A Profile of Occupy Cincinnati, Pt. 1

Aaron’s been with the Cincinnati movement since it organized in late September of this year, attending even the initial planning meetings. Following the Arab Spring movement and related movements in the news, he got involved through facebook and calls the Occupy movement’s emergence in Cincinnati a “Dream come true”. Like all the Occupiers, his stake is a personal one:

Aaron: I realized that the effects of the economic problems in our country have touched just about everyone’s lives.  When I saw this flickr feed of all these people holding up their 99% stories, their personal stories of hardship. Things like – well, my sign is that I’ve been laid off three times in the last eighteen months, I’ve got a four-year-old son, and I’m working two shitty part-time jobs and can’t really pay my bills – I am the 99%. Anyway the flickr feed shocked me, I had felt like that hardship was isolated to small pocket of people like my friends, but it’s not; everyone in the country is struggling with the same things.

“Don’t they have jobs and families!?” is an often-heard comment about the Occupy Movement.  To the external observer, Occupiers exist in a state of constant protests, rallies, marches, teach-ins, and demonstrations. So in Cincinnati, how do they balance their roles in the movement with their personal lives? About as well as one might expect, it turns out.

Sonnet:I’m a full time graduate student, a TA, and a graduate assistant at UC, and I try to have a life. It’s very difficult to maintain that balance, but with our braintrust and the collaborative spirit that we have, when one of us needs to step back, someone else steps up. That being said, I’ve gone through two breakups since I got involved with OC.

 

Chelsea: It’s kind of hell. I was working as a server, then I was suspended due to my employer’s feelings about my involvement with the Occupy movement.Then I came down with pneumonia, and when I went back to work after being suspended and falling ill, I was fired. It’s been a blessing in disguise – I had some free time to really get my hands dirty and get involved, and I’ve found another job thanks to my friends in OC.

 

Molly: I’m a full-time student, an RA, and on the board of three campus organizations at the University of Louisville. So many of us are very politically involved – at some point you prioritize, and maybe that means you’re writing a term paper while you’re sitting in a park occupying.

 

Aaron: My personal life is basically non-existent; there is a segment of OC that does this almost every waking moment – present company included. From the time I wake up, I’m organizing rallies, or answering emails, or talking to – everyone from the mayor’s office to the chief of police to the media, whoever. My place is a wreck, I neglect my family, my hobbies – I’ve been a hard core Arsenal fan for like ten years, and I have no idea what is going on with my team.

Principles

The most pressing question that people seem to have about the Occupy movement is “Why are you guys doing this?” The tricky thing about this is that the answer is a little different for each of them. There are, however, a few threads that seem to run consistently through all of the Occupiers, and this small group is no exception.

Aaron: “First and foremost we’re in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. The idea is that the Occupy movement is putting pressure on society at large to get money out of politics and to curtail the influence of large corporations and wealthy individuals that have control over our political system. We believe that the government should be responsive to the people and not necessarily to dollars… We’re providing a forum for people to express their grievances; to express their own personal issues and problems. I think that’s important in and of itself. People think it’s just them, they think it’s just their friends, and they don’t realize that it’s a national or international problem. So when people see that there’s this forum available, I think they’re drawn to it, and I think it provides people an opportunity to speak their minds, to air their grievances, and tell their personal stories.”

It’s been said that the Occupy movement has grievances against the system, but that their failing is that they aren’t really providing solutions to those issues – only calling attention to them. Aaron immediately admits that “initially the movement was all about kind of a ‘collective outcry’ of anguish and despair”, but he feels that it has coalesced into much more defined terms. He points out the Citizens United decision as an example of a specific platform that Occupy has rallied around.

The group is careful to characterize Occupy as a social movement rather than a political one, though they’re also quick to point out the potential for – and importance of – political impact. Sonnet goes so far as to credit Occupy movement with at least part of the responsibility for the continued viability of the American Jobs Act, albeit in piecemeal fashion.

