Occupy New Orleans is ‘alive’

By Zoe Sullivan
Contributing Writer

Last fall, Occupy encampments took shape in cities across the country, including New Orleans’ Duncan Plaza. Almost four years after Wall Street’s dramatic collapse, and its multi-billion dollar bailout with taxpayer dollars, the Occupy Wall Street movement was born out of disaffection with the current economic, political and social situation. The Occupy movement’s slogan “we are the 99%,” acknowledges that a tiny portion of the country’s people, the 1%, control the political and economic structures that determine how everyone else lives.

As the encampments persisted over weeks, and the Occupy movement garnered more media attention, city officials across the country began evicting the groups, sometimes using brute force. But kicking the people out of these camps has not stopped the movement.

Occupy New Orleans (www.oc-cu­pynola.net) meets twice a week for “General Assemblies” on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. A recent proposal suggested designating a single location for these gatherings at Occupy the Stage, a warehouse on Tou­louse and Broad.

Over the last few months, Occupy NOLA has supported and initiated several public actions focusing on social justice issues. The group initiated the Funeral for the Gulf event, which was held on February 29. According to Occupy member Tara Jill Ciccarone, Occupy Portland had put out a call for a day of action against corporate power on that day, and the local Occupiers decided that BP was the most appropriate corporation to protest. The rally began at BP headquarters on Poydras St. and marched to the federal court building where the company was slated to go on trial for its 2010 environmental disaster.

Earlier the same month, Occupiers came to the city’s Municipal Court to show solidarity for Canal St. vendors who had allegedly been experiencing harassment by the New Orleans Police Department and the Downtown Development District. Ciccarone said that the Occupy legal team represented street vendor Nadra Enzi, also known as Captain Black, and managed to have all charges against him dropped.

This Saturday, according to Ciccarone, Occupy NOLA planned to march in solidarity with United New Orleans Front as that group protested the brutal practices of the NOPD that recently led to the deaths of two young, African-American men, Wendell Allen and Justin Sipp.

Outside of New Orleans, the Occupy movement has been maintaining momentum. Occupywall­street.org reported a fare strike conducted in conjunction with New York City’s transit workers’ union on March 28. According to the report, more than 20 subway stations were opened so that riders would have free access. Gates were chained open and turnstiles were “taped up” to allow riders to enter without paying the fare. The site states that the action was a “coordinated response to escalating service cuts, fare hikes, racist policing, assaults on transit workers’ working conditions and livelihoods — and the profiteering of the super-rich by way of a system they’ve rigged in their favor.”

One report by Charles Lechner described a national collaboration between Occupy and MoveOn.org, a successful, national political organizing group, to train people in non-violent direct action. Acknowledging the concerns of some Occupiers about being “co-opted” by the Democratic Party, Lechner encouraged people to go to the trainings scheduled to take place in early April, saying: “It’s great to be on the same page for a moment with eager, enthusiastic 99 percenters who want to make this great land of ours a better one…rest assured no one is talking about elections. Let’s focus on the original OWS [Occupy Wall Street] vision: Mass, creative, effective direct action against the banks, Wall Streeters and political forces that drove our economy off a cliff and want to charge us for getting back on the precipice again.”

This article was originally published in the April 2, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper