Wednesday Apr 4 08:52pmWow this takes a little effort of character, but I’m willing face it, in order to help
This is beautiful and the best explanation yet for the Occupy movement
Occupation/Explanation
(Why an Occupation?)
It’s a different question than why Occupy? It has been coming up along with the hand wringing over hygiene and the dangers of camping. Many people are sympathetic to the complaints of Occupy, but are squeamish about the methods and slightly woozy from the cognitive dissonance of seeing police officers sadistically abusing peaceful protestors like it was Birmingham in 1963. I keep reading well meaning, middle-of-the-road liberals stumbling over themselves as they attempt to explain away the pepper spray and riot gear. The underlying sentiment seems to be that Occupy deserves what they get because they’ve just been protesting way too long, as though the first amendment turns into a pumpkin at midnight.
So, why an Occupation? Why upset these tweed clad, NPR listeners by exacerbating their already itchy, liberal guilt? The obvious answer that must be acknowledged is that many occupiers occupy because they are part of the human crater that was created when the top-heavy bloat in our economy collapsed on the unwashed masses three years ago. Wall Street lay squealing and wriggling on top of us, insisting that it was too big to pick itself back up and that it would only crush more of us if we didn’t hoist it back up onto its narrow pedestal. Since then Wall Street has been carefully buttressing its gilded temple to Mammon with foreclosed homes and federal loans. As a result, many occupiers don’t have to be at work on Monday and their tents might actually be their best housing option.
There is a kind of Bonus Army romance to leaving the explanation at that, but to do so would deny the power of an idea whose time has come. Occupy Wall Street was conceived of as an occupation from the outset. The graphic that ran in Adbusters over the summer called participants to “bring tent.” It wasn’t a protest that evolved into an occupation, it was meant to be a permanent fixture from day one, and herein lies the power of Occupy.
Occupy must be an occupation because only as an occupation does it reflect the bizarre distortions of the system it confronts. In every way Occupy is a genuine grassroots expression of those inalienable human rights that Wall Street has co-opted and abused. Occupy is an occupation because Wall Street itself is an occupation of our consciousness, our public spaces and resources, and our democracy.
Occupy is first and foremost an occupation because human memories are strengthened through repeated exposure, like tiny threads woven into a heavy rope. This is why Wall Street pours so much of its wealth into making advertisements and repeating them over and over and over again. It is how they make sure that we recognize their brands, that we look for them when we buy, and hold any unfamiliar logo with deep suspicion.
Occupy is an occupation for the same reason that we drive by the same billboards every day and see the same commercials on television day in and day out. It is an advertisement, and like all advertisements it points out something about ourselves that we didn’t realize was wrong until we’ve been told a hundred times. Like all advertisements it invites us to make a change in our lives for the better, but the change we are called to is not a new brand of toothpaste or a phone that is the next incremental iteration of the phone we already have. Instead we are called to change our awareness, to become more than our next purchase. We are called to change the way we see the world and how we live in it. The occupation is a daily reminder that the way we are living is not only stupid, unsustainable, morally and spiritually bankrupt, but also has dramatic human consequences.
There are dramatic ecological consequences as well. In this the occupation offers a beautiful reflection of Wall Street’s tragic abuse of the commons. It is a perfect irony that Occupy has occupied this tiny square in New York, this odd little public/private space that was offered up by a city developer in exchange for the right to further block the sun with ever taller buildings. They’ve taken this space which has been designated for public use and made it into a forum for a public discussion of how we use public resources. They have also slept, cooked, read books, danced, made music and done many of the other things that humans do when they are together.
Meanwhile, just around the corner it’s oil-spills, fracking, mountain-top removal, clear-cutting, over-fishing, sweat-shops, gun-running, and every other possible whole-sale exploitation of the shared resources of the entire planet.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stated reason for evicting Occupy from Liberty Square last month put as fine a point on this contrast as I could hope for:
“I have become increasingly concerned - as had the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties - that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community.”
Michael Bloomberg, as Keith Olberman and others have pointed out, makes a wonderful villain in the tale of our current struggle to reclaim democracy, but much more powerful in than one oligarch pretending at democracy is Occupy itself and its general assemblies, which are in fact a model for a working democracy. In all the feigned bafflement of reporters and pundits over what Occupy wants, few have thought to take the time to watch what Occupy does. Occupy gathers to make decisions as a group. They listen to one another and give everyone a chance to speak. They don’t leave anyone out and don’t favor anyone over anyone else. They are practicing a form of democracy and modeling it to the rest of us, and if they stop, I won’t know where to find democracy in this country anymore.
