2 | One Simple Demand

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Manifesto with Dan Taberski – Episode 2 | "One Simple Demand"

Main Theme & Purpose

In this episode, Dan Taberski delves into the Occupy Wall Street movement as a case study to reclaim the power of the manifesto from violence and tragedy, exploring how collective rage can be channeled or wasted. He investigates why the movement exploded, what it wanted, and what became of its hope and energy. The episode explores act of protest, civil disobedience, and the importance—and pitfalls—of formulating clear demands. Taberski connects Occupy’s DNA to previous movements and asks if inspiring rage is enough or if a clear vision to direct it is necessary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Making of Modern Activism

• Micah Bornfree's Origins ([00:21])
  • Former "spiritual anarchist" and lifelong activist, who first tasted civil disobedience by refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in middle school, causing a contagion among classmates.
  • "You can do something and it becomes contagious for other people... before it became a class wide protest." (Micah Bornfree, [01:11])
• Partnering with Kalle Lawson ([01:53])
  • Founding of Adbusters, a magazine that turned into a manifesto factory.
  • Lawson’s hunger for true democracy:
    • "You can almost imagine. True democracy, a global governance system that is truly driven from the bottom up." (Kalle Lawson, [02:31])

2. Anger as Fuel: Financial Crisis and Inspiration

• Context: The 2008 crash, widespread bank bailouts, staggering youth unemployment, resulting in "profound existential discontent.” ([03:32])
• On Wall Street:
  • "There's something just fucking wrong happening at Wall Street... and we just have to sort of dig around in the mud." (Kalle Lawson, [04:09])

3. Spark from Abroad: The Arab Spring and U.S. Echoes

• The global protest cascade: Tunisia’s fruit seller, Tahrir Square, Madrid’s acampadas, and the notion: "If they can have an Arab Spring, why can't we have an American spring?” ([07:29])

4. Creating the Manifesto: The Birth of Occupy

• Launch Day and Dreaming Big

  • Date set for September 17, 2011—a symbolic choice (Lawson’s mother’s birthday). ([08:50])
  • The manifesto called for 20,000 to physically occupy Wall Street—a poetic, not literal, number.
  • "Let's make people dream. Let's, like, have them be inspired." (Micah Bornfree, [09:19])

• A Movement with No Single Demand

  • The core strategy: Leave the specific demand open for the masses to decide together.
    • "No demand wasn't an oversight. No demand was their strategy." (Dan Tabersky, [10:09])
    • "We're going to come up with this one demand together. That's the game we were going to play." (Micah Bornfree, [10:13])

• The Send-Off ([10:28])

  • The manifesto is launched online and via email on July 13, 2011, aiming to spark a nationwide movement.

5. Occupation Begins: Zuccotti Park and New York’s Encampment

• Early participants:
  • Michael Peligati hears about Occupy at a Workers World Party (communist) meeting and commits the same day. ([12:59])
  • Marissa Holmes, anarchist and filmmaker, describes the backdrop of "delayed rage" three years into the economic crisis. ([13:42])
• First night: 1,000 show up; 300 stay overnight—far short of the dream but significant.

6. The Energy and the Process

• Crowd Organization & Decisions
  • Structures put in place: working groups for media, legal, food, medical, comfort.
  • The “people’s microphone” enables mass communication.
  • Decision-making: “twinkling”—wiggling fingers for up (approval), down (disapproval), or medium (“I don’t know”). ([18:57])
• Diverse Coalition
  • "We had so many groups down here. Communists, liberals, libertarians, 911 truthers, the whole gang." (Michael Peligati, [17:39])
  • "Well, it was 99% versus 1%, not left versus right. That's what a lot of people miss out on." (Michael Peligati, [17:55])

7. Manifestos Past & Present: Making Demands, or Not

• Reference to The Communist Manifesto as the archetypal urgent document ([10:49]), and the occupation of Alcatraz ([24:55]) as a protest with explicit, defined demands.

• Occupy Wall Street’s difference: their Declaration of the Occupation of New York City (approved Sep 29, 2011) is a rolling, “endless list of grievances,” not concrete demands ([27:19]).

  • "We were never going to have demands because demands engage with those in power and we were building autonomy... we thought that the system was so far gone and so corrupt that even if we did make demands... we would not win them." (Marissa Holmes, [29:14])

  • "No, we were making the revolution. ... You're not demanding, you're not asking, you're actually making it yourself. Like that's what we were doing." (Marissa Holmes, [29:57])

8. Tensions, Critiques & Unraveling

• Perception issues: The lack of clear demands and the emerging festival atmosphere (drum circles, banjos, “Ketchup”—activists with eccentric names) led to confusion over seriousness. ([31:00])

• "For all the silliness that kept getting in the way..." (Dan Tabersky, [31:17])

• Collapse

  • NYPD clears Zuccotti Park after 59 days.
  • Despite protests in 700+ cities worldwide, a sense of unfulfilled destiny:
    • "I wish we could have had a more clear message to give to people." (Michael Peligati, [32:47])
    • "I hoped we would grow so big that we could take over." (Michael Peligati, [33:12])

9. The Long Game Versus the Need for Immediate Results

• Tabersky’s 11-point “manifesto on manifestos” emerges:

  1. Get mad ([19:42])
  2. Think big—“like stupidly big” ([19:42])
  3. Don’t summon anger unless you have a plan to use it ([34:12])

• Is “no demands” an abdication or a strategic long view?

