Todd Gitlin - Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street

Part One: Two Energy Centers

Pioneers

Something has been: Interview by Naomi Klein, The Nation, Jan. 9, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/article/165530/why-now-whats-next-naomi-klein-and-yotam-marom-conversation-about-occupy-wall-street?page=full, accessed Jan. 15, 2012.

the combination of hi-tech networking: Anthony Barnett, The Long and Quick of Revolution, openDemocracy, Dec. 16, 2011, http://www.opendemocracy.net/anthony-barnett/long-and-quick-of-revolution, accessed Dec. 22, 2011.

reality TV on steroids: The phrase comes from a character in Kevin Breslins documentary #WhileWeWatch (http://www.whilewewatch.com).

Barrie Thorne: Barrie Thorne, Resisting the Draft: An Ethnography of the Draft Resistance Movement, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1971, pp. 34142.

What will you do: Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1970), p. 331.

paneled, extravagant yachts: The point about the symbolic power of the yacht that floats free of national boundaries is made by Anthony Barnett in Long and Quick (note 2).

animal spirits: John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (New York: Macmillan, 1973 [1936]), pp. 14950, 16162.

go-go years: John Brooks, The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Streets Bullish 60s (New York: Wiley, 1999 [1973]).

business civilization: James Truslow Adams, Our Business Civilization: Some Aspects of American Culture (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1929).

Dear Americans: Jeff Sharlet, Inside Occupy Wall Street, Rolling Stone, Nov. 24, 2011, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/occupy-wall-street-welcome-to-the-occupation-20111110#ixzz1hUViYsjG, accessed Dec. 24, 2011.

movement in history: I owe the lapidary moment/movement contrast to Marshall Ganz, who used it at a Harvard Kennedy School of Government forum on Oct. 13, 2011. Subsequently the meme seems to have taken on a life of its own.

rebooting history: Quoted in Sharlet, Inside Occupy Wall Street.

99 percent movement: DeGraw published his six-part manifesto, using the phrase the 99 percent, in February 2010: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America, http://ampedstatus.org/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america, viewed Jan. 16, 2012.

we hear it every day: ON MAY 12, MAKE BIG BANKS AND MILLIONAIRES PAY, http://www.onmay12.org/action/call-to-action, accessed Dec. 9, 2011.

on June 14: http://nocutsny.wordpress.com/bloombergville-info, accessed Dec. 29, 2011. If we need any reminder that the scale of movement events is hard to predict, David A. Chens New York Times report, In Bloombergville, Budget Protesters Sleep In, began: it may not be quite on the scale of the so-called Walkerville sit-in in Wisconsin, or the protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/in-bloombergville-budget-protesters-sleep-in, accessed Dec. 14, 2011.

After two weeks: John Tarleton, Bloombergville Lives: Consigned to a Sidewalk across from City Hall, Protesters Refuse to Give Up but Struggle to Increase Their Numbers, http://www.indypendent.org/2011/06/20/bloombergville, and Bloombergville 13 Released, Reflect on a Night in Jail, http://www.indypendent.org/2011/06/30/bloombergville-13-released, accessed Dec. 29, 2011. Thanks to Yoni Golijov (personal communication, Dec. 27, 2011) for clarifying details about the spring and summer actions.

radical homesteaders: Will Bunch, October 1, 2011: The Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge, Kindle E-book, Location 88.

Isham Christie: Isham Christie, Possibility, Universality, & Radicality: A Universal Chorus for Emancipation, Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy, No. 1, December 2011, http://occupytheory.org/TIDAL_occupytheory.pdf, accessed Dec. 26, 2011; Christie, interview on Free Speech TV, Sept. 22, 2011, http://blip.tv/free-speech-tv/newswire-skype-092212v2-5578874, accessed Dec. 26, 2011; http://sds.averysmallbird.com/?p=33, accessed Dec. 21, 2011; http://www.warresisters.org/staff, accessed Dec. 26, 2011.

in 1770: Peter Maass, Toppling Dictators in the YouTube Age, New Yorker online, April 12, 2011, www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/04/toppling-dictator-movements.html, accessed March 11, 2012.

Privately Owned Public Space: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/priv.shtml, accessed Nov. 25, 2011.

against the 1 percent: The anthropologist David Graeber has been credited with We are the 99 percent, while the blogger David DeGraw had started using the 99 percent in 2010. DeGraws account is A Report from the Frontlines: The Long Road to #OccupyWallStreet and the Origins of the 99% Movement, http://ampedstatus.org/a-report-from-the-frontlines-the-long-road-to-occupywallstreet-and-the-origins-of-the-99-movement/, Sept. 29, 2011, accessed Jan. 16, 2012. (I interviewed DeGraw by phone on Jan. 10, 2012.) It appears on a flyer as early as August 9, more than a month before the occupation of Zuccotti Park. But more important than a phrases precise origins is the evident fact that it caught on. Lots of slogans show up, but few are chosen.

May issue of Vanity Fair: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%, Vanity Fair, May 2011, http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105, accessed Dec. 29, 2011.

By one calculation: Dave Gilson, Charts: Who Are the 1 Percent? Mother Jones, Oct. 10, 2011, http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/one-percent-income-inequality-OWS, accessed Jan. 7, 2012. The very richest skewed more toward executives. According to a study cited by Paul Krugman (We Are the 99.9 % New York Times, Nov. 24, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/we-are-the-99-9.html, accessed Jan. 7, 2012), 43 percent of the top 0.1 percent were nonfinancial executives, 18 percent were in finance, and 12 percent were lawyers or involved in real estate.

goddamned hippies: Kevin Sheehan and Rebecca Harshbarger attributed the phrase to one irate driver in Wall St. protestors shut down Brooklyn Bridge, New York Post , Oct. 1, 2011, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/wall_st_protestors_shut_down_brooklyn_yEqcq6EsqgJ1cSy0rXhkzJ#ixzz1ZZenEpUn, accessed Feb. 8, 2012.

Will Bunch: Bunch, October 1, 2011, Location 701.

the Times ran: Colin Moynihan, Protesters Find Wall Street Off Limits, New York Times, Sept. 18, 2011, p. A22.

Debbs says: Telephone interview, Jan. 14, 2012.

Newark StarLedger: Occupy Wall Street demonstrators send message: Where are the jobs? http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2011/09/occupy_wall_street_demonstrato.html, accessed Jan. 17, 2012.

live stream video feed: www.livestream.com/globalrevolution, accessed Jan. 17, 2012.

Max Berger: Quoted in John Heilemann, 2012 = 1968? New York, Nov. 27, 2011, http://nymag.com/print/?/news/politics/occupy-wall-street-2011-12/, accessed Jan. 17, 2012.

one cop even: Sharlet, Inside Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Your Life: 5 Things You Can Do Now, Occupied Wall Street Journal, No. 5, November 2011, p. 4.

Jesse LaGreca: Sharlet, Inside Occupy Wall Street. LaGreca became famous for an articulate rant to a Fox News reporter, Oct. 2, that somehow never aired but went viral courtesy of an independent video uploaded to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6yrT-0Xbrn4, accessed Dec. 24, 2011). For his statement on voting, see http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/20/1047443/-Occupy-Wall-Street), accessed Dec. 24, 2011.

numerical estimates: Interview, Shen Tong, Jan. 20, 2012; Shen Tong with Marianne Yen, Almost a Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990).

New York Times reporter: Kevin Roose, A Blow to Pinstripe Aspirations, NYT, Nov. 22, 2011, http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/wall-st-layoffs-take-heavy-toll-on-younger-workers/, accessed Nov. 24, 2011.