Courtesy: CBS

The allergic reaction of the state to creative protest is fueling creative protest.

Clausewitz, the German military theorist and author of the seminal book On War tells us that out of the dominant characteristics of both belligerents “a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies should be directed.”

I made an uncovered assumption when I started writing about the Occupy movement in October, and I’d like to begin by revising that assumption. In my first rumination I viewed the aborted raid of Zuccotti Park on October 14 as a sign that the city either could not or would not pay the political cost of sweeping the movement out of their encampment, though I allowed for the need of the movement to remain vigilant.  Promptly, the story came out that several local public figures had interceded, persuading Brookfield Properties to withdraw their request to have the park cleaned, and so on that dawn, I thought a dialog and some kind of accord would be reached.  Things certainly proceeded as if this would be the course of events.

Though I do report on my perspective, and though I try not to editorialize my opinions here, it was hard not to let a sense of victory just from having taken part in that night infuse my thoughts.  I imagined the city had just tried its all-in attack and was overwhelmed by the response from the movement and the press, thus making it impossible to crush the movement through municipal force projection. And I based my comparison of #OWS to the winter at Valley Forge on the assumption that military campaign season (to extend the metaphor) was suspended for winter. I failed to perceive that most of that cost was raised by how the movement and the press reacted to advance knowledge of an imminent raid. But I also was in the minority when I pointed out how erecting the tents represented a tactical overreach for the movement.

The City was embarrassed on 10-14 but remained in control of its NYPD, the courts, and of vast sums of cash. To them it was a bop on the nose — a memo that they’d have to bring their A-game in suppression tactics to deal with this. And “those damn kids” had just built unsightly tents, and shown every sign of staying, breaking a few odd laws, and continuing to be a nuisance. The Murdoch papers mercilessly flogged stories attempting to invalidate the movement based on the externalities of its presence. Lost jobs, closed businesses, busted commutes, real human interest stories.

But what had seemed like an all-in sort of assault had really been a feint.  Then things got hot in Oakland, California. Tear gas was deployed. A US Marine veteran was hospitalized. One of my friends who has organized with #OWS from the beginning commented “This is a shooting war now.” I watched enough of the live stream of Oakland to provisionally agree.  Reportedly, a DHS phone call coordinated 18 cities who discussed what techniques were and were not totally awesome in suppressing peaceful demonstrators.

Right when things were otherwise getting kind of dull, when the creative energy of the movement here in the city, cramped by tents, was beginning to recede just so against the encroaching cold and dark (all in my opinion), @questlove tweeted “Omg, drivin down south st near #ows. Somethin bout to go down yo, swear I counted 1000 riot gear cops bout to pull sneak attack #carefulyall”

The City went by the book. They planned a raid in secrecy to prevent the movement and the press from catching on. As Gothamist reported:

“The NYPD planned Monday night’s raid of Zuccotti Park for weeks, starting soon after its first attempt to clear the park failed in October. Only top brass knew the raid was coming and the officers involved—mostly rookies and borough task forces—were told Monday night that they were going to do a mobilization drill under the FDR, not evict a peaceful protest…”

Gothamist’s police source further describes the characteristics of scheduling the raid, and the use of certain counter-terror techniques the police had been drilling on the Zuccotti Park crowd last week.

A national day of action had been planned for November 17th. I had two photo events I was doing that night, one for a candidate, and one for a really cool NGO. I was not planning to go to Foley Square at all.  I’ve photographed rallies there many times this year, and this one promised to be colder and darker than all the others, which had all been midday affairs on warmer weekends. The truth is also that planned rallies in fixed places reward the police for using those metal sawhorses. And I have started to dislike covering rallies because of the threatened, trapped feeling that increasingly comes with them.

