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I'm Calla Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. Today we're going over the trajectory of Occupy Wall Street with Boston Phoenix reporter Chris Brown as our guide. It's been nearly six months since the protests erupted across America and across the Atlantic. It's been a leaderless force and one with no clear agenda. Everything is up for grabs. Unemployment and education affordable housing and health care. This tug of war between Main Street and Wall Street is one that Corona has been tracking since day one. He also went beyond Boston dropping in on the protests in Chicago Oakland and Miami. His reporting is now in book form in his self-published work 99 nights with the 99 percent. We'll talk to her own about where Occupy is heading. Has it lost its momentum or has it maturing into something more sustainable. Up next occupation nation. First the news from NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying. One student is dead from this

morning's shooting at an Ohio school. Four others are wounded. Their conditions are uncertain. Sharda Police Chief Tim McKenna says everything at Chardon High School is now under control. Sure if you show that we are shooting. At the students. Is there a spokesperson. I mean you know. Authorities say the suspect described as a juvenile is in custody but has not been charged as yet. Heavy campaigning is underway in Michigan where front runners Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney continue to lob attacks at each other ahead of GOP presidential primaries in that State and Arizona tomorrow. We have the latest from NPR's Ari Shapiro. Rick Santorum wrote an op ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing Mitt Romney of an economic plan that consists of quote Obama style class warfare. He attacked Romney's record of job creation and fee increases as Massachusetts governor. Speaking at a rally in the Western Michigan town of Rockford Romney said he's glad Santorum recognizes that the economy is the top issue.

If the economy is going to be the issue we focus on. Who has the experience to actually get this economy going again. Who's actually learned how to get the economy going who who spent some time in the real economy. I've spent 25 years in business Michigan is a close race and a loss for Romney tomorrow would be a huge blow since he grew up in the state. Ari Shapiro NPR News Rockford Michigan. The Syrian government is calling voter approval of a new constitution a step toward reform. The West is calling the vote a farce. Syrian state television says 89 percent of voters are backing a new document that allows political parties to compete with President Bashar al Assad's ruling Baath Party. This as troops continue their crackdown on political dissent. Syria's ally Russian President Vladimir Putin is blasting the U.S. and NATO in an article devoted to his foreign policy. NPR's Martha Wexler says the article published by the Moscow News is the latest in a series of position papers Putin has been putting out as he prepares for Sunday's presidential election.

Then accuses the west of using the Arab Spring to advance its interests. And he warns against intervention in Syria and Iran. The Russian leader says the NATO's intervention in Libya began under the banner of a humanitarian operation and ended with what Putin calls a primitive reprisal against Moammar Gadhafi. The late Libyan leader. That's why Putin says Russia together with China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution urging Syria's government to stop its deadly attacks on protesters. The Russian leader called the west's reaction to that veto hysterical. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described the veto as despicable. Martha Wexler NPR News Moscow. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is up 28 points at thirteen thousand eleven Nasdaq gaining eight points so far it's at twenty nine seventy two S&P 500 up four. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with some of the local stories we're following. A proposed change in state law will dispose the ashes of the deceased if the remains have been unclaimed for more than a year. The Boston Herald reports that with

so-called cremains stacking up by the hundreds and funeral homes across the state. State Representative James Cantwell of Marshfield wants at sea disposal to be added as an option for funeral directors to dispose of ashes that remain unclaimed more than a year after appeals to family have failed to get a response. Currently funeral homes have to keep the remains or they can pay the cost themselves of interring them in a vault or a common pit grave. The attorney general in New York and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York have made inquiries into State Street Corp's foreign exchange business. The Boston Globe reports the Boston based State Street was the first bank sued for alleged overcharging in foreign exchange in what has become a nationwide probe. State Street said its total revenue worldwide from foreign exchange their bases was approximately three hundred thirty one million in 2011. That was down from three hundred thirty six million the year before and off dramatically from four hundred sixty two million in 2008. State Street said in a filing that the heightened regulatory and media scrutiny of its indirect foreign exchange services could hurt that business.

Authorities say an investigation into why Hamilton police officer shot and wounded a Beverly officer Friday before taking his own life is essentially complete. A spokeswoman from the district attorney's office says a probe into the motive for the shooting isn't relevant because the shooter is dead and no charges can be brought. The weather forecast for this afternoon mostly sunny with highs in the upper 40s windy with gusts up to 30 miles per hour. And tonight mostly cloudy in the evening then clearing with lows in the lower 30s. Right now it's 49 degrees in Boston 48 in wester and 50 in Providence. Support for NPR comes from America's Natural Gas Alliance representing the natural gas industry and supporting nearly three million jobs across the country. A N G dot us. You're listening to. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. Today we're examining the trajectory of the Occupy movement which started bubbling up across the country last fall. I'm

