#OWS: The diorama versus the real.

              Signed up for Soc. Sec. Wednesday and since the office was only about three quarters of a mile from Zucotti Park M. and I decided to walk on down and take a look. At this point I’ve only seen the YouTube posts out of Oakland or heard the pro #OWS propaganda on Pacifica, not that that stuff would have a positive effect on me, I’ve been listening to lefty propaganda all my life; I’d sooner fall prey to a fancy camera ad. I know that that’s the diorama, as compelling as the stuffed and posed animals behind glass in the corridors of the Museum of Natural history. For some examples we can go to their greatest supporter The Indypendent, a free newspaper I often find in my local laudromat; I refuse to pay for AdBusters. The first article, titled We Contain Multitudes, introduces a cross section of the #Occupandos with photos and such quotations as these:

Diego Espita, 18 of South Jamaica,

“I used to have a home, girlfriend and job and lost it all.

I’m sick of these wars and people getting laid of.”

Gretchen VanDyck, of NYC,

“I oppose the negative effects of Neo-Liberal Capitalism on everyday life.”

Kanaska Carter, 26, a musician from Newfoundland,

She has relocated to Liberty Park to be part of what she sees as a global transformation. One thing that has surprised Carter is the amount of police brutality.

However she says,

We cannot hate the cops. They’re part of the 99% too. A lot of them are saying,

‘I’d rather be home with my kids right now’

There’s some that try to provoke us,

but if I think if we want to get any where, we have to show them love.”

David Siroonian, 32, of New York City

Is a teacher at the High School of Economics and Finance,

which is located across the street from Liberty Park.

Siroonian visits the park whenever he can,

 including during his free periods from teaching.

              

               We Contain Multitudes, a quote from Whitman’s Song of Myself, is a piece by Francine Prose, president of the PEN American Center and an author of many bestselling works of fiction. She sees people who shouldn’t be in conversation talking to each other, members of every race and class, a biker with tattoos and piercings discussing our problems with a lady in a Hermes scarf. This lightening of a weight, this lessening of a feeling of powerlessness and isolation, something she has never known leaves her drowning in her own tears. Give me a fucking break, the same BS has been used to describe the crowd in every demonstration for the last fifty years. “The crowd contained a wide cross section of the American People, all turned out to show solidarity in the cause of…whatever.” But that’s the diorama, everything surrounded by beauty, under the sky of blue.

              

               The financial district on a workday is a beehive of activity, I can almost hear Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue as the background theme to the soundscape of these streets.  As you get below City Hall Park you enter Skyscraper Park-Downtown. Here some of the oldest skyscrapers stand, with Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building, once the tallest building in the world, at the gateway. So many of these buildings were built when architects were still trained in the use of the classical orders; columns, entablatures, statuary, and bits and pieces of carving adorn these buildings. But as opposed to the uptown Skyscraper Park with its wide streets, even wider avenues and its glass towers, here the streets are tied to the lanes and trails laid down in the days of New Amsterdam. Even the great fires of 1776 and 1835 didn’t have much effect on that original grid. Walking the streets off Broadway gives the impression of being in a forest of stone where the walls are close by and the carvings manipulate the changing light as the sun moves across the sky.

              

               Then you hit Zucotti, since the buildings are so tall the park would be a welcome open space, and it is in normal times, but these are not normal times. When we were there the police were holding the barricades, moving the crowds and maintaining pressure on the #Occupandos, so the park felt like a time bomb. Ringed by double rows of barricades, the #Occupandos are allowed to come and go as individuals, however any surge will be controlled. The filth is palpable, as it is in any gathering of unwashed humans. Most seemed to be just sitting around doing nothing more than holding signs and looking at the tourists, entering the park for a stroll would have been impossible as the tents are all cheek by jowl. M would have tied a rope around my neck if I had tried to pick my way among the tents and engage in conversation, she tries to keep me out of fights. Most flitted back and forth like birds involved in whatever piece of work held their attention at this point, but there were men, cold eyed and burly, to whom I’m sure the cops have long since given nicknames.

              

               During Depression 2.0 we have seen a new/old type of homeless, young, tattooed, and travelling across the nation with their backpacks and their dogs, these are the people in Zucotti. Back in the 60’s the rents were so low in the ghettos of NYC that it was easy to rent a one bedroom apt. for $75 a month. Open up your place to street people and their begging would feed a multitude; they were called Crash Pads. Then the ghettos burned and the rents went up. In the 80’s any open space was squatted by anyone who took the time to build a shack. Ole’ Adolf Giuliani ended that as part of the Broken Windows anti-crime sweeps, and new housing was built in the empty lots. And now they’re back as #Occupy Whatever, a new generation of losers. But no matter how much they may push, the energy is gone. Oh they make their implied threats but their numbers are small and any violence will backfire on them, and they know it.

              

               It’s been a warm and dry fall, it might even be a warm winter, and I’m sure the #Occupandos are praying for it. New York winters can be brutal, our real homeless are already looking for their bed down areas for the next five months, and they say some #Occupandos have developed a chronic cough. By February the Revolution will be looking for another site for the highest credentialed lumpen proletariat ever to rise against the Oligarchy, and this pathetic bunch will be scattered to the winds. I’m sure Our Dear Mayor is counting on it. Meanwhile the beat goes on.
JimG33