Nights in Tents

by Laura Love

  Days and weeks of quiet desperation followed the big bust. Tweets filled with threats and recriminations littered the Twitosphere. The hashtag, fuckSabu, came to accompany scores of threads calling for the immediate release of all jailed Anons, except for Hector Monsegur. Ordinary people with little or no computer skills changed their handles to “Anonymous” this, or “Anon” that, in order to show their solidarity with our new cyber martyrs. The hurt and anger that accompanied Sabu’s move reverberated throughout the hacker communities, as well as within the Occupy Movement at large. Denouncements and vows to bring down government entities involved with the bust circulated wildly around the Internet. Thinly veiled death threats began surfacing, along with general warnings to any and all other hacktivists who might feel inclined to follow Hector’s lead. Palpable fear ricocheted off the walls of social media chat rooms, even as retaliatory statements abounded. I began to notice a general ramping down of the bold rhetoric which I’d come to love and expect from Anonymous. The thrilling days of the ominous videos with the question mark head seemed to be rapidly fading into blackness. The foreboding sounds of dark, tympanic, horn-infused orchestral music which accompanied most of the apocalyptic videos began to disappear from the landscape. I began to long for the return of the Guy Fawkes mask with its stationary lips, hovering atop the crisp suit and tie—the visage which occasionally canted eerily, almost imperceptibly, to one side or the other, as it delivered its sensational message.

  Where did Superman go? Did the bandits kill the Lone Ranger? Does Goliath ever really lose … anything … ever? How’s that hope-y, change-y thing workin’ for ya? Drill, baby, drill. Bomb, baby, bomb. Surveil, baby, surveil. How in the world could we have deluded ourselves into thinking we could ever do a single thing about the steaming hot bowl of crap we’ve turned our existence into. We hadn’t accomplished anything. Or had we?

  Chapter 9

  May Day—M1

  May 2012

  A week in Hawaii had done me good. Sure, I’d felt guilty to be eating coq au vin, drinking aged rum, swilling mai tais, dancing the hula, and boogie boarding with the stars, but I had to admit, living like the 1% in the lap of luxury certainly had its charms. Our ten-year-old daughter, Kristy, was losing her mind every morning as she sprang out of bed and screamed, “Oh my gawd, we’re in Hawaii.” We were staying in a condo that our celebrity attorney pal, Paula, had rented for us. In fact, the whole pampered vacation was being picked up by Paula, who had magnanimously invited us to come to Kauai for her partner, Woody’s, sixtieth birthday bash. Never one to skimp, she had treated us to frequent forays to stunningly spectacular snorkeling beaches during the day, followed by lavish dinners, fireside luaus, pu pu platters, and nonstop island entertainment in the evenings. I did it all. I swam with impossibly gorgeous tropical fish, played in the waves, broke open a ripe coconut with a sharp rock and ate it, saw wild pigs in the brush, and even found myself floating close enough to caress a friendly sea turtle as she cavorted balletically in the warm Pacific ocean surf. Our time there was filled with laughter and the excitement of communing with the other friends our host couple had invited. There wasn’t a jerk in the bunch and we all got along beautifully—though we were all from wildly disparate backgrounds. One of us was a renowned breast cancer surgeon, another, an upper echelon career military specialist who was also an advisor to the Pentagon on matters of national security and cyber intelligence, another a sought after wedding photographer, yet another a San Francisco city planner, and so on. Ostensibly, the only thing we had in common was our friendship with Paula and Woody, yet I’d been pleasantly surprised and relieved to discover our shared love of nature, and humanity in general. We all agreed that our planet was in dire straits and that corporations, corruption, banks, and bought politicians were primarily responsible for the awful state of affairs. All were open and tolerant, some even enthusiastic, about my passion for the Occupy Movement. I had a deep discussion with one of the few men among us, the military adviser, about the power of nonviolence and the importance of listening to the perspective of those we most disagree with. His name was Dan and he spoke candidly, respectfully, even tenderly about his interactions with Muslims in the Middle East. He outlined his commitment to influencing the American military to rethink its mission and adjust its attitudes toward other cultures, who many Americans now see as “enemies.” He openly referred to himself as a dedicated pacifist, which fascinated me given his extensive military background. All in all the week in Kauai was lovely. Were it not for a late-night visitation by a walnut-sized cockroach in close proximity to my bed, I’d have to say that it was a perfect vacation. Even the giant bug had done little to dampen my spirits, as I envisioned the darling geckos (which were running around on the ceiling, making kissy sounds to one another) plotting an ambush on the insect and all its creepy crawly buddies, wherever they may have been.

