Occupy’s six-month birthday celebration last Saturday at Zuccotti Park was first spent in celebration: the scene was joyous with friends reuniting after winter hibernation. “Spring training” regimes were conducted. The drum circle was back, and mic checks once again created a collective voice.

But when protestors undertook a spontaneous, albeit brief, reoccupation, they were met with the most violent and unrestrained NYC police force to date. MTA buses were commandeered and over seventy arrests were made. The significance and power of the park was clear once again.

Police violence was immediately challenged with solidarity marches in New York and throughout the country on Sunday. In spite of a winter predicting our demise, Occupy is alive again this spring. Not that we were ever really dead, but since the cops evicted Zuccotti the first time last fall, OWS has been struggling to find a way of staying meaningful without the spectacle of the park. Liberty Park offered a sense of commonality, a point of access, and a feeling of empowerment that has been difficult to replicate.

In fact, as the winter approached, the occupation had already started to weaken. Social problems appeared within the park. The influx of those bearing the stigmas of long-term homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness had already created divisions, cutting across the usual lines of class, race and “mental status.” Neighborhoods and maps developed to segregate social groups, restricting movement within what was established and claimed as a space of “openness.” Just after the fall storm, a woman pushed past me rushing from one side of the park to the other, and I heard her say to a friend, “Oh noooo, we don’t want to get caught in that part of the ‘hood.’ ” That comment stuck.

Many of us felt relieved that the police closed the park – that the occupation went out with a bang, rather than slowly disintegrating in front of an increasingly disinterested television audience, suggesting the movement’s ideals as being fundamentally in conflict to the wider public.

Nonetheless, the movement did continue. The loss of the park meant that all activities became based in working groups. We moved inside to 60 Wall Street, but the conditions were less than ideal – especially once they shut off the heat and locked the “public” restrooms. By mid January, the numbers of attendees at the popular Empowerment and Education meetings had diminished to the point that the loss of our status as a working group was threatened. Participants, seemingly seeking social relationships more than social goals, easily disrupted meetings. The Occupy Student Debt Campaign spent hours dialoguing with the Mediation Working Group in hope of resolving an internal conflict that led to a member being asked to “step back.” Euphemisms aside, it turned more into “step out,” and I’ve never seen this person again. In spite of the challenge of moving forward with this member, the fallout of the conflict seemed equally difficult.

Some active members believed that openness was primary. We needed to relearn how to interrelate with people, undermining a key value would be counterproductive and not very OWS. Other, equally active, members believed that complete openness was impossible, and worse, an illusion. Those uncomfortable in certain environments would naturally self-select to leave, and those comfortable with restrictions on rejection would always find a way to run the show by refusing to conform. For many of us openness in practice could be a lose-lose proposition, in spite of the fact that it had all the appeal of a winning ideal. After all, we are the 99%.

It seemed that the majority of working groups were actively grappling with these questions throughout the winter. Conversations had turned to community agreements, step up/step back, authority and horizontality. The focus had shifted off of the corporate take over of our democracy, unsustainable inequality and the nefarious activities of the big banks. Increasingly, it seemed as if we were engaged in an impossible struggle over the meaning and conditions of one of the fundamental premises of OWS – namely that radical openness is both possible and desirable.

Many of us felt that the principle needed revision. Prefiguring a society of total openness seemed to deny the current existence of many very real problems that our actions toward social change were attempting to address. Prefiguring a future society often seemed incompatible with taking action toward creating a new one.

Were we hypocrites? Was this an admission of a certain kind of defeat?  And, if in theory there’s no way to think outside of capitalism, and if our conception of openness is restricted by capitalism, then why on earth have we been spending so much time talking? Many of us were becoming increasingly frustrated by endless talk, and wanted to get down to some action.

By way of compromise, Occupy University meetings were divided:  two hours for talk that had no specific purpose, but could be purposeful nonetheless, and two hours for talk that had ends in mind. What could not be resolved by conversation was ultimately resolved through attrition, as members simply drifted, and the people who simply had the wherewithal to keep showing up ended with a the consensus. Is this really openness? It felt like the best we could hope for, so we carried on, sensing that our struggle might be more important than anything we created in the end.

In many ways the distraction of the Battle of Oakland came as a welcome relief. But once a proposed solidarity statement was circulated stating support for a “diversity of tactics” strategy, the Battle of Oakland seemed to expose a new problem with openness as practiced. Many of us believed that OWS was fundamentally a non-violent movement, and even with all this talk of openness, it came as a shock that it might not be possible to denounce violence without compromising this ideal. If we’re open, then we must be open to a “diversity of tactics.” But what about the idea that if we’re open, we cannot be open to violence, since it’s the ultimate way of closing everything down? But violence comes in many forms – it can be economic and psychological; why should we focus on the form of violence used by the victims of economic violence? Maybe some of that’s true as a matter of metaphor, but as a matter of definition, violence is physical. But that’s only because of who gets to define. Such was the conversation, and it became clear that many activists would leave the movement if violence were denounced. It was equally clear, however, that many would leave if non-violence were not practiced.

