Repackaging Old News

On Wednesday afternoon (October 12) Brian, Genevieve, and I visited the Occupy Albuquerque site in Yale Park on the south side of the main campus, just west of the bookstore on Central Ave. The Occupiers have organized their community in the park by creating areas devoted to the needs of its rotating assemblage of denizens: on this afternoon, a food tent serving egg salad sandwiches, apples, and bottled water; a central reception and communication area where visitors can pick up brochures, sign and comment in the visitor registry, and read all of the postings of current news on an assortment of various whiteboards; a sign-making and sign storage area where those standing on the sidewalk on Central could select a sign to hold up for oncoming cars to view; and a half-dozen or so encampments of sorts where small groups of people gathered, ate, talked, rested in the mode of casual picnickers. Everything was well organized and the people in the area were low-key, the most commotion and noise came from cars driving by on Central honking or their driver’s hollering in support of the Occupy Albuquerque effort.

My curiosity compelled me to talk to a few people to find out their purpose and interest in being a part of this protest and this movement. First, I spoke to a retiree named Max, Brooklyn-born, who had been coming down to the site from the very first day, at first bringing gloves and hats, later food, and currently was in the mode of just stopping by daily to see what was going on and to lend his support to the line of demonstrators on Central holding signs to spread Occupy Albuquerque’s message. He informed me that there was no particular leadership of the group and that whatever needed to happen just got done. There was a noticeable absence of student-types among the people at the site.

List of Grievances and Community Practices

Max, however, tended to go off on tangents, so I sat down in the grass with a group consisting of 2 dogs, a 40-something man, a woman with long white hair (Gloria), and a thirty-something woman (Radonna) who was dressed in nice slacks and blouse, as if dressed for a day of work in an office somewhere. Gloria, who lives on disability, said she was in the park this day and everyday to show solidarity for the Occupy group protesting in the Wall Street area. She felt the reason that most other people were here as well was to make their presence heard, seen, and acknowledged, somehow. Gloria is also, as were several of the other protesters at Yale Park, a member of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and the PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation). When I inquired about student involvement, Gloria told me that students generally show up around 6pm every evening when the nightly planning meeting is held.

When I asked Radonna why she was in the park protesting, she informed me that she had also marched downtown with the group of about 50 who targeted the Wells Fargo location at 2^nd and Lomas that morning, and that she was here as often as her two jobs allowed her to be, with the support of her husband and 2 children, because too many of her friends and family members had lost their houses to bank foreclosure. She felt strongly that this movement needed people who didn’t appear to those watching from the outside to be “freaks and tramps,” and that is why she came out dressed in her business attire.

Radonna

Yet, whether the Occupy Albuquerque group or any of the other Occupy groups that have popped up around the nation are seen as rag-tag bands of leaderless fringe elements, lacking in a coherent strategic plan, they have created a rhetorical body whose message repackages, with a passionate and growing intensity, the cold statistics reported frequently from traditional right and left news sources. Income inequality is at its greatest level since the 1920’s, median income levels have declined by 6.7 percent in the last two years, one in five New Yorkers lives in poverty, 46.2 million Americans live in poverty, and the list goes on. For the past month, citizens in the U.S. and, as of Saturday, all over the world have taken part in Occupy efforts, their numbers and their voices translating the sobering statistics of inequality and economic policy failure into headlines that citizens and politicians are finally paying attention to.

Occupy Albuquerque site, Yale Park-UNM, under "The Cultural Crossroads of America" sculpture.