"For Occupy saga, an orderly close; Protest highlighted global cause, but what will linger?" by Mark Arsenault Globe Staff / December 11, 2011
The tent city occupation of Dewey Square left behind a battered patch of earth as black as a hole, stark and empty, with the sense that something had suddenly been torn out.
Before dawn yesterday, with dozens of arrests but also remarkable calm, it was.
For some 72 days, the Occupy Boston encampment drew populist dreamers, anticorporate crusaders, and street-weary homeless people to the site near South Station.
Yeah, the crowd was inflated by homeless free-loaders, blah, blah, blah.
You know what I'm weary of, readers?
It also drew tourists, who witnessed a small-scale pilot study in self-government and gawked at an eyesore of tents and tarps staked pell-mell in the mud around a twisting boardwalk of wooden pallets.
Happens after reading a Globe.
The camp was Boston’s connection to the populist Occupy movement that has expanded worldwide in opposition to corporate greed, wealth inequity, and the free flow of money in politics.
One could actually say it started overseas with Europe and the Arab Spring.
City officials embraced much of the message, but eventually tired of the methods.
Then meet our demands, dammit!
In the end, the half-acre encampment on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway gave way peaceably, as a phalanx of law enforcement moved in, stunningly fast. It vanished amid the noisy grind of a trash compactor that crushed tent poles and makeshift furniture that hundreds of police officers dragged from the site.
It ended with dozens of demonstrators in plastic handcuffs, some literally carried away in a face-saving finale to an occupation that had declared it would never willingly abandon the land.
It ended without cracked skulls, tear gas, or bloodshed, a victory for both sides.
While I am happy no one got hurt, I am unhappy it ended.
The protesters never issued a set of demands, and often it seemed they were pulling in different directions.
There they go again!!
But the encampment came to stand for a gut feeling, felt by many who have suffered in recent hard economic times, that some people get extremely rich on the engine of capitalism, but lots of others get run over.
“They have some very valuable ideas that need to be talked about more,’’ said Police Commissioner Edward Davis, early Saturday, as his officers sliced empty tents with knives and collapsed them.
Worried about your pension, Ed? You should be if Wall Street got their fingers into it.
The movement dates to mid-September with the establishment of Occupy Wall Street. The flagship protest in New York’s Zuccotti Park was within sight of financial institutions blamed for crashing the US economy.
The Boston camp was a smaller copy of the original, in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, but surrounded mostly by companies that suffered from the financial collapse, rather than perpetrated it.
Still, many who camped in Dewey Square were thrilled by their own little taste of 1960s-style, take-it-to-the-streets political action, as well as the notion that they were part of something big and important, many for the first time in their lives....
Then the WALL came up!!!!!
I'll have to return later to hand-type the important paragraphs. As it is now I am late for slave service.
--NOMORE--"
Hand-typed printed version verbatim:
The movement governed itself by mass votes, through what it called its general assembly. It seemed to avoid "Lord of the Flies"-style infighting and meltdowns that can plague leaderless groups, no matter the size....
What an INSULT!! Yeah, the protesters were in danger of becoming adolescent savages reverting to tribalism and sacrificing a pig's head on a post to appease the gods. Maybe if the cops and let them the sink and tent in things might have been more civilized.
And the dig about a leaderless shows two things: 1) the fascist mindset of AmeriKa's media in that we need leaders, and 2) the movement truly is a people's movement.
Like the conservative Tea Party, the Occupy movement was ridiculed in its infancy. Occupy protesters were dismissed as lefty utopians who would rather start a drum circle than a small business.
Yeah, and I read it all right in the Globe's own pages.
But like the Tea Party, which elevated government spending to the top of the national conversation, the Occupy movement has already changed how America talks about politics.
That means the rich are scared. Their mouthpiece media organs can obfuscate and omit, distort and distract, but society's managers know what is going on in the streets and cities.
The Tea Party was co-opted. That's why debate shifted to cuts and destroying collective bargaining -- all so banks can continue to collect debt interest payments.
In a speech last week in Kansas, President Obama declared rising income inequality "the defining issue of our time."
Then where you been the last three years?
Related: Obama Has Found His Reelection Footing
I know where I'd like to plant my foot.
"He's using our rhetoric because it's striking a chord with people," protester Mike Hipson said. "That's the success of the Occupy movement. We're changing the dialogue."
We'll see. I hope he's right; however, my feeling is after the election it will be back to BUSINE$$ AS USUAL in D.C. -- until the NEXT ELECTION when the SAME ARGUMENTS will be TROTTED OUT AGAIN to show us how diffferent each faction of the War Party is from the other.
