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| “What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.” —The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne |
By now everyone knows that the Rapid Deployment Unit of the St. Louis Police Department
occupied themselves by busting some heads Thursday night, their occupation
leading them to crack the skulls of a few Occupy the Midwest participants
caught in the act of “taking space.” The assaulted squatters were daring to
attempt to sleep in a city park on a stormy night in the hopes of creating a new
encampment on what was Day One of the Occupy the Midwest conference, a four-day
meeting of Occupiers from states to the north, east and west of Missouri.
Someone else, presumably not the police, would be called upon to occupy
themselves with mopping up the hemoglobin spilled on the sidewalks; head
wounds, notoriously, are gushers. Doctors and nurses too occupied themselves dispensing sutures and
sympathy, administering salves and analgesics; perhaps even a few prayers were
offered up for the dazed and damaged head trauma victims, that they not be
permanently brain damaged.
I had been among the hundred or so who attended the General
Assembly earlier that evening under the St. Louis arch. But I was not at the mêlée primarily because I sensed there would be one, and my head...I have a dread fear of being clubbed...for better or worse, my head, it's the best of me. In graduate school I had known Kimberly Flynn, a great friend of Tony Kushner's, an absolutely brilliant woman, who after a head banging taxi cab accident felt herself to be never quite the same. Some of the scenes in Angels in America about illness and incapacity are near transcriptions of conversations that she and Tony had about her own sense of diminishment after she was clobbered in the backseat of that cab. Litbloggers Jacob Russell and Stephen Mitchelmore have both written about their head injuries from bicycle accidents, the long recoveries, terrible vulnerability and helplessness, for Stephen the continuing fatigue, loss of productivity. So I keep my distance from police and their penchant to bludgeon with truncheons, and worse.
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| And His Handiwork |
Lightning crackled
dramatically and the humidity surpassed the unseasonably high temperature as we
talked about the rules under which we would proceed. Roles of the volunteer
organizers were defined—timekeeper, note taker, stacker, etc.—and the concept
of “progressive stacking” was explained, a principle intended to give priority
to voices of those traditionally not heard under present hierarchies. We
reviewed the hand signals agreed upon for non-verbal communication, embodied
strokes and flutters of consensual meaning—warning, questioning,
reminding—prescribed movements to bind our intentions with our acts.
If poetry was to be found under that monument to gateway (and
I was attentive to poetry's presence), it was inscribed in those hand signals:
index finger up for point of clarification; fist in the air for speaking in one
voice; arms crossed over the chest for blocking, to be used rarely and only if
something seemed in opposition to core principles of the Occupy movement; and
the wiggling of all five fingers on both hands to indicate enthusiastic
approbation of whatever proposition was on the ethereal table, something akin
to the sprinkling hand motion that usually accompanies the rain washing the itsy-bitsy
spider down the spout.
I had told friends that I was going because I wanted to see
this second iteration of Occupy with my own unmediated eyes, glean whatever
insight might be available, inspiration too if it were there to be garnered.
Also, I wanted to support the idea of regionalism, vote with my feet, so to
speak—after all, my father Marvin L. Madeson had run for St. Louis County
Supervisor almost 40 years ago on the ingenious reform platform of practical
regionalism—and I was especially on the lookout for Wisconsin activists in
the hopes of acquiring some sense of
their momentum as they struggle in mass protests in Madison against their own
Kevin Englers who wish to dispossess first state workers then, once that door
is open, all workers of promised pensions, salaries, benefits, rights
(all except their own, that is; never their own!).
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| Missouri State Senator Kevin Engler |
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| And His Legislative Output |
I had participated in Occupy St. Louis last fall, had been
there in the courtyard at the Fed on Day One. Six months ago much was made of
the fact, especially on Fox news, of how tolerant the city had been of
the protest, how reasonably the police had acted, informing the
Occupiers of their intentions to enforce the curfew and evict them from Kiener
Plaza, issuing warning, multiple warnings, giving every chance for the
protesters to clear out before they (just as the Christmas decorations were
scheduled to go up) shut the encampment down. It was a party line that seems to
have been integrated by many of the Occupiers as well, this idealization of the
cops as fangless vampires who hustle you off the premises if not respectfully, at least unbloodied.
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| “Individuals whose affairs have reached an utterly desperate crisis almost invariably keep themselves alive with hopes, so much more the airily magnificent as they have the less of solid matter within their grasp whereof to mold any judicious and moderate expectation of good.” —The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne |
The cops were also under the arch on bicycles, stationed maybe
twenty yards away from where we congregated, boyishly costumed in short pants
rather than riot gear. But still I cringed when St. Louis Occupiers told our
guests that our cops weren't that bad, assuring them that it wasn't Oakland,
that they shouldn't be afraid. My forearms instinctively crossed over my chest,
and I roundly kicked myself for not
having brought a placard with the bolded language of the SEC-sanctioned caveat
placed in every securities prospectus next to the 1, 3, 5, and 10-year graphs: Past
results are no guarantee of future performance.
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“Can you not see the blood on my
head?” —Arthur Miller, The Crucible
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Someone pointed out that as the weather conditions were
worsening and the lightning storm was rolling our way, we would be wise to move
away from the stainless steel arch and adjourn to Kiener Plaza under the
protection of the balustraded concrete terrace. Back at Kiener, a minstrel show
was enacted adjacent to the amphitheater. After a brief discussion about the
overwhelming police presence—for now they crowded among us, no remove at
all—someone invited a representative of the police to address the Occupiers and
explain why they were there impinging on our right to assemble and speak freely
amongst ourselves.
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“There is, at least, no flattery in my humble line of art.” —The House
of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
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An officer in a white shirt, higher ranking than the blue-shirts
on the bikes, came forward to address us. But he would not speak up, a pretense
at once undermining and making a mockery of the just moments ago articulated principle of
progressive stacking, he would not permit his own voice (the voice of unabashed
state Power) to be heard. He stated his concerns about public safety, blah,
blah, blah, in a near whisper, and one of the Occupiers, a naif (and a goddamn
fool!), repeated his words, calling them out for the small crowd gathered
round. It would prove to be a canny exercise in preemptive capitulation and
co-optation, a symbological violence foreshadowing the material violence soon
to be so disgracefully and—God help us—lawfully
(depend on it) manifested.
