Written by MNK   

It’s September 25th, a Saturday. I'm on a bus coming back from Staten Island. The bus crosses the Verrazano, then heads over the BQE, through the Battery Tunnel and, finally, into Downtown Manhattan. Wall Street. The darkest of places this last decade, where half-built towers loom like scarecrows over the empty patches of dirt that constantly remind and anger. The bus heads up Broadway and stops in traffic in front of Zuccotti Park. Liberty Square, the “park’s” other name, is more appropriate -- it’s more concrete than foliage. It’s not a place where one spends a significant amount of time with a book and a blanket. In fact, it’s where I used to eat a quick lunch on nice afternoons in my first year after college. The year I spent as a paralegal in a law firm in One World Financial Center, where the conference rooms on the east side overlooked Ground Zero.


I remember the morning of my interview, more than seven years ago. A recent graduate, I was nervous and anxious to begin earning my own way. To stop borrowing money from the government and my parents. I had already taken the LSAT -- the law school entrance exam -- and my dream at the time was to use that degree to effect positive change. I had just spent four years in Ann Arbor, the birthplace of SDS and the New Left, and where figures like Bernardine Dohrn and Tom Hayden became heroes of mine. I had watched the Towers come down from my apartment sophomore year, which set the stage for military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq and the erosion of our civil liberties at home. The PATRIOT Act, secret energy commissions, domestic wire-tapping schemes. Much like the war in Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement and the growth of the Military Industrial Complex coalesced to galvanize and enrage liberals in the 60s, the early years of the Aughts felt like such “a moment.” The moment. The government had gone too far, and we were gonna call them on it.


But that didn’t happen. There were protests, sure. There were Op-Eds and inspirational speeches, but there was no proper “movement.” Perhaps it was because the death of the anti-globalization movement was too recent; a shadow that tainted collective action. Maybe the Left simply did not have the energy to organize anew. Or, as some as cynical as I felt, perhaps it was simply that times had changed. We all romanticized the 60s and the fact that we could not develop a clear and compelling counter-narrative in the face of such selfish, lawless behavior proved the point. The 60s were simply unique. Power to the People no more.


Sitting on the plaza outside the World Financial Center seven years ago, preparing for my interview at a corporate law firm on “Wall Street,” I wondered what in the world I was doing there. Yes, I needed the money, but I had passed over a similarly low-paying job with NY PIRG--a job I could have felt good about at an organization doing important work. In my PIRG interview, we discussed the incremental nature of social change. I think I even referenced Edmund Burke. Yet, here I was, about to interview with partners making millions of dollars a year. Perhaps it was social anxiety. A fear that jumping head first into an activist career would mean a nickel-and-dime future. A future much like my middle class upbringing. One without vacations or trendy clothes or fancy cars.


In my paralegal days, I’d often sneak out to Zuccotti Park and read articles I’d printed off of Gorilla News Network or Salon. Pieces by Palast and Chomsky and Michael Albert, which further convinced me that our country was doomed and that we were destined for a future dictated by capitalist greed, powerful corporate lobbies, unjust foreign wars and an acceptance of the status quo. I still had the bleeding heart.


Liberty Square is a more appropriate name for Zuccotti Park, not just because it is more square than park, but also because of its new purpose. As the giant bus idled next to the Square that day, September 25th, I gazed out the heavily tinted window at the place where I once sat. On this day, it was filled with people. But not lawyers working the weekend or tourists taking a break from gawking at Ground Zero. Today, it was filled with the disaffected. People holding signs reading “We Are the 99%,” and “End Corporate Greed.” People exercising their cherished rights to assemble and speak.


In the intervening years -- those between college and now -- the global economy had nearly collapsed, brought to the brink by unregulated investments by giant banks. Everyone knows the story. But more devastating than the collapse was how quickly things returned to “normal” and how utterly silenced were the calls for change. The very bankers responsible for skyrocketing -- and now stagnating -- unemployment, foreclosures, and poverty rates had turned record profits, paid out massive bonuses, and were again partying like it was 1999, while the rest of America wondered what happened to their 401Ks and whether they would ever again find work.


For whatever reason, this anger simmered without bubbling over. Maybe it was because so many of us were so afraid. Maybe it was because we kept hoping our President and elected representatives would finally do something. Couldn’t they see what was happening? How the yawning canyon between the rich and poor was eviscerating the middle class? How corporate influence in Washington was now completely controlling the agenda and drowning out the voices of the people? How unions were disappearing and the environment was still being ravaged and the most celebrated virtue was not empathy by selfishness? No.