  • "We politicized a whole generation of young people... to me it's like, okay, 1968, okay, 2011, now what?" (Kalle Lawson, [35:00])

• History lens:

  • Even with The Communist Manifesto, real change can take generations.
  • The Alcatraz occupation “failed” in its demands, but catalyzed the Red Power movement and substantive change for Native American rights. ([36:09])

10. Aftermath & Reflections

• Michael Peligati returns to security work, can’t afford the life he once had, reflects on the movement’s limitations:

  • "When I was a security guard the first time around, I could afford to live... I can't afford to do any of that now." (Michael Peligati, [37:39])
  • "It's a lot tougher 14 years later. You know, there are desperate homeless, hungry people everywhere. And what do desperate homeless, hungry people do? They have nothing to lose. They lose it." (Michael Peligati, [38:45])

• The final insight—revolution versus independence:

  • "That dream doesn't sound like revolution to me. To me, it sounds like what he really wanted was independence." (Dan Tabersky, [39:05])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "You can do something and it becomes contagious for other people."
  — Micah Bornfree, [01:11]

• "There's something just fucking wrong happening at Wall Street... and we just have to sort of dig around in the mud."
  — Kalle Lawson, [04:09]

• "Let's make people dream. Let's, like, have them be inspired."
  — Micah Bornfree, [09:19]

• "No demand wasn't an oversight. No demand was their strategy."
  — Dan Tabersky, [10:09]

• "We were never going to have demands because demands engage with those in power and we were building autonomy."
  — Marissa Holmes, [29:14]

• "No, we were making the revolution. That's the distinction. ... You're not demanding, you're not asking, you're actually making it yourself."
  — Marissa Holmes, [29:57]

• "Well, it was 99% versus 1%, not left versus right. That's what a lot of people miss out on."
  — Michael Peligati, [17:55]

• "I wish we could have had a more clear message to give to people."
  — Michael Peligati, [32:47]

• "I don't think we failed. You know, we politicized the whole generation of young people just like I was politicized in 1968..."
  — Kalle Lawson, [35:00]

• "Don't summon our anger unless you've got a plan to use it."
  — Dan Tabersky, [34:12]

• "That dream doesn't sound like revolution to me. To me, it sounds like what he really wanted was independence."
  — Dan Tabersky, [39:05]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Origins of Activism, Bornfree’s early protests: [00:38]–[01:26]
• Adbusters and Manifesto creation: [01:53]–[02:56]
• 2008 Crash Backdrop: [03:32]–[04:20]
• Reflections on Arab Spring’s influence: [06:55]–[07:40]
• Sending out the Occupy Manifesto: [10:28]–[11:03]
• People’s Microphone and Community Building: [16:39]–[17:31]
• Declaration of Occupation approved: [27:19]–[27:47]
• Discussion on lack of demands: [28:38]–[29:57]
• Occupation’s end, NYPD clears Zuccotti: [32:26]–[32:47]
• Aftermath and long-term impact: [35:00]–[36:58]

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Tone and Style

Dan Tabersky’s signature blend of dry wit, skepticism, and empathy runs throughout, with interviewees expressing reflection, regret, pride, and sometimes frustration. While Tabersky questions the efficacy of demandless activism, he highlights its generational impact and lasting inspiration for social change.

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Summary in Short

Episode 2 of Manifesto dissects Occupy Wall Street’s origins, ambitions, and aftermath, asking whether sparking a movement is enough without concrete demands. Through the voices of organizers and participants, the episode tracks how collective anger can electrify and mobilize, but also risk petering out when not united behind a clear purpose. Tabersky locates this tension at the heart of all manifestos—striking the balance between immediate outrage and the long game of societal transformation.

Transcript

[Dan Tabursky]

Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dan Taburski's manifesto early and ad free. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple podcasts. Are you an anarchist now?

[Micah Bornfree]

Uh, nah,

[Dan Tabursky]

not.

[Micah Bornfree]

I don't know, not in the sense.

[Michael Peligati]

No.

[Dan Tabursky]

I love, I love this sort of maybe I love being maybe an anarchist. That's Micah Bornfree and he's being modest. He's trying to burn it all down. All right, not that far. Born Free is a full time activist, or rather was.

[Micah Bornfree]

I probably would have called myself a kind of spiritual anarchist. I would have called myself a revolutionary. That's all I really wanted to do was activism.

[Dan Tabursky]

Like how young are you before you're like raising your fist?

[Micah Bornfree]

Well, the first campaign I did was refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Dan Tabursky]

It's when he was in middle school outside D.C. when he developed a taste for the blood that could be drawn from civil disobedience, even if it was just in Mrs. What's her face's class.

[Micah Bornfree]

It was one of those things too where like I didn't stand for the pledge and then like other people in the classroom started also thinking about whether

[Dan Tabursky]

or not they should stand for the pledge.

[Micah Bornfree]

So kind of like spread. So it was like my first like, you know, experience of like, oh, you can do something and it becomes contagious for other people. They start imitating you. And before it became like a class wide protest, the teacher just like suspended me from the end of the year field trip.