joined by Boston Phoenix reporter Chris for own author of ninety nine nights with the 99 percent. Dispatches from the first three months of the Occupy revolution for Roan was an embedded occupy journalists not just in Dewey Square. His reporting took him to Chicago and Oakland and beyond. Christopher own Welcome back. Always a pleasure really. Well let's start at the beginning when this kicked off in New York and then started bubbling to Boston. What in the moment if you can go back those that at that point made you think. You know this is something we really have to pay attention to. Personally I'll say first personally since I cover a lot of just the issues that they were speaking about there was something I was going to pay attention to so I was reading blog post news coverage you know and then but really the second part of that is what really interested me was seeing it grow from city to city and not in a negative way but I've called it a franchise it was really impressive to see in the book I'd gone down to see

my mother and South Florida and we went to Occupy Miami together and we get there and it's the same hand signals. People are discussing the same issues I'm hearing some of the I exact same language that I heard back in Boston. And then I knew they were speaking about New York. So from that point I said OK there's something you know this is this is now copying itself across the country at a tremendous speed. And that's when I really that's when it really sunk in at the time did you think and we should note that occupy. Occupiers movement French As ever you're describing it really celebrated its one year anniversary last month. Earlier this month Wisconsin yes. So I mean it's been a year now that we can look back and you were covering those first three months right in the heat of it right in the moment of it right in the birthing of it so just to put everybody right in place at that moment in the way I actually put it in place in the book is there are a couple chapters a lot of these are from my Boston Phoenix articles.

And there are a couple of chapters that actually take place before Occupy comes to Boston in fact before Occupy Wall Street even starts. And these were just actions people were outraged people were protesting outside of Fox 25 news on Beacon Hill. People were protesting against foreclosure staging foreclosure rejection blockades from from Dorchester to the suburbs. So I kind of I put it in the context of people who are already riled up. Now here here comes along occupy and this is kind of a big tent for people to get under together. Well let's let's let me have use more specifically talk about those two movements that you pointed out as precursors to the Occupy movement one was mass united efforts and the other were the anonymous demonstrations talk about those if you will. Well Anonymous there's a bonus chapter in the book it's I wrote it in 2008 it's about the Web activist Web activist as people say group Anonymous This is of course a very loose organization. Web activist people online who have you know really conducted a lot a lot of different operations but the one that my article is about is about their war on the Church of Scientology in 2008 and

2009 and the reason that it's relevant is not just because there was a lot of a not anonymous a non involvement in the Occupy movement but also because if you look at the way that movement spread it was unprecedented. Within a couple of days of declaring war on the Church of Scientology they literally had tens of thousands of people outside of these churches not just in the United States but all across the world. And Occupy was very similar in that regard. And what about mass uniting mass uniting. You know I would say this is a precursor as much as kind of something that just dovetail perfectly matched uniting along with Wright to the city right to the city is a more national organization mass uniting as more of a federation of you know local groups everything the city life some local unions like the SEIU are heavily involved. They had been planning a major demonstration against Bank of America on Federal Street their Boston headquarters on I believe was September twenty ninth which is the same day that Occupy Boston ended up settling in Dewey Square so. And these were these really these actions really had nothing to do with each other so I think you're just kind of shows

people who are angry across the board. Now do you as some do link the Tea Party. Uprisings if you will to the kind of taking it to the street energy that presented itself to occupy even if they're ideologically different. I mean absolutely this is these are these are angry people and of course this I met Tea Partiers in camps across the country as recently as at Occupy the primaries in Manchester does I mean everybody agreed on everything there is as you said a serious ideological divide particularly on the difference between you know one group is against all regulation whatsoever and the other doesn't think feel that way. As far as you know there are a lot of similarities but you know really these really are just different movements and the other thing is you know the tea parties were really marching in the streets they weren't they were bringing that rally and they were rallying Yeah yeah in part of this I went to a lot of Tea Party rallies I'm really not trying to speak badly about them but they were truly different in nature and the evidence of that is how Tea Partiers are

complaining hey we had to get permits. You know you're all just saddle occupying You know you're all just running up on the state house that's not how we did it so. And also this is not a movement that's really seeking political office here right. OK let you give us a little sample from the book. Go to page 68 and give us a just early observation. So this is when I this is when I'm first. This is about the first week of October and I'm coming. I had gone I'd only been in Miami but then when I came back to Boston I decided to take a trip and I went down to D.C. and came back up the east coast until I went to my home city of New York and this is the first time I see Zuccotti soon enough aristocrats won't be able to avoid occupy in New York or anywhere else as police continue cracking whips and growing small movements into major mobs. Zuccotti Park is now a settled shanty town complete with its own classrooms junkies trash collectors and daily broadsheet. The occupation continues to expand well outside of this home base to multiplying in spite of several hundred arrests and spinning off

offensives all across the city. Yesterday they occupied Washington Square Park due north for a rally and concert Bongo jam sessions still echoing between my ears. I take Monday off to spend time with family back in Queens. It's supposed to be a day of rest writing and grandma's meatballs which I'm grabbing when a fellow reporter calls me from the Rose Kennedy Greenway where this adventure began. Looks like you didn't need to go to Wall Street to see the action after all he says. A good source has told me that police are about to show up in riot gear over here in a few hours. All eyes will be on Boston. So that's Columbus Day. Yes and there you go. So Boston takes off Chris. And as you note in your book which I don't think I realize Boston was the longest occupy major element you know a major city and yeah I really want to stress this because there's a mistake I made by saying you know I knew better. There are a lot of and I don't want to undermine its symbolic movements across the country there. Put Rochester New York I believe still has like a