The conversation continued at The Winter of our Discontent event sponsored by The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU and The New School. Former SDS member and New School Liberal Studies Department Chair, Jim Miller, came out of the gate by challenging the panel to take a stand against violence. But instead, David Graeber, the admired intellectual hero of the movement, disclosed his own involvement with black blocs. But, I wonder if it will be David Graeber or the young black kid brave enough to participate in a march, who will be the one to do time?

What sort of openness are we really talking about? Here, class and race intersect, but end up in the pile of other easily brushed off accusations that OWS is elitist, just another version of the same old thing, a different form of special interest, and not really the 99%. When a young woman took the mic and challenged the ideology of the 99%, arguing that compassion is also needed for the 1%, as they are equally held hostage to capitalism, the audience laughed and many of the panelists who were just espousing openness scoffed. Radical openness? Not so much. Personally, I’m okay with that. Sometimes, ideas are incompatible with each other, and there’s almost always a gray zone. For me, openness seems to be an ideal that can serve different masters. Are there any ideals that automatically create freer or more equal or better material conditions in any real way?

In spite of what seems to be an ideological impasse, a sizable group of us have continued to work on projects and build important ties. For us, the problems that OWS addresses are multifaceted, sometimes indescribable, but completely necessary. For us, continuing to grapple with inconsistencies is the path toward a truly democratic society. Fundamentally, we believe that people do have power. Call us idealists, but we believe that a better world is within our grasp. Our evidence is that Occupy Wall Street has already changed the national discourse on inequality, foreclosures, student debt and democracy. Our evidence is that the movement has remained non-violent and the + Brigade emerged out of the “diversity of tactics” crisis. Occupy University has launched our first course: Studying May Day and the General Strike, and Occupy Student Debt Campaign is organizing a national day of action on April 25^th.  Surely, issues around openness will continue to arise.

Now that spring has arrived, the movement seems stronger than ever.  It seems likely that the issues around openness will be addressed in practice, as we collectively envision and challenge our future.

Today is Labor Day in the U.S. In practice, for most Americans, the primary significance of the day is as the unofficial last day of summer. I just went for a long swim in my outdoor pool, which closes today.

There are also political and union activities on the labor theme, marking the official reason for the holiday. Thus, President Obama gave a speech today in Detroit to a union gathering, previewing the themes of his long awaited address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, addressing the concerns of organized labor.

This September date as a workers holiday was originally chosen by the Central Union of New York in 1882. It is strange that the rest of the world celebrates May 1^st as the international day of labor, marking the Haymarket Affair of 1886, a scandalous labor conflict in Chicago. During the cold war, the U.S. even officially designated May 1^st as “loyalty day.” The contrast with the practice of the Soviet Union and its allies was essential. The American Labor Day, though, has an equally serious origin. It became a national holiday after the violent events surrounding the Pullman Strike of 1894. American indeed has an important and rich labor history.

I think it is unfortunate that American labor’s celebration is out of sync with the rest of the world. We commemorate alone, which weakens the power of the ritual. Nonetheless, especially now, when labor issues are so central, as President Obama indicated in his speech, it is important to take notice. I recall some previous Deliberately Considered posts.

Rachel Sherman’s “Domestic Workers Gain Visibility, Legitimacy” noted an advance in labor legislation in the state of New York. She highlighted the achievements of the Domestic Workers Union to agitate and achieve some fundamental rights in the new legislation, concerning overtime, vacation leave and protections against sexual and racial harassment. As she also observed the place of American domestic workers in the global economy and the connection between class and gender, she celebrated the work of the union in empowering its members, through educational programs, research and protecting them from abusive employers.

In her reflections upon her play commemorating another key moment in labor history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Cecilia Rubino commemorates the role women workers played in the early American labor movement, mourns the deaths of the victims of the fire and notes how following this catastrophe the citizens of New York demanded and helped enact significant labor, health and safety legislative reforms.  Further, “public outrage over the event galvanized the progressive movement and women’s suffrage, and went on to instigate many of the most important reforms of the New Deal.”

These two posts remind us that unions have played an important role in our history and are still playing the role. There are powerful forces seeking to forget this, as Vince Carduccci’s post on the murals in Maine’s Labor Department explains.  Governor Paul LePage, the Tea Party Governor of the state of Maine, really did remove murals commemorating key events in Maine’s labor history because he viewed them as being biased, i.e., pro labor. Even more striking, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, along with other Republican governors, has actively tried to disempower public employee unions.  We had a first row seat view of the early rounds of the political conflict over labor rights in Madison, Wisconsin, in reports by Anna Paretskaya and Chad Goldberg. One of the most important issues in the upcoming elections will revolve around this conflict.