Internet donations gave the movement staying power. Occupation Boston raised more than $43,000 for general needs through another online campaign. Protesters were thinking big: They were raising money for an electricity-generating wind turbine and had even talked, perhaps fantastically, about enclosing the entire camp under a clear dome of plastic wrap on a lightweight frame.
So they were ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS, huh?
As November approached, thoughts turned to the coming winter. The camp's contingent of long-term homeless was not impressed by the efforts at winterizing flimsy summer tents.
Is a back-handed way of saying the protests were inflated by free-loaders, etc.
Btw, isn't the JUXTAPOSITION strange?
Here you have BANKS making BILLIONS in PROFITS and FORCING MILLIONS out of their homes and we have HOMELESS PEOPLE!!!
At least the PROTESTERS OFFERED THEM SHELTER and MEALS -- and then the city busted it up!
"The snow drifts that come between these buildings -- oh, my God, they have no idea," said Patrick, a 34-year-old homeless man staying at the camp, in an interview in late October.
Why is the Globe reaching back to... never mind.
But to the benefit of the protesters, and the consternation of those who wanted them gone, November was the second-warmest on record in Boston.
I LOVE global warming -- or was that God working in mysterious ways?
I would also like to point out that I DID NOT HAVE TO INCLUDE THAT, readers. I have been planning a weather/warming post that was going to mention it, but Globe just did.
Related: Region enjoying a warm moment
November to remember on the fairways
Well, I won't have to worry about reading those B-section front-page features.
"Occupy raid has many arrests, few complaints; Officials praise cooperation; protesters stage march, vigil" by Kay Lazar, Martine Powers and and John M. Guilfoil | Globe Staff, December 10, 2011
Hours after a large-scale police raid on Dewey Square razed the Occupy Boston camp, city leaders praised police for executing the peaceful arrests of 46 protesters. Meanwhile protesters gathered throughout the day to celebrate those who insisted on taking a stand against eviction.
Protestors gathered around 6 p.m. for an interfaith prayer service on Boston Common, followed by a general assembly meeting that was intended to decide the movement’s next steps.
With a crowd fluctuating between 50 and 300, members floated such ideas as setting up general assemblies around the city or occupying closed schools and foreclosed homes. But little was decided except agreeing to continue meeting, and the crowd dispersed by 10:45.
That sounds like a GREAT IDEA!
See: Banks Billet Occupy Protesters
The end of the day was in keeping with the relatively calm dismantling of the Occupy Boston camp in the early morning hours.
Except for the trash compactor.
According to city leaders, the orderly end of the Boston protest - in contrast to confrontations in other cities - lay in seeds sown in the encampment’s beginning.
That sounds like a GREAT IDEA!
See: Banks Billet Occupy Protesters
The end of the day was in keeping with the relatively calm dismantling of the Occupy Boston camp in the early morning hours.
Except for the trash compactor.
According to city leaders, the orderly end of the Boston protest - in contrast to confrontations in other cities - lay in seeds sown in the encampment’s beginning.
Boston police officers made a point of getting to know several core leaders of the Occupy group, talking to them daily, strolling through their Dewey Square encampment, exchanging private cellphone numbers, and forging a bond of trust.
Related:
"Protesters reported seeing about twice as many police officers as usual staking out the camp yesterday. Rather than standing along the perimeter of the camp, protesters said, police have been walking through it. Some of the group’s overnight campers, like Robert Bakoian, 36, said the altered patterns of police have made protesters anxious about what’s to come. When he left his tent yesterday morning, he said, a police officer was standing right outside. That’s never happened before, he said. “I’ve never seen them inside the camp,’’ Bakoian said. “They’re here way more than they were before… . It makes me uneasy.’’"
What are we to make of the Globe, readers? It's whatever day you catch them? Whatever lie, distortion or obfuscation that supports the agenda?
Even as police swept through the square in a predawn raid to end the 10-week occupation, the department’s point man, Superintendent William Evans, called one of the group’s leaders to apologize for not being able to give them a heads-up.
In the delicate balance between public safety and free speech that defined the relationship between police and protesters, there was, several city leaders said yesterday, a large swath of common ground.
“From day one, I was sympathetic to the movement because they had issues working-people cared about,’’ Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in an interview with the Globe. “The rich get richer. . . . The other folks lose ground.’’
Yeah, thanks to guys like him!
Police supervisors underwent special civil disobedience training in the three weeks leading up to yesterday’s action. Officers had to learn how to “not take the bait if someone is in your face screaming,’’ superintendent-in-chief Daniel Linskey said in an interview.
Those would be provocateurs because I'm not getting in anyone's face, cop or otherwise.
They also scrutinized YouTube videos from other police encounters with Occupy protesters across the country to see what worked, and more importantly, what didn’t, Linskey said.