couple a couple of tents outside. But yes by mathematically it only makes sense. Boston was the second. So the fact that Zuccotti was shut before that you know when it went down it what had been the longest running. And it was also the second it was kind of like a flagship in its own right as the expense as an expansion team as a model for that. So you you know come back home and start covering Boston which is interesting in and of itself but you also hit the road as you've said to other cities and take a look and I'm wondering if you if it is possible to stress commonalities among the cities and you talk about the similarity and hand signals from mammy and New York but also where there are differences and each of these places. Yes and the first thing. I was speaking about Miami before and Miami was a place where I also realized that a lot of these places are going to pick up issues that are not unique necessarily to these to these locales but especially important so in Miami a lot of the people I was there first hours that day a lot of people are speaking about

of course immigration. And this is something that maybe maybe it's not such a good thing but I didn't hear that much talked about in places like Boston. I don't want to speak for other places not that people are concerned about that but absolutely and on the West Coast I can't stress enough how the just the police reaction in general made that a central you know central issue. So in Oakland for example police brutality was already a major issue that's on the table after especially after Oscar Grant but even going before that so an Oscar Grant we should say was a young man who was gunned down by police there was a video made of it by a young woman executed Yeah really on a train platform and in public. And so the city really had a ready kind. So police brutality was an issue in you know Oakland So all around the country Chicago forget about the issues are all over the place but Chicago has 100000 for home foreclosed homes. So you better you know better believe that in Chicago this was just something that you heard about over and over and the actions were very much related

while I was there for you know there were foreclosure actions. So as people found their way to these various encampments. In different cities and they found their way to Dewey Square here in Boston what you got is a really interesting assortment of folks with some sense of you know because if you just read sort of the topical headlines along the way you get a sense that they were all about 19 to 20 a little bit weird cry baby whiners. And that was you know pedigreed and some sort didn't you know had all the advantages of life and that was about it. But you saw a real assortment. I mean first of all this woman included that exact mustache and there's no doubt about it I mean I saw some of the most ridiculous shows a lot of and more props to him but you know a lot of people are clearly freshman or sophomore as a liberal arts university I was there once myself and you kind of you know spouting off whatever you just read and that did gain more substance as the movement went on but that was there. But you know in addition to that and I'll be the first one to say that I

stereotype the movement a lot at the beginning myself because I did see a lot of that. But I also saw met a whole bunch of kinds of people I never did I hung out with more homeless veterans over the over the three months than I ever cared to even acknowledge exist. Those two words should never be put next to each other. And then I met and steelworkers. So many labor out-of-work laborers in Boston not just like coming and marching on the weekends like that but occupying you know their. Helping with everything from security detail to the food tent. Of course there are also a lot of your older characters or some like me who's been covering progressive movements in Boston for eight years. These people are all coming out of the woodwork including some. One of the guys who started food butler who has a chapter about my book. He'd been underground for a year so many people I met was just unbelievable. And by the way for anybody out there listening who likes to throw that stereotype there are a lot of like upper middle class kids who are involved the Occupy movement who are totally comfortable where they're from. You know maybe they have their typical

liberal guilt in some regard but they're not going to deny it. Yeah. My family's from a nice home and whatever Westport Connecticut. But I'm here and I believe in these issues and I'm proud of that so that's something you hear a lot too but not not if you listen to a certain group of people talk. About let's talk about the homeless veterans. Were did you see so many of them you believe because of the homelessness or because what the what the group was representing was an opportunity to voice some frustration. I mean I think both and one thing that I a common thing that I heard from a lot of them was not that the federal government is completely negligent but kind of the lag and that lag as anybody who's ever you know live paycheck if you're living on the margin I mean if you live on the margin that lag is the difference between homelessness and not homelessness. And for a lot of these people there's a few people in my book like you know they were on couches anyway so why. And they and they're seeing these problems so hey now there's this going on down the street. It wasn't that cold when it started so that is not even really an issue but on top of that they really believed in these issues

and had a lot of these a lot of these young men and women especially have camped out a lot of their lives. They're going to camp out anyway. So you're either under a bridge and nobody's hearing your message or hear Hey now there's like five hundred more people out there and you could be out there with them so it's really a no brainer. Except for those people who have been there before who've joined movements who've organized to you know coalesced in some way before had some social action as a part of their either DNA or their past. What would you say was drawing people who may have had. Expressing a lot of frustration with various issues but they get to talk to their friends or cohorts or written their congresspersons. What was it that said to them. I feel I don't have a voice enough. I feel so strongly about it. I'm a go camp out. Well in all honesty I think that a lot of the kind of people that you just described maybe people you know by the way a lot of people there obviously have full time jobs but there's a lot of people who are you know half

