right to me.

The maze of the prison-industrial-complex at the bottom end of Manhattan is something to see, forbidding and expansive buildings situated relatively close to each other, but hard to access and locate. No one seemed to know where anything was, or what was happening to people we knew had been arrested. Finally, just before midnight it was determined where they were, and that they would not be arraigned till the following day (Tuesday). When he evicted Zuccotti last year, Bloomberg said that he intended to give OWS protestors unpleasant times in the system, and this one promise he appears to have kept.

I will write an assessment tomorrow but for now: Was this the revolution? Did it shut down Wall Street? No, and no: because it was not intended to be or to do so. Did it celebrate Occupy and disrupt Wall Street as intended? Yes and yes.

Please note that I was mindful in writing here that Mutant Legal have advised us not to discuss online anything that might be construed as illegal, so actions that were not already in the public domain have not been discussed in detail.

Posted in S17

Don’t Read This, Get Out On the Streets!

Posted on by

HAPPY OCCU-BIRTHDAY: Get out on the streets!

S16 was fun, a concert in a park on a lovely autumn day. With two hours of well-attended Spokescouncil to plan for today. Followed by Occupy Rosh Hashanah with over 400 people in Liberty for the non-denominational service. Including a bishop and lots of people wearing the priestly dog-collar.

And then there are cops. Everywhere. So today should be interesting.

But don’t waste time reading this: get out and do something to mark the anniversary–have an assembly, hold a speak out, walk out of class, convert your class into an assembly. Don’t contribute to the dreary meme of left melancholia, otherwise known as “thank god, we lost.”

If you’re in New York, roll with Strike Debt:

MEET: 6:30am @ 55 Water St, in the big open plaza. We’ll head out around 7-7:30, but some will stay, so come any time between 6:30 and 10am.

You may have heard about the possibility of barricades and checkpoints around the financial district. Don’t worry, we have a plan B and C if we can’t get to our assembly point.

If necessary, the communications team will send out the back-up plans by mass text. So…PLEASE GET ON THE TEXT LISTS:

1) text @S17NYC to ‘23559’ for general list

2) text @S17Debt to ‘23559’ to get on the debt bloc list

If it’s your first time using this text service, you will have to create a username.

HAVE A VERY HAPPY OCCUPY ANNIVERSARY!

See you here on S18 for reportbacks.

Posted in S17

Looking Forward: Day One of the Anniversary Weekend

Posted on by

Assembly in Washington Square Park

Day One of the Anniversary weekend was intense, peaceful and renewing. If your news comes from the media, all you will have heard about was a wildcat march to Liberty Park, where people were randomly arrested by the NYPD, including legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild. Such arrests were intended to keep attention away from a long day of meetings, discussions, and non-violent direct action trainings.

My day yesterday: I arrive in the Washington Square Park about noon to distribute Tidal. There’s already a positive feeling, with lots of tabling and people circulating. A little while later the shout of “Kitchen’s open!” gave me chills of recollection back to the occupation.

1.30pm Thematic Assembly. By now there are hundreds of people and the square is buzzing. At the Assembly there are people present from California, Maine, Georgia, Spain, Canada, Boston, Los Angeles, Delaware. Lots of energy.

2-3.30pm Debt Breakout. A large group of people, mostly not from New York, all energized to hear about Strike Debt and what we’ve been doing. There was also what we have come to recognize as a to-be-expected emotional outburst about the need for immediate action now, and no discussion. The difficult realization for debtors is that, as much as action is totally needed, it has to be organized. Still, the theme of the assembly turned out to be that we need to create a way to organize debtors to set aside the shame that debt brings: each place where people start to organize around debt will have to engage with this fundamental work.

3.30-4pm Report backs to the main assembly

4-6pm Direct Action training: a very large group of people took over the north-east corner of the park to learn tactics like Civilians and how to form Affinity Groups. A little repetitive for those of us who have done a few of these, but for new people it was clearly just as energizing as I remember it.

7.30-11pm Launch of the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual in Judson Church. Here was a real surprise: about 250 people turned out on a warm Saturday night in New York to talk about debt refusal. A series of presentations on the themes of the Manual and Strike Debt organizing were followed by breakouts and report backs. The evening ended with some lovely videos from a year ago, reminding us of all that’s been done.

11pm Trying to get home, I find myself in a long discussion in the street.

Sorry, one per cent. Occupy is not dead. It’s not even declining. You don’t get it and you never did.

 

Posted in S17

Happy Birthday Occupy: The First Anniversary Schedule

Posted on by

Over the next three days, I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to post about Occupy as I will be, you know, doing it:) I’ll try and get some updates in each day and post a long report back on S18. The mood is building here in NYC. A hundred people are coming from Boston. ACT UP are promising 500 people. Coaches are coming from LA.