Several of my friends in the city government took beatings, abuse, and were arrested for their attempted intercessions. I am not Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. If you perforate my beach with artillery, I will not declare that beach safe to surf and insist that you do so alongside me. But I do like to think I would go almost anywhere in the world to tell the stories I find compelling. And I would like to believe that if I had a personal responsibility to constituents, I would exercise it right up into the same blows and indignities my elected friends suffered. Taking risk on can be a defining element in one’s work, because your upshot might be in achieving a feat or in capturing a story no one else even gets close to. This is how I see myself, anyway. I am not explaining this to cast myself as some sort of tough guy veteran, but to set up the following contrast: I realized that my initial hesitance to cover #N17 was not that my schedule was stacked against it (ultimately I made it work, and had accepted the other gigs while subconsciously declining to cover #N17). The initial reason I was declining to cover what would be an important day in the movement whose story I am personally committed to doing my part in telling was that I recoiled from what I knew would be an unsafe, uncomfortable and potentially combustible condition created artfully and professionally by the NYPD. I recognize that I had been chilled against participation by the implied threat of danger from the NYPD despite having been 12 years a New York City resident.  But when I learned of the contempt shown for the press during the raid and its aftermath, I started to regret my decision to take other bookings.

Two or three days before the rally, my friend George Martinez who would be fronting the Global Block Collective as the house band for the rally invited me down to shoot his performance from the stage at the event. At first, I turned George down and told him I was already shooting two events that night, but as I became painfully aware of the subconscious feeling I have just explained to you, I texted him and got details such as the start time, because I realized I wanted to make it work and do the rally. I wanted to explore my own thoughts and experiences on “public safety.” Though I was able to glide right into the rally space and get into the SEIU staging area as promised, exiting later was more difficult than it has ever been for me.

The following day, a UC Davis Police Officer pepper sprayed seated students for the crime of peaceful non-compliance. And this put into clear focus for me how delicate the balance may actually be now. Think back to the metal sawhorses. As long as people don’t cross them, what is your protest?

The original image of Pepper Spray Cop really matters. The meme has become so powerful and so popular because — we laugh when it hurts and this really hurts. We are all legitimately scared now. Bad people monopolize force. And our turning that ugly event into comedy is a kind of defiance against the very fear that sort of thing engenders. The sort of fear that nearly kept me from the rally at Foley Square. I might have joined the march on the bridge if I had not booked my evening. And I might not have booked my evening elsewhere if I did not fear being tricked, trapped, arbitrarily arrested, and possibly having my livelihood threatened in the name of “public safety.” Always in quotes here.

Since I began writing this story, a fresh front opened on the campus of Baruch, where cops were vigorous in demanding compliance yet again.

The truth is this, the Occupy movement has not up-armed, nor does it rely on violent rhetoric, despite the divisiveness of its cause. But the hysterical reaction of the state to this movement has two effects. On one hand, it shows the movement is truly on to something. On the other hand, it will increasingly align the movement as anti-state.

“The defeat of the enemy . . . . presuppose[s] great physical or moral superiority or else an extremely enterprising spirit. . . . When neither of these is present, the object of military activity can only be one of two kinds: seizing a small or larger piece of enemy territory, or holding one’s own until things take a better turn.” Thus “two kinds of limited war are possible: offensive war with a limited aim, and defensive war.” – Clausewitz

© 2011 Jon Reznick - Whose streets?

© 2011 Jon Reznick - The Tent City I Didn't Expect to Find in Manhattan

In late October, I deliberately visited Occupy Wall Street during bad weather. Usually, it was dark and rainy and I took no pictures but I saw people doing fine, even though the crowds were smaller. Before the evening of the 2nd, I actually had not been back to the campus by daylight or during good weather since the day the city cancelled its sweep & clear. That day proved to be as much the turning-point as it seemed at the time: after calling the city’s bluff to go all-in, clear the park, and enforce property rules there, the movement has redoubled its efforts not only by establishing official relations with the community board, but also by hauling in prodigious amounts of tarp and erecting a sea of tents (which were both previously banned), expanding the facilities and deploying consistent wayfinding, alongside many far subtler signs of the planning horizon now envisioned by the Occupation. Now that they have successfully asserted both their social legitimacy and their staying-power, they are beginning serious preparations for winter. This raises the legitimate and totally sane question of why this movement would launch itself in September, rather than April or even May?