way political politically active. A lot of things bother them. They don't like the Republican war on contraception but on the other hand they're not going to get out in the streets necessarily. I think that occupy actually did miss a lot of a lot of people in that demographic and that's what they're going after now trying to really get people like that on board. Now if the encampment era is over I'd say more so what I saw end up in the camps where a lot of people who and you know this is something I wrote early on that I. Got a lot of health for but it's still my observation was that there were a lot of people out there who really came out to occupy the brand something they'd seen on maybe the Daily Show or on Twitter. And then it came for the came for that kind of magic of it but stayed because of the issues. But I ended up learning and becoming you know I keep saying one thing that the if there's one thing the Occupy movement has absolutely accomplished so far it's that we have a whole new generation of social workers teachers people who really want to work you know for disparate people and there always has to be something that inspires those people whether it's Vietnam war whether there's the nuclear

proliferation movement and occupies done that there's no doubt about it. But as far as those other people who are kind of on the fence. Yes some of them came down especially at night and on weekends. But I think it's now that the Occupy movement is trying to get those people you know under the same tent. OK my guest is Boston Phoenix reporter Chris for Rome. We're talking about his new book Ninety nine nights with the 99 percent. Dispatches from the first three months of the Occupy movement which chronicles the Occupy movement. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 8 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. What's your take on the Occupy movement. Do they need a more specific agenda or occupiers a force for change or are they or distraction. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can write to our Facebook page or tweet me at at alli Crosley. We're listening that eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston Public Radio.

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WGBH Boston Public Radio a good Wednesday here on Jeopardy. GBH right here. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us my guest is Boston Phoenix reporter Chris for own. We're talking about his new book Ninety nine nights with the 99 percent. It's an account of his Occupy Wall Street coverage which he's been reporting on since the movement's first days. You can catch him at Brookline Booksmith tonight at 7:00. You can also join the conversation now 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. And you can write us at our Facebook page or send us a tweet. One percenters 99 percenters What's your take on the Occupy movement. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. So Chris just to remind people you were embedded with the movement meaning that you jumped in feet first and

moved around and stayed there spent nights and visited several sites in the country spent a lot of time and Occupy Boston. You had blog posts in the moment so that you really captured your emotion and feeling and what you saw in the moment. Then you wrote feature stories for The Boston Phoenix and they have additional material in this in this new book To put it in context and lay it out in the trajectory that it was from the first early on for the first three months. Now it's called ninety nine nights with the 99 percent. Did you at that moment when you decided to put this together in a book had you thought that at three months which is about where 99 nights is it would be a turning point or it would be over what was your thinking about it. No I really didn't think I'd be over. To be honest with you I knew that I wanted to I knew that I was writing more than just a series of blog posts and features and that a lot of it was all tied in. I was probably around mid-October. I said this could definitely be a book and I came up with the idea for the name and when I looked when I did they looked at the calendar. It was exactly

ninety nine nights from September 17th the day that Occupy Wall Street settled. What was your coffee. To Christmas Day and I said this could be this is my time capsule This is how I'm going to present this because no matter what happens after that and what happened before that this happened and I knew there was from years from now I mean there's already like countless books and less documentaries coming out. OK that's all. That's all good but I was. No matter how people look at it in five years this is how I saw that. So you know at the end I did plan on like spending I think originally I thought I was going spend Christmas night in New York City is your comedy part but then I decided that it was really a it was ridiculously kind of arbitrary and then the new hangout with Occupy Boston people on New Years turned into kind of almost a natural point for the book and now that not that it necessarily needed to have one I think I did write in the book you know there's going to be perhaps a bunch of small happy endings throughout this as long as well as a lot of negative things.

I think if people read the book there may be some surprises in store. One of them and maybe it's not a surprise to everybody is that you have a point in the book where you start saying I hate cops. And then in the same section you really talk about some of the alliances that the cops who are involved in having to protect the protesters came to have with some of the occupiers I wonder if you'd read just a section of page 136 to talk about a little bit of that. Yes so I go just to clarify the what I just said. You know I've I said I've always hated cops. You know I was a I was a bad teen in this in that and then at the end I write while officers who battered occupiers will be banished to history's dunce corner with Klansman and confederates. It's important to acknowledge the few good men among the goons. I've seen over the years awful police brutality. Not not directed at me although I've had some awful incidents with cops over the years some of which perhaps I deserved a bit of. But you know but in things I've covered and I will point directly in this city to the incident

Roxbury Community College a couple of years ago that was so conveniently brushed under the rug. Nobody nobody was found guilty and you know that these are definitely issues I wanted to be upfront about that I didn't want anybody to come in and say you know oh he wrote that but he's been arrested before I want to be honest about it. Now that story. Do you want me to. Yes I do. OK so you have a special project. OK so. But as tensions build between occupiers and Big Brother What's also true is that individual officers are increasingly concerned about their role in combat in combat in Occupy. Even in cities where the overall police response has been barbaric there's a growing sense that cops who've been charged with breaking camps are unnerved by such orders. Earlier this week Los Angeles authorities avoided a riot by working with protesters and even thanking them publicly for demonstrating their right to free speech. On a smaller scale last month in Oregon an officer was seen sobbing in his combat gear while raiding a Portland encampment. In October

