Occupy Austin: paradigm shift but still strong

AUSTIN — The Occupy Austin camp on the steps of city hall seems to be smaller than last time I was here, and like other parts of the greater movement, is in a period of change.

Last time I was in a larger group of people while the energy was still all around, before the police brutality elsewhere. I was there when the camp was larger, the air was warmer and it was daylight.

Above the encampment on the steps of city hall high-rise apartment buildings loom tall and true, untouchable by the plight below. An apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows glows with the faint light of a television program.

The windows of the buildings look out past the people below. It’s as if they’re diverting their eyes, pretending to ignore the plight of the people — the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. At the least the people below simply want to be heard and recognized.

The mood is different here. It’s as if the tension and police brutality elsewhere found its way to replace the calm, community and celebrating with paranoia. In some ways it’s a text-book example of deterioration of a movement, of a society.

Todd Purdum does an excellent job writing in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair about the warnings of George Kennan about the chain of events that lead to the conditions that forced the Occupy Wall Street movement to begin in the first place. He also warms of societal decay, as what seems to have happened in Austin.

I’m not entirely convinced it’s as bad as it seemed that evening.

Kitt O’Connell, a member of Occupy Austin, said there was a general assembly that evening. The group has some growing pains and issues but overall the movement is strong.

“There have been some tensions recently,” he said. “It’s important to remind people how important transparency is to Occupy Austin.”

A man named Caleb and another named Mike were voices of reason after an abusive member of the group attempted to enforce non-existent privacy laws. They reassured me that I still had rights I knew I had — to photograph people in public making a spectacle of themselves. I told them both I was a professional and covered a lot in my years and was aware the law (but law enforcement?) was on my side.

The rights of the press are being severely ignored and abused by police and law enforcement agencies in this country. They don’t bother making up excuses anymore, they just assault photographers and arrest reporters. Members of the greater Occupy movement must realize the press is part of the 99%, they are the ones getting their story out, showing their plight, fighting along with them.

As a journalist, I should not have to fight against the police, the government, the paranoid rednecks and white trash of the GOP and Tea Party and now the Occupy movement.

My first visit I spoke with a guy named Thunder about civics, copyright law, media and communications and some observations about the growing camp and the Occupy movement in general.

This time, it was a guy in a suit and dark overcoat named Jesus. We talked about the differences in the encampment now versus other places, different times.

Up close the Occupy movement is an ebb and flow of small changes for good or ill, but the big picture is still there and still strong.

I paraphrased a part of a famous sonnet by Emma Lazurus, The New Colossus, a paragraph of which is emblazoned on the base of the State of Liberty. Here is the full text of it:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”