The Occupy Buffalo movement's chant couldn't have been any more appropriate on Saturday.
"Through rain, through snow, Oc-cu-py, Buf-fa-lo!" shouted over 100 people gathered in Downtown Buffalo's Niagara Square on a brutal day of weather – wind, hail, rain, and cold – as drivers honked their horns in support on their way past.
"Occupy Buffalo" is Buffalo's arm of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York City's Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17. Both movements are still going strong.
"The weather's been the only obstacle, really," said Robert Albini, 31, of Amherst, an Occupy Buffalo organizer who has been living in Niagara Square for over a week now.
But as winter inches closer, the movement grows larger. It has now spread worldwide; similar protests have organized in over 1,000 cities and over 78 countries. The occupiers are largely unified by their "We are the 99 percent" slogan and a desire to put an end to what they see as excessive corporate greed and corporate influence on politics.
Occupy Buffalo is all-inclusive; the movement does not endorse any one political or economic ideology. There are no official leaders, and there are no official demands as of yet. Many pundits have criticized the protesters for being unfocused.
"It's not about making demands yet," Albini said. "There's so many issues that if we just attack one issue specifically, it could be satisfied, and then we lose momentum. Right now, it's more of an organizing process; we're just trying to get everybody on the same page to find out what everybody's issues are, and then we're going to go from there."
To do that, Buffalo occupiers hold "General Assembly" meetings each Saturday at noon in Niagara Square. The meetings adhere to a "consensus-driven" decision-making process – an ultra-democratic, anyone-can-speak method that requires everyone to agree on a "proposal" before it is passed. If a proposal is "blocked" by even one person, it fails. The meetings also have a unifying code of conduct. Occupiers know an array of hand signals that indicate to the speaker whether the crowd agrees, disagrees, wants to move on, wishes the speech stayed on point, or requires clarification. (For example, a triangle symbol, referred to as "point of process," means "keep the speech relevant to the current discussion.")
Anyone can speak (just sign up on the list, or "stack") during General Assembly, and to make sure everyone can hear, speakers use the "people's mic" – the speaker says five or six words, and the rest of the crowd repeats them, so those on the outside of the circle can understand.
Between the crowd only hearing five words at a time and the ever-present threat of a block, things move slowly. But when proposals are passed, they have the group's unanimous support, and everyone understands what has transpired.
Area politicians have shown support for the movement. Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant spoke to the crowd at the Oct. 8 meeting and was also there on Saturday; Eric Jones, chair of the Western New York Green Party, was at both meetings as well.
"This movement, that has formed really organically, falls in line with pretty much everything I believe in," Jones said. "It's a movement of people who are frustrated with the status quo, people who are ready for a government that actually works for the people instead of against them, and our current government, at almost every level, is one that no longer represents the 99 percent."
The "99 percent" idea is apparent in the many walks of life that are present at the Occupy Buffalo movement: black and white, young and old, crew-cuts and the dreadlocked hair of Matt Richardson, 33, of Tonawanda, who started the group's Facebook page (which has quickly amassed over 5,300 followers).
"I've seen everybody who was supporting Occupy Wall Street, and people were starting Facebook [pages] in every city, and I noticed that [Buffalo] didn't have a Facebook," Richardson said. "So I said, ‘Hey man, I can't stand by, we have to at least do something.' Within a couple of days, we had hundreds of hits, and it just grew from there."
Occupiers have held a continuous presence in Niagara Square since Oct. 8, showing solidarity with the movements around the rest of the globe, and they don't plan on leaving anytime soon.
"This is the hope and change that everybody voted for in the last election," Albini said. "I feel more hopeful now, about this, than I ever have about anything else. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed."
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