  Before we left for Hawaii, I feared I’d be champing at the bit to hit the streets and get back to the revolution—sitting on my hands the whole vacation, trying not to rock and pace back and forth like a caged animal, but thankfully, that had not been the case. However, as soon as Mary, Pam, Kristy, and I landed in Seattle, I felt a surge of restlessness overtake me—I wanted to be underway fighting the powers that be in Oakland and San Francisco. The three of them were going to drive home as I flew out the next morning to board a plane for the Bay Area. In the three months since I’d left Oakland, after the debacle of Move In Day, I spent much time following the Occupy Movement by smartphone, with much interest and concern. I’d seen police in cities like New York and Chicago ignoring and making up laws as they went, in order to brutalize and arrest protesters who were beginning to show up everywhere to oppose bank foreclosures, wage/benefit cuts, unemployment, environmental crimes, and the like all over America. Cops were arresting Occupiers for filming them, for sitting or lying down in public places, for attending corporate shareholder meetings, asking for their badge numbers, and all manner of other legal activities. They’d even resorted to planting marijuana and cocaine on arrestees to pile on more charges. I’d read accounts of big city mayors up-armoring police forces and buying millions of dollars of military grade weaponry to thwart Occupiers. In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was reported to have been quietly negotiating with the state of Wisconsin to evacuate the entire city in the event of a full scale riot on May Day 2012, or the ensuing NATO summit later that month. In addition to Oakfosho, I received much of my Bay Area activism updates from a fellow whose Twitter handle was, “PunkBoyinSF.” PunkBoy, who was also known as J’Tao, struck me, just as Oakfosho had, with his brazen, in your face, unrepentant coverage of tense confrontations with police during Occupy events. PunkBoy in San Francisco had somehow remained unfazed and above the fray during an expanding backlash against streamers, many of whom had fallen out of favor among Occupiers, who contended that their feeds had incriminated them in charges filed against them by the police. They complained loudly that the ubiquitous coverage was being combed through by Bay Area cops looking for suspects. Petty jealousies began to sprout up everywhere as some indie journos were accused of losing political focus as their popularity soared. Some activists cried foul as people like Spencer Mills (Oakfosho) and Tim Pool (Timcast) in New York City were achieving rock star status and getting job offers, while putting them in jeopardy by exposing details of their activities and whereabouts. PunkBoy, in addition to being highly intelligent, had many endearing qualities, as well as a general ability to break bad in a heartbeat and boldly go forward where others feared to tread. From my point of view, it appeared that Bay Area police were intimidated by him, as they failed to arrest him when he called them out or pushed back against their aggressive tactics. On numerous occasions, I’d seen him holding his camera phone high, while leaning into throngs of police officers actively engaged in cudgeling groups of demonstrators at direct actions in front of banks, CEO’s houses, or corporate offices. Not once did I see the cops turn their focus onto him. It was as if they had a ha
nds-off policy with regard to harming J’Tao, even though his live-streams were punctuated with his own brand of color commentary and dotted with expletives like, “Whatssamatter, Pig … why’d you cover up your badge? Scared of getting doxed? … cuz that’s what’s gonna happen if you keep fuckin’ with Occupy … You ever heard of the Internet, motherfucker? … Do you know how the Internet works? … you know who Anonymous is moron? … you know how to work a computer asshole?” His bravado and unrelenting style was impressive for sure, so I established a friendship with him by joining his chat line whenever I saw that he was on air.

  After several months of tweeting back and forth, I direct messaged PunkBoy to tell him I was coming back to the Bay Area for May Day and asked him where he would be that day. He’d tweeted back that he would be dashing all over the place, covering the event, and asked if I’d like to join him for a drink when I got to town. After I checked with my friend Laura, we agreed to meet with PB after visiting “Occupy the Farm” in Albany, just outside of Oakland, that afternoon. Laura met me at Southwest Airlines baggage claim around 1:00 p.m., and off we drove to the “Farm,” which I’d been keeping tabs on by way of a tweeter named Courtney, who enthusiastically took it upon herself to keep folks up to date on a brassy move by activists, who had taken over an unused ten-acre parcel of land, owned by UC Berkeley, to create an organic garden commune to raise food and provide housing for their members.