And as we think about this issue, we can turn to some “new music.” In his two posts thus far (more coming soon), Daniel Goode reflects on the problematic status of new music in our cultural landscape. But by analyzing this, he works against the trend. And I am happy to report that in his “We’ve Been Demoted – Part II, you can find not only his reflections on the struggle of new music composers to find an audience, but you can also listen to his composition, which confronts Wisconsin labor politics. Note that the audio file of this work is now available on the post, and can also be heard below.

In my next review post, I will address the issue of cultural freedom, as it appeared this past week on music and politics. Here we close with a video of the President’s speech in Detroit, more on these issues later in the week.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“We heard an explosion, through the shattering glass

We looked up at the Asch building

A bundle of cloth came flying out the window

On the way down it opened up in the wind

It was a girl, it was girl.”

(From the Fire)

Today is May Day, “el Dia del Trabajo,” a day in which work and workers are honored around the globe. Today in particular, five weeks after the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, we remember the 146 immigrant workers, most Jewish and Italian girls, who died trying to escape flames that roared through the upper floors of the Asch building, a garment factory near Washington Square. Trapped behind locked doors, many never had the chance to escape. Others jumped out the windows, some hand-in-hand, their hair and clothes aflame.

Saturday, March 25, 1911 was a clear, early spring day. Crowds of New Yorkers strolled in Washington Square and on the streets of the lower East Side. Suddenly at 4:45, many looked up and saw smoke billowing from a ten story building on Green Street and Washington Place. Hundreds rushed to the scene. One observer said he thought the factory owner was trying to save his best cloth by throwing bundles of fabric from the ninth floor. He and so many others realized in horror that they were seeing not bundles of cloth falling from the windows but girls — girls in flame, girls who were landing in broken heaps on the sidewalk in front of them. The fire which lasted less than half an hour, made these invisible immigrant workers suddenly starkly visible.  Photographs of the mangled bodies were printed in the morning newspapers but still thousands came to view the open coffins lined up in rows on ‘Misery Lane,’ the makeshift morgue set up on the peer at 26^th Street.  Some were family and friends desperately searching for missing loved ones but most wanted to just see the dead with their own eyes. Ocular proof.

New Yorkers felt that they knew these shirtwaist makers. They were the girls who dared to strike, the girls dared to stand up for themselves by standing in the streets through the bitter winter of 1909/1910 to advocate for better working conditions. Everyone in the city felt implicated and responsible for these preventable deaths at Triangle. One in ten New Yorkers lined the streets of Manhattan to watch the procession of the horse drawn caskets with the last unknown victims on a rainy April morning.

There are so many tragedies, so many workers die everyday, why remember this one event from 100 years ago? We remember the tragedy at Triangle because it directly followed the Uprising of the 20,000, the first significant strike by women in history. Many of the girls who died at Triangle were the same teenagers who took to the streets of Manhattan. They had the same simple demands as workers in Chicago who filled Haymarket Square in 1886 on May Day, calling for a 52 hour work week and decent wages. And both of these viral, impromptu strikes continue to be echoed in the current uprising by young people in the Middle East, young people who have nothing to lose, who simply know they have the human right to seek equity and justice.  We remember Triangle because the people of the City of New York, many of whom saw the tragedy unfold in front of their own eyes, said this can never happen again here, and they passed laws in the state legislature, which created real labor and health and safety reforms. Public outrage over the event galvanized the progressive movement and women’s suffrage, and went on to instigate many of the most important reforms of the New Deal. There’s so much inherent injustice that we all know needs to change, and we need to keep examining moments when the gears of history actually shift. What’s inherent in the story of Triangle is that every individual human life is more important than anything we can produce. It’s a story that needs to be told again and again, and one that every generation encounters in its own way.

In honor of the centennial of Triangle, I had the privilege of creating a new performance piece called, FROM THE FIRE, with the wonderful composer, Elizabeth Swados, the poet, Paula Finn, and set designer, Bonnie Roche. A century later, workers continue to face perilous conditions in an unregulated global market place, and our hope was not to romanticize the tragedy but to again honor and celebrate the lives of these very ordinary, working women and men who instigated so much change. The piece, which performed at Judson Church in March and will be featured today on WNET Channel 13’s Sunday Arts Program at noon. (It can also be seen online here.) And it will travel to the Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival in August, though we’ve been asked, ‘Why Scotland? This should go to Wisconsin!’

For more information see trianglefromthefire.com