Fear and Loathing in McPherson Square, 2012

by Jehovah Jones

Mic check.

When viewed through the wall of your soaking tent, every flashing light looks like a police raid. Every accelerating truck engine on the street a few dozen feet away sounds like a bulldozer heading your way.

This is the second night like this at McPherson Square in recent weeks, with Occupy DC’s “de-escalators” keeping an eye out from the perimeter and the occupants in their tents listening with nervousness and dread.

The last time was a few days before Christmas. After a large, drunk, tank-shaped ruffian kicked an arresting cop in the balls and left him puking in the street, the camp buzzed with the rumor: Tonight’s the night we get raided.

For veterans of Zuccotti Park, Oakland, U.C. Davis and dozens of other Occupations across the country, the conditions seemed right: wet, cold, dark, and cops had been humiliated; it was now personal. Word was that it would happen around 3am.

On that night, our number included Occupy DC’s ambassador of goodwill, a pipe-smoking man of substantial age who has lived in this park for years, who sits in a prominent spot and greets every passerby with “Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!” There’s a guy here who’s got a petition with 1776 signatures that he hopes will get him–and his waist-length dreads–into the Coast Guard. A genial 50-year-old unemployed laborer/short-order cook from Tennessee who calls everybody “brother.” A 40-year-old Deadhead who says that this is the best living situation he’s ever had; he says he’s clueless about the political aspects of this venture, but if he’s truly lived on the street for as long as he says, perhaps he has a clue even if he doesn’t know it.

A former journalist who had stopped by regularly to donate food and blankets, I set up a tent in early December in response to a friendly challenge from a few Occupiers–“What else do we need? How about your body?”–who encouraged me to sleep here as many nights as I could, even if I had to leave to go to work most mornings.

Elsewhere in the park there’s a working journalist who’s been here since October 1, the first day of this Occupation. He’s here for the stories, sleeping here because it gives him access that other media types don’t have, and because of the high price of hotels in DC. I’m here for the most unprofessional of reasons: to experience grassroots democracy in action.

I have long wondered if the people of this country would forever sit passively by and watch our hard-earned gains in the direction of decency and humanity be reversed by the Republicans (aided by weasel Democrats), watch as the clock is turned back to the dark ages of crony capitalism. This group is trying to do something about that.

Mic check.

Sleep for many of us never did come that night in December, but neither did the police. It was one of very few blessings that brutally cold holiday season; the weather was about to take an even more drastic dip, one that would cost us some Occupiers.

There are those who say the movement is incoherent. In a way, I can see the point–the causes cited by Occupiers are myriad, and it’s not being packaged in those convenient little soundbites that media talking heads prefer. But if you actually think about it, my erstwhile colleagues–employing your own brain cells instead of your tendency to lazily regurgitate–it becomes obvious why that’s the case. With so many powerful people dedicating so much time to screwing up this country for their own narrow benefit, the fact that one can’t simply hand over a concise statement of purpose to cover it, says far more about the size of the problem than about those trying courageously to begin to correct it.

Some say the movement is too inclusive for its own good, that those hangers-on who aren’t here for a specific political reason need to be booted. But how can you kick out the already marginalized, many of whom have things to teach you about surviving in a hostile environment?

Among the hundreds of people who have come to watch the circus, many have clearly joined it, at least in spirit. A steady stream of messages from the street tell us how the revolution looks from there.

“Thank you for doing this for all of us. What can we do for you?” A carload of elderly women stopped at the light close to my tent.

“God bless you from the rest of us. Don’t lose hope; you’re making history.” A middle-aged Hispanic man, through the window of a battered pickup, to a chorus of honking horns behind him.

“Go home, hippies. Get a job, dirty commies.” A series of SUVs and sports cars barreling down 15th street.

If volume is the measure, the wingnuts win; one of their favorite tactics is to park close by at 3am and blow their horns nonstop to keep us from sleep.

One of the more blatant hypocrisies I’ve heard is “Give us back our park!” I used to work across the street, so I know that the main users of this park before October 1 were the homeless and the rats–and both are still here.

Tonight, the rumors fly again, probably with more reason this time: On Friday, the Park Police, our nemesis/defender, apparently caving to pressure from a rabidly partisan neocon congressman from California, issued an ominous warning: after noon today, they will start enforcing the “no camping” rule. Nobody’s sure precisely what form that enforcement will take, but it involves potentially arresting those “sleeping or preparing to sleep.”

Once again, we wait. Will the dreaded crackdown come, and if so, what will happen to my friends and neighbors who are unlucky enough to have no other place to go?

Mic check.

(Image by thisisbossi)