Albany Police along with state troopers refused to arrest protesters despite pressure from the city's mayor and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. So just so you know because that's I think a lot of people might be surprised by that cops out there were feeling wow and some of you even quoted one who said hey I'm really with you guys but this is my job. You know people and this was kind of the this was going to inevitable. But what was it inevitable was this Occupy police group that started in a still active you could check them out on Twitter they got you know tons of followers. And it really is you know I think that well you didn't know about it. I don't think it's hard for anyone to believe that hey as individuals you know in my family alone there you know there are people being foreclosed on I can't imagine there being police officers I'm from a you know lower middle class part of Queens. This is where police officers firemen live a lot of public service public service workers. And these are issues that affect them too so I think it's easy to believe that these are things that people were concerned about. All right let's take a call will from power then Providence Go ahead please you're on the callee Crosley

show. Ninety nine point seven WGBH. HOW ARE YOU GUYS ARE YOU DON'T. If I could I just want to make a quick comment I think if anything was successful at all about the Occupy movement as it brought certain events and certain situations into the public spectrum that I don't think were there before. I think the fact that there's five corporations that control what we watch on TV kind of puts a filter on the information we receive and things like the builder bird group which are never ever discussed and I think things like the bill the very group and in the Federal Reserve Fund constitutional just think there is a bunch of different issues that maybe mainstream America would have necessarily heard about such as the Build-A-Bear group that they did a little bit of taste of and it has awakened certain people to. Its legitimation Well were you a part of the Occupy group. Initially I brought some supplies to Providence and Boston I bench of those two encampments previously and I just signed you know the

longest time. All my friends you know they're going to like the football and sports and slowly but surely like this is a young kind of movement going on and this is the first time that basically people my age had something because the Tea Party was kind of the tree by the media as you know as though they were young people in that group to guess what it was. But this was like the first time for younger people to kind of say hey you know you know my life is more than you know football and you know what's going on in ESPN and celeb gossip. Yeah you know got it thank you well for the call. No problem. I'm going to get you to Stewie from Peabody. Please go ahead please you're on the Calla Crossley Show at 9.7 WGBH. Yes good afternoon to you both. I have I just have a question since this gentleman was there during the demonstrations and not only in Boston but through many of the cities as well. I was wondering if you saw and I wasn't there so that's why

I'm asking. Did he see. Well obviously we know their kind of group that was the I we have the general idea there of how we portray. Saying in his book and what the gentleman had said so five but had We're there any little our smallest subgroups. They had a rose that had their particular viewpoint. They just sort of tagged on. They weren't really interested in the Wall Street movement in and of itself. Oh good it lasted. Yes yes to get their point across because your idea was an anti-Jewish sentiment and times and I wanted to know if he had seen and any of behavior like that. Stewie thank you so much for the call Chris please respond. You know I was the first one that would come to mind and this is in the book and this is something that I saw at the beginning at the very beginning. I saw it in Miami on the first day I saw it when I got back to Boston that was Lyndon LaRouche the Lyndon LaRouche Legion Legionnaires. I think you know those who don't know is the perennial presidential

candidate very wacky very anti-Semitic one of his underlings ran against Barney Frank was RACHAEL BROWN Some of things out of their mouths are absolutely reprehensible and they of course are the ones with the Obama as Hitler signs and I think you know that that is not to say that all you know kind of anti-Semitic things and things that were interpreted as anti-Semitic out of the movement was from people. But that is one that definitely comes to mind they tried to co-opt it. And whereas the Occupy movement is very inclusive and didn't you know. Really give the cold shoulder to perhaps some people at the show to the loo she's really got flushed out of the moment and it's a good thing because they really are compromising and I mean they have those signs at the entrance in Boston while in the second week. Oh so it was a really good call. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH and online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley. If you're just tuning in my guest is Boston Phoenix reporter Chris for own were talking about his new book 99 nights with the 99 percent which chronicles the Occupy movement. You can join the conversation at 8 7

7 3 0 1 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can write to our Facebook page or send me a tweet at Kelly Crossley. So Chris here's a question I wondered as I read your book and you know you really brought it home about the variety of people some of the competing agendas but the overall optimism in the group even when they fought with each other. And I was just taken as we look at mainstream coverage of the criticism often and any group is going to be critics as anybody that takes to protesting is going to be criticized I don't I'm not surprised by that. But what I guess I was surprised about was the level of harsh criticism that seem to be leveled at Occupy specifically. Did you understand where that was coming from and can you add some light to that. I mean I absolutely understand when and now to say it's like hey Of course they're going to be mad. There are a lot of issues here that quite frankly a lot of conservatives don't want to

see aired out. And there's also the fact that a lot of occupiers and or at least especially the beginning played into a lot of stereotypes you know whether it's the way they were dressed and maybe that's OK but this was this vote it was going to lead to. Which is why it's funny no. I actually ended up doing a lot of conservative talk radio. The reason being I challenge them all and I said I'm actually down here you know a lot of them ultimately got to the camps but the beginning I said hey I'm actually down here you want to know what's going on. HIT ME UP FOR COMING me down here I said some. But as far as the criticism I think it's just absolutely inevitable. And then there's the whole criticism about you know when it's their one issue and. I don't people are very it's funny how people can make their own demand and that was that was really interesting to see. As far as that argument from the occupiers perspective it's like you know we've been speaking about all afternoon. There are a lot of people a lot of different issues on down there. I would say if there's one thing that really unites all them it's something that I heard from someone early on in Occupy I think Baltimore and this is in the book he said you know we're all

