DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!
Oh, how proud Auntie Emma would have been with us last night! We came for a battle, and instead had a DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!
It was disgustingly muddy at Dewey Square last night, and getting colder by the moment. When Boy and I got there the Occupiers were taking down and consolidating the tents, in essence "circling the wagons" to make the space easier to defend. There was a GA going on, but as usual there was a lot of talking, a lot of bureaucratic process, and absolutely no decision making. I understand our goal is consensus, but consensus process is utter crap at making time-sensitive decisions. And it's also largely useless in a group of people who express dedication to "diversity of tactics" and "autonomous actions."
The one consensus reached -- not to clear out the entire site -- was entirely ruined by John Ford. Everyone seems to think his shit don't stink, but I can't abide him; not for the first time, he grabbed the microphone, didn't respect the process and tried to impose his personal opinions on a consensus that had already been reached by yelling at us. When people tried to calm him down he fought them. Douche.
But enough griping from me. Heh. While the GA was still going on, the Direct Action group and the anarchists took matters into our own hands and started building barricades around the encampment out of any detritus we could find. Er, yeah, I said "our" and "we". :D We used plywood, bags of garbage, trash bins, two-by-fours -- basically anything we could find left over from the deconstructed parts of the site. We even started taking up the pallets used as walkways, which prompted me to joke about "destroying the village in order to save it." (If you're too young to get that reference, Google is your friend.) I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it was starting to look like Les Miserables.
Les Miserables, the musical:
Occupy Boston, the musical:
By the way, here's a pic of the Legal Team modeling the Fluorescent Green Hats of Legal Badassery:
Notice who isn't in that photo? LOL
So anyway, finally some kind of plan was reached. Those who couldn't risk arrest would gather across the street in solidarity support, which basically translates as whooping, chanting, playing drums, dancing and anything else they could think of to keep spirits up. We who were going to hold the line (yeah, there's that "we" again *snicker*) chose a single tent to symbolize the whole camp; we could form a stronger line around a single tent, and as long as we held one tent in the square, we were still occupying. We chose the media tent. I objected to that on an ideological basis, but accepted that it was (a) the most defensible tent in the camp because it backed onto the concrete embankment over Route 93, and (b) it wasn't a bad idea to be able to keep a livestream going from inside the line. Besides, we decided we'd also surround and defend our statue of Gandhi that had become a rallying point for our entire encampment.
So, raise your hand if you've ever read or seen adaptions of the Sharpe's Rifles series. We decided to use the classic tactic of line defense based on the British 3 layer rifle line that you see/read about in the Sharpe series, adapted for civil disobedience. Front line sits, middle line kneels, back line stands. Each layer tightens up as far as it can go and links arms to form a solid line. If one from the front line falls (gets dragged and arrested), the second liner right behind takes zir place quickly, so the line doesn't break. Having three layers also makes it extremely difficult for cops to get through, even if they try to trample the first line.
One big difference: we formed with our backs facing the cops. The back is a broader, stronger muscle group that can take truncheon hits more easily; it's harder for attackers to break the arm locks; and it's more difficult to get us with chemical weapons if we're not showing our faces. We also had bandannas soaked in cider vinegar tied bandit-style over our faces -- what, you think protesters do the bandanna-and-hoodie outfit just to look cool? It's to protect against chemical weapons, and also to make us anonymous. You can't pick one person out to press charges when everyone looks the same. Glasses wearers took off their glasses, and contact wearers took out their contacts. Glasses fall off and break, and if pepper spray gets in the eyes of a person wearing contacts, it sticks the contacts to their eyes. (Yeah, it's a food product.)
So we waited. And waited. We sang songs, chanted and mic checked our pride and love and solidarity. We could hear the crowd getting bigger and louder across the street, banging drums, chanting, singing. There was even a band! As it got colder we were given handwarmers, and the front sitting row got space blankets to keep out the cold of the ground. Media kept us informed with reports from police radio scanners, and tweets and texts in solidarity from all over the world. That's when I decided, yeah, okay, maybe surrounding the media tent wasn't such a bad idea. LOL
Aaaaaand we waited. We were told the crowd had reached 500, 1000 or more. They had taken Atlantic Avenue and turned it into a tremendous block party.
And then we were given the news: an official, authenticated and broadcast statement from Mayor Menino that there would be no raid that night. The crowd was simply too fuckin' big for the police to get through Atlantic Avenue.
We had held the line. We had held the camp. Whatever would happen the next day or the day after that, we had won. Occupy Boston 3, City of Boston 0.
AND THEN WE DANCED.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiderine.dreamwidth.org/515298.html. There are
comments over there. I've disabled LJ's Facebook and Twitter cross-posting idiocy as much as I can, but if you're especially concerned, feel free to comment there.