[Dan Tabursky]

That's how you deal with dissent. But that feeling of contagion, that the right spark struck by the right person could jumpstart someone else and then others and then maybe everyone. By his 20s, he wanted to spread contagion like that on a much bigger scale. But where to find a compatriot with an appetite for status quo destruction that matched his own?

[Kale Lawson]

Then all of a sudden he said, fuck it, I'm not gonna do this anymore.

[Dan Tabursky]

He found it in Kale Lawson, our shopping cart saboteur.

[Kale Lawson]

It felt like a moment of liberation

[Dan Tabursky]

after that grocery store epiphany. Turning his anger into action. Lawson co founded a magazine called Adbusters, an anti capitalist rag that quickly transformed into a manifesto machine. For over three decades, he's been pumping out memes and screens and declarations of disgust, trying to get the worm to turn. Talking now in his basement office, we're surrounded by it. Taped up posters that scream declare global climate emergency and good night far right and dear world leaders. Fuck you.

[Kale Lawson]

That would be monumental. It would be like, almost like a dream come true. Like you can almost imagine. True democracy, A global governance system that is truly driven from the bottom up.

[Dan Tabursky]

Well, you're almost conscious, you're almost like hungry for it. Like the way you talk and describe it, you are just like. It's like you're eating the air in front of.

[Kale Lawson]

I want to have that power. I want us, the people, to have that power. I want, you know, if we.

[Dan Tabursky]

It was here that Kale Lawson and Micah, Born Free, began collaborating. And together they wanted nothing less than revolution. Well, lo and behold, by 2011, they were not the only ones.

[Kale Lawson]

The Dow tumbled more than 500 points

[Dan Tabursky]

after two pillars of the street tumbled over the weekend, Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old firm, filed for bankruptcy. You think now is bad? Well, it is, but there's been bad before. Fifteen years ago, the whole system was teetering on the edge. And it was a long way down.

[Kale Lawson]

That big crash of 2008 had just happened and young people were again in this kind of a strange feeling of profound existential discontent.

[Dan Tabursky]

Banks had lost billions of other people's dollars, making cynically bad bets. Youth unemployment hit almost 20%. 10 million people had their houses foreclosed on. I mean, you just don't know who to trust anymore. It just make you want to go

[Michael Peligati]

back to the old days, put your

[Dan Tabursky]

money under a mattress. And the banks were the ones that got the bailout. It was a record amount, $700 billion to rescue the country's failing banks.

[Kale Lawson]

How? There's something just fucking wrong happening at Wall Street. You know those coke sniffers who just make money off money off money ad nauseam and we just have to sort of dig around in the mud.

[Dan Tabursky]

It wasn't just wrong, it was insulting. And there was a growing sense that this time folks weren't just gonna swallow the shit sandwich they were being handed. There was a feeling out there bubbling up that this time people were just not gonna take it anymore. I'm Dan Tabursky from Audible Originals and please and thanks Productions. This is Manifesto, Episode two, One Simple Demand.

[Raza Jaffrey]

I'm Raza Jaffrey. And in the new season of the Spy who, we go back in time to meet Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. As America fights for freedom from Britain, Arnold emerges as one of the rebels greatest generals. But when his loyalty is pushed to the limit, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the rebellion and make George Washington a prisoner. Follow the spy who. Now wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Betrayed the American Revolution. Early and ad free on audience.

[Dan Tabursky]

I was on a real kick a few years ago where my solution to everything was general strike. General strike. What do we do call a general strike? They do them in France. That's why the trains are never running. Greve. General. General strike. We're all going to stand up and we're going to say, enough. This is madness. We don't want this. That's it. We're going to do something. We're going to rush the cockpit. Let's roll. General strike. Right? Someone just needs to get the ball rolling. Anyone? Anyone? Well, 15 years ago, Micah Bornfree and Kalle Lawson decided that they were gonna do it. They were gonna put out the call. Not a general strike, but close. That this whole bullshit system cannot go on like this any longer, and that the time was now. Because on the other side of the world, they too were having that same feeling about their own bullshit system. It began in 2010 in Tunisia when a fruit seller set himself on fire to protest constant harassment at the hands of the government. And from that outrage, that one spark, whoosh, the Arab Spring had sprung. It was leaderless, almost spontaneous, surprising everyone, even the experts. All this energy and power coming from the bottom up. Tunisia first, but then it spread to Egypt and the uprising in Tahrir Square. And then Libya. In May of 2011, it jumped continents to Madrid, with protesters forming ocampadas, or encampments in the public squares to rally against the economic system that was leaving them in the dust.

[Kale Lawson]

It felt like we had suddenly stumbled onto just the right moment. And we said to ourselves, here, you know, hey, if they can have an Arab Spring, then why can't we have an American spring?

[Dan Tabursky]

Lawson and Born Free get to work on a manifesto. All right, you 90,000 redeemers, rebels, and radicals out there. A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of terrier with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote. Back then, our model is to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people. They write their manifesto as a blog post, short and sweaty, and give it the simple heading that would become not just the name of the movement they were starting, but but also its core strategy. Occupy Wall Street. You guys read. So then you send out an email. 90,000 followers on September 17th. We want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, and occupy Wall street for a few months. How did you pick the day?

[Micah Bornfree]

Well, that's Kala's mother's birthday.

[Kale Lawson]

We had to choose a day, and it had to be here somewhere in September. And I thought, fuck it, it's gonna be my mother's birthday. And I thought that if we did it on my mother's birthday, that fate would be on my side.

[Dan Tabursky]

Wow. And why 20,000?

[Micah Bornfree]

So 20,000. That's just an inspiring number. There's no reason why it said 20,000. That just sounds good when we wrote it, right? It's poetic.

[Dan Tabursky]

Sounds like a lot.

[Micah Bornfree]

Yeah, it's a lot. It would be amazing. I mean, imagine.

[Dan Tabursky]

And that was the point.

[Micah Bornfree]

Let's make people dream. Let's, like, have them be inspired.

[Dan Tabursky]

So they picked the date, September 17th. They picked the target, Wall street, the financial gomorrah of America. And they called on 20,000 or so to come and physically occupy it day and night. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices. And as for what they wanted, as for what that one simple demand would be, here comes the curveball.

[Kale Lawson]

Why should we decide? Why can't those tens, hundreds of thousands of people let them decide, Let them argue, let them fight. Let them decide. And we were confident that they could somehow zero in on something.

[Dan Tabursky]

No demand wasn't an oversight. No demand was their strategy.

[Micah Bornfree]

When you create a movement, you define kind of the rules of the game. It's like a social game. And that was one of the rules that we created, which is that we're going to come up with this one demand together. That's the game we were going to play.

[Dan Tabursky]

On July 13, 2011, they send out their manifesto. They post it up on the blog, and they email it to their address book to see if all that dry kindling out there might be looking for spark. And then they wait. Of course, this wasn't the first time that someone screamed, enough is enough. Grab your pitchforks, everybody. Manifestos were made for storming the gates. It's in their DNA. A lot of that DNA comes from Big Daddy. Big Daddy's what I call the Communist Manifesto. No big deal. But just look at big daddy in 1848, especially those last few lines. The Communists openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains they have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite. Manifestos have been replicating that hair on fire urgency ever since. And the Occupy Manifesto from Lawson and Born Free was no different. This could be the beginning of a whole new social dynamic in America. A step beyond the Tea Party movement, where instead of being caught helpless by the current power structure, we the people, start getting what we want. Let's screw up our courage, pack our tents, and head to Wall street with a vengeance. September 17th. It's almost cringe, right? To have such enormous ambition and then yell, come on, everyone. I mean, what are the odds that 10 people would even reply or give it a like, much less actually consider doing it? Would you? I didn't. For all my general strike nonsense talk today, it barely had my attention. Not at the beginning, at least. But some didn't waver. Some were on board the moment Lawson and Born Free hit send.

[Michael Peligati]

My name is Michael Peligati, and we're talking about Occupy Wall Street.

[Dan Tabursky]

And what were you doing in Occupy Wall street?

[Michael Peligati]

Occupying.

[Dan Tabursky]

It's only 10am In Lower Manhattan, but Michael Pellegotti is just getting off his shift at work. He's an overnight security guard at a facility in New Jersey. Same job he had 15 years ago when the call to Occupy Wall street went out. Do you remember when you first heard about what they were planning on doing with Occupy wall?

[Michael Peligati]

Day of July 13th.

[Dan Tabursky]

It's 2011.

[Michael Peligati]

A friend named Miguel turned to me. He's like, this is gonna be a big thing. I was at a Workers World Party meeting, for FYI, Communists. I was with communists.

[Dan Tabursky]

And if you found out about Occupy Wall street while at a Communist Party meeting, you're hardcore.

[Michael Peligati]

But I'm like a real commie, not like one of these trendy kids who. I'm a communist, you know, I mean,

[Marissa Holmes]

they chose the right enemy, Wall Street.

[Dan Tabursky]

Marissa Holmes had been waiting for something like this. She wasn't a communist. She was an anarchist and a filmmaker and an activist and organizer. But mostly, Marissa Holmes was angry.

[Marissa Holmes]

It was three years into the economic crisis and millions of people had had their homes foreclosed on and their lives upended. And, you know, I think there was just this delayed rage.

[Micah Bornfree]

New York General assembly for everybody.

[Dan Tabursky]

All different assemblies together. Did you talk about process that we would cover?

[Marissa Holmes]

Yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

Well, we'll cover the process. On September 17, 2011, Holmes and about 1,000 other people showed up to Zuccotti Park, a paved over plaza, just to shuffle off to the stock exchange. The kind of place where fund managers scarf down a sandwich on A bench counting money in their heads. That's like one of the most important

[Micah Bornfree]

things, is that you're all involved in this.

[Dan Tabursky]

All of us are involved. Just about 300 stick around to actually occupy overnight. Just an itty bitty baby's hair under the 20,000 the manifesto had called for a motley crew camped out in sleeping bags and scavenged cardboard boxes clutching handwritten signs that say, off with their heads.

[Marissa Holmes]

And we want to hear from people here to see how we can proceed tonight.

[Dan Tabursky]

That's Holmes voice you hear talking to the crowd. She had her camera turned on pretty much the whole time.

[Michael Peligati]

This square is technically a privately owned square.