The Organization

Lest you get some crazy idea in your head that OC is a movement that is organized in any familiar fashion, check yourself; unless you’ve got a strong background in ancient Greek political movements, that is. A daily General Assembly (GA) is an open forum where any OC member can make proposals to be adopted by the group as a whole. Committees representing the movement’s needs report in during the GA as well, and include Communications, Direct Action, Education, Legal, Occupation (OC members planning on being arrested are typically on the Occupation committee) Spirituality, Development, and the Grievance committee, which, Sonnet offers, is not a popular group to participate in.

Sonnet: Our Committees meet on a regular basis and stay in touch through list-servs, texting, email, whatever – and do the bulk of the work and heavy lifting.

Past these simple structures, however, Occupy Cincinnati’s organizational system takes a different approach – one that is characteristic of the Occupy movement as a whole. Occupy Cincinnati actively resists the concepts of hierarchy and the traditional concepts of hierarchical leadership. Those Occupiers who have the personalities to be leaders do in fact step up and lead, but which Sonnet points at that as a function of personality rather than an element of a more traditional social structure.

Aaron: “We’re not organized like any kind of traditional organization – we’re an amorphous, constantly-evolving social movement with very little permanency – it’s unlike anything I’ve been involved with.”

The group actively works to ensure that gender, race and class disparities are addressed within the movement; everyone is included, and has a voice that is equal of every other. On the political spectrum, it’s direct democracy, a model rarely seen outside of very small groups. For Occupy Cincinnati, it’s the importance of people having a forum to speak their minds, especially when those people may speak with voices that carry less weight in other settings the homeless, for example.Occupy Cincinnati counts many of the city’s homeless among their members, and has a close relationship with organizations such as the Greater Cincincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. But unequivocal equality seems – to the non-Occupier- like it would be difficult and limiting – maybe like the floor of the Senate gone wrong?

Sonnet: “I can’t speak for everyone – but one of the things I’ve been actively working on is un-brainwashing myself out of thinking that [as a group] you need a leader to complete a task. In fact, our success is because there aren’t any leaders, aren’t any figureheads – there’s nobody to resist and rebel against.  We really do rely on each other; we’re communal and collaborative.”

 

Molly: “Decision-making can this way can be a little bit more strenuous, like for example with Occupy Louisville, spending 30 minutes debating allowing people smoking cigarettes in our media tent, but the consensus decision, reached without hierarchy and leaders, will always result in a decision that is fully supported by everyone in attendance. Without that kind of cohesion, people will be upset, or want to leave – and when everyone knows their voice is just as valuable as everyone else’s – that’s how you create a long-term movement that is able to do things that matter”.

Reaching a 90% consensus on every decision sounds like the nightmare of anyone who’s ever managed a staff in any capacity, but that number, adopted from Occupy Wall Street, is what must be reached to for OC to pass any motion at their General Assemblies. At the end of the day, the results of that process are hard-won to say the least. How does the group get there, and do the ends justify the means?

Aaron: We use a number of different hand gestures to indicate agreement, neutrality, disagreement, or even a block, which is moral opposition. Or new proposals, comments, wrap it up, new information, point of process, whatever. We have a moderator, who does not vote and keeps the group in process. We actually have Molly – who came up from Occupy Louisville – to thank for our Consensus Facilitation training. I don’t think she realizes how helpful that was, and the hand signals can even be funny – they tend to bleed over into our normal lives, too.

 

Sonnet: “We’re doing a brand new form of protest, so it’s important for us to think outside of the box when it comes to executing a task or implementing a policy as well. There’s a tedium in getting to 90%, but it’s about the importance of giving people a microphone, and giving people a place to voice their concerns and opinions – most of these people have never been listened to by any decision-maker. That whole process of being listened to and validated by a large group of people – that’s transformative as well; that’s one of the thing’s we’re changing.

 

Molly: “We’ve been chanting for weeks and weeks “Show me what democracy looks like”. This is it – and it’s going to be messy, it’s going to be difficult, but so many people’s voices are actually being heard for the first time, and that’s revolutionary in and of itself.

 

 Sonnet: ”So much of this movement is about process as much as anything else; we constantly illustrate how important that is, how justified it is – there’s no doubt in my mind.  And we’d get 90% on that statement, I’m sure of it. Even if it can be frustrating, it’s so important”

That’s all we could jam into one day. Tomorrow will cover media relations, opposition to the movement, and where they think they are headed in the future.