#ows The genie is out of the bottle

1/18

Occupy Arabic

A partal inventory of items destroyed in Tuesday's eviction raid

1/18

Partial inventory of Items destroyed in Tuesday’s eviction raid:

100 tents donated by Riverside Church

Occupy Legoland

Countless items of personal clothes

One digeridoo, needed for healing, it’s owner said.

And over 5000 books. 

No smell of burning paper, still.....

You can't evict an idea whose time has come

1/18

Outside on the steps, our independent environmental entrpreneur with his cart full of cans and bottles ha sfallen asleep. 

Mi hermano,  no es permiso a dormirse aquo durienteel dia. En la noche, ok, en dia, no.

Si, me enitendo. Me voy salirme pronto.

But the next time I come out he is still asleep and not moving, but it’s more than I can deal with today.

Sarah arrives with more work to do for the gala. It now looks like we’re going to have to put individual stamps on every postcard. Time is running short and I am getting anxious. 

Martin Bard of the Times Square playwrights has shown up. He remembers his days with the Riverside Shakespeare Company. He will be taking part in the gala. He will even sing. And he too, is interested in Occupy. 


A young couple, (occupiers?) shows up looking for a thrift store. The closest one is at Holy Name at 96th. Our neighbor SPSA has been housing evicted Occupiers. And undercover police as well, says Pastor K. 

In the midst of trying to get too much done, Ji Young and Miranda arrive. I’m on the phone with a reporter answering questions about yesterday’s Dominos Boycott rally. I repeat much of what I said at the rally.  Hope feels very good about our presence and ministry with these workers.

We fall into a discussion regarding decisions about renting. And potential partnerships. And the whole role of money in making those decisions. And how often money comes with a price. The way richer congregations will support a smaller chuch or minsitry and then subtly or not so subtly ask for support or at least silence when certain discussions are taking place and when decisions are being made. It’s not easy, that wise as serpents, gentle as doves.  But our own apocalypse looms ever nearer. Even as in the basement, work in the boiler room has begun. 

Out on the street, I see longtime presbyter Marge Santos waiting for a bus.  As she steps on the bus, she says, You know who can help you? And then names a church that because of who it rents to will never worry about money. The discussion is real. 

Sarah and I are finally ready to get to our work, but it’s time to go. Way past time to go. We decide to ride the subway together to the mass rally in support of Occupy, in part to show that the movement is still alive after the eviction.

You can’t evict an idea whose time has come. 

What I said at the rally

Tracy, Bob and Carlos

Pastor Heidi and Sarah

Councilmember Gale Brewer

Tracy

Hope

11/16

Brothers and sisters...

We live in an age, a time, a day, of Occupy. And we know that it is not just Zuccotti Park, or New York City or even the United States. All across the world voices are being raised up against a global economy that doesn’t work. That has no future.  A global economy that makes its profits on the backs of exploited workers. It’s a sweatshop world. 

But we are not here today to occupy Wall Street. We are here to Occupy Verdi Square. Because the struggle for economic justice does not take place just inside the walls of 

congress or the chambers of City Hall. The struggle takes place in our own neighborhoods, where we live out our daily lives. Every decision we make, which restaurant to eat at, where we order our take out food from, where we get our nails done, where we get our hair cut, where we buy our groceries....every one of these decisions is a choice for or against economic justice.

What we are here for today is not radical. Please. We are not here to demand the overthrow of an entire system. (Well, not today.) We are not even here to demand a new law or a change in public policy. No. We are only here to demand that one business, one global business in this city that makes its profits on the broken backs of its workers simply obey the law. Simply provide for its workers the basic minimum requirements of fair labor. That’s all. To treat all its workers, citizen and immigrant, papers or no papers, with the same dignity that any human being deserves.  And that across this city we will refuse to support a business that will not treat ts workers with the minimum of fairness. 

Look around you. It has been exciting to me to see in my own neighborhood Chinese, Latinos and now West Africans crossing boundaries to join together in solidarity, to declare that the struggle of one is the struggle of all and that labor cannot be divided.  Look around you. You are a sign of the future. A day when workers across the world will demand...and recieve...justice. Only then can there be true community. 

We in the faith community support you because we believe that we are called to create a more just, humane and sustainable world. And that we must do that here where we live.

And so on this day, we call on all our fellow New Yorkers to boycott Dominos Pizza until they agree to honor the most minimum of fair labor standards.

Justice will be served. 

We will be sweatshop free.

Boycott Dominos Pizza, now. 

No justice no pizza

11/16

I arrive at the church soaking wet and cold after the rally at Verdi Square to launch the citywide boyott of Dominos Pizza on behalf of the Sweatshop Free campaign. On a cold day in steady rain, Latino, Chinese and West African workers rallied to demand that Dominos live up to its legal fair  labor obligations. Here at what used to be called, for obvious reasons, Needle Park, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panic_in_Needle_Park) we seek to atttract the attention of the Upper Westside subway riders as they come and go. 

Back at the church, Danielle and I work to get ready for that night’s center meeting and the looming West-Park gala. Rudolfo our friend from Cuba, is asleep in the sanctuary. As Sarah arrives, Danielle insists that I go talk to him.

He’s spent some time in the shelters. He’s got diabetes. If he had some help, he could take care of himself.But tonight, what he really needs is a meal.  I call Goddard-Riverside. The Outreach folk can’t get beyond street emergency. So I call my friend Ray at Jan Hus. He refers me to his Spanish speaking outreach worker, Felix. He gets Rudolfo a hook up for an evening meal and agrees to meet him in the morning for a more comprehensive look at his situation. Sarah and I come up with the money to get him over to the East side, I shake his his hand, buena suerte, Rudolfo.

Gina, Craig and Michael are in the sanctuary for a run thorugh of the play being prepared for our gala/benefit. I’m surpised, and moved.  Though occasionally a bit heavy on exposition, Bella the playwright has somehow captured the spirit of the place. 

Time for Danielle and I to gather our things and head for the Center meeting at Mim’s. 

Earlier today, at the rally, Eric the union organizer and rally MC happened onto the word of the day. He started into the standard No justice, no peace and somehow wound up with No justice, no pizza. 

I kind of like that, he says. No justice, no pizza. 

Eviction day II

11/15

I throw open the doors. All morning I’ve been involved in actions responding to the eviction at Zucotti Park. I’m apalled, though not surprised, at the coordinated actions in cities across the country. It’s a clearly concerted effort to bring the Occupy movement down. I’ve been to a clergy meeting at Judson where we tried to make sense of what has happened. I’ve witnessed an invasion of Trinity Church Wall Street property.  And I’m feeling exhausted.

I’m not ready to deal with Boxer Mike this morning. He’s looking for a broom and a dustpan to sweep the steps. He’s kind of taking the job over from Deacon James. After he’s finished, he wants to talk to me again about only wanting a place to hang up his bag. Do some speed bag work.  And as always, something for the kids. He seems frustrated that it’s not happening. I explain the rules again, the procedures. He’s got pictures he took of Jane. Wants to talk again about the night the doors were unlocked. It has taken me awhile to realize he’s part of my Capital Hall congregation. He and Deacon James and Charlotte and Marty. 

I ask him about the Pacquiao-Marquez fight. He’d bought the fight for the Capital Hall TV, invited all his friends. But something went wrong. Never happened.

There seems to be a steady stream of people coming in to pray. And people wanting just to look around. 

Danielle comes and it’s time to refocus. Waiting for Chris the boiler guy to come and begin. We’ve been asked to house Occupiers just released form jail and I’m wondering if we can get it together. 

I go outside. Walk down the block. Look at the signs on the church. See a sign giving directions for the FRAG art exhibit. Someone has written on the sign Evict Bloomberg.

Eviction day

Note:  I'm publishing this on the blog even though its not on the steps because I can't get it onto facebook today....

11/16

A week ago we went down to Zucotti. Missed Crosby and Nash by about an hour. My friend from the west was put off by the row of panhandlers holding down the west side of the park. I said tha it was inevitable, she was still disappointed. The knock off t-shirt and button sales likewise the unavoidable seeds and stems end of capitalism that’s probably been there since the beginning of time. Wherever two or three are gathered... someone’s going to try and sell something. Nevertheless, there was a sense of frayed edges. The spirit of whimsy and play still shone through in the growing “Occupy Legoland” being built on the north edge of the park. And inside we found a a friendly young artist giving away his art..maps of the US, New York City made up of words. And the same Hyde Park debates about economics continued here and there....

occupy legoland

And then when I woke up this morning, I found a text time-stamped 2:47 AM telling me the Park was in process of being dismantled. To get down there. But it was already too late. So we gathered at what has been the home for the faiuth community in this occupation, Judson Memorial. 

There was a general sense of confusion. Information changing by the minute via text and Twitter. But the conversation was good. We noted the cynical blaming of the presence of poor people and people with serious mental illness as an excuse for eviction. Of course, anyhwere there is free food and shelter those without resources will be drawn. The fault was not an endemic failing of Occupy but an indictment of a system and culture that forces people to the margins and leaves them there. And we as clergy have to keep that issue in front of our awareness.

Judson minister Michael Ellick, who has been close to the Occupation, said that the kitchen had been on the verge of collapse with no cooking facilitites and an overwhelming demand for food. 

There is also growing awareness (since confirmed by the  mayor of Oakland)  that there had been a coordinated effort of mayors across the country to clear the Occupations. Tactics were similar, the perfunctory warning, the klieg lights, the knifing of tents and trampling over personal property. And arrests. It was as if a Tiennaman Square moment had been reached. KInder, gentler, perhaps but there it was.  This collective pushback a sign that Occupy had begun to cause some serious concern. 

Debate swirled over what to do. “Don’t we need a list of demands?” a civil rights vetreran and longtime activist wanted to know. Rev. Ellick opposed  that idea explaining how he got what the movement was trying  to do by resisting codified demands. It’s so plain, every other protest we’ve been involved in hisotrically was to end this war, change that law, all within what exists. This time its different. It’s a call for a whole reboot. The whole thing is broken and has to be redone. No incremental change, no new millonaire’s tax can fix it. That’s what the growing intuition is saying. No wonder the authorities had had enough.

What to do? Apparently some had gone to Foley Square. There was a temporary court order allowing people back. But a hearing would be held at 11:30 am. Housing was being sought at churches for evictees.  Word had come of a new occupation at Duarte Park at 6th and Canal with an “interfaith presence” already there. Some would go there immediately. Others remain behind to strategize. 

Out on the steps I saw Father Daniel Berrigan, still alive, still present. Just like the planned Sunday visit of former Civil Rights leaders, torches being passed.

At Duarte, a crowd has gathered. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhist clergy in a line. Longtime activist Father Paul Mayer from East Orange, New Jersey is speaking. Wearing a collar and a stole. Recalling Dr. King. A wild afroed man is nearby ranting. “How do you know he’s dead?” and when Father Mayer speaks of canonizing, the wild man says, “Cannibalize, cannibalize” .When he tries to yell out about Malcolm X, a large tattooed shaved head white guy moves him away. At least so far we have avoided an Altamont moment. 

Father Mayer

As Father Mayer finishes, an intense  crew cut young man in a suit and sneakers takes the (peoples’) mike. Explains that this move here was planned long before the eviction. That this was Trinity (Episcopal) Church property. (Trinity the invisible landlord of much of Wall Street.) He says that they are an ally. But that it will be better to act and occupy and then seek forgiveness than seek permission. He’s going to lead an invasion into the  fenced in construction site. 

Over the fence he goes and then more going over. When a critical mass is reached, they work a hole in the fence and eventually force open the gates. There is uncertainty. Some want to wait for the court order and return to Zucotti. The medics won’t go in. A very distraught young man says “No one in Occupy Wall Street has authorized this...we never voted...we...” But the crowd pours in. With symbolic houses, a giant Statue of Liberty puppet. And even the “Grannies for Peace” decide to go in. 

Lady Liberty Puppet

The seeming leader gets up in the face of one guy with a cell phone camera. “Cops out, no cops” he shouts. And someone else yells “Can’t the NYPD afford something better than an old Blackberry?” 

Some entering in. Some drumming. Many waiting. No idea where this is headed.