On Location at the Occupation

The Link Goes to Wall Street

NewsAdam Aberra — Published October 11, 2011

NEW YORK CITY, NY—The Occupy Wall Street protester looks like he could have come straight out of a 1960s hippie commune, with his thick dreadlocks and unkempt beard. He calmly sips a large coffee; it’s early Tuesday and he hasn’t gotten much sleep.

As protestors are banned from setting up any tents, Daniel Tankian had to find innovative ways of coping with the cold and rainy October nights. His solution, like most of the protesters’, has been to cover himself and his belongings with blue tarp.

Having set up camp on Sept. 17, the collection of people occupying the New York Stock Exchange come from all walks of life and harbour wildly differing political opinions.

Both rich and very poor are in the mix, discussing their thoughts about what is wrong, what is right and what, if anything, can be done about the future of true democracy and financial stability in America.

The 26-year-old sustainable development major and Hindu convert remains calm and reflective when describing the socio-political climate that led him to join the hundreds of other activists in Manhattan’s financial district. Tankian has already been here for a week and plans to stay for two more. His faith is evident in his analysis of the movement.

“There’s so much positive energy in the air, you can feel it,” he said, sparing no modesty when asked how many people he expected to show up for the Oct. 5 march to City Hall: “Five hundred thousand, maybe a million.”

Though Tankian’s estimate proved to be a bit optimistic—some media estimates put attendance at around 5,000 people—there is no denying the passion of those involved, no matter their numbers. Braving the lack of formal infrastructure is not for the faint of heart.

When you look around the park, it’s mostly young people in their late teens and twenties who’ve decided to brave the elements. Some are unemployed, others are students and others have nothing else to do.

“Lost my job, found an occupation,” reads a sign lying on the ground.

At 2:00 a.m., many are sound asleep and you have to watch your step when walking around the park at night. Two boys and a girl lie on an inflatable mattress, huddled together and snoring, their heads peeking out of the tarp mat blanketing their bodies. They look remarkably comfortable, given the chilly weather.

Not everyone’s asleep, though. Amy Sisenstein arrived a few hours earlier and was getting acquainted with her new home. The 29-year-old from New Paltz, NY, holds degrees in both sociology and music.

“It’s pretty normal to see kids with degrees working for nine or 10 dollars an hour [and] still living with their parents,” she explained. Unemployed for four months and unable to find decent work, she came here.

While each protester has their own litany of grievances, unsurprisingly, common themes emerge: apprehension about the future; anger about the apparent indifference to their plight held by those in power.

The longer one hangs around Zuccotti Park, the more the cohesion amongst the occupiers grows evident. With approximately 1,000 people camping out, tight organization has become a necessity.

“The organization of the park has grown immensely over the last couple days,” said one organizer going by the name of Paul. “The level [of organization] we’re at today is astounding to what we were yesterday.”

Whether serving meals to fellow occupiers, ensuring the cleanliness of the park, or even looking after people’s nicotine addictions with free cigarettes, organizers have it covered.

At the heart of the efforts is the people’s general assembly, which gathers as often as twice a day, and where all issues relating to the occupation are addressed. A bylaw against the use of megaphones has forced protesters to get creative with how to speak to large crowds in the bustling business district.

Whenever someone is addressing the audience, the speaker will yell the first part of a sentence, which will then be yelled again by those closest, passing the message to the back of the crowd in a strange, gigantic game of ‘telephone.’

But the park is more than simply meetings and resistance. The next day, an energetic group of a dozen drummers young and old pounds away in one corner of the park as others sway their bodies to the beat.

Curious passersby stop to see what all the excitement is about and kids who have finished school for the day clamour around the noise. Extra drumsticks are laid out on the ground for anyone who wishes to join in.

Some youngsters try out the sticks, banging them on railings and empty upside-down plastic buckets while their friends groove to the music. Everyone has their own beat, yet it all comes together as one hypnotic rhythm. The spontaneous music seems like a foreign intruder in New York’s conservative financial district.

