Occupying Two Years – The Crest of a High and Beautiful Wave
“It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again…” – Hunter S Thompson
It may, or may not, but damn – it was a great ride.
Two years ago this month I was standing by the bull – that famous one by Wall Street.
It was surrounded by metal police barricades – something that would become the norm during the life of Occupy. Those barricades became a defining characteristic of the protest – keeping marchers on a defined route, keeping them out of Zuccotti Park, keeping the press contained in ‘free speech zones.’
The protestors for the most part stayed on the right side of the metal – when they didn’t they were beaten, arrested and sent to One
Police Plaza.
But that day – September 17th there was none of that. There was marching, there was protesting and there was yoga in the park.
I talked to my fellow journalists – I told them this was another bust. I told them we should just leave… but we were hopeful, despite the many years of half assed attempts at change we witnessed and documented… so we stuck around.
A couple of days later… is become Occupy Wall Street. People actually occupied. People were strong, they had ideas, they spoke well… we were… stunned.
Then main stream press started talking about it. OWS become an answer to the Tea Party, it became an answer to what happened to the left after Obama was elected… according to the the mainstream media it was supposed to do a lot of things.
OWS did what it did. It changed the language of the debate. “99%” became a phrase. We actually started talking about the financial divide in America… something that the Democratic Party never did. Something MSNBC never attempted to do.
And amazingly we all started to change. Journalists were talking about an American answer to the Arab Spring… the American Autumn. We become positive for the first time in over a decade.
This was our hope, this was our chance for change.
It worked.
[more reflections to come as the anniversaries pass… look for them at TheMudflats.net]
