Power to the People

            With Occupy encampments under siege across the country and the world, it is clear the movement is accomplishing something, it is not as clear what that something is. While frustration with corporate greed and wealth inequality created the movement and continue to be the over arching ideals behind it, Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless movement. Organized without a central figure and without clear demands, the chaos of the movement is its true strength, and what will ultimately allow it to succeed.

            There are many things that are needed for a social movement to be successful from a permissive world context to a crisis occurring in its homeland but one of the biggest challenges facing any social movement is in not allowing it to be co-opted. That is why I believe that the leaderless movement of Occupy Wall Street will succeed. From Michael Moore to Lupe Fiasco, from Anne Hathaway to Miley Cyrus, from Moveon.org to Burlington’s mayoral candidates, all have attended events or shown support for Occupy Wall Street but the movement has resisted the urge to be co-opted, remaining true to the idea that, the people united can never be defeated.

            At its core, the Occupy Wall Street is about challenging the system and empowering people to create a new political paradigm. Occupy's ability to succeed largely hinges on its ability to remain a leaderless movement, if it is co-opted or adopts a leader to speak for everyone than it will become easy for the Occupy movement to be discredited.

A strength of the leaderless Occupy movement is the idea that no one person speaks for the group. When a Free Press reporter wants to write a story about Occupy Burlington he has nobody to call to give him an easy sound bite, he must actually show up at one of the local events to talk to the people in attendance. Even when interviewing people at the movement each one makes sure it is known they speak only for themselves and not for the movement as a whole. Lacking the central figure, allows Occupy Burlington to actually marginalize the media’s ability to represent the movement. It makes it impossible to get the whole story from the mainstream news, which in turn encourages people to attend events and become involved, which strengthens the movement.

Look at the current Republican candidates running for political office, their entire life becomes public and once something less than favorable is found that can be played on the 24 hour news cycle, their candidacy is over. With no central leader, the Occupy movement, which has been marginalized in the media from the beginning, as being led by societies less than desirables from dirty hippies to the homeless, cannot be destroyed in this same way. For instance, if a crime occurs in the encampment, the story doesn’t stay in the public consciousness very long, because there is no larger public figure to attach the story to, keeping it in the news cycle. Ask most people on the street what they remember about media coverage of the Occupy movement and they will answer with police brutality and pepper spray used against the people.

The best defense going forward that Occupy Burlington and the larger movement has to stay a leaderless movement, is also its most democratic, the general assembly. By making use of direct democracy to collect consensus before making decisions allows each individual voice to be heard and counted and doesn’t value one voice above any other.

A second process the movement uses to make sure it stays leaderless, might be its most annoying, the human microphone. Started out of necessity in New York City and spread throughout the country in solidarity, the human microphone allows a persons message to be amplified through repetition from many voices, not allowing that speaker to rely on eloquence. I, like many other people got caught up in Obamamania in the last election and was seduced by what he had to say in his speeches rather than what he his actions in congress said. The human microphone fights against this problem by not allowing the speaker to say more than maybe ten words before they need to pause so the people can repeat it.

All the reasons stated above are what make the leaderless Occupy Wall Street movement powerful and ultimately successful. It will take time and dedication to see this social movement succeed in the United States. It is important to allow Occupy Wall Street to continue as a leaderless movement because the elite in charge of the country don’t have the mechanisms in place to fight an idea with no face but a idea with a face they can destroy in days.

A New World Order

Courtesy of occupywallst.org

In recent weeks, people taking leisurely walks or throwing the Frisbee in City Hall Park in Burlington, might have looked towards the southern corner of the park and wondered if they had accidentally stumbled upon Burlington’s entry into the niche activity known as urban camping. In actuality, the two dozen or so tents set up on the south side of the park represent Burlington’s Occupy Wall Street encampment, organized to show solidarity with the growing Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City.

Now approaching 60 days in length, the Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York City on September 17^th after a call to action from the Canadian activist group, Adbusters. Protesters gathered in the middle of Manhattan’s financial district to fight against the power corporations and the ultra rich have over the democratic process, while also challenging the role that Wall Street played in the economic collapse which helped led to the recession the country is still fighting through today.

The protesters also want to bring attention to the wealth inequality in the country in which the top 1% holds a disproportionate amount of the wealth in the country.  Jonathan Leavitt, a community organizer, explains the movement this way, “The Occupy Wall Street movement is the rising up of people, who are fed up with corporate greed and the power they have in all facets of life, who have finally come together to build a movement to try and change the way the country functions. It is the 99% finally taking a stand against the 1%.”

The anger at corporate greed in the movement stems from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout in 2008, where banks that had risked significant amounts of money and lost got bailed out with over 700 billion dollars with as much as 300 billion of that coming from taxpayers. During 2008, companies that received 295 billion dollars in bailout money spent 114 millions dollars in campaign contributions and lobbyists.

