SALON

Saturday, Oct 1, 2011 2:02 PM UTC

Moving in on Boston

Between two financial giants, a green space occupied by a thousand voices.

By

Topics: Boston, Great Recession,

Moving in on BostonWelcome to our occupation. (Credit: John Stephen Dwyer)

Two weeks after their New York counterparts pitched camp on Wall Street, a thousand mostly youthful protesters followed suit on Friday evening planting themselves outside the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Unlike groups in other cities like Chicago, which failed to attract more than a couple of dozen protesters, the organizers behind Occupy Boston displayed an impressive organizational savvy that suggests their occupation might have staying power.

Formed on Facebook and on Twitter (@occupyboston), the protesters gathered themselves swiftly, holding their first public meeting within three days of the arrest of 80 protesters in clashes with the New York City Police Department last Saturday in Lower Manhattan.

Boasting no leaders, just liaisons, the group first gathered Wednesday in the Boston Common and made the move on Friday down to Dewey Square on the south edge of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, just outside of South Station, toting tents and tarps and musical instruments and riding hundreds of bicycles. Behind them was the black granite edifice of the Bank of America. In front of them: their target, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a glittering aluminum tower that stood tall against the night sky.

The group halted on the grass lawn opposite the Fed building. What started out as a fledgling swarm of rabble-rousing activists had morphed into a finely tuned organizational machine dividing itself into subgroups concerned with the logistics of food, shelter, security, bathrooms and media.

The festive spirit of Friday evening, which featured a marching band and colorful makeshift signs, shifted after sunset when clumps of tents equipped with laptops, camera equipment and generators went up. The occupiers insisted they were here to stay — to get the government’s attention.

As in New York, this was a gathering and a mood with a message. Occupy Boston has issued no specific list of demands, apart from positive change pertaining to the financial system. One protester carried a sign that simply said “Tax Financial Products.”

The organizers, schooled in nonviolent tactics, were in constant communication with the police and relations with the police seem untroubled. One cop I talked to was sympathetic: “Hey, I’m one of the 99 percent.”

Reasons for joining the Occupy Boston protest ranged widely: I heard a populist dissatisfaction with economic inequality and a lack of corporate accountability as well as a Utopian desire to abolish money altogether.

Brandon Wood, a 20-year-old Boston University philosophy student, said he was inspired by Occupy Wall Street to make the trek to New York by bus. “It was an unreal experience with all sorts of people from all different backgrounds all finding their problems rooted in Wall Street.”

Most expressed disappointment in President Obama. Equally many found inspiration in Rep. Ron Paul.

“I’m 100 percent against printing money and corporations controlling our economy,” said Bill Desmond, a 59-year-old father of four who sorts mail for a living in the Boston suburb of Weymouth.

Social media matters. Most of those there said they heard about the New York protesters on Facebook or Twitter and came to show solidarity with the protesters now camped in Zuccotti Park, two blocks off Wall Street.

Elyse Clifford, a 2009 college graduate, described Wall Street greed as an issue that has large convergence.

“Everyone needs to take note of it, unless they’re in the top 1 percent,” she said. “We need to learn from 2008, but we can’t because Wall Street owns Washington.”

Another protester, full of passionate intensity, held that the financial meltdown of 2008 and all its unfortunate consequences could be traced right to the Federal Reserve. From behind a face scarf he argued his belief that the Illuminati and the Freemasons control the world’s money supply.

Another woman, carrying a “Bailout the 99%” sign, cursed the bankers and said the “monstrously rich should pay their fair share.”

“Three years later and no one’s been punished,” she said. “So I was motivated as a last resort.”

The Occupy Boston members, advised by lawyers and members of the ACLU, voted Wednesday night to forgo the permitting process to occupy Dewey Square. The debate went on for hours, according to Acacia Brewer, of the media team. “The word is that Boston cops would allow the tents, but we’re using them at our own risk.”

So far the city of Boston has allowed them to stay.

“We’ve covered all our bases,” Brewer said. “They know we don’t want to stumble on anyone’s toes.”

Boston Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said, “The city is developing a deployment plan with a goal of respecting everyone’s right to protest but also ensuring the public’s safety.”

Nancy Murray, director of education at the American Civil Liberties Union, circulated advice cards for anyone stopped by police or arrested. “The ACLU is really concerned that people know their rights to protest,” she said.

“We’re coached on how to be polite and how not to swear so as not to provoke a beating,” said one man named Chris who refused to use his last name. “I don’t like it being out there online,” he explained.

The organization put out a statement complaining that “the top 1 percent owns 50 percent of the nation’s wealth and, more importantly, how that wealth is used undermines the founding principles of America’s democracy.” In the founding city of American democracy that message was poignant and pointed.

In the coming weeks the group plans to reach out to policymakers and business leaders to advocate for positive change through the use of a more direct democracy. The statement said they plan to “define and solve problems of an opaque and exclusive government, a Wall Street without conscience, and a state struggling to guarantee basic rights.”

At evening’s end I asked three people how big they thought the crowd was. All three said “about a thousand.” They were huddled in perhaps 20 different circles of conversation. They talked into the night in the pitched tents on the green between the Fed and the Bank of America. The rain clouds that would burst in the small hours of Saturday morning were already gathering.

Patrick Tracey, author of "Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia," is a writer in Boston. More Patrick Tracey.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 1 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3113 points3114 points | 2632 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1105 points1106 points | 587 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
153 points154 points | 61 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
31 points32 points | 11 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
30 points31 points | 15 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations