MB Civic

Yesterday morning Bloomberg tried the old “just-let-us-clean-the-park-for-a-day-and-we’ll-let-you-back-in-we-promise-only-with-new-rules-etc” trick to evict the OWS movement from Zucotti. Gee, wonder how that went?! Gee, those dirty hippies must have massive IQ’s to have seen thru that clever ruse.

So Debbie and I went down to the park yesterday after all the early morning theatrics were over to find lots + lots of sleepy people who had been up all night in anticipation of the “cleaning” that never happened (but still might be tried later i suspect) — they were joined by hundreds of supporters, activists and union members who had their back. Being in the OWS park is a really great experience. It’s pretty much impossible to walk through the park from Broadway to Church and not have like 10 different friendly conversations. There’s all these different booths and committees and libraries and free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and cool signs.

Among our many encounters we spoke with Columbia philosophy professor John Collins for a while, talked with a couple who set up a Sukkot tent (since its a Jewish religious structure the police can’t take it down until next Weds when Sukkot is over), donated blankets to the medical tent where they’re giving people free medical care, and saw our friend Justin Krebs from Drinking Liberally who was there with Daniel Mintz from MoveOn.org (Drinking Liberally .. er, drinks liberally every Weds @ 6:30 near Zucotti at O’Hara’s Restaurant and Pub, 120 Cedar St — also MoveOn has a great video of the moment when Bloomberg backed down).

Then it started raining pretty hard. We’d only brought one umbrella and a non-waterproof windbreaker for the two of us so we weren’t really prepared to be outside in pouring rain for an hour. But being there in the rain at Occupy Wall St was really cool too (at least it was for us, the awesome folks who are there overnight might not agree). When the rain came the drum circle on the Church St side of the park just got louder and more intense – whenever the rain fell harder, the drum circle and the whoops and yells got louder. It made you feel alive. After a few minutes there was a guy passing around ponchos to anyone who needed one (we needed one). Then we got to observe the park in a rainstorm and it was just as beautiful as it is in the sunshine.

Anyone who lives in NYC should go down to Zucotti if they haven’t already, and anyone who’s in town for a day should go too. Bring funds or supplies to donate. Bring tarps or plastic storage bins. Bring water. Bring stuff to read. Bring a sleeping bag. Its the groovy revolution.
– Mike Blaxill