This is the reason for the occupation, and the reason it can never end. It can only grow because it is the rising tide of democracy in the United States. In the end we all must “Join or Die.” In the end we all must Occupy.
Occupy Boston was given orders to clear out tonight or else. On the one hand it may be a good thing since winter is coming and it’s unclear how well the protest would handle cold weather safely. There’s a new effort to help people in foreclosed homes that could use help too. Still it pisses me off that the police will once again be well-armored and armed and march in to forcibly prevent people from their constitutional right to assemble. Some of you may disagree with the encampments but I think they were genius. In the 50s & 60s and earlier, mass protests and marches were very effective at influencing opinion and bringing about positive social change. In my lifetime however there are countless marches on Washington (almost weekly events) that just seem to be par for the course, easily ignored by politicians and the news media (unless organized by a media figure like Glenn Beck or Jon Stewart). In 2004 I walked around Boston during the Democratic National Convention and was horrified that demonstrators were contained in a “free-speech zone” which was a pen under an elevated railway and surrounded by a 12-foot chainlink fence, completely invisible to the delegates and news media. How then can anyone assemble peacefully for protest when the powers that be have made it so easy to contain and sweep under the rug? The Occupy movement’s genius is bringing the protests to the doorsteps of corporations who have gained an unfair level of power in our nation’s government. The camps were not just a one day “March on [Insert Corporation Here]” that could be easily contained and ignored. You’ll remember that Occupy Wall Street was in place for more than two weeks before the mainstream media gave it any attention at all. And they were able to get their message out. For the first time in my life, topics that were verboten in political discourse in the US were being discussed widely - wealth inequality, corporate personhood, corporate welfare, workers’ rights and holding to the true ideals of democracy among them. And no, they did not come preaching solutions to all the problems but worked instead to allow many voices to be heard and discuss the options. In a way OWS may have already succeeded by getting the message out and with the public discourse reoriented I feel more optimistic about the political state of our nation than I have in years. Still, the fascistic responses of police armed like soldiers coming down to brutalize peaceful demonstrators terrifies me and makes me fear for the future as well.
Thursday Dec 8 01:22pmTuesday Nov 15 09:13pmThe police have kicked out all of the media, put a no-fly zone over the park so news helicopters can’t fly over, are arresting journalists as well as peaceful protesters, and have started to lock residents of nearby buildings inside their buildings so they can’t come out and watch the Police tear down Occupy Wall Street. And the US is supposed to be a free country? A democracy? Where is the freedom and the democracy here?
Occupy Wall Street isn’t the only one experiencing censorship and police brutality. Look at Oakland, look at Egypt, Libya, ect. This is a global movement. Regardless of what it’s called, #Occupy or otherwise. People in nearly 2000 cities around the globe are sick and tired of the status quo. And they are being criminalized, brutalized and censored when all people have the right to do exactly as they are.
This is exactly why I believe in the #Occupy movement. We are tricked into thinking we live in free and democratic countries and yet the people who are supposed to protect us beat us, and the people who we elect and are supposed to represent us lie to us. No wonder people have had enough. No wonder the world is in shambles. Every day, every time an #Occupy is attacked, my belief that we need movements like #Occupy grows stronger. They restrict our freedom of speech, they take away our right to protest, they have demolished the freedom of the press, and they criminalize us for being angry about the state of affairs. All for what? For the protection of corporate greed? The protection of the warped, perverted version of the capitalist system we have in place?
All I have to say, is fuck that. Humanity first. Humanity before profit. How was the world allowed to get this way? A small percentage of people make more money than you could spend in a lifetime, while thousands of children in other countries die every day because they can’t eat or drink clean water? Fuck that. Our governments spend more money than they have on our militaries, lend a pittance to less prosperous countries and hold that debt over them so that they can’t grow and become more prosperous and take care of their people? Fuck that. The world needs change. Humanity is suffering, the earth is suffering. We live in a consumer society on a planet that has finite resources. Soon it won’t be able to support us anymore. This is literally a life-or-death situation.