united because we're all oppressed in one way or another. And right there alone that's another thing that you know you'll definitely get a lot of you know far right backlash on while you're all you know you're all entitled you're not oppressed. So hey without without that without without that response you know there would have been no movement a lot of the dialogue would have been shifted and hey let's let's let's get a new Congress be able to give a speech somewhere New Hampshire that people you know banging on drums outside of outside of the restaurant that he's trying to do it at. So a lot of things would have been different. So they could they could holler about it all they want but I think it was quite effective. Now what challenges did you face as an embedded reporter. Because as we know about any reporters who are embedded it's hard to maintain that distance that you need because you're right up close and you're getting to know these people beyond just a drop and you're not parachuting in you're there with them. You see where they're going. You may have empathy for the you know the struggles that they have Were those some of the challenges that were there.

Was there more. You know first I want to clarify. Sure I crash in some camps from now and then. I did not have a tent at Occupy Boston. I can't report if I'm sick or tired or sleeping. One thing I did do in this leave the one thing I did do in Boston a lot though is I take the last train downtown to live in JP So I think the last train down. Get in there with you know one o'clock ish and I'd stay until the first train and man that whole place and you know there are people coming a little bit that oh that place was a different beast it was a different animal. And I wrote about a lot of those things I wrote about a lot of these safety issues which were absolutely pressing you know Occupy Boston. I think like three and a half weeks into the movement didn't even have like a real security staff it was it was really a problem so the these are the things that I felt they were important you know I'm a journalist I'm sure I'm sympathetic to these issues but I'm going to write about this and I think it's at first when you start you know writing some things that are not necessarily flattering which actually my first thing is another story. The first thing I wrote was a little negative and I got a lot of flak for that. But eventually when they see that OK. He's not just out to get us he's already hit

pieces every week. He's also writing kind of these in-depth thing that are neither positive nor negative but just what's going on that's what's going on so I think when people start to see that they kind of understood what I was doing a little more especially people who maybe went back and looked at some of the other work I've done clearly. I share a lot of progressive values with them and have written about everything from you know and I've been on here to talk about the prison system for foreclosures so as I was reading the book you know I was struck over and over again because now you've been clear that there are a number of different kinds of folks in the camps and also that many many different generations so there was a lot of generations but of course some of the focus is on the young people who are really you know in narrative this is there for probably for many of them it seemed their first time protesting. Many of them talked about sort of political awakenings as a part of this. But I was also struck by their naivete as a result of it. So you know the con artist that got away with a lot of stuff here in Boston this kind of stuff happens these were some of the low lights I

wondered if there were any others that you wanted to point to that just spoke to sort of. Not yet knowing group. Yeah you know this is the thing and I just it really is unfortunate and it's this is a here's something that has in common with the Tea Party you know as far as just ignorance I don't mean that in the way that people use or I mean legitimate ignorant so you know I would hear things just on the on the West Coast about you know Mitt Romney was the Will Still I guess but was really the the big presidential candidate in the news at the time and you know the things you'd hear and be like. I swear at one camp I had someone saying you know it's well-known that Mitt Romney used you know how to sleep with all of his interns and well he was a master and I'm not going to rub it in or jeopardize like anybody who ever covered Mitt Romney mashes knows that that's the only thing he didn't do wrong. So like you know it's kind of these kind of things and even if you go to a General Assembly now you know I don't want to call anybody on particular but you definitely hear a lot of a lot of leaps a lot of you know hey I'm I'm a conspiracy theorist in some regards but some of the things you hear are just absolutely there

and you see some of the more learned occupiers kind of cringing when these people speak. But you know like I said this is still it's a big tent and that's the power. So overall I think you can overcome that and has throughout it's certainly not just a band of crackpots because if it was it really would have been really written off by now they wouldn't be strong now and the people who know better would have been gone. So now as we close not intense but. Meeting I mean I've read about people meeting in New York they're meeting in Boston so you know there was that discussion at the beginning is it a movement or not. Clearly there's some form of movement of people or about the business of organizing. Oh absolutely and it started every city was kind of on a different timetable with this. But I think what started with a lot of a lot of what started off as kind of like symbolic relationships say between you know Boston city life and and Occupy the Hood and and people of color and communities of color

and Occupy Boston downtown actually evolved into something more substantial saw go to like a General Assembly on a Saturday here and I'll really see people from all these different groups of people from the Chinese Progressive Association people from mass uniting and they're really there and they're really working not just with occupiers but as occupiers and it's it's it's really melted together. And in other cities that happened even sooner especially a place like Chicago which I talk about in the book because they don't even have a home base from day one. So it was really like an integrated thing. Chris Froome we've enjoyed talking to you about your observations for the first three months we're going to be continuing a conversation with two people who have been instrumental in running and maintaining the Occupy Boston Library. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston Public Radio Boston Phoenix reporter Chris for O ninety nine nights with the 99 percent. Thank you. This program is on WGBH thanks to you and the Harvard innovation lab a

