Steve Iskovitz, a friend and former Green-Rainbow Party candidate for Cambridge City Council, has started emailing his thoughts from the front lines of the Occupy movement. Since this blog has lain dormant for so long, I decided to lend it to him. I will post the backlog of messages about once a day and then start posting them as they come in. I am posting them uneditted. His words are his own. You can find all of his posts under the Occupy tag.
Hi folks,
A quick one, if I can finish in 14 minutes.
Got back into the city around 8 a.m., and spent the morning running around Broadway, Wall Strreet and surrounding streets and intersections. Kind of reminded me of DC demos around'00 and '01, but without the tear gas, fortunately.
People blocked entrances to Wall Street, and there was a huge crowd behind the NYSE, on Exchange Street. Cops only allowed people with work IDs through the barricades, but at times there were so many demonstrators that the police blocked everyone in, which was a victory for us. Someone said the start of the 9:30 NYSE was delayed, but it looks like that was not true. So we didn't actually prevent the official start, but did delay a lot of people, presumably, cause a lot of headaches, and made headlines again.
The scene in Zucotti Park is crazy. Barricades everywhere, police keep changing where you can enter and exit. All kinds of commotion. Cheers of victory, shouts of anger, irritation at this barricade and that. After a while I wonder, where is all this headed, what are we accomplishing, what should we be doing?
But we're temporarily disoriented, three days since our eviction, and where do we even go to talk with each other? Hopefully over the coming days we'll answer some questions: what do we do next, etc.
Police are being annoying, at times brutal, most of us have been able to avoid direct confrtonttation and arrest. Just move when they tell you to, then go back ten seconds later when they've walked away. Cat and mouse.
Storage unit closed today, hopefully we'll be in tomorrow. Okay, 6 minutes to go, will try to send to as many people as possible. Send this report anywhere you like.
–Steve