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Here's a Covid-19 meets Occupy Wall Street thread, a thread about how spectacle is important for politics.
It's a thread about how the state needed to *occupy* public spaces in order to create the social conditions that can facilitate pandemic management.
It's a thread about how the state needed to *occupy* public spaces in order to create the social conditions that can facilitate pandemic management.
One of the things that made Occupy Wall Street so effective at capturing our imaginations were the occupations themselves.
Here are a few photos from NYC (credit: the Nation), New Haven, London, and Newcastle (credit: me).
Here are a few photos from NYC (credit: the Nation), New Haven, London, and Newcastle (credit: me).
The materiality of the political intervention was critical. It was not a protest that moved and dispersed. It stuck around. Furthermore, the message was clear: we are getting screwed by the 1% and something must be done. (photo: Rolling Stone)
My theory of this was that Occupy Wall Street was a massive *public performance* of *norm breaking*. When people publicly and performatively break norms they get noticed. When thousands do it all over the world, it is noticed. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2006.00273.x
Now, *protest* often fails because there is too little power behind it. That is my other (ahem published) theory of OWS's failings: it was mostly about performance and not about power.
http://www.possible-futures.org/2012/05/07/reflections-occupys-day-play-work/
What does this have to do with COVID?
http://www.possible-futures.org/2012/05/07/reflections-occupys-day-play-work/
What does this have to do with COVID?
The state could performatively violate norms and build systems of pandemic management around that performance.
The best way to do this would be to set up massive COVID testing centers everywhere - these should occupy space and be disruptive.
The best way to do this would be to set up massive COVID testing centers everywhere - these should occupy space and be disruptive.
Imagine if there was, in effect, a daily farmers' market occupying key street space in every neighborhood. But, these are COVID tents, where people get tested for free.
The state needed to reorganize physical space around defeating the pandemic.
The state needed to reorganize physical space around defeating the pandemic.
We needed to move past the PRIVATIZATION of the reorganization of life - which is what happened when we were all told to shelter in place - to the SOCIALIZATION of the reorganization of life.
The state should have spectacularly remade public spaces as Covid-management spaces.
The state should have spectacularly remade public spaces as Covid-management spaces.
You cannot avoid seeing the COVID tent.
It's there with that stupid purple cartoon virus.
Someone in a lab coat and PPE is walking around with a clipboard asking you to get tested.
There are people in there getting tested.
There is a big fucking sign that says: EMERGENCY!
It's there with that stupid purple cartoon virus.
Someone in a lab coat and PPE is walking around with a clipboard asking you to get tested.
There are people in there getting tested.
There is a big fucking sign that says: EMERGENCY!
This material intervention signals that there is an existing emergency. The physical, disruptive presence of the tents sends the message: "Nothing is normal." The tents would have to move a bit, and there would have to be some sort of theater to it all. But, that's the fun part.
Because this is an emergency, the state needs to occupy physical space and roll out mass, rapid tests. We could begin with lots of Abbott ID and Quidel Sofia 2 machines and then move to rapid antigen tests. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/coronavirus-tests.html
But you've got to get people to feel like there is an emergency. It's cannot be some sort of miasmic fear that curls around our ankles and causes momentary panics.
Covid tents are a locus for our attention in the emergency. And they are also the solutions to that emergency.
Covid tents are a locus for our attention in the emergency. And they are also the solutions to that emergency.
This would have been the only way to get to the daily 45,000 tests that Mass Governor Charlie Baker said he wanted to get to. And had he committed to a material intervention into our streets with Covid tents then this pandemic would be under control. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/05/14/massachusetts-covid-19-testing-plan
We need an Occupy Covid intervention, but it must be driven by the state, which has has the capacity to drive the pandemic into the ground. And the way the state does that is be reorganizing physical space around testing and tracing.
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Extra tweet for mishpacha below
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Extra tweet for mishpacha below
The state needs to act like the Chabad guys in NYC and their giant Sukkah and they walk straight up to everyone who "looks" Jewish and they ask you, "are you jewish?" and then ask you to shake the lulav and etrog. https://forward.com/news/184484/meet-the-are-you-jewish-chabad-guys/
oh and for more on test sensitivity vs. test prevalance see: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.22.20136309v2
and for a general overview on why we need rapid, mass testing now: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/
and for a general overview on why we need rapid, mass testing now: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/
