Perhaps because Boston has a historical memory of how well overzealous security crackdowns don’t work IRL (/snark), Occupy Boston is still in tenuous possession of a public-private patch of land. Quinn Norton, at Wired‘s Threat Level blog, has a thoughtful scene-of-the-story article on “Defying Police Blockade, Boston’s Occupy Builds a City“:
Between the 19th and the 21st of November, Occupy Boston had two teach-ins, a street-theater training, a reggae concert, and countless meetings — managing to use one of those as a cover to sneak a large weatherized tent past the ever-present Boston Police.
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It was a member of the Occupy Boston’s Women’s caucus that told me they’d managed it, grinning widely, just as the tent was being set up as a dry, safe, and relatively warm place for women to shelter in the Occupy.
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“It’s considered contraband,” she said, though she was gone before I could ask who considered it so. It was my introduction to the problems faced by these new residents of Dewey Square, in Boston’s Financial District, where it plays out its particular flavor of protest camp in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston…
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Occupy Boston is cacophonous day and night, dense and messy with enthusiastic humanity. Volunteers feed a thousand people a day.
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The camp has a library, media tent, clothing tent, a place to make art and protest signs, and a sacred tent littered with the holy texts and statues of many faiths. It has a dozen or so events per day, managed by its 57 working groups, who do everything from taking care of animal safety and planning direct actions to documenting and improving pedal powered generators — a favorite of their MIT contingent…
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By night Occupy deals with the flip side of Boston life; the poor and hungry, the homeless, those with untreated medical problems, and those addicted to drugs. It sleeps around 230 to 250 people in an uneasy snooze punctuated by late-night talks, the quarrels of recent and ill-advised love affairs, drunken stumbles, and fights between men used to fighting — all the usual night demons that plague the troubled…
In theory, Occupy Boston will be there at least through December 15. On Thursday, per local news station WCBV-TV, “… After a four-hour hearing, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre took both sides’ arguments under advisement and said she would issue a ruling in two weeks time. Until then, she said, an injunction that bars the city from booting the protesters remains in place.”
In practice, while it was the second-warmest November on record, below-freezing temperatures are past due already, and the city is working really, really hard to prevent the Occupiers from bringing in heating equipment (“fire hazards”), winterized tents (“permanent structures”), or anything that might mitigate the “sanitary violations” inseparable from preparing food for a thousand people every day without running water. (There’s video clips at the news link of the cops “confiscating” (destroying) a professional-grade camp sink setup designed to run on bottled water.) Police Commissioner Davis has gravely pronounced crime within the area “out of control“, and warned of the “drain on our financial resources… money much better spent in neighborhoods where there is firearm violence” for the overtime paid to keep phalanxes of uniformed officers alert against the incursion of contraband camping supplies.
Mayor Menino, who’s basically NYC Mayor Bloomberg without the private fortune or the ready patter (even his boosters call him ‘May-ah Mumbles’), has two great bugaboos in his quest to become mayor-for-life: Litterbugs, and Rich Back Bay Fvcks. Occupy Boston is a nightmare fusion of the two, in his perception — Rich BB Lawyer Fvcks defending Litterbugs (some of them Rich BB Fvck offspring). But until some combination of inclement weather and unsympathetic authority manages to disperse these unruly settlers, I think they’re creating new forms of urban community that would have fascinated Jane Jacobs.
burnspbesq
Eventually they’re going to have to go: the notion that camping out is symbolic speech is not supported by any case law that I’m aware of. I also think that if the Boston PD are ordered to shut the place down, the widespread use of excessive force is a virtual certainty.
Declaring victory and going home is an option that ought to be on the table.
General Stuck
Not sure about the effectiveness of taking up long term permanent like residence in public spaces. but I approve of this.
It comforts me when the Orwellian Jesus is “frightened to death”. Somehow makes the universe spin a little more better.
eemom
The end of the occupying camps is the start of the next phase, from Rude Pundit.
