I've been back in LA for over a week, back in the hotel I stayed in last month. The day before I left Phoenix, LAPD dismantled the OccupyLA camp, and arrested a couple hundred folks in the process. My first few days here I walked past the now-empty park, empty that is except for the cement blocks and chain-link fencing put up to restrict access to that area, with signs threatening that trespassers will be arrested. With a couple of officers hanging around in front the first couple of mornings, the scene was a powerful symbol of the assertion of the will of the police state over that of a peaceful populist movement. I couldn't help but think that they may have won this battle, but the war is just beginning!
Since the Occupiers have been repressed in most every major city by now, it is interesting to see the shift in strategy that is now emerging. Instead of congregating in public places where it is easy to use force to disrupt their activities, Occupiers are now starting to spread out, to occupy foreclosed properties, to infiltrate into neighborhoods, in a sense to turn it into guerilla warfare. It will be much more difficult for Big Brother to figure out where they all are and devote the manpower needed to remove them from those places safely and securely. The foreclosed properties legally belong to the banks, so this is literally taking some of this property back from them. Assuming this idea spreads to the point that the number of occupied properties becomes annoying to the banksters, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. For now, at least, some people will hopefully find some homes for themselves that they wouldn't otherwise have. Even if they have to live off the grid, or pirate electricity somehow, it's better than sleeping on the streets as winter rolls around.
The other thing I kind of expect to see more of is the "flash mob" type of activity where a bunch of people suddenly converge on a particular place and cause a commotion by engaging in some kind of pre-planned activity. This can be something innocuous or even positive, say, singing a song or doing something amusing. A video of a musical performance in the Copenhagen train station that I saw awhile back is a cool example, although that was too orchestrated to really be called a mob. In contrast, Occupier mobs could be used to be disruptive, to engage in some kind of civil disturbance that was not destructive, messing up traffic flow being an easy example to think of. Imagine 15 people showing up at each of x number of intersections in a busy downtown area and stopping traffic in all directions. By the time cops got on the scene to try to deal with them, the mob could disperse, heading off in all different directions to make it hard to track all or even any of them down. Or picture a big department store, one of lots of big department stores in some city, where all of a sudden at a pre-appointed time a bunch of people scattered throughout the store surreptitiously pull a black mask over their face and start yelling at all the other patrons to get out of the store, herding everyone together, moving them towards the exit, clearing everyone out and then following them out, removing their masks, and quickly getting lost in the crowd as they disperse.
The point is this: if they are creative, the Occupiers could easily find ways to be annoying to the power structure without being destructive in any way that would warrant or justify a violent response from the authorities; if they are clever, they would find ways to do this that would garner the sympathies of the general public rather than causing alienation. I'm not sure it will get to that point, I really have no idea if the movement is strong enough to maintain some kind of coordinated action in the face of their physical dispersal. I remain optimistic, not just that there is enough momentum in the movement to keep it going, but that more and more people are getting a better understanding of what is going on in the world, such that more and more of them will see some reason and value in the Occupiers' positions and demands. If and when the general public gets on board with the major thrusts of the Occupy movement, then we might to start to see some concrete changes to deal with the issues they've raised. Until then, I guess we are left to appreciate largely symbolic acts like the unanimous vote by the LA City Council to support a constitutional amendment that would negate the "corporate personhood" ruling made by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case last year. There are rumblings in Congress now of such an amendment, but the process of getting an amendment ratified would likely take awhile, so there isn't much short-term leverage with that strategy. But it is certainly a step we should be taking one way or the other.
Despite all the above, my best guess is that the Occupy movement will in a sense be swallowed up by the enormity of the events that I believe are just beyond the horizon. The global financial/monetary system remains on the brink of collapse, with the eurozone still struggling to figure out how to deal with its immediate problems and the rest of the world waiting to see how Europe's problems are going to reverberate globally. Even when people compare our current situation to the Great Depression, I don't think anyone can really anticipate what the scale and impact of this collapse could be, and how it really could mean the end of the system as we know it, with a need to implement new approaches and mechanisms and rules for distributing resources around the world. It is really easy for humans to assume that the future will be more or less like the past, since it usually is. But that ignores the possibility of discontinuous change, which happens occasionally in all sorts of different types of systems. A main point of my teaching over the last 15 years is that we need to be getting ready for discontinuous change, because it is on its way. Whatever the bad news associated with whatever hardships result from the coming collapse, the good news is that humans will have the opportunity to make significant changes in the nature of our economic system, one devoted to enhancing the well-being of the other 99% along with that of the top one percent. Riane Eisler has written about the requirements for what she calls a "caring economy," and plenty of other folks have suggested useful steps to take to create a more life-affirming economy. So it's not like there aren't good ideas out there to try. It's a matter of having people in places of power being willing to put them into practice.
It looks instead like those in power now are going to try to hang on to the old system as long as they can, including preparing for dealing with massive social upheaval likely to result from a sustained collapse. Three events that happened nearly concurrently last week are making plenty of people a little nervous. First, the Senate passed, with a vote of 93-7, the National Defense Authorization Act, S.1867, which apparently authorizes the military to detain indefinitely American citizens on American soil if they are deemed to be a terrorist threat. This entails a subtle but significant change to standing law, which may in fact violate the Constitution but at a minimum constitute further erosion of our Constitutional liberties. The Senate and House I guess are now working on their joint/compromise bill that they will send to the President for signing or veto.
Second, in the UK the City of London police included the OccupyLondon folks on a list of domestic terrorists they sent out. If the American government chooses to do the same thing, then Occupiers could be detained as such and turned over to the military to be held where, when, and for as long as they want. I've read that Obama has threatened to veto the defense bill, not because of any problem with limiting the Constitutional liberties of American citizens (one Senator has even claimed that it was the White House that wanted the "indefinite detention" part of the bill included), but because he didn't want to be bound by the Geneva conventions any longer! Wouldn't surprise me if that were true...