[Dan Tabursky]

They renamed Zuccotti Park, Liberty Park. And for the first few days, the occupiers are just an oddity to the financial workers passing by. Not even the weirdest thing they'd seen that day, I'm sure. But the mild vibes don't last. And we're gonna take it back. We're gonna take it back. We're gonna take it back. We're gonna take it back. It's on day eight, when protesters clash with the police, that things really take off and something happens to Holmes that makes it seem like maybe fate is on their side. Holmes is filming when a cop closes in and tries to take her camera.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

Come here.

[Dan Tabursky]

Do you want to get arrested or no?

[Michael Peligati]

Listen.

[Dan Tabursky]

So she takes the camera, still rolling, and just tosses it.

[Marissa Holmes]

I threw my camera out into the crowd. Someone caught it and kept filming. So it was this continuous shot. It was so lucky.

[Dan Tabursky]

And the camera, now in a stranger's hand, films arrest number one of Marissa Holmes, shouting her name so that other activists know who to post bail for.

[Marissa Holmes]

I just kind of trusted the crowd and it worked out.

[Michael Peligati]

Wow.

[Dan Tabursky]

80 people are arrested, and now they're making news. And the news spreads and the occupation begins to grow. And that idea of trusting the crowd, it becomes Occupy's whole mo. Even with their expanding numbers, they elect no leaders, they deputize no official spokesperson.

[Michael Peligati]

If you see anybody being arrested, if

[Dan Tabursky]

you see anybody being arrested, take out your video cameras. Take out your video cameras. They develop a call and response system. They call it the people's microphone. To communicate with the growing crowds, they create working groups. Media, legal, legal, food, food, medical. Medical comfort. To do all the things that need doing to keep the growing encampment functioning. What if it rains? What do we eat? Where do we poop?

[Michael Peligati]

I would sleep right here, actually.

[Dan Tabursky]

Oh, really? Where we're sitting?

[Michael Peligati]

Yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

Pelagati is showing me around Zuccotti Park. How many nights did you sleep here?

[Michael Peligati]

I didn't sleep here during the nights. I slept here during the day.

[Dan Tabursky]

At night, he was working a security job, and when his shift was up in the morning, he'd come back here.

[Michael Peligati]

Sometimes I went home to take a shower, but I was committed to staying here as much as I could.

[Dan Tabursky]

And his new bunkmates ran the gamut.

[Michael Peligati]

You know, we had so many groups down here. Communists, liberals, libertarians, 911 truthers, the whole gang. Oh, yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

It was a mix of people that made it feel new, that felt big.

[Michael Peligati]

Well, it was 99% versus 1%, not left versus right. That's what a lot of people miss out on.

[Dan Tabursky]

And as days stretch into weeks, donations start pouring in from supporters who like what they see on the news. Food supplies. One anonymous donor sends 125 sleeping bags. And the systems to keep it all going get more and more complex.

[Marissa Holmes]

You know, the kitchen went from like, you know, dumpstered bagels and peanut butter to, you know, four or five star meals and organic produce from upstate. And we had generators running and the fuel kept getting confiscated. So then people brought in bikes for the energy. So we had this.

[Dan Tabursky]

Like you guys used pedal power to.

[Marissa Holmes]

Yeah, for the generators.

[Dan Tabursky]

Wow.

[Marissa Holmes]

Yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

That's incredible. Now it is our time. Now it is our time. And we need to organize. They have general assemblies where the crowd can vote on how to run the encampment. Only they don't use yay or nay. What is it twinkling?

[Michael Peligati]

Up twinkles. Down twinkles.

[Dan Tabursky]

Wait, what are you doing with your hands? They wiggle their fingers in the air.

[Michael Peligati]

Up twinkles means we approve. Down twinkles means we disapprove. This means medium twinkles means I don't know.

[Dan Tabursky]

And occupation spread to other cities. Chicago, Oakland, Tulsa. Dozens of them.

[Marissa Holmes]

We are the 99%.

[Dan Tabursky]

We are the 99%. We are the99%. The Spark worked. It ignited something, and it was undeniably spreading. So point number two on Dan Taburski's 11 point manifesto on manifestos, point number one, you'll remember. You gotta get mad.

[Michael Peligati]

Check.

[Dan Tabursky]

Point number two. Think big. Like stupidly big. The odds are terrible, but if it hits the chance for a genuinely human movement, a massive one, imagine the possibilities. What did it feel like to be there?

[Marissa Holmes]

Well, it felt electric. It felt. It felt like. It felt like. Like a dream realized, you know, something that maybe you always had a sense could happen, and then you were there and suddenly it was happening and you had a chance to shape it.

[Dan Tabursky]

And now this is the moment in Occupy Wall Street. Where I started paying attention, where I and a big chunk of the country was kind of like, oh, this is actually a big deal, Potentially the biggest of deals. Regardless of whether the politics behind it make you up twinkle or down twinkle, it really had turned into a once in a lifetimer with real energy. And it seems in that moment that the occupiers might be able to make the change they want and that maybe it was worth being a part of. But remind me, what was it exactly that they wanted?

[Kale Lawson]

After we sparked it, it sort of had a momentum of its own, and we just kept on riding the tiger the best way we could.