Courtesy of ibtimes.com

 Another general complaint out of the Occupy movement is the staggering wealth inequality between the top 1% and the bottom 99%. In 2009, the top 1% of United States households owned over 35% of the countries private wealth. That is more wealth than the entire bottom 90% percent owns. The top 10% also owns more than 80% of the stock market wealth and the ultra rich 1% own over 38 % of the total stock market wealth. 

both courtesy of inequality.org

While the issues raised by the Occupy movement are important, the movement has many critics, with the main critiques of the movement being that, first, the movement offers no solutions to the problems they raise, second, the movement doesn’t have a clear list of demands, and finally, the protesters are simply lazy, unemployed people who are waiting for a handout. Jon, a UVM graduate student, who is critical of the Occupy movement, says this, “I feel like the people protesting don’t know what they are protesting for, they found issues that they don’t like about the country but aren’t trying to fix them.” What many critics don’t understand about the movement is the idea that the encampments being set up around country are real attempts by the Occupy movement at offering solutions to the problems they see in the current society. As Leavitt says, “If we wait for politicians to make the changes we want to see than we will be waiting for a long time, the people need to be the change we want to see, we need to make the politicians make the changes we want to see.”

On October 28^th, the Occupy Burlington movement began its occupation of City Hall Park. On that Friday afternoon, soon to be campers put tents up while other searched for rocks to anchor the tents since the use of stakes were not allowed. After a rally and some music the encampment of City Hall Park began. 

Courtesy of the Defender

When you walk through the encampment it is impossible not to get drawn into a conversation, often many conversations, exchanging ideas, philosophies or simply making small talk. It is equally impossible to be able to leave the encampment without having accumulated an surprisingly large amount of literature. The campers, who range from young to old, from employed to homeless, from well dressed to tie-dyed enthusiasts, all seem to exude hope in the occupation and what it might be able to accomplish. Occupy Burlington empowers the people as it is a leaderless movement looking for all people to lead in their own way rather than having one central leader of the movement.

The decision to occupy the park came out of a general assembly, which is the Occupy movement’s decision making process. Leavitt has this to say about the movement and general assemblies, “what is so great about this is that there is no leader, the people truly decide what their next move will be.” A general assembly is a form of direct democracy where a people gather to make decisions through consensus, allowing each persons voice to be heard before a decision is made.

In Burlington, there are general assemblies every Sunday at 2:30 on the steps of City Hall (held daily during the encampment), anyone can attend all that is needed to have your voice heard is taking the time to actually attend. The assemblies are led by facilitators, who guide the attendees through the agenda for that day, though they should not be confused with leaders of the movement, as again anyone can be a facilitator. With attendees gathered on the steps of City Hall these meetings can sometimes last for several hours before the whole agenda is worked through the general assemblies engage in a more direct form of democracy than ever takes place just feet behind them inside City Hall. 

Courtesy of Reddit.com

While to some the length of the assemblies might seem tiring to some, at least one person in attendance doesn’t mind them. “I found the general assemblies to be very uplifting because I felt myself being heard and listened to in a way that a politician hasn’t ever listened to me," says Joanna Marshall, a Burlington resident who has attended several of the general assemblies. "I mean, even in a small state like Vermont, I have hardly ever see the senators I vote for, let alone talk to them in any meaningful way. I knew that when I supported something or didn’t support something my voice would be counted.”

Working groups are another way that Occupy Burlington involves the people in the process of governing. Working groups involve people coming together to work on different issues presented by the Occupy movement, some might be camp related but not all are. Working groups in the Occupy Burlington movement range from Environmental and Anti-War to Comfort to Media and Technology. The media and technology group seems to be a particularly important group, “with mainstream media having so many corporate sponsors, the movement, even in a place like Burlington can’t be expected to be portrayed fairly by the media," Leavitt points out. "That is why it is so important to create our own media for the movement to allow the people to decide for themselves what we are about.” Though not all people who see the working group media think it does very much good, Jon, talking about his viewings of some of the media, “I’ve looked at some of the clips people in the movement have created and they seemed to me that they were nothing more than propaganda to support their views. It didn’t seem like they were trying to be objective with any of their clips.”

The most  visible aspect of the Occupy movement have been the marches up and down Church Street on Sundays and other select days of action. Beginning in late September and often led by a community band, marchers create signs to creatively express their frustration with the 1%, while they use the tried and true call and response method to have their voices heard over the eclectic soundscape that arises from Church Street. “It is great to march up and down Church Street, I can see people watching us as we walk by chanting and singing, I can see them wondering what we are doing. I hope we are showing them what it means to stand up for what we believe in,” Marshall, who has been at several of the marches, says.

Courtesy of 7days blog

Until recently, the city of Burlington, didn’t know what to make of the occupation of City Hall, with Mayor Bob Kiss initially taking a wait and see approach to the encampment. One reason Kiss might have had this approach is that with a kitchen, library and sleeping arrangements, the encampment offered a place for some of Burlington’s homeless to be more accepted. “We can meet all the basic needs and services that a person needs here in camp, which is one reason there are more homeless in the encampment than might be expected, its interesting that the Occupy encampment can provide all the services that City claims to offer,” Leavitt says.

With the encampment doing so well in offering an alternative to the current society from direct democracy to independent media, it was unfortunate that tragedy struck the camp. On November 10, Joshua Pfenning killed himself and in the aftermath of the accident, Kiss changed his wait and see approach, calling for police to breakup the encampment in City Hall with the threat of violence. It remains to be seen where the Occupy Burlington movement will move from here, but Leavitt is still encouraging more people to join the movement, “Get involved, be engaged, become a leader.” Marshall shows a similar sentiment, “I hope people don’t think this means the movement is over, its not, its still growing, we believe in changing how society work, just because the encampment is gone doesn’t mean that belief is.”