  As we pulled into Albany we were greeted by typical city noise; cars whizzing by every which way and horns blaring to make sure you stepped on it as soon as the light changed. Then, I looked forward, and saw a huge expanse of rare, green, open space, populated by three or four dozen dusty, parched people pushing wheelbarrows, kneeling before neat, newly tilled rows of soil, spreading straw, and carefully planting each seedling from the many flats spread out on the ground around them. The sun beat down on their reddening skin as they hand watered each transplant from two plastic, 275 gallon containers parked on the center path. Opposite the main entrance was a large banner that said, WHOLE FOOD, NOT WHOLE FOODS, which pointedly referred to UC Berkeley’s intentions to sell the “Gill Tract” to the controversy-plagued, mega-grocer (Whole Foods), which was headquartered in Austin, Texas. The chain’s purported plan was to pave over the parcel and build another “healthy” food outlet on this land. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey had recently found himself in a shit storm of his own making by voicing such beliefs as, “Climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily a bad thing,” and also contending that health care is “not an intrinsic right,” in interviews he granted to magazines such as Mother Jones. To make matters worse, he was considered on some fronts to be ethically challenged, as he was known to promote and sell sugar- and preservative-laced GMO-laden foods as healthy choices to his largely liberal, educated, diet-conscious, clients across the nation. Then, there was that brief, but noteworthy phase in 2009, when Tea Party members found so much to like about Mackey’s public political pronouncements, that they vociferously encouraged their members in places like Dallas, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona to purchase a week’s worth of groceries from Whole Foods, in what they called a “Buycott” of support for their newly anointed kindred spirit.

  However precarious its future, the Gill Tract was, at that moment, ten acres of organic beans, peppers, carrots, onions, lettuce, greens, peas, potatoes, herbs, and all manner of edible offerings. One of the first things I did was ask a farmer in overalls and a straw hat where they’d procured their water. “Well, till Friday we had running water from the University, but they cut it off a couple of hours before we were supposed to meet with them to ask if we could stay till the crop was in. Then, when we all went to our scheduled meeting to discuss things, they never showed up. Now, we just been filling these containers up from friends’ garden hoses.” That sounded like a lot of work to me. I couldn’t even imagine keeping up with a ten-by-ten-foot plot that way, without putting myself in the hospital, let alone ten acres. As I walked through the grounds, I was delighted to see kids running around naked, or nearly so, as they fed, watered, and played with dwarf goats and chickens in moveable “tractors,” which furnished fertilizer to the rows. There was also a plethora of dogs and puppies who were allowed to roam in certain nonplanted areas of the joyful environment. A child artist had crayoned a sign asking us not to disturb the nesting turkeys, who were making themselves scarce to get a little peace and quiet while they sat and waited for their brood to hatch. Overhead were gaily decorated archways announcing areas such as “Ladybug Patch” and the “Library.” An enthralling marriage of industry and fellowship rewarded me wherever I cast my eyes. There was a small, canvas-covered stage that protected musicians from the hot sun as they played to entertain workers and planners. A young woman was giving a free “herbal health for female-bodied people” clinic from a circle of straw bales, which provided seating for me, my friend Laura, and the other people attending, one of whom was an inquisitive man who listened intently as homemade tinctures and remedies were passed around for all to sample, along with free instructional printouts. I learned lots of fascinating stuff about the abundance of easily grown, readily available herbs that can alleviate a whole host of issues we women have around our unique physiology. Just as we were leaving, four ominous looking uniformed police officers strode in officiously and singled out a man to corner for questioning. I stood within four feet of them as I filmed them talking gruffly to the man with their clipboards out. One stern-faced officer lowered his clipboard in exasperation as he turned sharply to face me and spoke sternly, “Look, could you just step back and give us some privacy here. We’re trying to investigate a crime scene and we need you to get back, okay. We need you to cut the camera off too.” “Oh, okay,” I said, wondering what sort of crime this tousle-haired, Norman Rockwell–looking farmer had been involved in, besides transporting lady bugs without a permit and watering vegetables.

