Here’s to empathetic worry, moral dissent, hardcore cynicism, jaded political disdain, erratic fear, waves of complacency, and pessimistic optimism. CHEERS!
2012 Came and went and we are all left alive and breathing.
Well, most of us…
I’ve decided to use my blog to store my memories and recount the cherished moments I’ve had thus far. The idea came from scrolling through my old phone’s memory card. Years of stored data in pictures and video. Digital memory to keep me from forgetting the moments I thought were important to me and did not want to forget. (I have an awful memory and find it to be quite upsetting when I can’t recall the best moments of my life. Because of this, I keep an updated journal at all times and take way too many pictures. Even for the asian stereotype. 😉
Let’s see…
I used to have lunch in this park next to my college.
(Monday, October 03, 2011, 1:30:46 PM)
I would people watch and wish that I had a few friends to hang out with in between classes.
I loved talking to the homeless people and thought about playing chess sometime in the park with them.
Then, Occupy Wall Street happened and Occupy Atlanta formed locally and just so happened to be in the same park that I ate my lunch in between English 1101 and Anthropology classes. ^_^!
(Sunday, October 09, 2011, 3:34:36 PM)
I was amazed at this beautifully done time-consuming artwork here. These drawings were massive! I had to meet this Davis Ison artist sometime while occupying.
Pretty soon, the park “ranger” came out and said that if these were not gone from the sidewalk, he would tear them up from it. We scrambled to find the artist that’d left them there.
The news caught on quickly. They pretty much camped out with us. Only, in their vans on the side of the park. They liked to wait until we were sleeping and come out with their cameras and do a report with their bright lights against our tents… It’s a strange thing to witness from inside a tent. Not nearly as strange as being awakened by a huge helicopter beating down above the tents two hours before my class starts, though. *_*!
(Sunday, October 09, 2011, 11:59:50 PM)
We went from 5 tents the first night, to 85 in three weeks. Each day it doubled until we even had a media tent, a mini church for the religious ones, an art making tent, a medic tent, a massive tent made from a donated parachute, a wellness tent, and a childcare tent!
It was amazing to be so connected to strangers and become so close so fast. It was home for us. If you found yourself awake and thoughtful, all you had to do was come out of your tent and walk around. There were plenty of people there to discuss the world with. And we did. Nonstop. We talked about everything that society keeps us from talking about. Nothing was taboo and we accepted everyone. We were building a real community of diverse minds and people and a family started to grow out of it.
(Thursday, October 13, 2011, 2:41:44 AM)
Some nights, when it wasn’t raining, people would sleep outside if they didn’t have a tent. It was so cold! Some people slept under tables with tarps over them when it did rain. Being close was important. Most people came to talk and never left. It was some kind of magic to come together and discuss ideas in a tribal setting. Like moths to a flame.
We were curious. People were coming from all over to talk to us. Some made fun of us. Like, the second night we were there… some of the people in a building nearby threw eggs at us. An old man woke us up around 6am one morning yelling things like, “WHEN YOU GRADUATE, I’M NOT GONNA GIVE YOU A JOOOOB!!!!” Haha! So we put up things like this dry erase board for people to write on. That way people could explain themselves and you could come read about it and see how diverse our concerns were.
(Saturday, October 15, 2011, 5:06:24 PM)
Down the street at our Headquarters in the AFSC building we did work that we couldn’t do in the park. This was a spontaneous “massage train” that I captured. Busy at all hours of the day and not getting much sleep, I heard someone say “Massage is work, too” Hahaha 😉
Too bad I didn’t get a picture of a cuddle puddle. lol
One of the few days I came home to my apartment in Midtown to shower and restock my bookbag, I noticed this paper my neighbor taped to his window for everyone to see. He was getting screwed on his taxes and was fed up.
Someone printed a few political cartoons and taped them up.
The dry erase board filled up within hours and someone put up this fence to signify something to do with the the “American Dream” white picket fence for people to come tell their personal stories.
Some of these comments made me laugh and a few made me cry like a wuss. :3
(Sunday, October 16, 2011, 6:55:12 PM)
It was filled within a day.
We reminded ourselves of our diversity often because we knew that we wouldn’t all always agree on everything from the get go.
(Sunday, October 16, 2011, 10:24:26 PM)
An important sign in the HQ elevator. (It’s true.)
