到了賦予抗議活動以政治意義的時候了

????在洛杉磯的時候，我花了整整一個早上的時間，與一位名叫卡洛爾的失業護士一起在市政廳外面的帳篷間轉悠。卡洛爾是非洲裔美國人，年齡或許跟我差不多；她沒有告訴我她的姓氏。當時，我發現她正對著一張有人貼在留言板上的傳單翻白眼，咯咯地笑出聲來——那是一份尋找“素食主義博物學家”室友的傳單。她說，她之所以來市中心，是因為她想親眼看看抗議活動，試著了解一下這些人究竟在抗議什么東西。她希望，抗議者能拿出一些具體的要求，最終能夠取得當年民權運動所取得的一些進步。這份傳單顯然并沒有讓她看到希望。“這場運動不夠嚴肅，”她喃喃自語道。“太不嚴肅了。”

????卡洛爾和我最終來到了媒體帳篷，發現占領洛杉磯運動的組織者之一克拉克?戴維斯正匍匐在一臺筆記本電腦上工作。事實上，戴維斯也跟卡洛爾有著同樣的憂慮。“我們準備成為一個具有政治意味的組織，探討一些嚴肅的議題，”戴維斯說。但“現在基本上就是人們的一個宿營地而已。”

????戴維斯的當務之急是應對加入抗議活動的無家可歸者——這種情況并非洛杉磯所獨有。“我們這里的確有吃、有住、有水，有廁所，這也是他們來這里的原因，我們歡迎他們。但這就給占領運動施加了一層外部壓力，使得我們很難把關注的重點放在最初吸引我們來這里的原因上面——這場運動的目的是為了給這個國家和全世界帶來積極的變化。”

????戴維斯敏銳地意識到，不同于其他爆發占領運動的城市，洛杉磯官方一直對這場運動持支持態度（而其他城市則爆發了警方與示威者的沖突事件）。洛杉磯市議會于10月份通過一項決議，該決議指出，“我們的經濟體系只能用破敗不堪來形容，”市議會強烈支持“‘占領洛杉磯’繼續秉持憲法第一修正案所賦予的權利，采用和平的方式在市政廳草坪開展富有活力的活動。”但在戴維斯看來，占領運動開始讓人們覺得已經錯失了機會。“他們基本上是等著我們自己精疲力竭，自生自滅，”他說。“這一點真是令人泄氣。”

????要是當天拉森跟我們在一起，他或許會要求戴維斯和其他人“保持心中的憤怒，”看看“他們已經完成的不可思議的事情，”不要過于擔心這場運動將邁向何方，這一切尚未結束。同時，他說，“我希望占領運動目前這種初始的、瘋狂的、詭異的、沒有人確切知道究竟是怎么回事的階段將盡可能地延續下去。只要能讓這個世界繼續猜測下去，只要越來越多的人開始搜尋這場運動的意義，它就會變得越來越神秘。”

????離開洛杉磯的市政廳之后，我驅車趕往帕薩迪納市，與圣公會教區長埃德?培根牧師共飲咖啡。數周來，培根一直在向其會眾（圣公會教徒有不少屬于所謂的1%陣營）宣揚占領運動的意義，就在前一天，他剛剛拜訪了抗議營地。所見所聞依然令他興奮不已。

????“這是一個建立聯系的機會，我認為馬丁?路德?金就是因為創建了這種聯系才被謀殺的，”培根說。“那就是，并不存在相互競爭的社會問題。制造戰爭的體系、銀行體系、種族偏見——所有這些都是環環相扣的丑惡現象。一些人因此遭受肉體上的懲罰，但我們所有人的靈魂都在受折磨。我覺得，我們的靈魂，美國的靈魂，甚至世界的靈魂此時此刻都是扭曲的。我想，整個宇宙都在協力幫助我們在這里迎來救贖的時刻。”

????譯者：任文科

Time to get political

????In Los Angeles, I spent a morning wandering among the tents outside City Hall with Carol, an unemployed nurse. Carol is African American and probably about my age; she wouldn't tell me her last name. I found her rolling her eyes and giggling at a flyer someone had posted on a message board, advertising for a "vegan naturist" house mate. She had come downtown, she said, because she wanted to see with her own eyes and try to understand what the protesters were protesting, exactly. She hoped that they were close to settling on a handful of specific demands that might lead some day to the kind of progress that the civil rights movement had achieved. The flyer did not give her hope. "This is lax," she mumbled. "This is too lax."

????Eventually Carol and I made our way to the press tent, where we found Clark Davis, one of the organizers of Occupy LA, hunched over a laptop. Turns out Davis is worried about the same thing Carol is. "We're ready as an organization to get political and start talking about some issues," Davis said, but "right now, all we are is a bunch of people camping, basically."

????Davis's immediate concern was dealing with all the homeless people who had joined the protest—a situation not unique to Los Angeles. "The fact that we do have food here," Davis said, "that we do have shelter, that we do have water, we have restrooms—they are coming to us and we welcome them. Although it's creating an external pressure on the movement which is making it difficult for us to focus on the reasons why we're here, which is to create positive change in this country and throughout the world."

????Davis was keenly aware that unlike other Occupy cities, where police have clashed with protestors, official Los Angeles has been supportive. The city council passed a resolution in October that states "our economic system can only be called broken," and strongly endorses "the continued peaceful and vibrant exercise in First Amendment Rights carried out by 'Occupy Los Angeles' on the City Hall lawn." But for Davis, on this day, it was starting to feel like a missed opportunity. "They're basically letting us do ourselves in," he said. "It's discouraging."

????If Lasn had been with me that day, he would have told Davis and the others to "keep that anger in their guts," appreciate "the incredible thing that they already have done," and not worry too much about where all this is going, not yet. Meanwhile, he says, "I hope that this initial, crazy, weird, nobody-quite-knows-what's-going on phase of the movement goes on for as long as possible. As long as you can keep the world guessing, the more people will be pumping for meaning, and the more mystique this movement will have."

????After I left City Hall in Los Angeles, I drove out to Pasadena to have a cup of coffee with the Rev. Ed Bacon, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church. Bacon has been preaching to his congregation (which includes more than a few one-percenters) about the Occupy movement for weeks, and had visited the camp just the day before. He was still excited by what he had seen.

????"This is an opportunity to make the connection that Martin Luther King, I think, was killed for making," Bacon said. "And that is that there are not competing social issues. The war-making system, the banking system, racial prejudice—all of these are interlocking evils. Some people get it in the neck physically from that, but all of us get it in the soul. And our soul, the American soul, and I think the soul of the world is distorted right now. I think the universe is conspiring to help us have a redemptive moment here."