Instead, the loudest voices were those on the Right. The so-called Tea Party captured the message and swept into office, calling for an end to Big Government. Further deregulation was the answer. Cut taxes. Less healthcare. What we needed was to once and for all eliminate the social safety net that had buoyed so many who would otherwise have drowned -- because isn’t it really just a mechanism for coddling the lazy? -- and Starve the Beast and let the all-knowing market fix everything. Somehow, this ahistorical, amoral, illogical and deadly platform emerged and, instead of fighting against the status quo that brought this country to its knees, we were arguing just to keep it because the alternative would be a seeming return to the Dark Ages.


But what was happening in the Square? I had read about it. Seen some vague reference by Adbusters to a coming occupation. A movement rooted in the methods and success of uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. An American answer to the “Arab Spring.” A call to action. A demand that we -- the 99% -- gather in shadows of the banks and the Stock Exchange and become visible again. Have our voices heard. Vent our anger and also our hope. Occupy Wall Street, it was called.


I had heard about it, and knew it was supposed to start today. People were to gather there, in the Square, and stay there until the tide had finally turned. I’d almost dismissed it as a beautiful but naive dream. Something that could happen in Europe but wouldn’t take hold here. “Oh, it’s that Wall Street protest thing,” I mumbled to myself. Did I want to get off the bus and hang out?, my wife asked. Yes, my heart said. Oh yes. But instead, I said, “No, let’s just go home.” I was tired.


But the protesters did not leave. Not the next day, nor the day after that. Stories began to trickle into main stream publications. There were marches. Cornell West spoke to the crowd. The unions were getting involved. There were thousands at Foley Square. Something was happening.


While all this was going on, I was working a high-paying, demanding job as a corporate lawyer. Yes, that was the path I took. My office could easily be on Wall Street, even though it isn’t. I watched and read coverage of the movement and I cheered, alone in my apartment or silently in my office. I was proud. But still, I was separated. Removed by layers of money and comfort and obligations that had nothing to do with sleeping on concrete or holding signs or chanting.


Then, on October 6, I heard an interview with Naomi Klein on NPR. She would be speaking at the Square at 6PM that day. I would go. I wanted to go and be a part of this “thing,” this gathering storm that for so many years I had hoped would occur. Did I need an excuse? Apparently.


I sneaked out of the office at 5:15 -- we don’t leave that early in this line of work -- and hopped on the N/R downtown. I got off at Cortland Street. I took out my iPhone and opened my GPS and followed the blue dot towards the red one and then I was there. Throngs of people were gathered in my old lunch spot. Some held signs, others debated. Some talked to reporters, some napped on air mattresses. I made my way to the center, where a woman stood, silently holding a sign that read “Naomi Klein: Open Forum: Now.” I was at the front.


No amplification is allowed in the Square. That means no microphones, no megaphones. Just voices. It also means that, when a person comes to speak to the people, she must rely on the vocal echo of the audience to carry her message. Before the speech begins, someone shouts "Mic check!," to which, if it's working properly, the others answer "Mic check!" This is the horizontal way of ensuring that the message will get out to all. So when Naomi says, "Hello!," we all answer back, "Hello!" She faces to the north. We on the south cannot hear her. But those on the north can. The northerners repeat her sentences, loudly. We southerners hear it now. We hear her message translated by the rest of us, but nothing is lost. Something is maybe gained. You did not take away our ability to amplify.


Naomi's speech harkens back to the anti-globalization movement. She speaks to the differences. That movement was transient; this one is rooted. That movement had one goal; this one has many. She shouts, "The pundits ask, 'Why are you protesting?'" We repeat it. She continues, "The rest of the world asks, 'What took you so long!?'" We almost forget to repeat before erupting into cheers. She cautions us not to succumb to in-fighting and I spot Bernardine Dohrn, standing behind Naomi and to her right. She repeats along with the rest of us. I remember how cool she looked on video in her sunglasses, talking to reporters almost fifty years ago.


As Naomi's speech gains momentum -- something that is remarkable in light of the fact that she must speak in four or five word phrases and wait for three or four repetitions by the crowd -- I get the chills. My face is hot and a breeze touches it and I shiver and I want to cry. I want to break down and weep like a baby here in the middle of those more dedicated that I, but I fight it because that would be weird--a grown man in a brown pea coat and khakis, sobbing in the middle of Wall Street. I want to cry tears of joy and relief but I do not.


There is a sign that says "I care about you," and Naomi says this is her favorite sign. We are the counterpoint to the chilling chants of "Let them die" that emanate from Republican debates. We are the moral center. We must win because if we do not then everyone is doomed. This new movement is not group therapy, Naomi says, but it is wonderful because it is giving.


Naomi says she believes in this movement and I believe her. She is genuine. I look over at Bernardine Dohrn again. I pray that this will never end.