Here’s what they’re coming for: the full schedule is on the main S17 site

PLEASE NOTE: some details will change at the last minute in response to events. Please text @s17nyc to 23559 to be kept in the loop via text message.

STRIKE DEBT WEEKEND & S17 SCHEDULE!

We Disrupt Wall Street to Strike Debt!

https://www.facebook.com/events/392412137491505/

Join us for a weekend of resistance and dialogue – let’s organize a debt resistance movement together!

Saturday S15 – 10:30am – STRIKE DEBT TABLE: Washington Square Park

https://www.facebook.com/events/441896559188731/

S15 – 2pm – DEBT THEMATIC ASSEMBLY: Washington Square Park

S15 – 4pm – TRAINING: Washington Square Park

S15 – 7:30 – DEBT OPS BOOK LAUNCH: Judson Memorial Church

https://www.facebook.com/events/175989395870394/

Sunday S16 – 11-7 – STRIKE DEBT TABLE – Thomas Paine Park

S16 – 1-6 – CONCERT – Foley Square

**MONDAY S17 – 7am – Disruption and Celebration Action – Meet at 55 Water St 7am**

WEAR red and green! or business attire! or both!

BRING: Debt-related banners, signs and lots of red squares. Bring tools of disruption and celebration

ABOUT: #DebtBloc is one of four clusters of the S17 morning action. On S17, we will block Wall Street with non-violent civil disobedience and/or flood the area around it with a roving carnival of resistance (depending on your preference).

S17 – 2pm – ACTION 2.0 (Debt Assembly) – Staten Island Ferry

S17 6pm People’s Assembly, Foley Square

Tuesday to Saturday S18-S22 – TEACH-INS (Free University) – Madison Square Park

http://freeuniversitynyc.org

S23 – 12pm – ASSEMBLY – Washington Square Park

 

 

Posted in S17

The Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual

Posted on by

Occupy first changed the national conversation on inequality and capitalism to the extent that the full force of the nation-state was turned against a few thousand campers. Who would have predicted that a tent was so subversive an object that its sale would be banned in many locations? Next, it changed the national calendar by bringing together labor unions and immigrant groups to celebrate May Day together for the first time since the Cold War.

Since that day, Occupy has changed its internal conversation. Emerging from a series of horizontal assemblies in May, the Strike Debt campaign that will launch on September 17 moves from convergence around the tactic of occupation to consensus around the politics of debt. Debt is the tie that binds the 99%, whether you’re part of the 75% of Americans in debt, or the 25% below the poverty line whose lack of access to official debt is the scarlet letter of impoverishment. We stand with the millions already in default on mortgages, student loans, credit cards and medical bills, with those struggling to make ends meet, and with those whose life opportunities are foreclosed by the amount of debt it now takes to construct the disappeared American Dream.

We refuse the assertion that debt must be forgiven to corporations but totally repaid as a matter of morality by people. We understand this for what it is: a system of social control that constrains us to lifetime of debt, ended and resolved only by death. In short, you are not a loan. And to help you, Strike Debt has published this weekend The Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, a systematic practical guide for debtors on how to improve your situation and what your options are, up to and including debt refusal. In the words of the opening declaration:

We gave the banks the power to create money because they promised to use it to help us live healthier and more prosperous lives—not to turn us into frightened peons. They broke that promise. We are under no moral obligation to keep our promises to liars and thieves. In fact, we are morally obligated to find a way to stop this system rather than continuing to perpetuate it.

Like Tidal, the Manual is free. It was researched, written and edited collaboratively in an intense two-month period and printed in a week. For those accustomed to the sclerotic pace of academic research, this process has truly been an eye-opener. It’s been published in paper by a mixture of donations and support from those within Strike Debt. You can get a copy this weekend in Washington Square Park on Saturday from 11-6pm or at the launch event for the Manual at Judson Church on Washington Square South at 7.30pm on Saturday 16 September. A PDF version is available here and the Manual will continue to be updated as we get better informed and as the situation changes.

The Manual is one of the most substantive pieces of militant research to emerge from the Occupy movement, a pleasant contrast to the moribund rash of books and articles based on one person’s take on what happened last September. The not-so-easy-to-fool  people at Naked Capitalism have given it a thumbs up already:

this guide achieves the difficult feat of giving people in various types of debt an overview of their situation, including political issues, and practical suggestions in clear, layperson-friendly language.

Indeed, the Manual covers all forms of debt and offers a crisp political analysis of the debt society (no, I’m not praising my own writing here!).

1.5 million demonstrate for Catalan independence this week.