[Dan Tabursky]

Wow. Kali Lawson and Micah Bornfree were ecstatic at what they had unleashed. They'd watched it unfold from a distance. That was the plan supporting from as far as they could. Lawson still has memorabilia from that time around. His office, from the groundswell they had started.

[Kale Lawson]

And then we came up with that poster.

[Dan Tabursky]

That one there right behind you?

[Kale Lawson]

Yeah, yeah, right behind me.

[Dan Tabursky]

It's a poster they created to go along with the text of their manifesto. A black and white image of that bull sculpture on Wall street, that symbol of capitalism, and it's being engulfed by smoke and chaos in the streets. There's gas masks and rioters. There's a ballerina dancing on the bull's head. It's total mayhem, not unlike what actually impossibly had come to pass. And at the very top of that poster, there are five words in hot pink. That one question that was the crux of the project of what they had hoped to achieve. What is our one demand?

[Kale Lawson]

And above all, what is our one demand?

[Dan Tabursky]

Yeah, tell me about that.

[Kale Lawson]

The one question that we were never able to fucking answer.

[Raza Jaffrey]

I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of the Spy who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief, General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in U.S. history. Follow the spy who now wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Betrayed the American Revolution early and ad free on audible.

[Dan Tabursky]

In 2021, a man is arrested in a Glasgow Covid ward. Police say he is fugitive Nicholas Rossi. He claims to be an Irish orphan Arthur Knight. I not Nicholas Rossi. But that was only the beginning.

[Raza Jaffrey]

Join me Jane McSorley, for I am not Nicholas.

[Dan Tabursky]

You can binge all episodes of series one and two early and ad free by joining Audible on the Audible app or Apple podcasts. Occupy Wall street, of course, wasn't the first time the ol we're gonna sit here till we get what we want method of protest has been used. I mean Gandhi. His whole philosophy of civil disobedience, it was built on occupying a space and refusing to move no matter what they do to you till your grievances are addressed. Sit ins helped break Jim Crow in the south in the 80s. The Solidarity labor movement in Poland took off when laborers occupied the very shipyards they worked in. But for sheer audacity alone, there's one occupation that I like in particular.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

They enjoyed one of the most enviable views in the world last night. 360 degrees of San Francisco Bay as seen from the center of it. They had slipped by the Coast Guard patrol and onto the island sometime during the night.

[Dan Tabursky]

And this one too had a manifesto.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

Hi, I have a proclamation I'd like to read you. We, the Native Americans, reclaimed this land known as Alcatraz island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery.

[Dan Tabursky]

In November of 1969, Richard Oakes, a Mohawk activist, led nearly 300American Indians by boat under cover of night across San Francisco Bay to occupy Alcatraz island, once home to the infamous prison and now 22 and a half acres of empty cells and unused real estate, what will

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

undoubtedly become a nightly affair. The group held the traditional POW wow, followed by chanting and dancing around a campfire between the lighthouse and the main cell block building.

[Dan Tabursky]

As far as language goes, their manifestos a real banger, completely tarred in pitch black humor.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land and hereby offer the following treaty. We will purchase said Alcatraz island for $24 in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man's purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that $24 in trade goods for these.

[Dan Tabursky]

But this manifesto had more than snark, it had demands. They demanded that the island be given to American Indians permanently. They demanded a center for Native American studies and a cultural center with training and education programs. White people welcome to.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

We will offer them our religion, our education, our life ways in order to help them achieve our level of civilization and thus raise Them and all their white brothers up from their savage and unhappy state.

[Dan Tabursky]

Their occupation had a goal beyond disruption, and they intended to hunker down until they got it.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

This land should rightfully be granted to us for as long as the river shall run and the sun shall shine. Sign in the Indians of all tribes. November 1969. San Francisco, California.

[Dan Tabursky]

How long do you feel you can stay here?

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

A man once said, till hell freezes over.

[Dan Tabursky]

Things at Zuccotti park, however, weren't quite so clearly defined. Remember, according to the original plan, it would be the people who'd answered the call. They would decide together what exactly their demands were going to be. So the group in Zuccotti park begins drafting their own angry document. This is a Declaration of Occupation of New York City.

[Michael Peligati]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

Does that look familiar?

[Michael Peligati]

That looks familiar.

[Dan Tabursky]

On September 29, 12 days in the occupiers on site in New York vote to approve their own manifesto, the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. So you remember them voting on the declaration?

[Michael Peligati]

Yes, I do.

[Dan Tabursky]

And they voted up Twinkles.

[Michael Peligati]

Yeah.

[Dan Tabursky]

How did you vote?

[Michael Peligati]

I voted up Twinkles. I thought it was a well written document.

[Dan Tabursky]

Once it was approved, they released their manifesto to the press.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

Here is formally and finally what Occupy Wall street says and wants. As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies as one people unite.

[Dan Tabursky]

We, the New York City General assembly occupying Wall street in Liberty Square, urge

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

you to assert your power.