Revolutionary pretensions can be dangerous. They threaten the status quo, suggest instability, and often threaten and provoke real violence. America, like it or not, has a stable and venerable system of government which yields ceaseless peaceful transfers of power, and is in actual fact fairly responsive to voter sentiment, despite even the most level-headed criticisms made over the issues of inaction and corruption. Isolated incidents and injustices aside, our civil servants are professional and disciplined.

Despite mounting one of the most successful and frankly stunning revolutions ever, despite making full use of international diplomacy, despite proving the concept of terrorism, with such activities as the Boston Tea Party, organized by terrorist/revolutionary/freedom fightin’ group, the Sons of Liberty, and despite also pioneering the use of asymmetric (read: guerilla) warfare (conducted by what was formally a non-state actor, the Continental Army) against a fearsomely well-disciplined and equipped, numerically superior foe, it has until recently seemed to me as if all contemporary Americans had lost track of what it was that made America so exceptional, so freaking awesome, so early on: revolutionary zeal to form a better nation, proven at Valley Forge.

General George Washington selected Valley Forge because it was close enough to the city of Philadelphia to keep the British army, which was wintering there, from foraging in rural Pennsylvania, but it was also far enough away that they could not be surprise-attacked by selfsame British army. Geographic features made Valley Forge easily defensible for a winter occupation. Essentially, they had nothing to do but #OccupyValleyForge until, get this, until the British army was the one that moved. So they brought in what were known as Regimental Camp Followers, women and children, basically, relatives and families of enlisted men. They built structures, erected defenses, and two more things. They worked out an alliance with France, and they basically made the Continental Army out of their troops at Valley Forge. They did this with the help of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had been, dare I say, a community organizer type for the Prussian military… community. The Continental Army was built through shared hardship and struggle, with excruciating drilling and training, and they were provided with ample moral support in the form of the Regimental Camp Followers. If the occupation of Valley Forge had failed or been broken, by the British or by the inevitable winter, there would have been no further revolutionary activity against the British out here. That the war went on for five more years and that the Continental Army kicked the British out was a testament to what was wrought at Valley Forge.

© 2011 Jon Reznick - Our Martial Flag

Now, our American exceptionalism is founded on power largely projected by what has long ago surpassed the British version as the finest, best trained and most fearsomely equipped standing army on Earth. It is founded on our being rich, on being on top of the world and on having conquered enough territory to knit together a nation with unparallelled material abundance. Most of us were born into American rule, and take our place in the world for granted. Even now, in this time of scarcity, we are still great China’s bank (our unprecedented borrowing power makes us everyone’s bank, in fact), we maintain the finest research institutions in nearly every field of study, giving us a natural edge in innovation, and we remain one of the best places ever devised to do business. And the oldest among us preserve memories of a world which America strode forth into with great fanfare, in order to vanquish true, unambiguous evil.

Therefore, American protest is an orderly thing. We have freedom of speech, but it is not absolute, it is both protected and circumscribed by courts and legislatures. We have freedom of assembly, same thing — we accept it is not absolute and we apply for permits. Generally, we respect property rights, and do not burn cars as in Athens, Greece. We respect public service and do not have frequent strikes, as in France. We are not going to have to die in large numbers merely to change our government like people in Syria are doing right now, because despite being a little broken, and kind of ragged and imperfect, our system does a surprising job of changing itself, at least cosmetically, so we generally don’t get that mad anymore.

So how do modern Americans show that a rigged political/economic system is an unbelievably serious issue worthy of attention and correction without resorting to a shooting war or fleeing into the hills to join a separatist militia? How do they organize aggressively, form esprit de corps up to here, and demonstrate their efficacy as a change movement? How do they organize for what is bound to be a longer and harder campaign than anyone likely expects?