The third thing that had weird coincidental timing with the Senate vote on the NDAA was the fact that Alex Jones, one of the top "alternative media" guys in the country, maybe the world, was given a document which he then shared with his audience indicating that the company KBR - a subsidiary of Halliburton - had just put out a call for subcontractors to help staff and outfit a number of detention camps that the company had apparently helped build a few years ago, in five regions of the country:
http://siasatpak.blogspot.com/2011/12/alex-jones-show-7-december-2011-kbr.html
This corresponds to a recent job announcement by the Army recruiting for the position of "Internment Specialist," which includes responsibility for dealing with civilian detainees. In other words, there are little signs that TPTB are prepping for a situation in which they would need/want to detain lots of people for whatever reason. It could be they anticipate riots of the kind seen in lots of other parts of the world, especially if a collapse brings suddenly rising food prices, widespread loss of jobs, cash scarcity, and/or other likely consequences. Maybe they have contingency plans to round up all the dissidents they can find and make them "disappear," which has been a favorite tactic of fascists and other authoritarian regimes throughout the last century. (Radical academics are frequently included on those lists, so if I disappear someday, you'll know who "disappeared" me!) Who knows what their intentions are, what specifically they're planning for, but I think the relevant point is that they seem to be preparing for more rather than less instability and disorder, and like the repression of the Occupy encampments, they will inevitably use force and violence to maintain as much control as they can.
With all this craziness in the world, I feel a little like I'm watching the dramatic, climactic final scenes of a movie I've been watching for 15 years. When I started watching, I had a vague sense of how the movie is supposed to end but not really any clue as to how or when it will reach that predicted conclusion. While each day that passes advances the movie a few frames, it takes lots of frames to cover a scene of any length, so lots of days continue to pass even as we are in the middle of this scene and don't know yet how it is going to end. Having been watching the movie pretty carefully for awhile now, it sure seems like the plot line includes this economic collapse which now seems imminent, and that it would take some kind of extraordinary, miraculous even, intervention to avoid that ending. But this systemic collapse may not really be the end of the story, rather it may simply be the Director's set-up of the soon-to-be-released sequel, the next chapter in the saga telling the story of how the human race, in responding to the collapse, are able to transcend their limited consciousness to find ways of working together that enable them to develop a happier, healthier, more peaceful and just society. My best guess is that this sequel will be something like a sci-fi movie, in the sense that the action takes place on a galactic scale, involving creatures from more than one planet and star system. I have a feeling it will be a much more enjoyable movie than the one we're watching come to an end!
On the more mundane day-to-day level, things are getting busy for me now, as I am actively looking for an apartment to move into, aiming to buy a new car to replace my 15 year old Celica, preparing the syllabus for an undergrad class on International Development I'm teaching for the first time this spring, and generally getting ready to transition back into what is supposed to be something like "normal" life. I'm not really expecting life to be very normal for awhile, but I have to at least plan on getting into a routine that will enable me to face twenty undergrads at 10 AM two times a week with enough preparation to be able to lead an effective two-hour class session. My point is, I am distracted enough with other things that I will probably be posting more blog entries here only if/when events in the world warrant or compel a comment on my part.
So, this isn't really the end of this blog necessarily, but it is sort of the end of my own commitment to the original intention I had, to report on my experiences downtown as part of the OccupyLA movement. For that reason, this feels a bit like a closing entry to me, and thus I'm going to end with some words of wisdom I came across in something I read the other day. To my mind, it is as good a statement as any about the shift in consciousness humans need to make in order to move beyond our current problems and transcend into the better future that awaits us:
"Simply put, when you look for the purpose of life, commence from the fact that there is only the One God that all life exists within. That will, so to say, clear the decks where the different religions are concerned as no particular one as opposed to another, can correctly claim to be the only one holding the truth. That having been said, you have infinite life and are not your body but change your form each time you incarnate. However, your soul which is your godspark is indestructible and grows through evolutionary experience, and is forever reaching out to the higher dimensions and eventually the Source of All That Is. If you can accept that these are truthful statements, it will give you the basis to expand upon and become more enlightened."
Luz y amor para todos,
Pedro
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Police action
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday and avoided any injuries in the mad Black Friday shopping rush. I've been in Sun City, AZ this week visiting my parents, along with my sister and her two kids (although my nephew was here only a day before heading off to his father's wedding in Flagstaff and then back to college in Texas). Our day got off to a good start with a Packers win over the Lions to remain undefeated, followed by a nice big, traditional Thanksgiving dinner and then a couple games of dominos. The rest of our time has been dominated by more eating, chatting, and watching football, as there isnt much motivation among any of us to go out and do things other than hang out at home. I will be here until Wed., when I fly back to LA and plan to return to the downtown hotel I've been staying in for the past month. I figure I will stay there as I start searching for an apartment and looking for a new car, two activities I hope to complete in December so that I have time to get settled and reorganized prior to the start of spring semester classes in January.
Reports from OccupyLA are that the camp is going to be evicted next week, although the city has apparently indicated that it will give the Occupiers 72 hours notice before coming in to tear down the camp. There have been some conversations between city officials and OLA representatives about finding an alternative space for the Occupiers to stay in, with reports of an offer for space in an office building somewhere as well as some empty spaces where they could set up a camp, grow food, and presumably stay indefinitely. Information on the OLA website suggested that some Occupiers were not happy that others were involved in these negotiations, and now I think the General Assembly has decided not to make any move and instead force the police to force them out of their City Hall encampment. This makes sense to me, as I think one of the primary benefits of this movement, if not necessarily an explicit intention, is exposing the repressive tactics of our government and clarifying that things aren't all that different in America than they are in all the other countries where the government uses force and violence to quiet if not eliminate the voice of dissension reflected in a populist protest movement. While Wall Street and the banksters are the primary focus of the Occupiers anger and demands for reform, an equally troubling aspect of life in the US over the last decade is our slow creep towards fascism and the imposition of a police state. As one of the signs at the OLA camp says, the police are the defenders of the 1%, and to the extent that they carry out the wishes of the rich and powerful to quell the protest movement, they are as much a part of the problem as the banksters themselves.