The future is about building the possibility of openly declared debt refusal, or debt strike, following the lead of students in Quebec, consumers in Greece and the Catalan independence movement. Do not go quietly into austerity, join us.

We Disrupt Wall Street To Strike Debt

Posted on by

After a long day of action planning, including training in Zuccotti Park, a performative walk around the Financial District and a late night discussion in a pub, Strike Debt consensed on its actions for September 17, using the slogan: “We Disrupt Wall Street to Strike Debt.” This will be a non-violent disruptive and celebratory refusal of those who would subjugate our lives to debt, in the place where they do that work of subjugation. It affirms life, love, and companionship over the isolation and fear that is the debt society.

The morning begins at 7am at 55 Water Street. From there the movement will swirl around Wall Street, spreading confetti, bubbles, balloons and a ticker tape parade as a celebration of our refusal to be debt peons and to insist that debt abolition is both necessary and inevitable. There’ll be visual and performative acts of non-violent civil disobedience that will make the point that to live in the red is not a valued life. We assert that we are not a loan in the shadow of the towers built by ratings agency Standard and Poor’s, who give credit ratings to student loans and the CDOs that brought down the global economy. We assert life in the face of AIG, the disastrous insurance company that took billions of federal bailout money as household debt went through the roof. We assert a culture of mutual aid in front of JPMorgan Chase, one of the many corrupt banks that have paid no penalty for their scandalous behavior.

The action will not be measured in numbers, whether of participants or arrests. It’s a qualitative difference, one that will compel Wall Street to show its true colors in barricades, fences, security cordons and mass police presence. All for a few people carrying banners and balloons. What are they so afraid of? Could it be that they worry that the concept of living a life that is not measured by debt might prove popular if people became aware of it?

Want to find out more? Check the Strike Debt Facebook page for updates, come to the Convergence in Washington Square Park on Saturday 15 from 1-4 pm. Figure out how to get involved: because if you’re reading this, you already are.

Portrait of the Activist as a Middle-Aged Man

Posted on by

Home after a full day of OWS-related activism, I want to share with you all what I did today and what everyone else is equally busily doing to get ready for S17 and the formal launch of Strike Debt.

First thing this morning I checked on the “Stand With Occupy” site and it was great to see signatures building and many thanks to those of you who signed (if you haven’t had time to sign, click here.) There’s also a great new piece on the Strike Debt action last Sunday in the Village Voice. You have no idea how much email comes out of Occupy. As so many active people are young, there’s always a tide of new posts from the early hours to be read, Facebook posts to be checked, tweets to be looked at.

Out of the door, off to an interview with for a Brazilian documentary about the legacies of the Iraq War. In some ways that was the theme right there: a British author being interviewed by a Brazilian in New York about Iraq. It’s amazing to think that it’s almost ten years since that fiasco began and it’s harder than ever to explain why and what it was about. I do think the rise of citizen media would have made it harder to sell the whole ludicrous venture. Not impossible.

I grab the car and head off to Bushwick to meet with Tidal editors Amin Husain and Rosa Luxemburg (I use people’s names if they have publicly identified themselves as active). Over an excellent papaya shake in a local café–where monster portions of arroz con pollo were being consumed all around–we discuss Tidal distribution and the Strike Debt video the two are working on. Thousands of Tidals go into the trunk and off we go: Riverside Church, Columbia, Labyrinth Books, CUNY Graduate Center, NYU. Bundles of magazines are dropped off at each place.

While I drive the others maintain a constant dialog with others by text, voice and Facebook. I stay with the car when we stop and do the same. Since the post on Clint Eastwood went viral, the Huffington Post has reposted my piece on Occupied Language, and I’ve fielded some other requests. I mention this out of sheer vanity, of course, but also to show why I keep doing this every day. It has built slowly but seems now to be of use to the movement, which was the goal.

Park the car and then down to Zuccotti. I touch base with Marissa Holmes, with whom I will be co-facilitating the Debt Assembly in Washington Square Park on Saturday, NYPD permitting. We already have a good framework and establish some action items to get it done. As one of the leading lights of the occupation, Marissa was just off a CNN Radio interview and all the attention seems to be fulfilling the expectation that S17 gives OWS a platform, even if only for the day.

We moved into a training for the days of action. The trainers concentrated first on establishing friendship among the group by some games and then talked about how to stay calm and goal-focused in the streets. One of the NYPD’s goals is to scare and intimidate protestors, first from attending the action at all and then from carrying it out. It’s a good lesson to relearn and I realized that I had been feeling nervous. It’s a shame you have to be aware of how to act to sustain your physical safety in the streets of New York if you choose to demonstrate dissent. But it’s a fact.

At this point, the fact that I had forgotten to eat all day made me tired and I headed home, knowing that I’m going to another training tomorrow. Good day.