Linda Featheringill
I saw that next week OWS and several other occupy groups are targeting foreclosed but empty houses that they hope to make available to poor families.
I’ll be watching to see what they do and how effective it is.
cmorenc
@General Stuck:
I also think the OWS movement has become FAR too hung up on the “occupy” element at the expense of the “Wall Street” element, forgetting that “occupy” is merely a tactical theatrical ploy, not at all the critical core message itself. I’m baffled why indefinitely maintained overnight camping-out is mistakenly seen as such a central element of the movement by so many, when indefinitely maintained daily demonstrations accompanied by briefer symbolic one or two night camp-outs would be just as effective as messaging with the public, without the counterproductive problem of becoming a negative image factor with the public. Some of the OWS protesters seem to have too much of a taste for nostalgic re-enactment of provocative 60s and early 70s anti-war protests. What the over-emphasis on “occupy” and indefinite camp-outs does is to facilitate painting the protesters in the mode of DFHs. I wish the movement would be better at remembering that their core purpose is WALL STREET not INDEFINITE CAMP-OUTS in pulbic spaces.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Fer Christ’s sake, burns, what has come over you? Have you been possessed by Richard Cohen or something?
“Declare victory” and “go home“?
“the notion that camping out is symbolic speech is not supported by any case law”?
Does the phrase “good faith argument for the extension of existing law” mean anything to you? How about “penumbral” rights? Roe v. Wade?
Or are you seriously suggesting that every Constitutional doctrine that has evolved in the last two hundred years is firmly grounded in common law precedent dating back to the Magna Carta?
Dustin
@burnspbesq:
You’re right. Camping out en-mass to protest, to gather peacefully and demand a redress of grievances, absolutely isn’t an exercise of the phrase “or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Nope, not at all, at least not as practiced by proto-feudalistic enforcers getting their orders from pro-corporate lawyers.
Who needs the plain text of the law when we can just weasel our way out of it in the courtroom?
Bartleby
I work directly across the street from the Occupy Boston encampment, I have walked through it a number of times, I buy lunch at the food trucks on the plaza next to it several times a week, and I haven’t smelled a whiff of “criminal activity” there. The Occupy encampment has the feel of a vibrant community (on what was previously a sterile patch of always-empty “park” land), and I for one am happy to have it in my neighborhood.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Meanwhile, we have things like stories noting how LAPD went undercover within Occupy LA, discovering crazy dangerous threats like sharpened bamboo spears.
Seriously…bamboo spears? Cut from where, exactly? I can’t think of a more ridiculous and incredulous accusation against an urban fucking protest than the idea that they were preparing BAMBOO FUCKING SPEARS to attack police with.
General Stuck
but I do think it was a stroke of genius to focus the protest on Wall Street, instead of government. And is why the wingnuts are currently whining that OWS isn’t focusing on government, ie especially the hated Obama. It would have given the wingers a means to distort their real target, that really isn’t Obama, so much as them and their policies that have led to such a chasm of economic inequality. EDIT – as well as republican obstruction now to fix the mess they mostly made.
@Linda Featheringill:
And if this pans out, it would, imo, be another second act stroke of genius to focus on helping homeless middle classers stay in their homes. Something most voters have experience with as happening to them or friends and family, with fear it could happen to them.
Probly ought to put the camping gear on hold, so that doesn’t become the focus of all this, with guaranteed clashes with often dem mayors, who otherwise are sympathetic to the cause.
Grisha
They just had to have the reggae concert, didn’t they?
jon
There’s no way any occupiers could occupy anywhere, because Obama had that one day crackdown organized by the mayors and the DHS. Don’t ask which one day or when he gave the order. Just be The Betrayed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Grisha: Why is that a problem?
burnspbesq
@eemom:
“Does the phrase “good faith argument for the extension of existing law” mean anything to you?”
It means the same thing to me that it means to you: when you lose, you wont get sanctioned.
If you think I’ve misrepresented the current state of the case law, please provide cites. If you think the Occupy Boston facts are distinguishable from the facts of those cases, please explain.