LA Occupiers have acknowledged that their relationship with the city government and LAPD has been pretty good, and that the city has all in all been fairly supportive of the movement. But if, in the end, they act like all the other cities and PDs around the country that have forcibly removed protestors from their encampments, it will render any previous goodwill all but meaningless and expose them as people with power using that power to keep the powerless in their place. America is demonstrating that we have evolved to the point where our Constitutional rights to assembly and free speech exist only to the point that we agree not to cause any inconvenience to those with power. I mean, the whole concept of a "free speech zone," which has been around for a few years now, is indicative of how these rights have been abridged over the years. When government tells us where and when we can assemble and speak our minds freely, and prevents us from doing so when it doesn't fit into their version of what is appropriate or tolerable, then we have in fact already lost those rights. These rights are supposed to be "inalienable," as Jefferson argued in the Declaration of Independence, which means they are rights that exist independent of any government, and that should not be abridged by any government. By trying to limit these rights, by specifying when and where we can exert them, those in power are aiming to renege on the freedoms that our founding fathers tried to embed in the Constitutional republic form of government they created for the new American nation. It seems to me that this should be troubling to all Americans, but it is clear that there are plenty of folks who think it is OK for government to crack down on the protestors and prevent them from acting on their Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms in order to maintain the peace and quiet and calm and order of business as usual.
Maybe I'm sounding kind of alarmist here, turning into a black-and-white issue something that really should be analyzed in terms of shades of gray. Maybe. But maybe not. History suggests that countries - eg Nazi Germany- can step-by-step move towards greater and greater fascism while the people sit around and tolerate it because each of those steps looks reasonable under existing circumstances and doesn't seem to be a very big deal in the grand scheme of things. So, if the police use pepper spray in the process of making it easier to drag the Occupiers out of their camps, we shouldn't be too concerned because (pick your rationalization) a) it is necessary to prevent the protesters from becoming violent, b) it is better than using guns and bullets, c) the protestors deserve it since they are trouble-makers and anarchists, or d) as Fox News' blonde bimbo Megyn Kelly argues, pepper spray is just a food product anyway, so what's the big deal?! (I signed the online petition demanding that dear Megyn get pepper-sprayed, so that she can experience first hand just how tasty it really is!)
When police start to routinely use pepper spray, tasers, rubber bullets, batons, and other violent, riot-squad tactics on peaceful, passive, defenseless, law-abiding citizens whose only "crime" is exerting their Constitutional rights at a time and place to the disliking of those in power, there is something fundamentally wrong in this country and Americans should bloody well recognize that this is one more sign of a subtle shift in society reflecting our steady progress down the road to fascism. and it's not just the protestors. Police regularly use violence on citizens in situations where it is unnecessary and/or unwarranted. Just this week, a 61 year old man in Virginia, disabled and hard of hearing, fell off his bike in a parking lot. An onlooker, fearing he was drunk, called the police, who arrived as the man was riding away. When the cops called after the man, he didn't respond, so when one of them saw him take something out of his pocket and put it in his mouth (good god, a piece of candy maybe!), he decided to taze the poor fellow! The guy falls off his bike again, and by the time they get him to the hospital, he's dead. Well done, Mr. Police Officer. Killing an old deaf guy just because you thought he was ignoring you, and put something in his mouth that you didn't know what it was.
And there's another story this week of a cop tasing nine times a guy who he already had in handcuffs. They figure that since the guy stopped twitching after the seventh shock, that he was probably already dead for the last two. Seriously, how have we reached the point where police officers in the normal course of doing their duty think it is reasonable and appropriate to use violence as the first course of action on people? These are not isolated incidents -- I read stories like this all the time, enough of them that I've even thought it would be worth putting a red pin on a US map to identify the location of each act of unwarranted police brutality that occurs over the course of the year, just to show how pervasive it is. When there is a widespread belief among police that they have the right to use force on the citizenry whenever they feel it serves their purposes, we are operating in a de facto police state. If we're not there already, we are surely sliding down that slippery slope. And the violent repression of the Occupiers in cities around the country is hopefully making this obvious to more and more Americans.
For anyone interested in further elaboration of the above issues, here are some other commentaries:
http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153170/%22how_could_this_happen_in_america%22_why_police_are_treating_americans_like_military_threats/?page=entire
http://endthelie.com/2011/11/25/s-1253-will-allow-indefinite-military-detention-of-american-civilians-without-charge-or-trial/#axzz1epTjFXQZ
(Referring to a new Senate bill that has just been introduced, an excerpt from this article says: "If these provisions are enacted, it would give the federal government the explicit power to imprison civilians, including American citizens, indefinitely with no charges or trial. This would include individuals apprehended both inside and outside of the United States, meaning that this could give the federal government the ability to openly detain American citizens for their entire lives without so much as a single charge.")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?INTCMP=SRCH
(In the context of the Oakland mayor's admission that the Dept of Homeland Security had participated in a conference call to advise the mayors of 18 cities regarding "how to suppress" the Occupiers in their cities, this article points out that "Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.")
The bottom line here is that there is good reason to be concerned about the attitude of our government - federal as well as local, including the police as agents of the state - regarding the use of militarized police force against the populace even when the people are not engaged in any kind of violent or destructive behavior. I've just read online that the mayor of LA has now given the Occupiers a deadline of midnight Sunday to evacuate, and that the Occupiers have already determined that they won't leave by then. So the confrontation looms, and now the whole world will have it's eye on how the police handle the situation. I'm disappointed that I'm not there, to watch first hand how it all goes down. I hope some people are on hand to document the police action and get video of any violent methods that might be utilized. Given the generally positive relationship that has existed between LAPD and the Occupiers, it would be nice if the police could maintain a peaceful, respectful stance if and when they forcibly remove the people, tents, and equipment from the encampment. One way or another, this could well be a watershed moment for the movement, shaping how it unfolds from here on out. We'll see how it goes, we don't have long to wait!