A young man in an elegant three-piece suit carrying a briefcase briskly walks through the park with a scowl. He flips the crowd the middle finger, prompting smiles and laughs.

Some of the most powerful moments witnessed at Occupy Wall Street involved the dialogue between protesters and the few Wall Street businessmen who dared to venture into the snake pit.

There were no talking points, no sound bites, no carefully edited video clips—just sincere arguments on the part of both sides, the kind of dialogue so painfully missing from the nation’s mainstream media.

Dressed in a full business suit and slicked back hair, Daniel J. Halloran III, a NYC councillor, discussed with protesters what he thinks the issues are and what can be done to change the system.

“This is about corporatism, not capitalism,” he said. And though he sympathizes with the occupiers, he told them, “just protesting isn’t going to get us anywhere. […] What needs to happen is people need to get out and vote [if change is to be achieved].”

Halloran said he hopes that more people like himself—those viewed as the “enemy” by many in the park—will come out to engage with the protesters and find some common ground.

Some in the park, though, are not so quick to trust the other side joining in the dialogue. “I don’t believe any of those fucking people,” says Hamza Sinanaj, a self-identified libertarian who came from upstate New York to join in the protest. “They’re all paid for by the corporations.”

“I’d like to get rid of the current corporate structure,” he says. “We need a new rule of law. We need to bust [the largest] corporations into six or seven smaller corporations [and] we need strong anti-trust laws.

“I have a message for the corporations: you won,” he said while looking up at an office building.

But this isn’t a reason for total despair, he said. Sinanaj believes that dialogue with the corporations, which he believes are now running the show, needs to be opened if change is to be achieved.

“Why not go straight to the source of the problems we face?” A stockbroker in his mid-30s who introduced himself as Mike shared his point of view with a group of young people. “I know things are tough, believe me. My sister just got laid off, I know how it is,” he asserts defensively.

You can sense how personally some in the Wall Street community have interpreted the public’s anger.

“[But] I think it’s unfair to just go after Wall Street. We also took a hit [during the recession]. I’ve had to let some people go. Do you think that was any fun?”

Mike went on to explain the value of what financial professionals bring to society. “Guys like me help raise the capital for start-ups,” he argues. “We raise the funds and invest in revolutionary entrepreneurs. You can say thanks to Wall Street for helping develop companies like Apple. Thank me for your iPhone.”

This reasoning created a few puzzled faces in the group. “Look, I came from a family of eight kids,” Mike continued. “We sure as hell weren’t rich, but you know what? I paid my way through college. I’m here because of me, no one else. There aren’t any free rides. That’s what you guys have to understand.”

This doesn’t play too well to the university students about to graduate into an uncertain economy. Despite the deadlock, discussions like this show that both sides are at least willing to sit down and listen to each other.

Beyond the park, subtle signs point to the general public’s sharing of Occupy Wall Street’s grievances. Just across the street, the construction site for the future Freedom Tower lies where the World Trade Center used to stand.

Construction workers have painted their union’s name, Ironworkers local 40, in bright orange on a beam of the unfinished building, acknowledging the protest, if not openly endorsing it.
Organized labour could also pack some much-needed punch to the movement’s visibility. During the Oct. 4 general assembly, activists proudly named the unions that would be taking part in the upcoming march to City Hall.

Some heavy-hitters mentioned in the speech included the Industrial Workers of the World and the United Auto Workers, which hold a combined membership of over half a million workers.

As New York goes, so too, it seems, goes the country. “Occupy” protests have spread to other major cities across the United Sates, but it is Zuccotti Park, a block away from the New York Stock

Exchange, near the headquarters of the world’s largest financial institutions that remain the epicentre of the discontent and outrage.

As the famous, open-roofed Gray Line double-decker tour buses slowly pass by the public square, demonstrators flash their placards and wave to the tourists aboard the buses.

“Welcome to New York!,” the crowds yell. A few tourists grimace or look away, most do not. They nod their heads approvingly. A few raise their fists in solidarity. As New York goes, so too goes the world.

—With files from Julian Ward.

This article originally appeared in Volume 32, Issue 07, published October 11, 2011.