“…No permit, no plan, no steel fences!”: The Troy Davis March and The Future of Occupy Wall Street

“…No permit, no plan, no steel fences!”: The Troy Davis March and The Future of Occupy Wall Street

“After a few minutes we changed direction again, and finally got onto

Broadway. I'm sure many of us have been on numerous marches down Broadway

before. But this was different. There was no permit, no plan, no steel

fences. We had the street.” - Hena Ashraf on the Troy Davis March 

Part I. Cops, Cops, and more Cops: Race, Radicalism, and the Problem of the Ultra-left 

Ok, I admit it. I didn’t camp out in Liberty Plaza. I didn’t even stay long enough for the first general assembly the night of the 17^th. I was eating Pakistani food with some friends a few blocks away listening to a comrade talk about his experience with “Bloombergville”- a protest encampment just outside of City Hall occupied by students, union members, and social service workers in June of this year. Later we bought tall boys of cheap beer and went to see “The Black Power Mixtape” at the IFC. We left Liberty Plaza out of boredom and hunger (this was day one and the pizza had not arrived yet) in search of beer, food, and fun. We were tired of waiting and I, for one, was hoping that cops would actually try to kick us out to see how we would react. It was a beautiful night in the City and we wanted to party. At Liberty Plaza there wasn’t even a boom box, let alone booze or dancing (unless you count the brief and intermittent hippie jam sessions). In fact there was no entertainment at all, no movie screenings or street theater and at times the silence was deafening. For the most part folks were sitting and smoking, probably wondering if or when the media would show up. 

I arrived in NYC early on Friday afternoon with a Timbuktu bag containing a heavy-duty painter’s mask, a pair of cheap blue swimmer’s goggles, a black turtle neck and a pair of black cut-off shorts, looking for a something to do. A comrade who volunteered as a medic during the Pittsburgh G20 recommended the mask and goggles. He said that when cops attacked a park where demonstrators were sleeping he wore a mask and goggles to protect him while he treated folks who had been gassed and pepper-sprayed. I even brought running shoes, and I can assure you that the last thing I enjoy is sprinting, unless it’s wildly through the streets with friends. At this point, you can see how naive and optimistic I was. I was hoping for enough of a ruckus that teargas would be deployed. Instead, the NYPD deployed scooters and surveillance teams. 

Marching on the sidewalk around Wall Street, I felt more like a child than an anti-capitalist, especially with the cops quietly blocking the street. I remarked to a friend, “I’m twenty- two years old and I can cross the street without looking both ways first, if I want to.” Unfortunately, no one seemed to share that desire and we continued to parade around Wall Street with our police escorts, like school children on a field trip at the Bronx Zoo. The tone was somber, even respectful. I was almost expecting to see folks in black hoods carrying some symbolic coffin with the words “Wall Street” or “Our Future” scrawled across it in white paint. In reality, things were not that theatrical. Pedestrians and tourists alike looked at us with expressions of disgust and humor, knowing full well how impotent we were flanked by cops and barricades on both sides. It was only when a group of anarchists started chanting, “Feed the Poor. Eat the Rich!” that I started to have a little fun. But that was day one of Occupy Wall Street. Since then we have witnessed the emergence of spontaneous solidarity marches between anti-capitalist youth, anti- PIC activists, grassroots organizations, and rank and file workers, as well as mass arrests and police brutality against demonstrators. 

So where can Occupy Wall Street go from here? In the last week, a dizzying number of public intellectuals, official "anarcho-liberal" pundits, bloggers, and celebrities have weighed in on the present possibilities and future potentialities of Occupy Wall Street. For a representative sample see here, here, and here. For the purposes of this post, my focus is on Malcolm Harris’s provocative piece published on the Jacobin Magazine blog, entitled, “Occupied Wall Street: Some Tactical Thoughts”. Harris's piece has received a flurry of attention from a variety of folks on the Left including the good folks over at Reclaim UC. Of Harris’s piece, Lindsay Beyerstein of In These Times observes, “…He (Harris) argues that the protest is failing to accomplish the two main goals one might have for occupying a plaza in the first place: disrupting your enemy's operations, or making a big show of commandeering his space for your own enjoyment” . While, Beyerstein does mention Harris’s critique of the police presence at Liberty Square, I want to draw more attention to it here. 

