I'm interrupting my viewing of the live feed from Occupy Boston (which may or may not be in the process of dismantling itself or being dismantled by the Boston Police Department) while occasionally checking on how the stock market is doing (quite well today, thanks to Merkozay's latest deal to "save the euro") (embodying therein my, and much of the country's, internal contradictions) to consider the recent ruling by a Massachusetts judge who found that "The act of occupation...is not speech" and is therefore not protected from "prosecution for trespass or other crimes." In other words, the city of Boston can kick the protesters out of Dewey Square, where they've set up a community, which seems to function as well as most, for the past 2 months -- no thanks to city officials, who have cited health and safety violations, while preventing the camp from improving its plumbing/sanitation and shelters/winterization.
So are we in favor of free speech, but?
The occupiers mean to be provocative; that's the point of protest, but it seems to me that, as a matter of strategy, it's smarter for officials just to let the encampments be. Across the country, the movement has gotten the most attention when police attacked the protesters -- from the first videos of young women being pepper sprayed in NYC to the veteran in Oakland, eyes rolling back in his head as he's carried to the hospital, to campus cops pepper spraying students at UC Davis. In Boston, it was the night when 141 protesters were arrested, starting with the perfect photo-op of aging veterans getting knocked down & hauled away as they recited the oath of loyalty to the Constitution they had taken on enlistment. And last night, as protesters awaited another police action, the news media were all over it.
In contrast, ignoring protest, as the Bush administration did with the massive marches against the invasion of Iraq, proved to be quite effective. Within months, we were told that the antiwar movement had gone away. (Not true, but most people -- including much of the antiwar movement -- believed it.)
But power seems to need to assert itself and finding a legal loophole is an effective way of doing that. At least for a while. Change comes when enough people become ungovernable. The occupy movement isn't there yet, but it has made politicians uneasy enough to try to squash it and has altered the discussion -- which is another purpose of the protest. In response to the court's decision, posters went up at Occupy Boston saying, "You can't evict an idea."
Actually, you probably can, but you can't be certain of silencing it by pulling down tents, which is what matters now. There are lots of public spaces left to occupy for some length of time and lots of other strategies for keeping that idea alive and promoted as a thorn in the side of the powerful. Being forced to close down the tent cities before winter makes them really miserable is a gift to the movement. It can declare, not victory, but persecution, which brings public sympathy and attention. Then it can regroup and continue to build and find other ways to speak eloquently against unfairness and corruption.