Reports from OccupyLA are that the camp is going to be evicted next week, although the city has apparently indicated that it will give the Occupiers 72 hours notice before coming in to tear down the camp. There have been some conversations between city officials and OLA representatives about finding an alternative space for the Occupiers to stay in, with reports of an offer for space in an office building somewhere as well as some empty spaces where they could set up a camp, grow food, and presumably stay indefinitely. Information on the OLA website suggested that some Occupiers were not happy that others were involved in these negotiations, and now I think the General Assembly has decided not to make any move and instead force the police to force them out of their City Hall encampment. This makes sense to me, as I think one of the primary benefits of this movement, if not necessarily an explicit intention, is exposing the repressive tactics of our government and clarifying that things aren't all that different in America than they are in all the other countries where the government uses force and violence to quiet if not eliminate the voice of dissension reflected in a populist protest movement. While Wall Street and the banksters are the primary focus of the Occupiers anger and demands for reform, an equally troubling aspect of life in the US over the last decade is our slow creep towards fascism and the imposition of a police state. As one of the signs at the OLA camp says, the police are the defenders of the 1%, and to the extent that they carry out the wishes of the rich and powerful to quell the protest movement, they are as much a part of the problem as the banksters themselves.
LA Occupiers have acknowledged that their relationship with the city government and LAPD has been pretty good, and that the city has all in all been fairly supportive of the movement. But if, in the end, they act like all the other cities and PDs around the country that have forcibly removed protestors from their encampments, it will render any previous goodwill all but meaningless and expose them as people with power using that power to keep the powerless in their place. America is demonstrating that we have evolved to the point where our Constitutional rights to assembly and free speech exist only to the point that we agree not to cause any inconvenience to those with power. I mean, the whole concept of a "free speech zone," which has been around for a few years now, is indicative of how these rights have been abridged over the years. When government tells us where and when we can assemble and speak our minds freely, and prevents us from doing so when it doesn't fit into their version of what is appropriate or tolerable, then we have in fact already lost those rights. These rights are supposed to be "inalienable," as Jefferson argued in the Declaration of Independence, which means they are rights that exist independent of any government, and that should not be abridged by any government. By trying to limit these rights, by specifying when and where we can exert them, those in power are aiming to renege on the freedoms that our founding fathers tried to embed in the Constitutional republic form of government they created for the new American nation. It seems to me that this should be troubling to all Americans, but it is clear that there are plenty of folks who think it is OK for government to crack down on the protestors and prevent them from acting on their Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms in order to maintain the peace and quiet and calm and order of business as usual.
Maybe I'm sounding kind of alarmist here, turning into a black-and-white issue something that really should be analyzed in terms of shades of gray. Maybe. But maybe not. History suggests that countries - eg Nazi Germany- can step-by-step move towards greater and greater fascism while the people sit around and tolerate it because each of those steps looks reasonable under existing circumstances and doesn't seem to be a very big deal in the grand scheme of things. So, if the police use pepper spray in the process of making it easier to drag the Occupiers out of their camps, we shouldn't be too concerned because (pick your rationalization) a) it is necessary to prevent the protesters from becoming violent, b) it is better than using guns and bullets, c) the protestors deserve it since they are trouble-makers and anarchists, or d) as Fox News' blonde bimbo Megyn Kelly argues, pepper spray is just a food product anyway, so what's the big deal?! (I signed the online petition demanding that dear Megyn get pepper-sprayed, so that she can experience first hand just how tasty it really is!)
When police start to routinely use pepper spray, tasers, rubber bullets, batons, and other violent, riot-squad tactics on peaceful, passive, defenseless, law-abiding citizens whose only "crime" is exerting their Constitutional rights at a time and place to the disliking of those in power, there is something fundamentally wrong in this country and Americans should bloody well recognize that this is one more sign of a subtle shift in society reflecting our steady progress down the road to fascism. and it's not just the protestors. Police regularly use violence on citizens in situations where it is unnecessary and/or unwarranted. Just this week, a 61 year old man in Virginia, disabled and hard of hearing, fell off his bike in a parking lot. An onlooker, fearing he was drunk, called the police, who arrived as the man was riding away. When the cops called after the man, he didn't respond, so when one of them saw him take something out of his pocket and put it in his mouth (good god, a piece of candy maybe!), he decided to taze the poor fellow! The guy falls off his bike again, and by the time they get him to the hospital, he's dead. Well done, Mr. Police Officer. Killing an old deaf guy just because you thought he was ignoring you, and put something in his mouth that you didn't know what it was.
And there's another story this week of a cop tasing nine times a guy who he already had in handcuffs. They figure that since the guy stopped twitching after the seventh shock, that he was probably already dead for the last two. Seriously, how have we reached the point where police officers in the normal course of doing their duty think it is reasonable and appropriate to use violence as the first course of action on people? These are not isolated incidents -- I read stories like this all the time, enough of them that I've even thought it would be worth putting a red pin on a US map to identify the location of each act of unwarranted police brutality that occurs over the course of the year, just to show how pervasive it is. When there is a widespread belief among police that they have the right to use force on the citizenry whenever they feel it serves their purposes, we are operating in a de facto police state. If we're not there already, we are surely sliding down that slippery slope. And the violent repression of the Occupiers in cities around the country is hopefully making this obvious to more and more Americans.
For anyone interested in further elaboration of the above issues, here are some other commentaries:
http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153170/%22how_could_this_happen_in_america%22_why_police_are_treating_americans_like_military_threats/?page=entire
http://endthelie.com/2011/11/25/s-1253-will-allow-indefinite-military-detention-of-american-civilians-without-charge-or-trial/#axzz1epTjFXQZ
(Referring to a new Senate bill that has just been introduced, an excerpt from this article says: "If these provisions are enacted, it would give the federal government the explicit power to imprison civilians, including American citizens, indefinitely with no charges or trial. This would include individuals apprehended both inside and outside of the United States, meaning that this could give the federal government the ability to openly detain American citizens for their entire lives without so much as a single charge.")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?INTCMP=SRCH
(In the context of the Oakland mayor's admission that the Dept of Homeland Security had participated in a conference call to advise the mayors of 18 cities regarding "how to suppress" the Occupiers in their cities, this article points out that "Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.")