It was disgustingly muddy at Dewey Square last night, and getting colder by the moment. When Boy and I got there the Occupiers were taking down and consolidating the tents, in essence "circling the wagons" to make the space easier to defend. There was a GA going on, but as usual there was a lot of talking, a lot of bureaucratic process, and absolutely no decision making. I understand our goal is consensus, but consensus process is utter crap at making time-sensitive decisions. And it's also largely useless in a group of people who express dedication to "diversity of tactics" and "autonomous actions."
The one consensus reached -- not to clear out the entire site -- was entirely ruined by John Ford. Everyone seems to think his shit don't stink, but I can't abide him; not for the first time, he grabbed the microphone, didn't respect the process and tried to impose his personal opinions on a consensus that had already been reached by yelling at us. When people tried to calm him down he fought them. Douche.
But enough griping from me. Heh. While the GA was still going on, the Direct Action group and the anarchists took matters into our own hands and started building barricades around the encampment out of any detritus we could find. Er, yeah, I said "our" and "we". :D We used plywood, bags of garbage, trash bins, two-by-fours -- basically anything we could find left over from the deconstructed parts of the site. We even started taking up the pallets used as walkways, which prompted me to joke about "destroying the village in order to save it." (If you're too young to get that reference, Google is your friend.) I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it was starting to look like Les Miserables.
Les Miserables, the musical:
Occupy Boston, the musical:
By the way, here's a pic of the Legal Team modeling the Fluorescent Green Hats of Legal Badassery:
Notice who isn't in that photo? LOL
So anyway, finally some kind of plan was reached. Those who couldn't risk arrest would gather across the street in solidarity support, which basically translates as whooping, chanting, playing drums, dancing and anything else they could think of to keep spirits up. We who were going to hold the line (yeah, there's that "we" again *snicker*) chose a single tent to symbolize the whole camp; we could form a stronger line around a single tent, and as long as we held one tent in the square, we were still occupying. We chose the media tent. I objected to that on an ideological basis, but accepted that it was (a) the most defensible tent in the camp because it backed onto the concrete embankment over Route 93, and (b) it wasn't a bad idea to be able to keep a livestream going from inside the line. Besides, we decided we'd also surround and defend our statue of Gandhi that had become a rallying point for our entire encampment.
So, raise your hand if you've ever read or seen adaptions of the Sharpe's Rifles series. We decided to use the classic tactic of line defense based on the British 3 layer rifle line that you see/read about in the Sharpe series, adapted for civil disobedience. Front line sits, middle line kneels, back line stands. Each layer tightens up as far as it can go and links arms to form a solid line. If one from the front line falls (gets dragged and arrested), the second liner right behind takes zir place quickly, so the line doesn't break. Having three layers also makes it extremely difficult for cops to get through, even if they try to trample the first line.
One big difference: we formed with our backs facing the cops. The back is a broader, stronger muscle group that can take truncheon hits more easily; it's harder for attackers to break the arm locks; and it's more difficult to get us with chemical weapons if we're not showing our faces. We also had bandannas soaked in cider vinegar tied bandit-style over our faces -- what, you think protesters do the bandanna-and-hoodie outfit just to look cool? It's to protect against chemical weapons, and also to make us anonymous. You can't pick one person out to press charges when everyone looks the same. Glasses wearers took off their glasses, and contact wearers took out their contacts. Glasses fall off and break, and if pepper spray gets in the eyes of a person wearing contacts, it sticks the contacts to their eyes. (Yeah, it's a food product.)
So we waited. And waited. We sang songs, chanted and mic checked our pride and love and solidarity. We could hear the crowd getting bigger and louder across the street, banging drums, chanting, singing. There was even a band! As it got colder we were given handwarmers, and the front sitting row got space blankets to keep out the cold of the ground. Media kept us informed with reports from police radio scanners, and tweets and texts in solidarity from all over the world. That's when I decided, yeah, okay, maybe surrounding the media tent wasn't such a bad idea. LOL
Aaaaaand we waited. We were told the crowd had reached 500, 1000 or more. They had taken Atlantic Avenue and turned it into a tremendous block party.
And then we were given the news: an official, authenticated and broadcast statement from Mayor Menino that there would be no raid that night. The crowd was simply too fuckin' big for the police to get through Atlantic Avenue.
We had held the line. We had held the camp. Whatever would happen the next day or the day after that, we had won. Occupy Boston 3, City of Boston 0.
AND THEN WE DANCED.
Click to viewThis entry was originally posted at http://spiderine.dreamwidth.org/515298.html. There are
comments over there. I've disabled LJ's Facebook and Twitter cross-posting idiocy as much as I can, but if you're especially concerned, feel free to comment there.