Some thoughts on the NATO summit and the future of Occupy

The stories may have been compelling, but we were itching for more. Something less symbolic, something more disruptive to the dignitaries assembled for the NATO summit.

So as decorated veterans disavowed their war medals and eloquently outlined their opposition to militarism, the more militant factions of the just-completed, thousands-strong anti-war march amassed to the west of the stage. With cops suffusing the area, strategizing about our next step was essentially impossible.

But both sides knew the desired terminus: McCormick Place, just a few blocks east of the crowd and the site of the NATO summit.

Ever since protestors successfully shut down the WTO summit in 1999 in Seattle– the so-called “Battle in Seattle”– authorities have adeptly adapted. No more shut downs, they vowed. I doubt any of my fellow protesters thought we had a chance at breaking that ignominious streak.

We’d circumvented police barricades and played cat-and-mouse with cops all weekend. But this was different. The state/ police strategy, as far as I could tell, had been to exercise (relative) restraint on the streets– essentially cede control to protesters during unpermitted marches, don’t mass arrest or tear gas, limit the disgorging of blood– and repress behind the scenes. There had been a few brutal slip-ups, but forbearance had characterized the past few days, not a full-scale crackdown on peaceful protesters.

Now, though, we were in close proximity to McCormick Place, on the first day of the summit. As I peeped over the crowd after the speeches ended, I wasn’t surprised to see an inauspicious sight: rows of riot cops, backed up by mounted police. (Hundreds of cops were behind us as well.)

Confronted with this tableau, we still surged forward. Some would say it was quixotic. I’d say it was courageous. Either way, the result was predictable. Bloodied protesters, police brutality, claustrophobic chaos. Before long the police pushed us back, and we were at an impasse. More cops encircled us. The most obdurate stuck around (and were ultimately arrested), but the crowd began to thin out over the next hour or so, presumably resigned to the insuperable obstacle before us. And it hadn’t even taken tear gas or pepper spray, just some good old fashioned truncheon-wielding riot cops.

I left frustrated at our defeat, then grew incensed when I ventured out and was met with still more riot cops, bike cops, police vans, and helicopters. It’s not hyperbolic to say the summit had occasioned the establishment of a temporary police state. World leaders would assemble undisturbed, civil liberties be damned.

The question is, what was the upshot of all of this– not just protesters’ abortive attempts to shut down the conference, but the other permitted and unpermitted actions? And what, if anything, did it mean for the Occupy movement moving forward?

On some level, we failed. We didn’t shut down the conference. We were able to mobilize thousands in the streets and use a variety of tactics, though, including permitted and unpermitted marches, street theater, and nonviolent direct action. In doing so, we made manifest the latent “streams,”  to use scholar Ziad Munson‘s term, of a burgeoning social justice movement. In his excellent book The Making of Pro-Life Activists, Munson defines streams as “collections of organizations and activists that share an understanding of the best means to achieve the goal of ending abortion. In other words, differences in beliefs about action constitute the different streams, and the streams, in turn, define the structure of the movement.”

This is a crucial concept moving forward. What I hope will blossom over the coming weeks, months, and years is a broader movement (“the 99 percent movement,” perhaps?) that contains multiple “streams,” of which Occupy is just one. Unlike the anti-abortion movement, in which activists are united behind an end goal and differ only in tactics and strategy, the left-wing movement I’m envisioning would be more variegated.

Occupy would inhabit the left flank of the movement, both tactically and ideologically. Unconstrained by institutional exigencies, nonviolent direct action would be its tactical calling card (even as it employed other tactics). Its ideological makeup would not be wholly anti-capitalist, but a preponderance of Occupy activists would at least question some of the core assumptions of the capitalist system. Established community groups and progressive unions would be to Occupy’s right, able to mobilize thousands for protests and engage in limited civil disobedience, but less willing to directly “throw a wrench in the gears.” They’d also be content calling, and agitating, for a “fair economy”; you wouldn’t find them castigating capitalism. The final stream would be electoral. These activists would attempt to move the Democratic Party to the left and get liberal policies passed, using the political process and conventional electoral means.

This is an ambitious vision I’ve sketched out, I’ll admit. Occupy would have to do a lot more waxing and lot less waning to make it a reality–even in its major epicenters. And mid-sized cities likely wouldn’t have the people power to populate the three streams. Regardless, it’s this type of symbiotic triumvirate, one in which activists could recognize and respect the limitations of organizations and individuals embedded within different streams, that I believe is the way forward.

The left flank is absolutely crucial to all of this. They make ideas and tactics once thought anathema more palatable, gradually shifting and reshaping the contours of political debate. In short, Occupy must be here to stay if justice is to be won.