The bottom line here is that there is good reason to be concerned about the attitude of our government - federal as well as local, including the police as agents of the state - regarding the use of militarized police force against the populace even when the people are not engaged in any kind of violent or destructive behavior. I've just read online that the mayor of LA has now given the Occupiers a deadline of midnight Sunday to evacuate, and that the Occupiers have already determined that they won't leave by then. So the confrontation looms, and now the whole world will have it's eye on how the police handle the situation. I'm disappointed that I'm not there, to watch first hand how it all goes down. I hope some people are on hand to document the police action and get video of any violent methods that might be utilized. Given the generally positive relationship that has existed between LAPD and the Occupiers, it would be nice if the police could maintain a peaceful, respectful stance if and when they forcibly remove the people, tents, and equipment from the encampment. One way or another, this could well be a watershed moment for the movement, shaping how it unfolds from here on out. We'll see how it goes, we don't have long to wait!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Sides and slides
A report this morning suggested that the Department of Homeland Security helped coordinate the police crackdown on the Occupiers in 18 cities across the country. Whether or not this is true, it does look like there is some kind of coordinated effort going on, and it is easy enough to imagine that the feds remain nervous about the movement and would like to see it all nipped in the bud as soon as possible. The irony here is that, given the constitutional right of citizens to assemble and to use their right to free speech to protest, the cities all have to use local zoning regulations or public health or safety laws or some other such rationale for justifying their forced removal of the citizens from the public or private spaces which they are occupying in an effort to exert their right to protest. The argument apparently is that the constitution gives people the right to assemble and speak their mind, but not the right to camp out in public places. Obviously the kind of interpretation you'd expect from people trying to hang on to their power.
How is it not obvious that the intent of the founders of this country was to create a system of government that served the people and was responsive to their wishes, with the people having the right and obligation to change it when it failed to do so? From the very beginning, lots of these founders were very skeptical about the dominant role played by the banks - the international financiers based in Europe - in the economy of the colonies and the overall quality of life of the people. The American Revolution was as much about extracting themselves from the control of the bankers, ie an economic issue, as about extracting themselves from the control of the king, ie a political issue. We are facing essentially the same issue today as the colonists did 250 years ago, and once again we have plenty of folks who think that some sort of revolution is needed while many others apparently think that continued loyalty to the old guard is the best or safest strategy.
So while most of the people opposed to the Occupy movement probably think they themselves are patriotic Americans while the Occupiers are just trouble-making rabble rousers, the fact is that those opposed to the movement are basically equivalent to the Tories of the late 1700s who acted in ways that supported the British elite in their efforts to continue to get rich off the hard work of the colonists. The Occupiers today are the rebels, the revolutionaries, the folks who want to pursue the dream of a republic with sovereign citizens using democratic processes to determine how "we the people" should be governed. Opposing the Occupy movement - in thought, word, or deed - is tantamount to supporting the elite. Believing that the powers that be should remove the Occupiers from their camps is equivalent to believing that we should continue to be ruled by royalty. Arguing against the legitimacy and credibility of this populist movement is the same as arguing against the validity of the American revolution. In short, support for the Occupiers is support for democracy, whereas opposition to the movement is support for fascism. The time has come to pick sides, and if popular support for the Occupiers wanes as the 1% do what they can to suppress the uprising, then Americans will deserve whatever economic collapse and political repression follows the squelching of this rebellion.
Unfortunately, I still haven't done anything more to get personally involved at the OccupyLA camp, and while I feel guilty about that, a number of factors have conspired to keep me from being more proactive about doing something. I will confess to being annoyed that my first two efforts to get involved did not receive any response from anyone at the camp, and I have never been very persistent in the face of even implicit rejection. And in fact, it gave me something of a rationalization for giving in to my temperamental tendency to avoid engaging with people and just keep doing what I do on my own instead. All this coincided with the need to focus on a variety of work-related tasks over the last couple weeks, which further justified allocating time to those rather than attending committee meetings at the camp.
However, one thing I was trying to do during this time was create a slide show "photo essay" - the one I mentioned to some folks who were suspicious of me the day I was out taking the pictures - depicting the LA camp and the essence of the movement. I finally figured out yesterday how to add the music that I wanted as background, so I finished it up and have posted it on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/Cq5S6TuntjY
It's not perfect, and had I been willing to spend a little more time I could have made some small changes that would have improved the overall quality, but as my first attempt at doing something like this I'm reasonably pleased with the result. And I didn't anticipate the sense of relief or gratification I felt upon wrapping it up and getting it posted. I've been in a bit of a funk over the last few days, and after I got this up on YouTube I realized that that had pretty much dissipated. I think part of that is that this feels, at least in some small way, like a contribution I am making to the movement, which is something I would really like to do but so far haven't done in any more direct fashion. My intent is to give this to the media folks at OccupyLA to see if they want to post it or link to it on their webpage. I realize they may not want to, which might feel like strike three, but for now it doesn't matter, I am satisfied with what I have created, and the message it sends, and the fact that it is now available for nearly anyone in the world to see. What happens to it from here on out is out of my control!
How is it not obvious that the intent of the founders of this country was to create a system of government that served the people and was responsive to their wishes, with the people having the right and obligation to change it when it failed to do so? From the very beginning, lots of these founders were very skeptical about the dominant role played by the banks - the international financiers based in Europe - in the economy of the colonies and the overall quality of life of the people. The American Revolution was as much about extracting themselves from the control of the bankers, ie an economic issue, as about extracting themselves from the control of the king, ie a political issue. We are facing essentially the same issue today as the colonists did 250 years ago, and once again we have plenty of folks who think that some sort of revolution is needed while many others apparently think that continued loyalty to the old guard is the best or safest strategy.
