How the Occupy Movement Began: The Full Account

How the Occupy Movement Began: The Full Account

Thursday, 24 October 2013 09:30
By Nathan Schneider, University of California Press | Book Excerpt


Thank You Anarchy, Notes From the Apocalypse is a new, brilliantly candid and detailed inside account of the Occupy Movement as it grew to natural prominence then was displaced by brutal police action around the nation.

Nathan Schneider, the author of "Thank You Anarchy," was covering the Occupy Movement from its origins. In his first chapter, reposted below, he chronicles the various threads of uprising that came together to become Occupy.

The Beginning

Under the tree where the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was founded in 1966, on the south side of Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, sixty or so people are gathered in a circle around a yellow banner that reads, in blue spray paint, "general assembly of nyc." It is Saturday, August 13, 2011, the third of the General Assembly's evening meetings.

"No cops or reporters," someone decrees at the start of the meeting. Others demand a ban on photographs.

From where I'm sitting in the back, my hand inches up, and I stand and explain that I am a writer who covers resistance movements. I promise not to take pictures.

Just then, a heavyset man in a tight T-shirt, with patchy dark hair and a beard, starts snapping photos. He is Bob Arihood, a fixture of the neighborhood known for documenting it with his camera and his blog. People shout at him to stop; he shouts back something about the nature of public space. Soon, a few from the group break off to talk things through with him, and the discussion turns back to me. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/19567-how-the-occupy-movement-began-the-full-account