Not long after Harris’s piece started circulating through the usual channels, conversations about cop presence in Liberty Plaza surfaced on twitter. Sadly, in many of these conversations the very folks blogging and theorizing about Occupy Wall Street, declared their unwillingness to participate in the event itself, dismissing it as both a dissident dragnet and a excuse for the City to dole out time and a half pay to cops. In the interest of solidarity and out respect for those comrades, I don’t want to harp on such overblown dismissals, but I do want to identify their misguided logic. 

For one, cop-hating for cop-hating’s sake reeks of privilege and reveals a general isolation from and lack of connection with Occupy Wall Street itself. In this case, cops aren't a problem simply because they are cops (and thus agents of the State and Capital), they are a problem because they are brutalizing Occupy Wall Street protesters in the streets and low income communities of color (as well as queer, homeless, and trans youth) throughout NYC and beyond. A recent call for an anti-cop march on friday makes this very clear. Therefore, cops should be banned from Liberty Plaza in order to build a permanent space where those folks brutalized by Quality of Life ordinances, gentrification, and austerity can come to receive free medical attention and food, as well as organize and plan actions, and not because they (the cops that is) make a handful of ultra-leftists jittery. Second, if we are to accomplish the eventual goal of liberating the Park by keeping the cops out, organizing among affinity groups won’t help much. Only a diverse, spontaneous, and mass militant assemblage of actors can achieve that. 

Part II. “We are all Sean Bell! NYPD go to hell!”: Militant Troy Davis Protesters Occupy Wall Street

"At 5th avenue just a few blocks north of Washington Square Park, the

police had gathered themselves and blocked the street. But we kept going, and there was a very tense moment where we shouted 'We are all Sean Bell! NYPD go to hell!' – Hena Ashraf

Interestingly, one of the most militant, spontaneous, and confrontational moments to occur in NYC since Occupy Wall Street, was not formally affiliated with Occupy Wall Street: the Troy Davis snake march from Union Square to Liberty Plaza on the evening of September 23^rd. This march witnessed the possibility of that assemblage yet received little attention from both corporate media and the ultra-left. Since this march wasn’t immediately about capital or property relations, or couched in the language of Italian Autonomism and insurrection many bright ultra-left commentators simply ignored the march altogether, failing to understand its radical potential and its truly militant, confrontational character.  As Hena Ashraf, a contributor to Left Turn magazine, recalled, “I had never seen a march like this or anything with direct confrontation or resistance to the police.” While I encourage everyone to read Hena Ashraf’s detailed, stirring account of the rally and subsequent snake march, there are a few highlights from Ashraf’s account worth mentioning for the purposes of this piece. First, while the rally at Union Square was planned the march was not. The decision to march, unlike the decision-making apparatus of the general assembly, truly came from both no one and everyone; a synthesis of direct action and direct democracy forged in a moment of excitement and uncertainty. Unlike Liberty Plaza and previous mass marches, there were no facilitators or marshals, no police liaisons and spokespeople. As Ashraf observed, “It was clear there was no one in charge, and I think that made it better, and more spontaneous, and thus harder for the police to contain us.”

In this sense, the snake march actually accomplished some of Harris’s goals, including both a celebration of collective resistance and a disruption of business as usual; albeit a temporary one. Additionally, as I previously mentioned, the snake march to Liberty Plaza from Union Square was unique in its diversity. Reporting on the march for New America Media, Ryan Devereaux wrote,

“Parents marched with children on their shoulders. Crust-punk activists joined demonstrators in pressed shirts, repeating the refrain, “The system is racist, they killed Troy Davis!” Wide-eyed Manhattanites poured out of restaurants and businesses, camera phones in hand, to capture what was unfolding. As the number of marchers swelled it became evident that some of the spectators had transformed themselves into participants.

This “crowd of love” as Ashraf described them demonstrates the potential for further disruption and sustained confrontation with the police as Occupy Wall Street advances. As I noted earlier, a group of activists calling themselves the “Bail Out the People Movement”, have called for a demonstration and march against “police brutality, harassment, and attacks” on Friday. Without knowing any details, I can only assume that this planned march does not have a permit or a planned route. If this march gathers the same sense of collective rage, spontaneity, militancy, and numbers as the Troy Davis march (and there is a good chance that it will considering the levels of police brutality in recent days) it has the potential to be a major moment of resistance. Yet, in order for that to work, two things need to happen first. One, organizers need to work harder to recruit the participation of labor unions and two, folks at Liberty Plaza need step up and confront the police, starting with the barricades surrounding Wall Street. 