So while most of the people opposed to the Occupy movement probably think they themselves are patriotic Americans while the Occupiers are just trouble-making rabble rousers, the fact is that those opposed to the movement are basically equivalent to the Tories of the late 1700s who acted in ways that supported the British elite in their efforts to continue to get rich off the hard work of the colonists. The Occupiers today are the rebels, the revolutionaries, the folks who want to pursue the dream of a republic with sovereign citizens using democratic processes to determine how "we the people" should be governed. Opposing the Occupy movement - in thought, word, or deed - is tantamount to supporting the elite. Believing that the powers that be should remove the Occupiers from their camps is equivalent to believing that we should continue to be ruled by royalty. Arguing against the legitimacy and credibility of this populist movement is the same as arguing against the validity of the American revolution. In short, support for the Occupiers is support for democracy, whereas opposition to the movement is support for fascism. The time has come to pick sides, and if popular support for the Occupiers wanes as the 1% do what they can to suppress the uprising, then Americans will deserve whatever economic collapse and political repression follows the squelching of this rebellion.
Unfortunately, I still haven't done anything more to get personally involved at the OccupyLA camp, and while I feel guilty about that, a number of factors have conspired to keep me from being more proactive about doing something. I will confess to being annoyed that my first two efforts to get involved did not receive any response from anyone at the camp, and I have never been very persistent in the face of even implicit rejection. And in fact, it gave me something of a rationalization for giving in to my temperamental tendency to avoid engaging with people and just keep doing what I do on my own instead. All this coincided with the need to focus on a variety of work-related tasks over the last couple weeks, which further justified allocating time to those rather than attending committee meetings at the camp.
However, one thing I was trying to do during this time was create a slide show "photo essay" - the one I mentioned to some folks who were suspicious of me the day I was out taking the pictures - depicting the LA camp and the essence of the movement. I finally figured out yesterday how to add the music that I wanted as background, so I finished it up and have posted it on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/Cq5S6TuntjY
It's not perfect, and had I been willing to spend a little more time I could have made some small changes that would have improved the overall quality, but as my first attempt at doing something like this I'm reasonably pleased with the result. And I didn't anticipate the sense of relief or gratification I felt upon wrapping it up and getting it posted. I've been in a bit of a funk over the last few days, and after I got this up on YouTube I realized that that had pretty much dissipated. I think part of that is that this feels, at least in some small way, like a contribution I am making to the movement, which is something I would really like to do but so far haven't done in any more direct fashion. My intent is to give this to the media folks at OccupyLA to see if they want to post it or link to it on their webpage. I realize they may not want to, which might feel like strike three, but for now it doesn't matter, I am satisfied with what I have created, and the message it sends, and the fact that it is now available for nearly anyone in the world to see. What happens to it from here on out is out of my control!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Changing the system
One of the primary slogans of the Occupy movement is "We are the 99%," with the obvious implication that our fight is against the top one percent who have been destroying the economy while aggregating huge amounts of wealth in their own hands. In essence, the occupation is an act of class warfare, with the Occupiers finally trying to fight back against an elite class that has been waging war against the people for a long, long time. But they have wisely decided to adopt a peaceful, nonviolent approach to this conflict, recognizing that Gandhi and King used it successfully in leading their movements for grater social justice. Of course, the way this usually plays out is that eventually the powers that be use some type of force to try to quell the uprising, which increases public support for the movement and gives it additional momentum to help bring about the kinds of changes it is seeking. The large number of people who turned out in Oakland to shut down the port in response to the wounding of Marine veteran Scott Olsen reflects this dynamic already at work in the Occupy movement. All else equal, we can reasonably anticipate that there will be more acts of state/police (or should that be "police state") repression that will in turn stimulate more marches and bigger crowds, and an even bigger threat to TPTB that will force them to try to exert even more control. In the midst of all this, it is reasonable to assume that agent provocateurs will infiltrate the Occupiers, like they seem to have done in Oakland, to initiate violence that in turn justifies the government's use of force, presumably as part of a plan to move us closer and closer to a state of martial law. That's the New World Order conspiracy theory anyway. But don't laugh. There's some evidence behind that theory...
Anyway, one thing that I find most disappointing so far is that, even though the movement is really fighting in the name of the vast majority of Americans who have been screwed over by the banksters, lots of people seem to be either ambivalent about what the Occupiers are doing or simply think it's all kinda silly or pointless. One primary reason for this, I'm sure, is that the corporate media have not given the movement much attention, and when they do it usually isn't in a very favorable light. Of course, this is to be expected. Our so-called free press has morphed over the years into essentially a mouthpiece for the elite, a megaphone with which they broadcast their perspectives and agendas to the masses who too often seem to accept it all at face value, as a reasonable approximation of the truth. With consolidation of the media industry over the years leading to an oligarchical situation in which a small number of folks control a huge percentage of all of our media, it has become feasible for them to coordinate their message and eliminate any perspectives that fall outside the range of what TPTB are willing to tolerate. Thus, for example, zero critical assessment of the faulty and falsified "intelligence" claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs that served to justify the war in Iraq. And zero critical assessment of the BS story the elite concocted to explain the events of 9/11. (I could go on and on.) If you doubt the possibility that various media outlets could all be controlled and scripted, watch this video from Conan O'Brien:
http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=27282
Another problem promulgated by the media is that most of the talking heads want to try to analyze the movement from the old left-right paradigm, in terms of party politics and whose interests are driving it and/or being served by it. But this misses the point entirely. Occupiers come from lots of different points on that political spectrum, but the one thing that unites them is they all recognize that the real conflict is the people vs. the power, and I suspect most of them recognize that both the Republicans and the Democrats have been bought off by the banksters and are equally guilty in the decimation of our economy and on-going collapse of our society. One long term benefit of this movement, regardless of whatever else happens, is that it is heightening public awareness of the fact that the so-called 1% - the richest and most powerful - are largely responsible for the mess we're in and thus need to take responsibility and/or be held accountable.