Will Occupy Wall Street succeed as an elaborate Valley Forge reenactment?

© 2011 Jon Reznick - Lantern

The title says it all but you can read more about here. If one or both of your Senators are among the 6, call and thank them. If they are not; call and lambaste them. Phone numbers are here.

© 2011 Jon Reznick - Young Occupier

I am writing about this topic after spending roughly 15 hours at Occupy Wall Street over a few days in the past two weeks.

I have attended and photographed numerous major protests and rallies in the NYC area, and my first piece of political photo-journalism was in fact the anti-war protest of February 15, ought-three, right here in NYC. This year, I have been fortunate enough to witness youth protest in Spain, and political turmoil in Haiti, in addition to the many happenings here in New York. To wit, I have 17 pictures of Reverend Billy from this year alone, and you all know every rally and protest goes on that dude’s calendar.

And despite all these happenings I have taken part in and witnessed personally, I still have yet to see for myself anything as epic large as I did in February ’03. We turned out in ludicrous numbers, we ended traffic on both axes on every avenue east of Sixth to the river, from what seemed like 38th street to the mid-50s.  There were square miles of people.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu was among the many distinguished speakers, and my understanding is that this was going on in numerous other cities around the world.

Mind you, turnout at an event is not the only necessary characteristic of a successful movement. The 2003 anti-war effort had leaders, cash, coherency, and utter clarity in its messaging. Slick posters were prepared in advance. For all its grandeur, its sprawl, and its participation by mainstream Big Organizing types (Rev. Billy was there, along with MoveOn), it failed utterly and miserably. It failed because it was staged in February, 2003, and the House and Senate had already voted to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up WMD as required by the UN. This happened in votes of 296-133 and 77-23 on October 11, 2002. It was on the Friday of this very week 9 years ago that they did so, in fact.

© 2003 Jon Reznick - An arrest is made of a violent anti-war protester in 2003.

The demonstration had no effect because it could be ignored by the powerful. And then, in 2004, Democrats did not even offer a nominated candidate who had voted against the war. Kerry and Edwards stood by their votes authorizing invasion, as did every Democratic primary candidate on stage who had been in the senate during those years. 2008 was little different, given who the candidates were apart from the one guy, our President.

In this respect, Occupy Wall Street has already figured out that to succeed, it cannot be ignored. This is where making it a literal occupation (something I admit I did not cotton onto at first when I heard about it) is a powerful idea. Our ’03 protest shut down some traffic and spawned some arrests, but was forgotten, except as a day some of us spent in the wicked cold. Even last year’s Stewart/Colbert (in)sanity rally, which drew almost as large a crowd, and snarled the nation’s capital and received far more coverage and anticipation, and which had leaders, brands, and cash, had no outcome at all except, perhaps, merely to show that frustration with our politics is a non-partisan issue.  That, at least, was a beautiful fun day.

Comparisons to Tahrir Square are easy to make because the movement draws its inspiration from the tradition most notably continued at Tahrir this year. But I think they are facile comparisons. The stakes are very different, as are the players. Most importantly to me, so are the necessary conditions for endgame.

Comparisons to the Tea Party also abound, as that movement is American home-grown, and because it is prone to airing public anger in a superficially similar fashion. By contrast, the Tea Party worked specifically to upset political machines and to align heaps of candidates and electeds to them through fear of a whipped-up and rowdy base. So they figured out how not to be ignored, but also how to influence politicians and political outcomes. Occupy Wall Street will not have an official Caucus in Congress within 2 years, if ever. That’s not the point of it, and I do not say this to denigrate it. I say it because it is not a good comparison even to be making. At all.

But that is where a lot of criticisms of the movement lie. Entrenched power is interested in the accumulation of votes and capital but #OWS is not trying to topple a government, and it is not even defined by a concise set of demands. They are not trying to move votes on a bill, demand a resignation, or even raise a million dollars, stuff we are actually more used to. If not for its quality as a physical occupation, it could be ignored. I have spoken with a handful of public officials, members of the City Council in particular, about why most politicians are ignoring it or making bland statements even now, and this is why. Nobody can see a clear connection yet to outcomes in their world, though they know one may be coming.

