How on earth did we go from the friendliest mayor-protester relationship in the country to this mess — in, what, two weeks time? Instead of asking that question, the Daily News is slogging through the extreme (and highly questionable) conspiracy theories that have been swirling around Occupy Philly. Today’s cover reads “Stain on the City: How the homeless hijacked Occupy Philly.”
Occupy encampments nationwide have struggled with the influx of homeless attracted to the food, healthcare, and relative security of group camping. The point being: Why not blame homelessness on the government — federal, state and local? Occupy Philly certainly didn’t invent poor people. It’s true: the article by David Gambacorta, Jason Nark and Will Bunch does froth far less at the mouth than the sensational cover (this is the Daily News after all). But it ends by picking up on a disturbing storyline — and one that appears to be completely false:
"Longtime activists also blame a radical element, which they tied to one longtime participant, Cindy Milstein, a nationally known anarchist writer who moved to Philadelphia right before the occupation started.
Members of the 'sensible' faction say that Milstein is linked to a group of roughly 10 to 20 anarchists in Occupy Philly and that their numbers were swelled by outsiders, possibly bused in, on Friday night, when an assembly voted to defy the city and remain at Dilworth.
Milstein denied that she was a negative influence on the Occupy movement or that anarchists had been bused in. She instead blamed the dissension at Dilworth on three or so leaders of the 'sensible' faction determined to keep control of the movement."
I received a call nearly two weeks ago touting the same conspiracy theory: anarchists are being bused into the city. (And, a top city official has also repeated this narrative to CP as fact within the past few days.) In fact, Philadelphia (in particular, West Philly) has one of the largest anarchist populations of any city that I know. If anything, it would make more sense if our anarchists were being bused to invade other cities! And all of my sources at Occupy Philly, including two lead activists who very much want to relocate from Dilworth, reject the accusation as absurd.
Where is evidence of a conspiracy? They are just being anarchists. And this focus on Cindy Milstein? Who the hell is she and why is she suddenly all over the news? Yes, she’s an anarchist, but no more of an anarchist, as far as I can tell, than any of the rest of them. The media's obsessive focus on Milstein more than borders on the bizarre.
The guy who called me about the anarchist invasion runs a completely unhinged website, and told me that someone had secretly delivered to him a dossier about himself, that he was secretly being surveilled, that the FBI had met with him, and he retweets from Andrew Breitbart and ... he seems like a complete wingnut. I decided not to write a story about it. The Daily News, apparently did, and didn’t bother to dig any deeper. I don’t know for sure who their source for this was — but I have a hunch.
Are there protesters who are being obstinate and unreasonable, who have imbibed crazy ideas about the Dilworth Square reconstruction project, believing that it is some sort of cynical bourgeois urban renewal scheme instead of a nice project that will make the place disabled accessible and create a lot of jobs? Yes.
There are, however, protesters who think otherwise, and given the rather pure form of democratic decision making employed in the General Assembly meetings, they need some time to sort things out internally — and to sort things out with the mayor. They do, however, need to act quickly. Protesters have let the economic justice narrative slip away from them.
All in all, elements amongst the protesters and in City Hall — and factors in cities around the country — have contributed to a rapid souring of the Nutter-Occupy relationship. It seems irresponsible for the People Paper to fan the flames.
If the Daily News actually wants things to stay peaceful, they would call for both sides to get back to the negotiating table. Stubbornly insisting that Occupy Philly “go now” and repeating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about bused-in-anarchists will only embolden the bullheaded amongst the protesters who want to “fight” the city and stay forever, and egg on the mayor to use police action to clear Dilworth Plaza.
Follow Daniel Denvir on Twitter.
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