Finally, “declare victory and go home” was intended as shorthand for “move on to the next phase, of political action that may actually lead to concrete positive change.”
Jeez, did somebody undercook your oatmeal this morning?
handsmile
@Linda Featheringill: (#4)
This article from Salon’s Justin Elliott, “Occupy’s next frontier: Foreclosed homes” is an informative summary of a next phase in the movement’s direct action (perhaps it’s what you had read):
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/30/occupys_next_frontier_foreclosed_homes/
The website “OccupyWallStreet.org” has more detailed and localized information on December 6 activities.
On the issue of Occupy encampments nationwide, this Guardian article outlines efforts by the National Lawyers Guild to halt future evictions and to help release incarcerated protesters:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/01/civil-rights-lawyers-fight-occupy-evictions
burnspbesq
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
You must never have lived in SoCal. Bamboo is everywhere.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think the words you’re looking for are “reinforce unfortunate stereotypes.”
eemom
@burnspbesq:
that’s some pretty shitty shorthand.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
You are being wilfully obtuse. Constitutional law is not that simple, and you know it.
burnspbesq
@Dustin:
If you were as knowledgeable as you think you are, you would know that although couched in absolute terms, First Amendment protections have never been understood to be such. There is no doubt that the exercise of First Amendment speech and assembly rights are subject to reasonable, minimally intrusive, content-neutral regulation of the time, place, and manner of such exercise. Do the words “least restrictive alternative” ring any bells?
This is an easy case. The space chosen by the protesters is unsuitable for continuing, 24/7 use. The city’s public-health concerns are real and not a pretext. That said, there is a less restrictive alternative to clearing the protestors out altogether: they can be there for the maximum amount of time consistent with maintaining sanitary conditions. Whether that’s 12 hours a day, or 16, or 20 should be left to the city to figure out.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
Do you want to have a dialogue, or do you just want to waste everyone’s time with weak, substance-free sniping?
handsmile
One final comment (this morning) on the Occupy movement, and then maybe I should take advantage of some December sunshine here in the urban hellhole.
Please read this current New Yorker article by George Packer, “All the Angry People,” profiling Ray Kachel, a 53-year old Occupy Wall Street protester from Seattle.
It’s heartbreaking and serves to explode those noxious “unfortunate stereotypes” so beloved by the corporate media in its coverage of the Occupy movement. Also, Mr. Kachel’s life story and situation would seem to resonate with many many comments I have read over the months I’ve been a subscriber to this blog, viz., “There but for the grace of god….” I sincerely and unreservedly hope you can find the time to read it over this weekend.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/05/111205fa_fact_packer
RalfW
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Also known by their Pier One name “Tiki Torches.”
.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
What is “substance free” about pointing out that Constitutional law is not built on rigid adherence to precedent? Do you disagree with that?
RalfW
Now that I think of it, a creative jack-booter could go in my garage and claim that I had a new instrument of street warfare, a sort of Molitov cocktail device with a wick and fuel reservoir attached to a long, sharpened bamboo throwing spear.
(Apologies to Pier One above…they appear not to sell the item. I guess they’re more than Papasan chairs now…)
Elie
@cmorenc:
Agree with you.
The issue is way too much about the “occupy”.. though I think that they are still bringing some pressure to the economic injustice perception nationally…
I cringe when so much of the conversation is about tents and sleeping bags, policemen and abuse and less about improving public awareness and empowerment to take action…
dran
The Occupy movement is starting to adopt an anti-corruption platform that will garner much more respect. An Occupy member’s page http://owwc.gu.ma , supporting a business owner who lost millions of dollars to a corrupt officials seems to illustrate this.
Dustin
Right. You’ve sold me. I’ll have to try ‘condescending asshole’ method the next time I’m discussing historical injustices and government corruption as a means to stiffing legitimate protest.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ, are you really this stupid? The idea that the public health concerns are the reason cities are pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into anti-protest enforcement, and why they’re doing everything in their power short of killing people to shut them down, is a joke. This is a clear-cut “serfs vs lords” fight, and you’re an idiot if you don’t understand which side has the lawyers and guns.
