99% Rising Up!- A Non-Violent Occupation

You may not know because of the media blackout, that the US is occupied by non-violent protesters who are taking back the US from the major corporations!  It of course started with

Occupy Wall street

23 days ago.  If you have watched Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore this is basically what he called for at the end of his rather damning indictment of Wall Street.  By last week it had spread to LA, Chicago, Seattle, etc.  But still a handful of cities –but then it exploded!  By Sat. 70 major cities and 600 communities were occupied.  Today the website: occupytogether.org (the central organizing website) lists over 1300 communities (go there to check for occupation closest to you!)

Here is a beautifully written story about the Occupy Wall Street demonstration.  http://www.nationofchange.org/we-danced-waiting-police-who-never-came-1318262783  The previous Saturday when 700 protesters where (misled) onto the Brooklyn Bridge by police and then sat down – 700 were arrested making is the largest act of mass act of civil disobedience in decades.  The media has gone from a total black out to what I would now call circus reporting – which is to go and focus on the strangest people there or other ways of trivializing what is going on.  For accurate reports one can go to Facebook/occupywallstreet or one can also find lots of live footage on youtube.

The Groups across the country are committed to a “horizontal process” by which they mean non-hierarchal and consensus based decision making.  Every day they have a “general assembly” where they make decisions.  The Occupy Wall Street group has written a beautiful “Declaration of Occupation”  (Despite the media’s claim that they have no focus and are protesting for “everything”.  I think the media is having a bit of hard time understanding how globalization and corporate personhood has far ranging impacts.)  Click here to read their statement  http://occupyseattle.org/resource/official-statement-occupy-wall-street

A unifying slogan of groups across the country is “We are the 99%” referring to the fact that 1% of the population control 60% of the wealth in this country.

I did go down to Occupy Seattle on Friday (which is at the plaza on the corner of 4^th and Pine).  Unfortunately, Seattle’s general assembly is now happening every day at 6:30 which is when our family eats dinner, so I have not been able to go to a general assembly.  But I did participate in a mini march from the mall to city hall the protest the 10^th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan – how very, very sad.  I also went to one of the many committee meetings that were taking place (they have committees for legal, first aid, food, safety, donations, webpage, etc.).   These tend to meet at 4pm.   I went to the outreach committee, responsible for helping bring more people in.   Because the city will not allow them any microphones or amplification, in order to hear each other they have established a process whereby when someone is recognized by the facilitator to speak they say:  “I have a proposal”  then the group echoes back “I have a proposal”   “that we contact union 47” “that we contact union 47”   It works, but boy if Quakers think consensus if slow….imagine having to repeat everything in small bites, so everything is said twice and then agree!  The one advantage I see this has is that it really discourages long winded people!

While I was there the outreach committee decided they would take to General Assembly, the decision to adopt the Wall Street declaration and come up with our own set of local demands.  Tonight, I understand that will be acted on.

Seattle is a city of rain and the occupation here has been kept alive by people being willing to sleep in the park overnight!  The liberal mayor is allowing them to stay, but last Wed after a week or so, made the police arrest anyone who would not pack up their tent.  So they are having to sleep out without tents.  The mayor has opened up a vacant lot behind city hall for them to sleep in at night and has allowed the “organizing canopy tent” to stay up overnight.  For those of you local – there is a list of things on their website that they need to keep going – please consider buying some of those things and bring them down.  On Friday I brought toilet paper and trash bags and packing tape – now their needs are different.  They are taking turns sleeping in the park without tent while others sleep at city hall.  There are a series of small protests that go out every day from the site to other sites.

When I came home Friday and talked about it my husband said:  “Well this is good, but how will it change things?” Without stopping to think the first words out of my mouth was:  “Well it will certainly make it harder for people in Congress to dismantle Social Security and Medicaid with the cities of the US occupied – harder to not pass the Job’s bill.”   But then this began to percolate in me more when I learned the next day that really truly 600 communities were occupied.  I realized that the word “demands” which is often used by protesters in a way which is a bit grandiose in the sense that we are rarely in a position to demand anything, was actually appropriate here.  I realized that in fact if every Congress person has cities in their district “occupied” with citizens and voters who are fed-up and not taking no for an answer – you actually are in a position to demand change.  Activists have been saying for 4 years that no real change will come out of DC unless there is a movement – well now there is one!  So I realized “hmmm, how long till it is so big that a nation wide general strike can be held.   So I started focusing in earnest on demands.  Below is my not all inclusive list.  (Please respond with your additional ideas).  I have to say there was a freedom in writing this to ask for things we really want that I have rarely felt in my life….try it you will really enjoy it.

Demands

1. An End to Corporate Personhood
2. An increased tax on the wealthiest 2% of America
3. A 6 month wind down to the Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan , Libya and Korea = zero US soldiers occupying those countries.
4. With the “war savings” restore human services to their previous highest level and pay down the national debt- taking our descendants out of debt.
5. A jobs bill that spends money on infrastructure and puts American’s to work
6. An end to subsidies for oil and coal.
7. A subsidy for Alternative energy so we can really get it going.
8. Cancel all consideration of the Tar Sands Pipe Line
9. Set Carbon goals for the US that will aggressively move us to 350 parts per million carbon and sign international treaties to this effect.
10. Abolish the Federal Reserve
11. Create a State Bank in every state.
12. End the illegal foreclosures, refinance all predatory loans.
13. Enforce Corporate monopoly laws
14. Break up Montsanto and Blackwater and the 3 Media monopoly stranglehold
15. Create real Net neutrality
16. Create universal health care in the US
17. NO cuts to Social Security and Medicare- ever
18. Stop producing weapons of mass destruction and immediately begin the unilateral disarmament of the US
19. End the death penalty
20. Reinstate the Glass-Stegall Act

For those of you who know the actor Wallace Shawn, he was interviewed at Occupy Wall Street and said: "I don't know about other people, but I only have one life, so I don't want to live it in a sewer of injustice.  Life is short – it is time to make it count."  These comments remind me of Joanna Macy who is talking about the time of “great turning” that our society is in says:  “What an exciting time to be alive”.  I could not agree more!