#OWS is a powerful statement on the failure of that system to protect the public good and to provide a future of meaningful prosperity, and so it exists in the interstices of typical power: by retaking the public square and turning it into a venue for innovation in organizing and collaboration, creating new energy thereby. Inadvertently, I think the movement is saying something about the future of work, collaboration, and socialization in a world without real job creation or companies that care about us and give us neat watches after twenty-five years rising in the ranks.

What is the point of Occupy Wall Street? To occupy, clearly. And the occupation will end when morale improves enough to go home. Or it will end when the occupation is broken by winter. The fact that it did not end today means it will not be wiped out by NYPD unless vigilance is abandoned by the occupiers.

© 2011 Jon Reznick - If you hold a protest, Rev. Billy will attend.

In mid- 2010 when State Republicans were not sure how the power pendulum would swing in New York State’s upper house the Senate GOP, lead by Dean Skelos, gave their support for the immediate creation of an independent redistricting commission and progressives saw a huge victory for government reform within reach. However after capturing the majority, those same politicians that cried for transparency proved that their words were as fragile as the paper the pledges they made were printed on and slowly back peddled away after realizing how heavily gerrymandered their districts had to be drawn to get in the position they were. They were further dissuaded to follow through once realizing that their majority was only possible by altering lines to reflect inflated population totals created by counting prisoners in upstate counties where they are incarcerated instead of in the communities where they came from and will most likely return to (an error thankfully corrected with a law eliminating prison gerrymandering in 2010). Some analysts suggested that they could lose up to seven seats if the lines were drawn to reflect this new reality.  So after months of stalling the GOP surprised no one and instead moved along with the same old legislative road show we’ve seen over and over again.

Despite the set backs and energized by Governor Cuomo’s promise to veto any partisan maps that are put on his desk , advocates have refused to be defeated and instead have taken the debate to LATFOR by organizing people to show up to public hearings being held by the legislative taskforce all across the state. They are asking people to give testimonies in their own words stating why they believe “one man, one vote” shouldn’t be manipulated for any elected official’s political gain. The taskforce has already had hearings in Queens and the Bronx with Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island being scheduled for next week.

Manhattan Young Democrats will be participating and are asking anyone who is interested and available to come to the Manhattan hearing on Wednesday September 21st @ 250 Broadway, 9:30am. Please email vp@gomyd.com so you can receive information about where to meet that morning. (Its recommended that you call 212-618-1101 ahead of time to reserve a speaking spot).

Testimonies do not have to be long or elaborate (though preparing something on paper for yourself is always a good thing) – you can simply just say why you believe your neighborhood, your borough, your city or your state deserves a process that isn’t warped by individual ambitions or the casting aside of your community’s geographical, socioeconomic or cultural integrity to meet electoral probability targets.  Redistricting should be about providing fair representation to the people they affect. No more, no less.

If you have any questions or would like to get more information on the work being done to make fair maps a reality in New York visit the ReShape NY coalition at www.reshapeny.org or the Senate Democrat’s site at www.passthepledge.com

Since 2006, the number of Hispanic Democratic officeholders has shrunken by nearly 2 percent. Meanwhile, the number of Hispanic Republicans in office has increased 22.5 percent. Hispanic Republican candidates have been especially successful in the kind of targeted, high-profile elections — for Congress and governor — that could influence the 2012 presidential contest. And in statewide offices, Republican Latinos now outnumber Democrats.

