Notes from a wandering radical

I’ve been traveling for quite some time. Running really. While not advisable generally for one whose past refuses to die, I’ve been running for a long time. When it started, ages ago it seems, on my first venture out, I picked up a journal in a traveler’s shop. I’d always wanted to keep one, but until being cast out of a life I was up-to-then certain was meant to last forever, I simply never did enough that warranted such. But beginning with that first run out to the seacoast, which itself was a mix of whim and frantic distraction, the journeys have been of an epic quality, worthy of record and remembrance.

I do still keep a journal. On volume two now. Flipping through the pages, it becomes a veritable atlas of the eastern US. This year alone I’ve been to NOLA twice, New York a half dozen times, Philly over a dozen, New Jersey, Atlantic City, Baltimore, DC, Potomic, Hartford, Miami, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and even managed to spend a few days in upstate NH by the Canadian border. A couple weeks ago, I took a tour through the occupations to learn what I could and lend a professional’s hand in their organizing. Three cities in four days. Started by camping the night in Boston down on Dewey Square. The protest there is more than a simple campsite I found, but practically an outright village. They have their information tent, a logistics and supply tent filled with every odd and end you can imagine. A pantry and kitchen, dish station, religious services section, library, media and IT tent, medical station…everything to keep the village running.

As I made my way through the camp, I found a mishmash of ideologies, philosophies and issue groups, ranging from Libertarian Ron Paulogists, to The American Communist Party, with smatterings of anti-war, anti-federal reserve, environmental, social justice and economic issue advocates in between. Social-Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, Anarchists…everyone and everything you can think of in terms of ideas, short of pro-corporate conservatives and evangelicals. These groups, generally so diametrically opposed to one another, sleep and eat and speak and dance together even in the freezing rain day and night, all in support of this single movement. Whenever I’d engage them, by group or individual, they’d begin by discussing their pet cause or central philosophies.

“End the fed,” “protect the planet,” “end the war,” “end corporate greed,” etc… But, and this may be me plying my old tradecraft, the conversations would soon turn to the general. The question of why they would join with those who are their otherwise political opposites. As we would continue to talk, no matter if it was under a Dont Tread On Me flag, or through the black masks of the American Anarchist, the conversation would progress to one of corruption and influence and the broken nature of our current systems. By the end, the point would be recognized or adopted, that despite the validity or strength to their arguments, that it was the corrupting influence of money in our elections and by way of it, the influence peddling of secret lobbying and horse trading that kept such arguments from being held anywhere other than the protests and the internet. By the end, all accepted that this movement must be about curtailing the power of private interests, be they political, corporate, religious or even those of major unions, by eliminating their ability to fund campaigns and reducing their lobbying power to those of the average citizen, who is best heard according to the strength of their argument and not the size of their billfold.

As I continued along that night, hecklers, generally wealthier, suburban college grads and ignorant “meatheads,” would stroll or drive by shouting “get a job! Take a bath! Get off my streets!” If one was simply walking by, I would ask what would become my standard opening question “Do you have a specific problem, or do you just feel the need to be an asshole?” They would generally accept my challenge, issuing a litany of pedantic talking points about why such dirty hippy liberal communists had no reason to be upset, etc, etc. I would listen, then ask if they could look me in the eye and tell me the system was not broken. They would admit they could not and soon a discussion would begin as to what and why and how is broken, ultimately leading to a discussion as mentioned above and more often than not, end with them walking off expressing genuine support for the effort.

After spending two days and one night on these conversations, along with literally fixing broken tents and stations throughout the camp, I boarded a Chinatown line to New York and set out to find the original occupation, down in lower Manhattan. There, I found no tents or shelters, as structures were illegal. Instead, it was simply a sea of radicals, young and old, beneath sleeping bags, emergency blankets and tarps. The same pantry, library, medical and logistics centers were there, but were instead tables, where all that was present was free to all. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. As in Boston, hecklers, many of whom were young wealthy terks who literally worked for Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch, would stroll by drunk and issue the same lines. One time, a group of them wandered by shouting “one percent and proud,” almost coming to blows with a young socialist contingent who emerged to confront them. With the help of another drifter I met on my way to Zucotti park, we diffused the situation, bringing the socialists and Wall Street goons together into a discussion of overall common goals, such as clean government and sound regulation. By the end, they were backslapping one another, the socialists wishing the wall streeters well on their night out, the streeters telling them “keep it up man! I was wrong about this…”

That night, contented I had done my part, I slept on the concrete, my wool coat serving as a fine blanket and my pack, a pillow. The next day I rose and continued the conversations over coffee and cigarettes, and shortly after, bidding my farewells, set off across town to catch the final Chinatown line in my trip, to Philly. My stop there was, in honesty, not entirely occupation related. Over the summer, I had a romance with a beauty from South Philly. One who I had traveled back from NH many times to see. Some time ago, after a bout of frustration and depression in her had migrated from personal finances to our relationship, she asked me for space and sent me back north to Manchester. We had remained in touch, she expressing continued affection, while I misinterpreted just about everything. Arriving there that day, haggared and tired, hoping to see some spark still alive, I found her instead to have moved on and generally disinterested in any renewal of our former relationship.