Related: Globe Peppers You With Protests
Throughout the occupation, police strategy was one of “less is more,’’ said police Commissioner Edward F. Davis....
“Our motto was to kill them with kindness,’’ Evans said. “You didn’t see a helmet or sticks. And no way were we going to mace that crowd.’’
I was just wondering why the word KILL had to be used in regard to peaceful protesters?
************************
At 5 a.m. sharp, a column of police vans and transport vehicles meant to carry prisoners rolled up from the convention center to Summer Street, turning onto Atlantic Avenue. Uniformed officers filed out of each vehicle and calmly walked up Atlantic, forming a line at double-arm distance. Officers with bullhorns warned protesters to leave or face arrest....
Police quickly swarmed the area, many equipped with plastic handcuffs. They began ripping the tents apart, carrying the pieces to a garbage truck, and throwing wood, cardboard, and furniture into piles along the sidewalk.
Demonstrators dashed to the north corner of the park and sat in a semicircle, linking arms....
Alison Nevitt, 48, was among those who remained on the square, staying in formation with fellow protesters. For more than 20 minutes, the protesters waited to be arrested, chanting, singing, and whispering to one another.
Then, she said, dozens of officers in black tactical gear approached the protesters.
It's police state fascism right in front of your face.
“All of a sudden, someone said, ‘Look!’ And we saw this phalanx of guys in black uniforms coming toward us,’’ Nevitt said. “It was a little scary.’’
While Nevitt said she was not harmed by police, she recalled hearing other protesters yell in pain when they were yanked up by their plastic cuffs. One woman who rode with her in a police wagon had swollen wrists that were cut by the cuffs.
Around 11 a.m., the 14 women arrested at Dewey Square were released from the South Boston police station. Several went straight to the District 4 police station in the South End to join about 40 protesters who waited to greet the arrested men as they were released.
Andrew Inglis, 33, of Brighton, was the second man bailed out, walking out of a side door around 2 p.m. He was met with chants, cheers, and a tray of blueberry muffins.
“It was a very orderly process,’’ Inglis said, carrying his belongings in a clear plastic bag from the station. “I was very impressed by how Boston police handled the whole situation.’’
John Ford, 30 - the Occupy Boston librarian who developed a cult following during the course of the occupation - was released shortly afterward. As he walked out the door, he raised his right fist in the air and chanted, “We are unstoppable; another world is possible.’’
The insults never end from the elite s*** sheet.
Davis said that the cost of police overtime during Occupy Boston is “nearing $1 million.’’
The state pays debt service to banks and "investors" to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a month.
Not only do I not mind the taxpayers picking up the tab, I wonder why there was a tab in the first place. The peaceful protest camp didn't need police state surveillance to govern themselves, nor do the American people.
Cops won't be complaining when their pension is figured, will they?
The figure does not include the costs to other city departments, for health inspections, and other services during the encampment. But Dot Joyce, a spokesman for Menino, said that other costs associated with monitoring, evicting, and cleaning up after Occupy Boston would be minimal.
Soon after police moved in at 5 a.m. and the protesters were cleared from the area, crews rolled in to restore the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
The protesters have maintained from the start of their stay on Dewey Square that they would pay to have the park resodded when the occupation ended. So far, Occupy Boston has collected almost $4,000 of a $15,000 goal in an online fund to pay for the restoration.
As far as I'm concerned, city can pick up that tab, too.
Web added this:
While little was decided at last night’s meeting, group members did agree to meet back on the Common at 1 p.m. today, when protesters will share their war stories from the police raid that closed the Dewey Square tent city.
Will the Globe's intrepid reporters return?
--more--"
Related: Occupy Boston Folds Its Tent
So am I.
Also see:
This protester 'more useful tweeting than being in jail
For Menino, police, a 99 percent success
Is that why I feel it was a failure?
Next Day Update:
"Protest looks to court and beyond; Arraignments this week; new steps discussed" by Travis Andersen and Kathy McCabe Globe Staff / December 12, 2011
Dozens of Occupy Boston demonstrators will be arraigned on criminal charges this week, some possibly as early as today, following the weekend shutdown of their Dewey Square encampment. The legal action comes as the movement searches for a way to continue its activism in Massachusetts.
The protesters said there were no plans to use the court proceedings as a platform for dissent, as has been the case in some other cities - although they plan to attend the arraignments carrying a statue of Gandhi. As for longer-term plans, they said their next steps were still being developed, with suggestions made at a meeting yesterday ranging from a symbolic placement of tents across the suburbs to an attempt to shut down Boston’s port operations....
Sounds like a good idea to me.
--more--"
