Occupy Portland, part 1 - First Impressions

I knew that if I volunteered at the Information desk I’d be learning a lot more than I’d be helping anyone. But that was part of the point: I figured this would be the fastest way to get a handle on what’s been happening on Chapman and Lownsdale Squares, downtown Portland, over the past two weeks.

You probably won't be able to read it in the above photo, but posted at the entrance to Lownsdale Square, and elsewhere around the parks, are the camp's extensive "Collective Agreement on Guidelines for Community Safety and Well-Being." They dub the Occupy site weapon-free and nonviolent; prohibit any recreational alcohol or drug use; sequester cigarette smoking to the corner of SW 4th and Main; and call for respectful treatment among everyone, among other things. The panel on the right lists the steps to take in response to any threats to safety and well-being on the site. 

I had participated in the initial protest march on Oct. 6 that involved at least 4,000 people and might have drawn in as much as 6,000 or 10,000 -- various numbers have gotten batted around in the media -- but I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at the site where the long-haul protesters had chosen to camp ever since.

I looked around for an hour on Thursday, Oct. 20 and was intrigued by what I saw. When I came home, I skimmed the local newspaper’s website to check the latest official spin, and found the usual snarky comments from readers … probably people living out in the suburbs who had never been in these parks a minute of their life, never mind checking out the protest for themselves. Then a Facebook friend dumped a bunch of the usual “witticisms” about gross, un-bathed hippy types and the smell, and that made up my mind to get involved.

So for four hours on the morning of Oct. 21, 2011, the fifteenth day of the Occupy Portland protest and the fourteenth morning of occupation, I sat at the table in the Information tent and talked with people who stepped up to it.

It turned out not to matter that I didn’t know much. Most citizens who came to the Information desk just wanted to talk. Some were curious folks who asked the usual “What is this for? What are you doing here?” -- not me, in particular, just the entire camp -- and I gave them my answer. At this point there is no single right answer, and I certainly wasn't authorized to speak on behalf of anyone else. Others just wanted to know how the protest was going.

Still other visitors were passing through Portland and either desired to see what they’d been hearing about on the TV, or had news from other Occupy protests to pass along to us.

I had to refer most of the specific questions to veterans who happened to be nearby, but that turned out to be a minority of situations. At least half of the people who came up to the desk just wanted to talk: to express their thoughts and feelings, and voice hopes and concerns … and I mostly just listened. Besides being fascinating, I suppose it gave the more knowledgeable Occupiers at the Information tent an opportunity to do more productive things with their time.

Here’s a few of the things I learned on my first day at Occupy Portland:

• The resident protesters are working hard to get their message out. Among the equipment sitting within reach of my table were a Macbook Pro, HP laptop (Compaq nx9010), and an HPdeskjet 3847 printer that were constantly on and sometimes consulted or worked on by organizers. A gal was inputting an email letter with inside information about an upcoming Bank of America scheme with regard to foreclosed properties in Portland into another laptop some 15 feet behind me.
  
  Occupy Portland maintains a Website, Facebook page, Twitter account, Tumblr page, and an incoming email address for questions and information: Occupeye@gmail.com.
  
  A Wikipedia page on Portland’s protest gives a decent overview of events so far.
  

• The southern edge of the camp has three tents that house Engineering, the team that maintains power and does other logistical work for the camp. Much of the electricity needed to maintain operations comes from small gas-driven generators that have to be shut down at night because they’re so noisy. Engineering is also building a women’s shower. "Ethan" told me they are hoping to find some quiet diesel generators that would also run on biofuels. We also referred lots of people looking to recharge their mobile phone or computer to a couple of public power outlets on the edge of the block and at the federal Terry Schrunk Plaza park on the next block over.
  

• The camp has a Library, a tent which contains milk crates and boxes of books, including children’s books; a tent with extra supplies, mostly donated by outsiders, such as socks, blankets, gloves, and sometimes a tent or sleeping bag; and a child care area. Since this is currently the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, somebody set up an impressive, spacious sukkah at the north end of Lownsdale Square, with its back to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.

• KBOO, the local alternative radio station, has set up a permanent presence in a tent across from the Information tent, from which it has been periodically sending out live broadcasts of news and interviews with people at the camp.

• In response to concerns expressed in the media about “damage to the park,” organizers had a scheduled a meeting with the city’s Parks and Recreation department for 4:00 Friday to learn how to restructure their rope-and-tarp city in such a way as to minimize damage to the trees -- possibly with recycled rubber tires placed between the tree bark and the ropes encircling it.
  

• The camp is cleaning up trash and recycling. I saw several protesters regularly sweeping the walks. Most of the park benches are entirely open and free for either protesters or passersby to use. My wife, who had a meeting in one of the towers overlooking the parks late in the afternoon, said she looked out and did not see one piece of trash in the area.
  

• Portland Police officers patrol the camp on foot on a regular basis. I haven’t talked to them, but I got the impression they’re on friendly terms with Occupy Portland organizers. Raya ("like Maya or papaya"), an articulate and friendly 23-year-old who arrived in Portland from Michigan a month or so ago, participated in the march, and has been staying in the camp ever since, told me she has talked with them a lot. Occupy Portland has called in the police to remove two disruptive persons over the past two weeks.

• As I suspected (or rather, hoped to discover) the protesters are getting a LOT of help in the form of donated goods and money from regular old working folks who have day jobs nearby or have come in to the city from out of town. I talked to one enthusiastic supporter who’s had a long-term career in one of the skyscrapers that overlooks the parks. No doubt many other businessmen and staff people in the neighboring office buildings have gotten used to walking through the protest site every day. But that’s the subject of my next blog post.

Conservative columnists, frightened suburbanites, and to some extent the media give out the impression that Occupy Portland is nothing more than a bunch of dirty, smelly young people who smoke pot and don’t want to work for an honest living -- supported by a few aging hippies.

In this and future commentaries, I will attempt to show how far from the truth that picture is.

• Go to Occupy Portland, part 2: This is Bigger Than You Think