Last night, thanks to a tip-off from our own fabulous nyceve, I was able to rush up to Lincoln Center and photograph a silent vigil held by members of the Granny Peace Brigade at Lincoln Center at the Koch Theater. With the lovely, light-filled buildings of Lincoln Center as a backdrop--Wagner's Siegfried has just opened, AWWW YEAH--the Grannies held a lovely, respectful, silent, moving vigil in support of OWS. And they had signs, and the signs had demands, which perhaps will go to satisfy some of the more concerned of us. More on this later, after some photos.
I posted a few of these as an update to yesterday's diary, so please excuse the repetition.
I never thought I'd say this, but my profound thanks to Fox News, whose cameraman's lights gave me enough light to shoot with, letting me avoid flash (which I'm rather bad at, and which, in my shots, I don't particularly like. Gotta work on that!) Thus a bottom feeder like me, an amateur photographer representing the blogosphere, was able to sustain myself from the scraps left by the bottom feeders of corporate media, Fox News. Thanks, Fox and Friends, keep up the, um, stellar lighting!
I then tooled on down to Liberty Square, where I walked around with a few friends for a bit. Nothing great in these shots, but do take a look at the public announcement system OWS has going on down there. A speaker announces something in the Assembly, and the Human Microphone repeats it: it's then typed down by someone sitting at a terminal and projected on a screen. Pretty nifty, if you ask me:
I love the understated poetry of "also it is going to rain tomorrow": I am so stealing that for the title of a little book of something or other. Largely literal, but evocative of the difficulties OWS occupiers face daily, and a lovely, understated testament to the resilience and pragmatic spirit the occupiers have marshaled to meet these difficulties. Again, to the naysayers and concern trolls here and elsewhere (and more on the CT designation later, below): WHAT THE SIGN SAID. This isn't a picnic. This isn't a love-in (although it might resemble one), and it damn well isn't those crazy hippy mimes pretending to play pretend mime tennis and riding around in flash care in Antonioni's Blowup:
And it darn sure isn't the Astroturf Express, oh sorry, I mean the Koch Bros. Enraged Jitney Service, ZOMG what am I saying, the Tea Party Bus
This is undramatic, practical, useful, sustainable, utilitarian. OWS keeps reminding me in these tiny, precious details, of the principle of holography: that all parts of the holographic image are present in any given part, that the tiny bit reflects, and encompasses, the whole. It's a damn symbol, is what I'm talking about: a tool, sure, but one that speaks to an entire sensibility. You'd think that Ben Franklin and Thoreau and Rosa Parks were occupying, if you thought about these things in a certain way, working the projector, perhaps:
This is not only what democracy looks like, to borrow the common phrase: this is how democracy looks, literally, the ways and means that a democratic, autonomous, self-aware, and growing movement looks at the world and turns challenges to its advantage. The OWS screen, like the faces of OWS protesters, is another humble proof, if you will, of the strength of OWS. Borrowing from McLuhan, the medium is quite literally the message: the message and the means of its production enjoy a perfect hand-in-glove synergy. Loveliness extreme.
Now, enough happy talk: on with the divisiveness! I really took to heart many of your comments from yesterday re: potentially divisive language, the misuse of "concern troll," the frustration with your worries, thoughts, concerns, and ideas being labeled as mere trolling, and so on. I read every one of those comments with my own concern, and a sense of having offended: for those of you who were indeed offended, I am sorry, especially as I'm rather new here, and haven't, indeed, met all of you yet. To the critique made of a scattershot branding of many Kossacks as trolls, without example or explanation, I feel especially open: while I didn't want to call out the diarist in particular who inspired my jeremiad (and other posters here who write similar things), and while I didn't want to get bogged down in a point-by-point refutation of what I found false or risible in their words, I do see that this had the effect of the weaselly "Some Kossacks say. . . .," an unfortunate locution that the right-wing media has taught us, daily, to abhor. So I do indeed regret this, and offer this apology as an olive branch, of sorts, to those offended, and who asked for further dialogue. This is how it works, Kossacks, and thanks for showing me how to better engage you.
But.
I would say, following the common saw, that concern trolling is sort of like pornography: one knows it when one sees it, and while all concerns are not trolling, and while one's concern trolling mileage varies greatly from that of another, I do think there's a rough common consensus about this. Maybe it's a sense of snarky critique minus practical considerations, I dunno. Perhaps it's a sense of tired-out canards being trotted out as fact, as with this expert piece of Concern Trolling, courtesy of the Grey New Troll York Lady Times, about how OWS doesn't have any memorable, lol, songs:
[T]he protesters in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan have yet to find an anthem. Nor is the rest of the country humming songs about hard times. So far, musicians living through the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression have filled the airwaves with songs about dancing, not the worries of working people.
O noes, not a Woody Guthire among us! No catchy three-minute pop tunes! We're DOOOOMED!
Certainly we might call this latter bit Concern Trolling. And without naming names or further indulging in the incipient DKos Concern Troll Poo-Slinging Fight of fall 2011, one might find similar trollery here.
Not that any of this is terrible, or beyond the pale of political discourse. But it doesn't seem entirely helpful, and you'll excuse me, I think, if I or others remark upon it. So, sorry if I or other seem intemperate, but you will hear this kind of thing from us from time to time. Let's maybe move on, and think about ways to grow OWS and our involvement in it, together.
It's been raining all day in NYC, and down at Liberty Square. People are tired and wet: OWS is low on food. The cramped space of Liberty isn't going anywhere, nor are the legion of challenges OWS faces. To those offended by yesterday's jeremiad, please let me extend my digital hand in friendship and fellow amity. Hunger, fatigue, cold, dampness, these matter. Our infighting matters far less.
And, hey, I rather love trolls. Thomas Paine was a champion troll, as was Churchill. But they trolled for Democracy, for freedom and liberty, as did so many other intemperate political folks: for what Churchill called the "broad, sunlit uplands" toward which we all push, pull, move--and, yes, troll--together. So let's all follow the Good Neighbor Policy
and Let's. Do. This.