Those barricades stand as gleaming testaments to our own passivity. We need to show the cops that we are not fucking around, that this is not another stupid symbolic march called for by the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition. While Friday’s scheduled march against police brutality is a great start, we need both offensive and defensive tactics in this war. If "Wall Street is War Street" as the Black Mask collective declared so many years ago, then we will have to wage our own war (the class war that the GOP is so afraid of) against its shock troops, the police. The cops need to know that they cannot drag us through the streets, beat us, kettle us, or pepper-spray us without a fight. Similiarly, we need to know that we can count on each other to collectively resist them. More should be done to attempt to block or disrupt police movements. At the very least, we will have to step up and agree to make an effort to sabotage the arrest process itself. If that means circling a police wagon with comrades inside then so be it.

Part III. “No permit, No Plan, No Steel Fences”: The Future of Occupy Wall Street

“We need more class war in the streets and less camping in parks next to Wall Street.” Infshop.org facebook status update 9/28/2011

 “ No permit, no plan, no steel fences!” This should be the motto, the battle cry of Occupy Wall Street in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead. Occupy Wall Street must be a movement without fences and barricades, police escorts and permits, formalized plans and voting procedures. Direct democracy, in the form of the general assembly and the people’s mic, while an amazing and empowering experience, is not direct action. What Occupy Wall Street needs now more than ever is extralegal mass action in order to get new folks out of their offices, classrooms, and homes and into the streets. If Wall Street is truly “our street” then we must shut it down. If the police continue to brutalize us we must retaliate. If both the corporate and so-called progressive media continue to ignore us then we must, to borrow from John Jacobs, “bring the war home”. Wall Street can become “our street”, but first we need to take to the streets themselves, like the brave crowd of Troy Davis marchers who battled cops as they weaved their way to Wall Street. The following are suggestions for how to shift the focus from maintaining and preserving structures of direct democracy to mobilizing forms of direct action:

-Disrupt Wall Street: There is a long and storied history of such actions. According to ACTUP NY (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power), on “September 14, 1989: ACT UP once again makes history by stopping trading on the Stock Exchange floor. Seven ACT UP members infiltrate the New York Stock Exchange and chain themselves to the VIP balcony. Their miniature foghorns drown out the opening bell, and a banner unfurls above the trading floor demanding "SELL WELLCOME." Other ACT UP members snap photos which they then sneak out and send over newswires. Four days later, Burroughs Wellcome lowers the price of AZT by 20%, to $6,400 per year.”

-Target corporate media with disruptions and sabotage. If they are attempting to black us out of news coverage then we should black them out and prevent them from being able to cover anything at all.

 - Bring back Boombergville or similar encampments against austerity and police brutality outside of City Hall. Remember, he's the one who called on his dogs to rough up protestors in the first place. Target City Hall in general. ACT UP operation “Target City Hall” drew over 3,000 people to City Hall.

- Banner drops: Blanket the city with banners. Off of the top of my head, City Hall, the First Precinct, Buses, Subway entrances, and parks would all be good targets to start with.

-Take over parks close to or near police stations where protestors are being held. This establishes a base to plan, coordinate, and enact different forms of jail solidarity and support for those arrested. It also lets the cops know that we are not intimated.

-Occupy major roads, highways, and bridges

- Occupy/ disrupt banks

- Do more and continue to do outreach with labor unions and unemployed workers, as well as student, anti-war, and environmental justice, and anti-eviction movements in the hopes of building for a general Day of Action against austerity and cuts. The I.WW. General Defense Committee released at statement in support of Occupy Wall Street earlier this afternoon and we should view this as a good sign. Additionally, firedoglake is reporting that other union interest is increasing.

-Direct action training sessions: everyone has valuable experience to share with each other. People need to share their stories and tactics with each other if occupy Wall Street is to survive. I was fortunate enough to attend a direct action training session last fall at Cal hosted by the amazing folks from Gay Shame (a direct action, anti-capitalist network of queer and trans folk in the Bay Area) and it was an invaluable experience. We need to know what we are up against and how others have organized in the past

- Move beyond Liberty Plaza, closer to and beyond Wall Street. Every street is controlled by the logic of capital and regulated by real or threatened police violence, and thus every street is a perfect target for disruption. Every street is “our street”.

- Employ a diversity of tactics including street theater, dance parties, critical mass rides, die-ins, rallies, permitted marches, snake marches, strikes, walk-outs, four square games, bike polo etc. We should be able to play together and have fun with each other.

- Boycott or refuse to pay fare for public transportation. If you have to go to work ride your back and get there late or leave early. Numerous sudden and sporadic critical mass rides staggered throughout the work-day and into the night.

Hope to see you at the barricades in the near future.