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point seven WGBH. Resolve to get the most out of your investments this year by turning your unwanted car or truck into a 2012 tax deduction. All you have to do is donate that unwanted vehicle to your donation will pay off on next year's tax return while at the same time helping to pay for the NPR programs that you depend on right now. The vehicle donation program handles all of the paperwork and will even send someone out to pick up the unwanted vehicle. For more information call 8 6 6 400 9 4 2 4. Great question what is a great question and that's a great question. It's a great question. Great question and you'll hear unexpected questions and unexpected answers this afternoon at the 9.7 WGBH. I'm Cally Crossley If you're just tuning in we're talking about the Occupy movement with my guest Boston Phoenix reporter Christopher own. His new book is ninety nine nights with the 99

percent which is an account of his reporting on the movement. I'm also joined by Kristen Parker and John Ford. They are behind the Occupy Boston Library commonly known as the A to Z. Kristen Parker is a professional archivist who manages who currently manages the art collection of The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. John Ford is one of the founders of Occupy Boston's A to Z library. Welcome to you both. Thanks for having us. Thank you. John let me start with you you founded the library. What was it all about and what made what inspired you to create a library at the Occupy Boston site. Well I think that public libraries are some of our last like civic institutes which are able to everybody without prejudice and I think that that is kind of what Occupy was kind of all about it's kind of this inclusive accepting loose affiliation it's just getting stronger every day. I ran a small bookstore

down in the South Shore Plymouth Mass called the metacognitive after a massive So it's King Philip and then I brought some of the Occupy movement started I shot in my shop for the season and I brought up a stock of books and a limb by limb or military tent and shelving What were the books. Like Howard Zinn Noam Chomsky books books on feminism social justice basically everything that was kind of politically left of center and then some of the classics some philosophy that I had on hand. Things like that of that nature. But then things started pouring in radical reference collective in the permit Simmons progressive librarians guild got involved and quickly put together one of the most organized little Working

Group or spaces within the Occupy encampment to kind of just bring the the seeds of knowledge a fresh start and my own dissent and those who got involved there right there as I heard Chris talking about earlier there were some people that may not necessarily have been able to articulate their position or even really knew. But just getting those materials within proximity of the them. I felt helped because I tried to live there on site and I tried to keep it open as late as possible. Sometimes 24 hours and you would see waited like people come in who maybe had no idea you know what they were looking for but you could help steer in the direction and they would read the book at every turn and it was like a very loose honor honor system. You know just put on the name let me get Kristen in here because I think a lot of people would be surprised there was a librarian and I

had personally not heard John just reference I had not ever heard of the radical reference librarians that I maybe you could explain that they are professional librarians. That's correct. The reason I found out about them. Occupy Boston really had heard about Occupy Wall Street through Adbusters magazine which I have been a long time reader of. So I knew something was percolating but just at the same time I became involved with the Boston radical reference collective which is an organization that started in 2004 in response to the Republican National Convention which is a team of volunteer librarians basically in Boston New York I think they're spread across the country now. And I just happened to join their volunteer group about a week before Occupy Boston started. So on that Facebook page we all started talking about meeting and then people said hey I've been down to do it. I ran down to Dewey Square once I heard it had been occupied and saw the sad little orange tent with the little white bookshelf and a couple books on it and somebody crashed out on the ground and I thought right we've got to get something started here and it's so incredible symbiotic thing with John showing up with this

incredibly beautiful military tent which was essential in terms of the preservation of these things. And his you know unbridled passion for four for reference work. And it all just came together so yeah he as he was saying we had the progressive librarians guild who are all Simmons College students and trained librarians an archivist we have a huge group of archivists actually as part of this group which is unusual. So I'd say we have about 20 active members about 40 on the listserv. And yet people just took shifts John was there 24/7. We get down there as much as possible we certainly wanted to get down that much more often so we could man the tent but it was a pretty amazing and active space. And why were archivist like yourself interested in you know paying attention to the library space. I think that I can speak for me personally but I guess like I think I could speak for the group when we say we knew that something pretty amazing was happening in front of us. I am interested Howard's in 1970 made a speech at the Society for

American archivists where he described that archivists are generally neutral in their collection of information and in 1070 he challenge that idea and said that in fact we have to record all segments of society in the Forgotten histories histories often easily forgotten and overlooked as documents are preserved by the powerful and the elite. So that was something that was very appealing to me and I thought about it and he started to say I actually can read something very quickly and very very quickly. Archivist should use their power in determining what records will be preserved for future generations and interpret in this documentation for researchers archivists can use the power of archives to promote accountability. Open government diversity and social justice advocacy and activism can address social issues without abandoning professionals standards of fairness honesty detachment and transparency. And so I think we realize we need to take this activist archiving role and get out there and start documenting what was going on pretty from the get go. And that's what we did.