[Dan Tabursky]

Organizers read it out to crowds across the country. This one here is being read to encampments formed in Long Beach, California. Exercise your rights to basically assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face. I mean, it is this list of. It's a really comprehensive list of. Of grievances. Right? Like this is me with Marissa Holmes, who by now had become one of the de facto leaders of the occupation. You know, obscene bonuses for executives, inequality and discrimination, poisoned the food supply, profited off torture, the continued building of weapons of mass destruction. Nothing there feels like a lot to me. And then there's an asterisk and you go to the bottom and it says, these grievances are not all inclusive. I find that remarkable, making this manifesto, in effect, an actual endless list of grievances, an evocation bullet point after bullet point after bullet point of the world they were rejecting and protesting against. But as far as what they were asking for instead, nary a demand to be had.

[Marissa Holmes]

But we were never going to have demands because demands engage with those in power and we were building autonomy. A lot of us, you know, in the assemblies, we were anarchists or autonomous, we were anti capitalist and anti state. So we thought that the system was so far gone and so corrupt that even if we did make demands that we would not win them because the system is just so far gone.

[Dan Tabursky]

And also, I wonder, is it because what they really wanted was just the big one, the big R? Was it because the thing you were asking for was so enormous that you just can't. You really were just asking for revolution?

[Marissa Holmes]

No, we were making the revolution. That's the distinction. So, like, you're not demanding, you're not asking, you're actually making it yourself. Like that's what we were doing.

[Dan Tabursky]

Do you feel that difference or does that feel semantic?

[Marissa Holmes]

No, it's very practical.

[Dan Tabursky]

Now, like I said, I didn't do shit when Occupy happened. But I will say that watching it happen was a whole other kind of experience. Cause as the days turned into weeks with no demands being made, it felt like, what is it they're actually doing there again? And things like drum circles and banjo players seemed not so much scrappy, but rather a distraction and undirected. Thanks so much for talking to me today.

[Marissa Holmes]

Hi, Steven.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

Hi.

[Raza Jaffrey]

Thank you.

[Dan Tabursky]

Like, this is from when Colbert showed up six weeks in and talk to two occupiers. All right, let's just get your names here.

[Micah Bornfree]

You are Justin.

[Dan Tabursky]

Okay. And you are Ketchup. She said her name is Ketchup. And I. I think I might have misheard that.

[Marissa Holmes]

Her name is Ketchup.

[Dan Tabursky]

And you have a last name, Ketchup?

[Marissa Holmes]

I have one I prefer not to say on camera.

[Dan Tabursky]

Okay. Are you wanted by the police?

[Marissa Holmes]

No.

[Dan Tabursky]

Are you afraid of bringing shame upon your family? Is it a difficult name?

[Marissa Holmes]

It is that I.

[Dan Tabursky]

Is it Hitler? It's not Ketchup Hitler?

[Marissa Holmes]

No, not Ketchup Hitler.

[Dan Tabursky]

For myself and the masses of people whose attention had finally been captured by that point, it was hard to see and feel the seriousness of it. For all the silliness that kept getting

[Michael Peligati]

in the way, you know, we have full on catering.

[Dan Tabursky]

Like that almost feels like too much too.

[Michael Peligati]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, I didn't get any of the catering because the lines were too long.

[Dan Tabursky]

They always are.

[Michael Peligati]

That's why I went to Steve's Pizza.

[Dan Tabursky]

In this critical juncture. In this critical juncture, even the people's microphone only seemed to amplify the unraveling we're facing. We're facing. We're facing huge challenges. Huge challenges. It was like watching a new civilization being born and their slow rise to greatness and the descent into chaos and then finally the fall all in a couple months. He'll put his hands on my goddamn body. Don't touch me. On November 15, 2011, the NYPD finally tears down the encampment at the mothership Ducati Park.

[Michael Peligati]

Let's go.

[Marissa Holmes]

Go ahead, tell your support.

[Dan Tabursky]

And that was that. It had lasted 59 days before it was over. There were protests and encampments in over 700 cities. One of the largest global movements in history.

[Michael Peligati]

I don't regret my time with Occupy Wall Street. It's just. I wish we could have. I wish we could have had a more clear message to give to people.

[Dan Tabursky]

What did you think was gonna happen?

[Michael Peligati]

Hope was gonna.

[Dan Tabursky]

Wildest dreams.

[Michael Peligati]

I hoped we would grow so big that we could take over.

[Dan Tabursky]

I know I'm not blowing your mind when I say that there's a lot of anger out there right now. And perhaps it's no great magic trick to draw it out of people when it's so close to the surface to begin with, but what's the point? What's the actual use of ginning up our fury if we aren't given anything to do with it? A way to capture the energy created, like steam and a steam engine, so it can power the change that we're looking to make. Otherwise, it's just steam in a tea kettle. It just screams and screams and screams until someone pulls the plug. The third point of Dan Tabursky's 11 point manifesto on manifestos, don't summon our anger unless you've got a plan to use it. The fact that they couldn't come up with a demand and actually sort of congeal around something substantial. This is me with Khalee Lawson again, for example, like nine years after Occupy, you guys called for like a White house siege on September 19th, on the 9th anniversary. This is in 2020, really similar to Occupy. Bring tent and stay there. And in this call for it, it says again, it says, what is our one demand? And it's. We want to collaborate with you. It's basically like submit your ideas using this form below. And I have to tell you, I saw that and I got a little bit angry because I feel the need for leadership and where is our leader and where somebody. I want somebody to point the direction, especially now. And I just wonder if you've. I wonder if there's ever a party that feels like you're abdicating that responsibility.