You do realize that this type of struggle was the very thing that the Bill of Rights was written to prevent, right? Case study be damned, use your common sense.
jpe
It was entirely clear from day one that the OWSers wouldn’t win any cases based on longstanding case law. The only surprising thing legally is that the Boston judge is taking this long to reject their arguments.
dm
I can’t help but wonder if memories of the Boston Police strike might also be behind policemen missing the smuggling of a tent onto the site.
Just so long as the Occupiers don’t put up any electronic Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotions….
Chuck Butcher
My First Amendment rights don’t allow me to put up a 40ft x 20 ft rickety ass politcal sign in my front yard – in violation of zoning and building codes. I don’t get to do it and I’d lose in court.
The legality of the OWS camps isn’t even a real question in light of regulations prohibiting camping in those spaces – it is an exercise in civil disobedience. You expect to be arrested or moved when you do civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is street theater. The point of civil disobedience is the legal reaction. The reaction of officialdom conjoins them with the issue – it makes it a clear case of Us vs Them. The messier officials deal with it, the more clear the message is. It makes them an arm and symbol of target.
Not every policeman in BIrmingham was a racist – but the message came across real clear – they were the arm and face of the racist establishment.
alien_radio
For those who still don’t understand what the occupation is and why the physical occupation is still important I present the following. john robb on what happens next
ruemara
Call me when they start occupying voting booths. Or occupying local party districts. It’s too much “occupy”, not enough action. If we’re debating whether or not they have the right to be in a park, then the conversation has failed. Now if we were discussing the occupy movement and their focus on taking lobby money out of washington, nice. Occupy movement and their push for beefier Dodd-Frank rules, real confiscation of money for banks that did criminal things, I’m all for it. Occupying a tent in a park? Occupy general assemblies? Ooook. Im going to go to the local one because I really want this movement to succeed, but I don’t feel this massive OMG HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE OUR IMPORTANCE BS that I see some here going for. Sorry.
Chuck Butcher
@ruemara:
Which one is it you have in mind at THIS moment? As for the “IMPORTANCE” that is yet to be seen but something different has already happened – the distribution of wealth and power has become a major conversation compared to its realitive dismissal a short time ago.
In a 2006 political campaign I raised hell about it; I might as well have shouited down a well…
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@ruemara: You do understand that elections aren’t happening right now, right?
I mean, I somehow managed to squeeze in some marching with Occupy Portland earlier today. Lucky for me I had a little time to spend, seeing as the primary is in May and the election in November. Maybe I should have spent that time calling my Senator? Over and over again for hours straight?
The way you talk you’d think that they don’t let you into the protest unless you swear to never vote again.
I’m also getting pretty sick of the whining that there’s too much focus on occupying and not enough on [insert pet issue here]. I suppose you’d have told MLK that he’s putting too much focus on his silly marches when he could be canvassing for some nice Democrat. Sheesh. An effective protest requires attention. Occupying parks gets attention. If you have a better way, then fucking do it, and quit your whining.
Xenos
Occupying is not just a matter of taking up space, but of actively rebuilding social norms… what I find fascinating about the Boston occupation is that they are bringing services for the homeless and mentally ill and doing so right in the face of the financial elites and their servant class.
It used to be that you would head out to Harvard, Mass, or some Berkshire hilltown to establish your commune – now, the idea is to start rebuilding society right in the center if the financial district. As a matter of anthropology this is a fascinating development, and it makes the formalistic quibbles of tax lawyers seem really quite pathetic.
eemom
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
dayum, cookie fella — I’ve never agreed with you much before, but this is spot on.
eemom
@Xenos:
and that is EXACTLY why you can’t dismiss the legal case against it on the grounds of precedent. Because it is not, in fact, precedented — and any lawyer worth half a shit arguing on behalf of the protesters would find a way to distinguish it from whatever past cases are being cited against it.