After Tuesday night’s arrests, Occupy Atlanta held another General Assembly on Wednesday at seven, this time in Centennial Olympic Park. They met in the shadow of the CNN building, in an ampitheatre with a small square of green in the middle of it – which we soon realized was artificial grass. At seven, when the GA was convened, there were about fifty people present; by the time it closed, at least ninety had shown up.

The Occupiers met on Wednesday night to reflect on the arrests that had happened on Tuesday; to discuss their emotions; and to decide how to move forward. I was struck by how much more solid they seemed in their resolve: firmer hierarchies were established, and there was a sense of differing levels of knowledge – plans to re-occupy are apparently being kept kinda secret from the general body of the group.

Diversity, a constant bugbear of this movement, is improving. Last night, the moderation and facilitation team was not white and male at all, and a wide diversity in age, race, and sex was represented at the General Assembly. This movement is expanding beyond the primarily white, primarily male, primarily college student base that appeared to establish it in Woodruff Park.

The Pledge

They began the General Assembly reading out the pledge of the Atlanta Occupation.

Oddly, while the pledge affirms a commitment to diversity – they reject homophobia, transphobia, able-ism, and racism – it does not mention sexism, something which becomes increasingly relevant when emotions and energy run high in encounters with law enforcement.

It says, also, that Occupiers “disagree without being disagreeable” – an essential idea in a movement that must maintain social cohesion while dealing with a wide range of opinions.

The most important provision, I think, is the one that they “do not accept physical or verbal violence.” To affirm this in their pledge is to reject any allegations of violence on the part of the movement. There is a diversity of people and opinions in the movement, and one person’s action, one person’s lost temper, can destroy the movement in the public eye. To disavow any violence, of any kind, is to proclaim that that action is the action of one person – not something that is encouraged by the Occupiers at large.

Relocation

The most contentious announcement was that the offices at 60 Walton would be closed to anyone who was not either on a committee or directly working with a committee for the foreseeable future; the facilitator explained that they were having to move headquarters to the fourth floor. Having dealt with theft and vandalism in the past, the donors of the office space had asked to keep it closed off for the duration of the move.

Kasim Reed

One person stood and told us that the French embassy would be holding a banquet at Hotel Melia that night, and that Mayor Kasim Reed was the guest speaker. He suggested that, after the General Assembly, the protesters march to Hotel Melia and protest outside.

I believe – and voiced my opinion, later – that the Occupy movement loses strength when it puts too much focus on the mayor and the police. They are the most clear and direct antagonists, but they are not who the movement intends to address – at least, not so far as I know. The Occupiers risk making Mayor Reed and the Atlanta police the scapegoat when the supposed issue is economic inequality.

The Arrests, and the emotions associated

From there we segued into a discussion of the arrests and the events of Tuesday night. The first person to speak had been an arrestee. He questioned the use of violently anti-police chants, saying that the police became more aggressive and less professional after violent chants.

“Please refrain from any hate speech against the police,” he said, “especially when you are not the one getting arrested.”

Another rose and told us that if we were vegetarians or vegans, we ought not expect to eat in jail, and that if we had medication, we ought to pester the jailers as much as possible to get to it.

(Later on, I heard they’d been served rather awful baloney sandwiches in jail)

In court Wednesday morning, we were told, the city prosecutor tried to request a bond of $500 per protester arrested; the Occupation’s legal team successfully fought back, defending the first amendment rights of the Occupiers – and the judge took their side.

A man in the back rose and said, “The events of last night got this protest to my ears; it got me off my ass to do something.”

On the periphery of the Assembly, reporters with cameras – occasionally shining obnoxiously bright lights – sidled along, taping the proceedings. On the street, the CBS, Fox5, and ABC2 news vans were broadcasting.

Occupy Police

The police produced their own debate last night. After an older fellow told us he thought the police had acted very professionally, a man with a thick accent (African?) said that no, the police did use force.

“My hand right here is injured,” he said. “They used pressure points.”

We learned, later in the Assembly, that an Occupy Police movement has started – and that some Atlanta police officers had been reprimanded for refusing to take part in the eviction. The young guy from CopWatch I’d interviewed about a week ago told us that, when he made a flippant comment to one of the police on Tuesday night that at least they’d be getting overtime, the officer said, “What, you think the city has money for overtime?”

Another person shared a rumor that this was coming out of the police’s vacation time.

Re-Occupy Atlanta

Last night the General Assembly also discussed how and when to begin re-Occupying Atlanta. Some wanted to occupy Hurt Park that very night; others wanted to rally at Woodruff (closed and barricaded indefinitely for “maintenance”) and march to Melia.

We learned that there is a search committee that has been scouting out locations for new Occupations – both indoors and outdoors – for the past few weeks.

We were warned, by a filmmaker named Ira McKinley who had traveled down from New York City to document the Occupation, that we had to act quickly in beginning a new Occupation, or we risked losing media attention.

“Everyone in this nation is watching you,” he said, “so you better get it together.”

Among other things, we discussed guerrilla occupations, in which each time an occupation site was broken up, they would quickly move to occupy another site; and flashmob occupations, in which at a designated time each day protesters would occupy a new site briefly, interact, protest, and then move on.

We learned from the search committee that they had found a way into the old Bank of America building, which could make for a symbolically potent Occupation site, and that Pine on Peachtree – a homeless shelter in danger of eviction – had designated its top floor for Occupy Atlanta use.

There’s got to be some question about using indoor sites. They are less deliberately visible, and they risk losing attention. Then again, winter is coming, and practical considerations must abound. Pine on Peachtree is a strong choice, but the message may get muddled there. The Bank of America building might prove an invisible site for Occupations.

A young man pointed out that Atlanta is, next to Detroit, the second most vacant city in the country. He suggested using small scale Occupations as an anti-foreclosure tactic.

The question was brought up of re-occupying Woodruff Park – it seems that that’s one site some of the protesters had a sore spot at losing. They used the metaphor of a war, and not giving up territory that you’d taken.

Taking territory, though, and holding it, is the tactic of a very old style of warfare that is mostly defunct. Especially in an age of new media and public officials who have learned to neuter protests, the Occupy protests must keep evolving to remain relevant, and to think in old protest models is problematic.

Besides, someone pointed out, if they re-occupy Woodruff, the city would likely respond with maximum force.

Let them, another man said, “because if the police respond with maximum force, our peace looks even better.”

We were told that 35 tents had been salvaged and were waiting on pallets, ready to be shipped out within half an hour to any location chosen.

Outside Eyes

Besides the news cameras, whose bright lights were a continuous source of annoyance, the mayor had a representative present and observing at the General Assembly.

A helicopter did two very close sweeps, shining its own bright lights down on the GA – whether it was there for unrelated reasons, I don’t know.

As the meeting went on, very loud dance music began to play from the speakers in the park – almost too loud to speak over.

I’m gonna just leave you with a quote, from a very thin, very old-looking man in an army jacket, who began by apologizing for his violent behavior when he first came to Woodruff Park:

“First, I want to thank Occupy Atlanta for getting me off crack cocaine; second, now you have to teach me to be peaceful – because I don’t know.”