  After being told to back off and stop filming, Laura and I reluctantly departed the “crime scene” in order to convene with PunkBoy at his apartment in the Haight so we could share a drink or two before our big day in the Bay. Just before we got to his place, I called to say we were nearby and asked if could we bring anything to his flat. “Nope, I’m good,” he said. “I got a houseful of people and just bought beer and food for them, so just come on by.” So that’s what we did. We practically had to turn sideways to get into his small apartment, since nearly every flat surface was overtaken by visiting guerilla journalists from all across the nation. Some had even taken the time to construct laminated press badges with their Twitter handles on them. “Oh, you’re Korgasm,” or, “Hey, that’s Hicksphilosopher,” I exclaimed, starstruck. There were bodies sprawled out everywhere, heads bent over computer screens—fingers flying, as occasional bouts of conversation broke out between tweeters, who were sitting so close together their skin touched. J’Tao had laid out a large large, foamy mattress on the floor of the unit’s only bedroom, which was almost entirely obscured by visitors from places as far flung as New York City and Chicago. A chubby, pimply, black-garbed teenager who was sitting against the bedroom wall began rocking back and forth as he excitedly repeated, “I can’t believe I’m in Oakland!” until someone close by glanced up from his computer and said, “Well, no, actually dude, you’re in San Francisco.”

  “Well yeah, but that’s almost Oakland,” retorted the manic kid, who appeared to be slightly off-plumb in some way. “I knew it was gonna be awesome in Oakland on May Day,” he continued, “so I took a bus and hitchhiked all the way out here from Kansas to get here. Do ya think the cops’re gonna shoot tear gas at us like I saw on Oakfosho’s channel? I bought a gas mask, just in case. Is Oakfosho gonna be there? How close is the Golden Gate Bridge to Oakland? Where do you think the most action’s gonna be tomorrow?”

  His rapidfire ejaculations did nothing to dispel my feeling that he needed guidance, or supervision of some sort, so I faced him, with some misgivings, and asked him if he was here by himsel
f.

  “Let’s just say … when Georgie wants to go somewhere, Georgie takes off and goes somewhere … no matter what his retarded parents say,” he answered, obliquely.

  Oh Lord have mercy, that’s not what I wanted to hear.

  “So, Georgie,”I began.

  “No! It’s George,” he violently corrected, clutching his head in his hands and clawing at his temples as if to stop it from exploding off his shoulders.

  “My parents call me Georgie, but my name is George! I’m eighteen and I can do whatever the fuck I want now.”

  I felt a hand pressing lightly against my back, so I turned slowly to face PunkBoy, who began gently tugging me to the overcrowded living room.

  “So, I see you’ve met George,” he said, painstakingly pronouncing every letter of the name, almost converting it into a four syllable word.

  “Yes, it seems so,” I replied, cautiously.

  “He just showed up on my doorstep this morning, saying he was an Occupier that needed a place to stay for the ‘May Day riot’, so what could I do. He’s just a kid, so I couldn’t tell him no, but I think we need to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. He’s totally broke. He says he spent his last dime on food and a gas mask, so I’m hoping he doesn’t think he lives here now. I wonder if his parents even know where he is.”

  “Well, he’s got a cell phone,” I offered. “He could probably call them if he gets totally stuck.” Then, I recognized Courtney from her Gill Tract, OccupyTheFarm coverage, so I excused myself and squeezed over to her to say how appreciative I was for all the up-to-the-minute news from Albany.

  This was an electric, alive, hope-filled, convergence—infused with passion and purpose—ground zero for the revolution that we would kick into high gear the next day. We were going to hit the streets, shut down the Golden Gate Bridge, and “raise a ruckus,” just as Robert Reich had urged us to do when he delivered that dynamic speech on the Berkeley campus back in November. From there we were going to keep on rolling forward, gathering momentum wherever we went—to the ports and legislative houses, to Oakland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Omaha, Chicago, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Tampa, DC, New York … every square inch of the planet earth was going to hear us roar and jump aboard our freedom train. We were going to end corporate rule—to right the ship to create the world that we all knew was ultimately achievable. They may have been able to raid our encampments and shut down our demonstrations, but we were convinced that they couldn’t evict an idea whose time had come. And that time was now. Looking into that packed room, filled with smart, motivated, visionary young people who were reaching out and touching each other, gave me a sense that anything was possible. We had attained critical mass and were, at that point, unstoppable. To spur us further, PunkBoy began to play a new PBS Frontline episode documenting the Occupy Movement’s meteoric rise to the forefront of the conversation in America about social justice and income inequality. I watched the video from a cot that had been placed in the living room for PunkBoy and his husband, Tim, to sleep on while their bedroom was occupied by Occupiers. My face was inches away from the television screen as I heard excited voices proclaiming from behind me that they had been here, or there, as scenes of unrest from coast to coast played out. “I know that person,” or, “That’s me,” or, “I was right there,” were phrases that kept bouncing off my ears every so often as the documentary unfolded.