And I have no doubt that the breadth and strength of the movement are making those guys a little nervous. I read the other day that a couple members of Congress have introduced a bill for taxing financial transactions, which is one of the concrete proposals suggested by Occupiers as a way to generate additional funds for social programs. If you buy a car, the government will charge a tax on that transaction, but banks can buy and sell millions and billions of dollars worth of financial instruments with no taxes levied at all. Even a tiny tax on those transactions, say three-hundredths of one percent (.03%), would generate huge amounts of government revenue that could be put to good use for things we need:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/wall-street-transaction-tax-revenue_n_1080493.html?ir=Business
I have no idea if their bill has a snowball's chance in hell of getting through Congress, but the point is they seem to be responding to some public pressure or sentiment on this issue, and if the Occupy movement has the effect of pushing public policy in this direction, then it will have been, to a limited extent anyway, a succesful exercise of American democracy.
See this for some thoughts on what the movement is already accomplishing:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/6-things-that-occupy-wall-street-has.html
and this too:
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/ows-is-trigger-for-major-shift-in.html
From my perspective, and probably that of most Occupiers, the movement won't be a success unless it results in some kind of fundamental change in the system as a whole. That's pretty vague, clearly, but there a number of such changes being advocated, and while none of them would be simple to implement, the point is that the system is flawed and needs to change, since we can't improve the economy by using the same system that got us into this mess. For me it means getting rid of the Fed and returning to a Constitutionally-sanctioned monetary system, in which a national bank under the US Treasury is able to loan money to the government interest-free, rather than having private Federal Reserve bankers siphoning off huge chunks of tax revenue as interest on the loans they make to the government. Of course, simply addressing this issue in America isn't sufficient, as it's a global problem. The whole global monetary system is controlled by the banksters who own the Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the Fed and all the other major central banks around the world, and these institutions essentially control a system that functions by creating more and more debt that leaves more and more debtors paying more and more interest to these banksters.
Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems inherent in the current monetary and financial systems that create the conditions shaping the health of the real economy. For a more sophisticated discussion of the flawed system, check out the following:
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/collapse-of-our-corrupt-predatory.html
Mike Rivero, who runs whatreallyhappened.com, provides a simpler explanation of the basic problem of an interest-based money system here:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/11thmarble.php
If you're interested in a more metaphysical analysis of all this, here is an intriguing discussion that points to Usury, or the charging of interest, as a primary tool of Evil on this planet, ideas I tend to take seriously:
http://www.rense.com/general95/abrief.htm
Whatever the forces behind it, the reality is that the whole global economy is a house of cards that has been built too big and is now facing an inevitable collapse. The paper ("notational") value of all the debt instruments diffused among all the major players around the world is thought to be somewhere between $600 trillion and $1.5 quadrillion, whereas the size of the total real economy is only about $60 trillion. In other words, there is ten times more debt out there than the value of the whole real economy. Every bankruptcy by a sovereign government or major financial entity will trigger payments on some portion of that quadrillion dollar debt, which would trigger other bankruptcies and then more debt obligations and more bankruptcies, etc. in a domino effect that could bring the whole house of cards down pretty quickly. That's why the potential Greek bankruptcy has the rest of Europe all freaked out, since it could bring down the euro and probably the EU with it, and then look out world.
The potential irony in all this is that some version of near-total collapse could well come in weeks or even days, possibly before the Occupy movement has fully run its course. Such a collapse could put us into a situation in which radical action will be necessary, some kind of systemic reorientation, such that the kinds of changes being demanded by the Occupiers might seem more reasonable and valuable. In other words, independent of the Occupy movement, the forces already at play causing this collapse could generate a widespread need, demand, and expectation for fundamental changes that couldn't have been possible prior to this point. The collapse seems nearly inevitable. It remains to be seen whether and when any significant changes to the system are implemented.
Anyway, one thing that I find most disappointing so far is that, even though the movement is really fighting in the name of the vast majority of Americans who have been screwed over by the banksters, lots of people seem to be either ambivalent about what the Occupiers are doing or simply think it's all kinda silly or pointless. One primary reason for this, I'm sure, is that the corporate media have not given the movement much attention, and when they do it usually isn't in a very favorable light. Of course, this is to be expected. Our so-called free press has morphed over the years into essentially a mouthpiece for the elite, a megaphone with which they broadcast their perspectives and agendas to the masses who too often seem to accept it all at face value, as a reasonable approximation of the truth. With consolidation of the media industry over the years leading to an oligarchical situation in which a small number of folks control a huge percentage of all of our media, it has become feasible for them to coordinate their message and eliminate any perspectives that fall outside the range of what TPTB are willing to tolerate. Thus, for example, zero critical assessment of the faulty and falsified "intelligence" claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs that served to justify the war in Iraq. And zero critical assessment of the BS story the elite concocted to explain the events of 9/11. (I could go on and on.) If you doubt the possibility that various media outlets could all be controlled and scripted, watch this video from Conan O'Brien:
http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=27282
Another problem promulgated by the media is that most of the talking heads want to try to analyze the movement from the old left-right paradigm, in terms of party politics and whose interests are driving it and/or being served by it. But this misses the point entirely. Occupiers come from lots of different points on that political spectrum, but the one thing that unites them is they all recognize that the real conflict is the people vs. the power, and I suspect most of them recognize that both the Republicans and the Democrats have been bought off by the banksters and are equally guilty in the decimation of our economy and on-going collapse of our society. One long term benefit of this movement, regardless of whatever else happens, is that it is heightening public awareness of the fact that the so-called 1% - the richest and most powerful - are largely responsible for the mess we're in and thus need to take responsibility and/or be held accountable.