Leaving her apartment dismayed, I made my way to one of my old South Philly watering holes, O’Jungs. A seedy sort of corner bar, with cheap drinks where one can smoke, filled with old timers who would come to tell tales of their times at war, their work at ports along the river or what the city was like in times gone by. The bartender, who had grown to take a liking to me over the summer and who hadn’t seen me in some time, expressed her sympathy for my breakup and coupled it with several glasses of Jameson on the house, having come to known my drink of choice. As the whiskey and Yuengling flowed, my mood soured further, forcing me to issue my good-byes and leave before it was too late. I walked then. Miles and miles, from South Philly, to Center City, where the protests had ringed city hall.

Unlike New York, theirs was a city of tents and hooches and unlike Boston, there was no need for the People’s Microphone (wherein when a speaker, denied the ability to amplify through a microphone or bullhorn, would have their lines repeated by the crowd who listened, sending the message throughout the camp in a wave of monotone popular droning.) Arriving just as a speaker was finishing, my discontent after my encounter downtown growing, I listened as the question was asked; “Does anyone else have anything to say?”

I shouldered through the crowd and approached the stage, taking the microphone. Hopping up onto the platform, I dropped my pack and turned to face the crowd of around three hundred or so. Between the haze of the drink and the mild heartache which nibbled at my sense of self worth, I began with the Occupation’s standard opening line. “Mic CHECK!”

The crowd remained largely silent, looking at me with interest and curiosity. “I’m sorry, I thought I was occupying Philadelphia. So again…Mic check!” This time, they replied in kind, their voices echoing my words in chorus. Mic check! From there, knowing I had their attention, I improvised a speech of solidarity from Boston and New York, spoke with passion about the unity between factions in pursuit of the single goal of attacking corruption and restoring popular sovereignty and issued a warning to those who would seek to corrupt or co-opt the people’s movement to further their own political agendas. I couldn’t tell how long I spoke. Could have been a minute, could have been ten. But finishing to applause, I handed over the mic to the musician who was scheduled to follow and hopped down to my pack, strolling out into the back of the crowd. As the songs began and the dancing commenced, young activists and radicals approached me to give thanks for my words, asking if I had written or rehearsed them. I simply shook my head and told them that when one speaks the truth, preparation is unnecessary.

After some brief conversations, I looked around at the same midtown area I had previously worked in for SEIU. What had once felt so familiar, now felt like a shell, filled with ghosts to me and I knew then, that not only could I not stay the night with them, but that it would most likely be my last time in Philadelphia. Logging into the Megabus website from my phone, I purchased a one way ticket back to Boston and began the long walk up Market Street to the 30th Street transit station. It wasn’t until I was a block away from city hall, that I realized I was being followed.

Generally when in Philadelphia, late at night, this feeling is accompanied by a readying of one’s self for trouble. An urchin looking to roll you, a homeless person looking for a handout or perhaps just a curious mad person identifying a person of interest. This time however, it was simply a blond. Young, with the wide eyed look of an aspiring activist seeking to change the world on a spiral notebook. I stopped and allowed her to catch up to me. She asked where I was going and why I wasn’t staying, seeing as how I’d just arrived. I told her that it was just time for me to go and that my business in Philly was complete. With a look in her eye, she asked then if she could accompany me to the bus station.

I knew right away what it was as I’d seen it before many times. This young, possibly naive do-gooder, who’s mind was positively brimming with solutions to all the world’s problems, had me speak and imagined a kindred nature between us which simply wasn’t there. Had I stayed, the all too familiar pattern would again restart itself and I’d find myself again with an unwanted protege, seeking a insight I simply didn’t possess, to carry onward and change the world, as well a possible infatuation with a revolutionary character which would dissolve as soon as my natural human flaws became apparent. Seeing little harm in allowing the company for the ten or fifteen blocks which remained, I agreed.

As we walked, we spoke of what the life of a political or union professional was like. The endless hours, unpredictable workload, the constant struggle to reach the masses with whatever message one was paid to convey and the personal costs to those seeking to maintain a life outside of the game. We spoke of the potential and the perils faced by the occupation movement and the mixed bag of ideologies which comprised it. And then, towards the end of our walk, the troubles of her love and sex life, as I had known it would come to eventually. I tried to assure her that for all the pain and problems involved in balancing the carrying of a romantic flame and a social cause, that in the end, even alone, she would in time, find it all well worth the while. Then, arriving at the bus, we exchanged contact information, despite knowing we’d likely never speak again, and said our farewells, one stranger to another.

I boarded the bus with mixed feelings. An adventure so grand as this, tainted slightly by mild heartache, was as so many before, now over. Awaiting me was the long ride back to the closest thing to a home I had left, and the adventures I was sure were still to come. As I scribbled the details in my journal beneath the dull yellowish glow of the overhead reading light, I tallied the personal benefits and cost to my venture and with something of a chuckle, decided that overall, it was a grand experience. Because short of the misguided encounter with my former lover, the positive ratio of my Occupation excursion was an easy 99%.