The shake weight guy became one of our “Radical Faeries” I never got his name. >.<!
(Monday, October 17, 2011, 10:20:14 PM)
Here’s a teach-in by Steve, about the financial crisis and how the banks basically pulled a big ponzi scheme.
I loved the teach-ins because anyone was welcome and lots of people would show up at the allotted time to learn something being taught by anyone else. The Know Your Rights training was one of the most important lessons, I think. 🙂
Someone randomly dropped off a cake to celebrate the month anniversary of OWS. 😀
We got shipments in daily. As the weather got cold, people from all over began to send us gloves and warm clothes, as well as food and supplies. Support from those that couldn’t physically occupy, basically. 🙂
(Friday, October 21, 2011, 3:39:06 PM)
These were much appreciated by everyone!!!!!
Steve…
(Saturday, October 22, 2011, 6:03:46 AM)
There were many nights where people fell asleep working. Hahaha. Even sitting up in a chair.
^_^! Gotta love the Occu-Humor!
Of course we recycled!
(Saturday, October 22, 2011, 6:04:24 AM)
Vacant headquarters in the rare moment that people were actually sleeping. (Except me, of course!)
Coffee was a necessity!
(Saturday, October 22, 2011, 9:07:24 PM)
The big robot bathroom in the park was only useful for a few days. Then they shut it down so we couldn’t use it and sent in a truck load of porter potties to be used on the side of the park. We thought it was quite nice of the city to do that and random! Until, the mayor claimed that it was costing the city and we were using up taxpayers money… (We see what you did there, Mayor Reed…)
There were always firetrucks and police cars around the park. Sirens were a constant nighttime noise. It would have been weird to go a night without hearing the “boop! b00p!” of a police car driving by and letting us know about it.
Mayor Kasim Reed set up his mobile command center unit. I guess he wanted to occupy with us in his fancy RV. Hahaha
Here are some news reporters walking over towards it.
(Saturday, October 22, 2011, 9:50:38 PM)
I guess this is when I started taking picture of the cameramen. You never see them in pictures and stuff. I just like to capture them in the moment, I guess. :3
What does the Mayor do with this thing when people aren’t occupying? And how much did it cost the taxpayers, I wonder…
The police on motorcycles were really unfriendly.
Channel 11 Alive, and Action 2 News… Do you recall any coverage of the occupation? They were always out there with us. That’s how I learned how the news channels worked. They only report what they want you to see and think.
I can’t tell anyone who it was, but someone in this picture bought us a couple of boxes of pizzas after I took it. They were really awesome and curious about our cause. All the occupiers appreciated that hot cheesy pizza on such a cold night! ^_^!
Constant surveillance and blinking lights. For our protection… riiiight. More like psychological intimidation tactics, but whatever.
There you go. Just a taste of some memories I have stored in my phone.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2012
Occupy Atlanta Legal Committee
MAYOR OF ATLANTA AND CHIEF OF POLICE SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY BY OCCUPY ATLANTA LEGAL TEAM FOR OCCUPY TRIAL BEGINNING MONDAY, DECEMBER 17th
December 14, 2012 Atlanta, Georgia – Yesterday, Attorneys for Occupy Atlanta, served subpoenas on Atlanta Mayor, Kasim Reed, Atlanta Chief of Police, George Turner, and 3 other high level officials in the police department and city hall to testify in the Occupy Atlanta trial set to begin Monday, December 17th at the Atlanta Municipal Court. The Occupy Atlanta protestors were arrested on October 25th for remaining in Woodruff Park after Mayor Reed rescinded an executive order allowing them to remain in the park after closing hours.
(Here we are blocking some of the Mayor’s lies during his press conference. ^_^!)
Over a dozen volunteer attorneys for Occupy Atlanta have been filing and arguing motions for more than a year in preparation for Monday’s scheduled trial before the Honorable Crystal Gaines. The Mayor, Chief of Police, and other officials have been subpoenaed to testify so they can be questioned about the basis for evicting the Occupy protestors from the park. The trial is expected to last a week with over 80 defendants and 50 officers scheduled to testify.
For more information please contact:
Attorney
Mawuli Davis, Esq
Davis Bozeman Law Firm, PC
Phone: (404) 244-2004
mdavis@davisbozemanlaw.com
Arrestees
William Marshall
770-906-4246
mrbweave@gmail.com
Anthropologistic 