But once you get past the spin and look at the graph based on figures from the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) revealed later, you can see that the number of Democratic Hispanic representatives dwarf those who identify as Republicans 1380 to 158. To clarify things further, a recent Pew poll showed Republicans only making gains with whites voters and actually losing support among Hispanics which could suggest that many of the state level anti-immigrant policy bills being pushing by GOP legislators could be eroding any goodwill earned.  Both the DNC and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads have began to take their pitch to the airwaves with Spanish-language television spots as the media begins to focus more on 2012. (see both ads below)

What’s the big take away ?  Maybe the decrease of 25 Democratic legislators to the gain of 25 for the GOP over the last four years tells us complacency could become our own worst enemy. We can’t assume that because we are the party that is typically associated with social and economic equity our messaging is still being accepted as truth in the Hispanic community. During a period where the community has endured higher levels of unemployment than the national average and witnessed two major pushes – The Dream Act and National Immigration Reform – stalled in Congress, Democratic leaders in state and local parties should take these cues seriously. In the end, without state and county parties visibly doing more to recruitment Hispanic candidates, hire bilingual field staff, increase voter registration in low turnout communities and push our Democrats in office to make legislation important to the Hispanic community a top priority, we can very well be on the verge of a electoral problem.

DNC’s Spanish-TV AD “En quien confiar” (Who to trust)

America Crossroads AD  Spanish-TV “Despertarse” (Wakeup)

Last week the White House responded to their frustrations with an announcement that the US Department of Education will be granting waivers to those seeking relief – but with the condition that states adopt an alternative set of accountability and reform measures like approved college-ready programs and teacher effectiveness matrixes. These measures are being received with mixed reviews by elected officials and education administrators however Duncan says that he was forced to act because Congress did not this year (and because of partisan paralysis probably not till after the 2012 elections)

The first question is whether states will bite? Even before Duncan announced the waiver program, several states like Idaho, South Dakota and Montana had discussed refusing to comply outright regardless of the consequences so in the end would Duncan have the political capital to hold the line and refuse them federal funding if he chooses to? If this is just a situation being used to insert parts of the White House’s Blueprint plan for education, will adding them now before it has a chance to be discussed and filtered through Congress create any obstacles when the modified version is implemented later as law? Another legal quagmire is to what extent Duncan has the power to replace one set of standards, made binding by law, with another set of standards being pushed by the administration and like-minded advocates.

Finally – Is this what President Obama can look forward to as his main instrument for improving education over the next year as his colleagues in the legislative branch refuse to put politics before finding a middle ground on best practices for learning? Whether it’s the debt-limit or education reform having to invoke amendments or using backdoor strategies for policymaking is not a sustainable way of running government. But given our limited options, we just have to wait and see to what extent the Duncan’s waivers will give states the flexibility they need to realize their own roadmap to improving schools and whether or not this issue becomes of concern enough to be debated in the halls of Congress any time in the near future.

More soon…

video below is a recording of Sec. Duncan’s testimony regarding the White House’s Education Blueprint for America

“It raises all kinds of red flags,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.

“It just smacks of an old-boys club, where large amounts of public money are spent based not on ‘is this the best product?’ but ‘I know this guy and I like him and I want to be sure he makes a lot of money.’”

State officials defend the move: “In a request to the state controller’s office to sign off on a no-bid process, officials cited the tight timeline for beginning the Race to the Top project and the company’s record at producing results.”

Of course beyond the appearance of favoritism, one has to question the logic of spending $27 million on a system to track test scores, while laying off thousand of teachers.  But I suppose that’s a topic for another blog post.

Medical care, after all, is an area in which crucial decisions — life and death decisions — must be made. Yet making such decisions intelligently requires a vast amount of specialized knowledge. Furthermore, those decisions often must be made under conditions in which the patient is incapacitated, under severe stress, or needs action immediately, with no time for discussion, let alone comparison shopping.

That’s why we have medical ethics. That’s why doctors have traditionally both been viewed as something special and been expected to behave according to higher standards than the average professional. There’s a reason we have TV series about heroic doctors, while we don’t have TV series about heroic middle managers.

The idea that all this can be reduced to money — that doctors are just “providers” selling services to health care “consumers” — is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society’s values.

Read the full Op-Ed at The New York Times.