I appreciate every letter and article that states a positive goal of Occupy. What is often missing in Occupy so far is a clear message of one thing they are for, not many things they are against. Studies indicate that the chronic unemployment in the face of corporate profits and expansion is indicative of another wave of mechanization. Whereas robots took many of the industrial and manufacturing jobs, now electonic devices are taking many of the local jobs that could not be outsourced, like the check out line cashier and the postal worker. A positive message on this would be that it is up to the consumer to make the difference. Refuse to use a self check line, wait a little bit in line so that someone can have a job! Have your bank send out a statement by mail, even if you bank online! Watch for chances to exercise your consumer power! Large banks with inappropriate influence in DC control most of our savings. Switch your savings to small, local credit unions that do not pay lobbyists and candidates and do not ask for bailouts when they fail. One of the candidates for president said that occupy protestors should not ask the wealthy to give more, they should become wealthy. Although it is not likely that we can all be wealthy, we can all support one another by buying locally made or grown products and by trying to produce something locally for our neighbors to use. Much of the pollution that contributes to climate chaos is produced by the transporting, warehousing and distributing of products from far away. I have worked in the Philippines to assist poor farmers in methods of natural production that reduce pollution and raise the yield of their small plots. My mentor Father Begnino Beltran direct markets the surplus yield to the poor in the cities, making both poor farmes and city dwellers self sufficient and more prosperous. He will speak and show a power point on his method of empowering the poor while reversing pollution and climate chaos at the Veterans Memorial Building Monday, November 14th at 7pm, admission free!
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It seems to me, Lane, that I’m right back where I started in 2003. What is the positive goal of Occupy? What was the positive goal of Arlington West? And what string of causes and effects turn our actions into a process that will be likely in a strategic manner to achieve those goals?
No matter how many times I find myself here its always the same thing. There is enormous work involved in making meaningful positive social change, and protesting and hanging out in the parks is not doing that work.
In 2003 I predicted that Arlington West would not be successful in stopping or altering the course of the War and was shut down, silenced, and shut out by you and others. so determined was everyone to march on with the protest and manner and modus operandi of it that nobody was up for the discussion of what meaningful strategy towards change would really consist of. Time After time I pleaded, begged, cajoled, put forth work that was ignored, Even as I carried out crosses and flags and played taps on my Clarinet, I was persona non grata. To be tolerated, but not listened to. Brushed Aside and placated, Used for time and energy and then thrown under the bus where my ideas or more intellectual contributions were concerned.
History has a habit of recycling over and over until the lesson is learned. The Occupy has not done its homework, and it doesn’t want to do its homework. The Veterans for Peace may consist of older and more mature people in general, but the problem is still the same. Nobody actually listens to people like me as I put forth the real solutions. Nobody wants to take the time and energy to actually STOP THE MADNESS. Its too important to have the drama, too important to have the noise, Too important to make that next headline in the paper (so we hope…) And not nearly important enough to Check ourselves into a direct democracy and science centered problem solving process.
As I struggle once again for lucidity, for sanity, for a path of right action, with everyone else sure I’m just easier to ignore, I’d like to again make the point. It would be nice to have REAL allies in this work, to have people I could depend on in my effort to save the humans, and people to make it happen. It could happen so very quickly with so few people. Or, Never, at all, playing symbolic protest games with tents or crosses or Guy Fawkes masks.
I spent all week working on Workshop Presentations only to find out that nobody is behind me or taking it seriously.
Maybe the Veterans for Peace can make good on the work trade they would owe me for dozens of hours of time I gave them for symbolic gestures and come help with the wiki, so that I can make a case, both to the anarchists and the police, that this can all of it be non violent and evolutionary instead of confrontational and caste war.
Or …maybe not…I’m trying to stop having any positive expectations or hopes, because humans pretty much always prove that i can never underestimate their propensity to mis prioritize whats really important.
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Non_Violence_Theory,_Practice,_Ethics,_and_Protest_Communication
I shouldn’t have to do this alone.