Resolve amid eviction empowers Occupy

Last Thursday, two days before a conference of occupiers from all over the Hudson Valley, the occupation of Poughkeepsie at Hulme Park downtown received their notice of eviction for that night.

Like their counterparts in New York City had done two weeks earlier, Poughkeepsie city officials cited alleged fire and safety hazards as their reasons for evicting protesters from the park. However, the encampment has existed since Oct. 12, and in that time it has become a rallying point for the overwhelmingly working-class community of this economically devastated area, which functions as the breadbasket for New York City and the playground for its one percent.

Occupiers immediately called for solidarity from their community, and the response was enthusiastic. On that night about 10 of us from Vassar College went down, where we were joined by students from Marist and State University of New York New Paltz. "I have a field trip for one of my classes at 6:45 in the morning tomorrow," one of my friends said as she drove us down to defend the camp. She continued, "That doesn't matter… this is life for me, not my classes."

The determination of my friend, as well as the rest of us, to participate in the movement come what may is a direct challenge to the apathy or even hostility that Occupy seems to have provoked in some sections of society, even at Vassar. For example, the back page of this month's Vassar Chronicle (the publication run by MICA that claims to be essentially a more highbrow, political version of The Miscellany News) features an incredibly offensive graphic of "Occupy Monopoly," in which every Monopoly square is the Community Chest.

Presumably the implication is that we are all deadbeat students or dropouts with nothing better to do with our Friday nights then to go out in the freezing cold to ask for government handouts by defending our encampment when we should be studying for business school exams like the productive members of society.

Trust me, nothing would make me happier if I didn't need to go out and defend Occupy Poughkeepsie on a weekend night. The reason I went out is because I believe that the government and corporations have collaborated to screw us all over. It's because I see in Occupy the beginnings of a movement that says "no," loudly and clearly. No, we won't accept the state governments screwing public-sector workers and busting their unions. No, we won't stand by while the government shreds what remains of the safety net. No, we won't pay for the one percent's crisis—we will make them pay.

As it happens, the cops never showed up that night. Even the two watching us from the other side of the intersection had left by midnight. Around 1 a.m., I decided to go back to school. The camp was safe for that night, but most of us went back the next night when we heard, once again, that the camp was being evicted. This time, fewer people showed up, about 50, but again, the cops failed to show, and again, we went home. I was not there either of the following two nights when eviction was threatened, but the camp is still going strong as I write this Monday night.

Even if the park is evicted tonight, or the night after that, we have shown the power of collective struggle. The slogan "You cannot evict an idea whose time has come" has taken on the power that words can have only when thousands of people make them a reality, which they are now doing in Poughkeepsie, New York City and across the United States.

—Bill Crane '12 is an Asian studies major.