We are slowly drowning and must gather the strength to fight against the torrents and break through the surface and breathe. It’s either that or let our lungs fill with water and die. I am not ready to give up. I am not ready to allow the world to continue down this path, and it is my responsibility to stand up and try to make change. If you are content to just stand by and let humanity kill itself, then feel free to continue as you are. But if you feel that there is injustice occurring, if you feel that what is happening is wrong, you also have the responsibility to stand up. Whether or not you affiliate yourself with or even agree the #Occupy movement, it is your responsibility as a human being to rise up against inequality and injustice. Regardless of what you think of #Occupy. My mother used to tell me growing up that many things were privileges, not rights. The ability to stand up and express discontent, is a right. Occupying public space is a right. Protesting is a right. Freedom of speech is a right. Having access to shelter, food and clean water is a right. People are being denied those rights. This denial needs to be stopped and corrected.
That is why I believe in the #Occupy movement.
Tuesday Nov 15 09:10pmA funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.
First things first. The Supreme Court’s rulings that money is speech and corporations are people have now opened the floodgates to unlimited (and often secret) political contributions from millionaires and billionaires. Consider the Koch brothers (worth $25 billion each), who are bankrolling the Tea Party and already running millions of dollars worth of ads against Democrats.
Such millionaires and billionaires aren’t contributing their money out of sheer love of country. They have a more self-interested motive. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations.
Wall Street is punishing Democrats for enacting the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation (weak as it is) by shifting its money to Republicans. The Koch brothers’ petrochemical empire has financed, among many other things, candidates who will vote against environmental protection.
This tsunami of big money into politics is the real public nuisance. It’s making it almost impossible for the voices of average Americans to be heard because most of us don’t have the dough to break through. By granting First Amendment rights to money and corporations, the First Amendment rights of the rest of us are being trampled on.
This is where the Occupiers come in. If there’s a core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth poses a grave danger to our democracy.
Yet when Occupiers seek to make their voices heard — in one of the few ways average people can still be heard — they’re told their First Amendment rights are limited.
The New York State Court of Appeals along with many mayors and other officials say Occupiers can picket — but they can’t encamp. Yet it’s the encampments themselves that have drawn media attention (along with the police efforts to remove them).
A bunch of people carrying pickets isn’t news. When it comes to making views known, picketing is no competition for big money .
Yet if Occupiers now shift tactics from passive resistance to violence, it would spell the end of the movement. The vast American middle class that now empathizes with the Occupiers would promptly desert them.
But there’s another alternative. If Occupiers are expelled from specific geographic locations the Occupier movement can shift to broad-based organizing around the simple idea at the core of the movement: It’s time to occupy our democracy.
“Hey, you have the right to protest but you don’t have the right to occupy those lunch counter seats all day, especially if your skin is brown, so get out before we beat you senseless.”
“Hey, you have the right to protest, but that factory belongs to GM, so get off your asses before we beat the crap out of you.”
“Hey, you have the right to protest, but your blocking the road from Selma to Montgomery with your march. Get off the road or we’ll have to club you.”
Tuesday Nov 15 12:46pm
In the first news stories, the fact that Occupy Wall Street had a library seemed a bit whimsical, sort of like that iconic photo of a dancer perched on the back of the equally iconic statue of a charging bull. How funny! A library for a group that has no leaders and no rules? It seemed to some a contradiction in terms. Aren’t libraries all about rules and organization?
Well … no. Libraries are fundamentally about something quite different. It seems natural to me that a social movement that springs up locally and without any centralized organizing body or criteria for membership would create a library. This is an impulse so ingrained in the idea of books that people are creating tiny lending libraries to put in public places as signals that sharing books is an important act, something that creates community.
So the Occupy Wall Street movement quickly acquired a library-not because information is needed. What with Google, Twitter, Facebook, and various streaming video sites, the movement is awash in information. It’s more a way to define the community through a culturally meaningful form of sharing, a physical impulse to pass books from one hand to another. It’s what you do when you come together: you pool your books so that they can be browsed and shared. Sharing books is communal nourishment, like breaking bread.
From Barbara Fister’s excellent essay on LibraryJournal.com, “Why the Occupy Wall Street Movement Has Libraries.” (via libraryjournal) Saturday Oct 29 08:40pm
Wednesday Oct 19 10:42amThirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance
1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.
2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.
3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.
4. People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.
5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.
6. Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.
7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.
8. Don’t ask yourself if something is fair. Ask someone else—a stranger in the street, for example.
9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, as it is difficult to make oneself heard on the other side of an impressive edifice.
10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.
11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, there might not be room for a safety net if you’re the one tumbling down when it collapses.
13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.
Wednesday Oct 19 10:41amJust wanted to remind the conservative right that some dude they may know once stormed the Temple and was like, “OUT!” to all the money guys.
heh