Chris just to get you back in here this library was not unusual in Boston there were libraries other places as you wrote about. Were you surprised to see how many libraries popped up across the country. Mike my surprise especially initially when I got back to Boston was just what a functioning little city it was. There was no medic tent full service food. Prayer tents and but you know to John's credit to all your credit this was one of the most impressive libraries in the country. Fully indoors. And I might also add one of the most welcoming places at Occupy Boston and I wrote about you know the media and even the welcome slash info tent was always so welcoming. The library was really a place so you know especially you know a lot of new people who would show up. It was right there at the front of camp. It was warm when it was cold out. It was just it was just a nice place and it was it was definitely a highlight of the camp here in Boston. John founder of the library. It's called A to Z and I think people may think that that's because you had content that spread across the spectrum but it also referenced the name of the library which

is Andre Lord Howard Zinn reference has been made here to Howard Zinn But tell us who Andre Lord and Howard Zinn were. That's a really funny story too. The Lord was a women's rights activist and feminist and Howard Zinn is kind of like the prodigal son of left wing. A historian is in Boston so I came with the name. Well first of the New York Times is going to do a piece on it and the library which at that point was called like just you know the Dewey Square library. So I came to this and was like look we need a name. It's been like two weeks and so I've always been up there asking us for the name. It's like it's beginning to like kind of almost like parody itself in that we see everyone saying that we can't come that occupied on anything. OK and we still can't come to the name. So we had a meeting and I had to tell the woman

just be good with the story and there are times like can you just hold off on the name for the day and we'll tell you about it so it was a really contentious thing because I had never actually heard of the Lord. And a woman the day before came was I just called the Howard Zinn library and I was just like light bulbs. Yeah that makes absolute sense. So I posited that at the meeting and so I was like well what about the Lord library and that got a bunch of. Like. Got a bunch of traction and I all came together. Yeah it did but it was like it did but it was like it was like a let me just say that I've never heard of Argentine Lord. A lot of these books to this point are mine and the infrastructure is mine and I'm not going to be like that. This is my this is my thing but I just want to pose it what a block would look like here is a block means that like I feel morally opposed to being involved in Occupy So if I block this kind of just goes away and it like a moot point but I won't do that. And maybe somebody just bring me an option or book so I can understand who should I run it we had you know Audrey Lord at the very very beginning so we made sure that we got immediately.

So yeah I want to talk about at the end when it was known that Dewey Square was going to be dismantled or at least the tent encampment. The archivists became very active in dismantling this library carefully and you also picked up other materials and tell me why. Well librarians are disaster planners were very well organized and in any way I would say a decent library we know what to do in case of disaster and so when you're in there actually what librarians are well equipped to work in a protest environment. So we basically were organized from the get go one of the first things we started to plan was not how to catalog the library which other occupation libraries were doing. We planned how what we were going to do in case the cops came and raided. And once we heard Occupy Wall Street been raided and their assets and their books were destroyed we thought heck no we're not going to sacrifice the books in that way. So we came up with a plan of action. And so when we heard we were lucky enough to get notice that the police were going to come. So John give me a call. We put in a phone tree in place so we had people

come down pretty immediately and we dismantled the library it was really sad. And where is it now. It's spread out in six different safe houses around the city. Volunteer librarians are hosting them in their places MIT has a box of ephemera archival documents and so as we we we created a strategy of sampling so basically we had a big plastic box and said just you know anything that you see flyers ephemera posters. Put them in this box and as we are walking around campus last few days we did the same thing but it was very hard because a lot of the things that Lakes. I know the Smithsonian went to Occupy Wall Street and started taking things. It was I felt very worried about doing that as we were. The imminent raid was coming because we were still using those things right. And these you know like the Gandhi statue had the beautiful Earth flag and things like that and I thought right we should we should preserve those and I thought well no this is these or this is inspiration till the end we need this to the very very end and so what is left you know Will

and I know now that the flag was preserved by a homeless fella hes got it as a place but at some point could this be him have Could scholars have access Absolutely and we know that there are institutions that are interested in hosting the repository that we have. But I mean are hosting the documents that we have but we want to make sure that access is the most important thing to us. We had documents available to occupiers and visitors at the library on site at Dewey Square. We are mobile right now and we are trying to work out a way to make these documents assessable that's the most important thing so people can actually read this stuff and we preserve it at the same time. In 30 seconds for people to say I got the internet I don't need a library or librarians you say. I say librarians act as a navigator and they help you sort through the somewhat questionable material that you find online and we help you find authentic resources. Absolutely and I'm with you. I'm a big library fan and I love library I say for every article I ever write I go to libraries a lot of stuff there is online. There you go that's right. All right thanks to all

of you. We've been talking about Occupy Wall Street with Boston Phoenix reporter Christopher around his new book is 99 nights with the 99 percent. You can catch him at Brookline Brooksmith tonight at 7:00. I've also been joined by Kristen Parker and John Ford. They've been instrumental in maintaining occupy Boston's eight to Z library you can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show and WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter and become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Allen mess produced by Chelsea Merz will Rose lip and Abbey Ruzicka we are a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.