[Kale Lawson]

I do understand the importance of leadership, but I don't think that history works that way. It seems to me that history accumulates. Everybody, of course, in their sort of facile way of looking at the way revolutions work, they think, oh, God, it didn't work. It fizzled out. You know, you failed. I don't think we failed. You know, we politicized the whole generation of young people just like I was politicized in 1968, you know, and to me it's like, okay, 1968, okay, 2011, now what?

[Dan Tabursky]

I hate that answer. I hate that answer because it means no matter how impatient your manifesto is, whatever kind of change you're working toward, you might never get to see it. Even Big Daddy, with all its immediacy of workers unite and losing your chains. The first communist revolution didn't actually happen until 80 years later. Marx and Engels missed all the fun. Is that failure? I don't know. I guess it depends. How long of a lens do you got?

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

Federal officials today recaptured Alcatraz island from that band of Indian holdouts who invaded the island 19 months ago.

[Dan Tabursky]

In June of 1971, federal marshals removed the remaining 15 Native Americans from Alcatraz. Four women, six men, five kids. They occupied that island for almost a year and a half. And you know what happened with that list of demands that they made? They didn't get any of them. Not one failure for sure. But many credit the occupation of Alcatraz as a pivotal, if not the pivotal moment in the modern red power movement and the huge strides they made in the years that followed, including an end to the federal policy stripping sovereignty from tribal governments, giving Walter Cronkite more pleasant headlines to read.

[Unidentified Narrator/Activist]

In a White House ceremony today, President Nixon signed a bill returning to the Indians some land seized in 1906, including Blue Lake.

[Dan Tabursky]

So the best manifestos, no matter their impatience, also keep one eye on the long game, Is that it? Maybe. But for a huge swath of people, the long game has become way too long already. After Occupy, Michael Peligati began giving tours of lower Manhattan and the places where Occupy went down. When the company he was working for replaced the human guides with pre recorded tours a couple years ago, Peligati went back to working security at night.

[Michael Peligati]

When I was a security guard the first time around, I could afford to live. I could afford to go to, you know, go to wrestling shows and do nice things. I can't afford to do any of that now.

[Dan Tabursky]

Adjusted for inflation, he pretty much gets Paid the same as during Occupy 15 years ago.

[Michael Peligati]

You know, my days are. I wake up, I wake up at 9 o', clock, drive to work.

[Dan Tabursky]

I have you wake up at 9pm 9pm yeah.

[Michael Peligati]

I drive to work, I sit in a booth all night, and then I just go home and then I go back to bed. It's kind of a sad existence.

[Dan Tabursky]

Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

[Michael Peligati]

Oh, well, it is what it is.

[Dan Tabursky]

Michael Peligati still wants revolution and he thinks the chance may come sooner rather than later.

[Michael Peligati]

But I don't think it's gonna be as peaceful as Occupy was.

[Raza Jaffrey]

Why?

[Michael Peligati]

It's a lot tougher 14 years later. You know, there are desperate homeless, hungry people everywhere. And what do desperate homeless, hungry people do? They have nothing to lose. They lose it.

[Dan Tabursky]

Tick tock. That thing that Michael Peligati said, his hope that they would get so big that they would take over Central Park. I get that. To want a place of their own, bigger than a plaza on Wall street, bigger than Wall Street, Free range. To live out their own values their own way. But it's also kind of funny. That dream doesn't sound like revolution to me. To me, it sounds like what he really wanted was independence. I know for me, for every daydream that I'll one day take to the streets and lead the revolution, there's another one to peace out and go do my own thing with my own people. Separately next time. A manifesto for starting over and the people who jumped on board.

[Micah Bornfree]

Within two months, I had completed signed up.

[Dan Tabursky]

Oh, I'm moving.

[Raza Jaffrey]

I'm going.

[Kale Lawson]

Where?

[Dan Tabursky]

You guys pick a place.

[Micah Bornfree]

I'm heading there.

[Dan Tabursky]

So they hadn't even picked a place yet.

[Micah Bornfree]

How can you say no to that?

[Dan Tabursky]

I can't believe we're even having to recruit people. I can't believe that people would jump right into it. Carve out a place where people can

[Micah Bornfree]

live and be left alone. That would be really something to put on your tombstone.

[Dan Tabursky]

And as I found out, when you're on the road to just being left alone, it's surprising how many people you gotta mow down to get there. That's next time on Manifesto. Listen to Dan Tabursky's Manifesto on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dan Tabursky's Manifesto early and ad free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Dan Tabursky's Manifesto is produced by Audible Originals and Please and Thanks Productions. It's produced by Ben Goldberg and Zandra Ellen. Our fact checker is Natsumi Ajasaka. Original music mixing and mastering by Greg Martin Dan Tabursky's manifesto was written and executive produced by me, Dan Tabursky, Executive producers for Please and Thanks Productions Joel Lovell and Henry Malofsky. Managing producer for Audible is Sierra Franco Executive producer for Audible is Julia Lowery Henderson. The head of Creative Development at Audible is Kate Navin, the head of Audible Originals North America is Marshall Louie and the Chief Content Officer is Rachel Giaza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates, LLC.