And I have no doubt that the breadth and strength of the movement are making those guys a little nervous. I read the other day that a couple members of Congress have introduced a bill for taxing financial transactions, which is one of the concrete proposals suggested by Occupiers as a way to generate additional funds for social programs. If you buy a car, the government will charge a tax on that transaction, but banks can buy and sell millions and billions of dollars worth of financial instruments with no taxes levied at all. Even a tiny tax on those transactions, say three-hundredths of one percent (.03%), would generate huge amounts of government revenue that could be put to good use for things we need:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/wall-street-transaction-tax-revenue_n_1080493.html?ir=Business
I have no idea if their bill has a snowball's chance in hell of getting through Congress, but the point is they seem to be responding to some public pressure or sentiment on this issue, and if the Occupy movement has the effect of pushing public policy in this direction, then it will have been, to a limited extent anyway, a succesful exercise of American democracy.
See this for some thoughts on what the movement is already accomplishing:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/6-things-that-occupy-wall-street-has.html
and this too:
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/ows-is-trigger-for-major-shift-in.html
From my perspective, and probably that of most Occupiers, the movement won't be a success unless it results in some kind of fundamental change in the system as a whole. That's pretty vague, clearly, but there a number of such changes being advocated, and while none of them would be simple to implement, the point is that the system is flawed and needs to change, since we can't improve the economy by using the same system that got us into this mess. For me it means getting rid of the Fed and returning to a Constitutionally-sanctioned monetary system, in which a national bank under the US Treasury is able to loan money to the government interest-free, rather than having private Federal Reserve bankers siphoning off huge chunks of tax revenue as interest on the loans they make to the government. Of course, simply addressing this issue in America isn't sufficient, as it's a global problem. The whole global monetary system is controlled by the banksters who own the Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the Fed and all the other major central banks around the world, and these institutions essentially control a system that functions by creating more and more debt that leaves more and more debtors paying more and more interest to these banksters.
Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems inherent in the current monetary and financial systems that create the conditions shaping the health of the real economy. For a more sophisticated discussion of the flawed system, check out the following:
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/collapse-of-our-corrupt-predatory.html
Mike Rivero, who runs whatreallyhappened.com, provides a simpler explanation of the basic problem of an interest-based money system here:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/11thmarble.php
If you're interested in a more metaphysical analysis of all this, here is an intriguing discussion that points to Usury, or the charging of interest, as a primary tool of Evil on this planet, ideas I tend to take seriously:
http://www.rense.com/general95/abrief.htm
Whatever the forces behind it, the reality is that the whole global economy is a house of cards that has been built too big and is now facing an inevitable collapse. The paper ("notational") value of all the debt instruments diffused among all the major players around the world is thought to be somewhere between $600 trillion and $1.5 quadrillion, whereas the size of the total real economy is only about $60 trillion. In other words, there is ten times more debt out there than the value of the whole real economy. Every bankruptcy by a sovereign government or major financial entity will trigger payments on some portion of that quadrillion dollar debt, which would trigger other bankruptcies and then more debt obligations and more bankruptcies, etc. in a domino effect that could bring the whole house of cards down pretty quickly. That's why the potential Greek bankruptcy has the rest of Europe all freaked out, since it could bring down the euro and probably the EU with it, and then look out world.
The potential irony in all this is that some version of near-total collapse could well come in weeks or even days, possibly before the Occupy movement has fully run its course. Such a collapse could put us into a situation in which radical action will be necessary, some kind of systemic reorientation, such that the kinds of changes being demanded by the Occupiers might seem more reasonable and valuable. In other words, independent of the Occupy movement, the forces already at play causing this collapse could generate a widespread need, demand, and expectation for fundamental changes that couldn't have been possible prior to this point. The collapse seems nearly inevitable. It remains to be seen whether and when any significant changes to the system are implemented.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Trying to engage
It's the end of the week, the work week anyway, and I'm in a sort of limbo as I wait to hear back from a couple of committees at Occupy LA as to when and where to participate in their next meetings. I have no idea what kind of schedule they're operating on, and how long it might take for them to get back to me. They're certainly not on any kind of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule. It's funny how that whole idea of a work week, and thus the hallowed weekend, is a product of modern industrial culture, and to a great extent the hard battle fought by labor unions to establish reasonable working conditions, including the length of the work week and day. I guess it's not surprising that that structure of time is irrelevant to a group of people whose whole raison d'être is to fight the corporations that have generated this 9-5 M-F mindset.
I went to the General Assembly meeting on Tuesday night, and got there right about 7:30 when it was scheduled to begin. It was easy enough to find the location, as lots of folks had already gathered and a number of drummers were playing while a few women were dancing to the rhythms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVGz9D2dj7o
The meeting itself was pretty interesting, both in terms of content as well as process. First they went through their shared principles of solidarity, as well as principles of nonviolence derived from Gandhi's work. Then people from a number of committees made announcements, followed by announcements from individuals who had information they wanted to share. The rest of the meeting then focused on addressing proposals brought forward by people who wanted to get the General Assembly's support. The GA operates by consensus, which they have defined as 90% agreement, although I'm not sure they ever really take a vote to be precise about that. One or two proposals were approved fairly readily, and a couple others generated a fair amount of discussion and were eventually tabled until the next night, with the obligation on the part of the proposers to do some more work, get better clarification, talk to more people, etc. - to address issues raised in the discussion. The last proposal of the evening was the most controversial, and ultimately generated enough "hard blocks" - three or four people who were unwilling to support it - that it was left unsupported by the GA.
The issue itself was pretty interesting. A man announced that some other groups were going to be sponsoring an activity the following week that entailed civil disobedience, and he was asking the GA to provide their (verbal) support for the activity. The problem was, he wouldn't tell us what exactly the activity was, because he said it was important to maintain secrecy in order for the event to be effective. While there is some logic to that, a number of folks present felt like they couldn't support something that they didn't know what it was, especially knowing that, by definition, it was going to be provocative, and thus potentially confrontational and even possibly violent. He assured us it was nonviolent, but his arguments couldn't convince a few to be willing to voice their support - and thus allow the GA to give its support - so it was left at an impasse as the meeting had to come to an end in order to respect those who had planned some kind of vigil or memorial to begin at 10pm in that same spot.
In the discussion regarding this proposal, it was clear that the Occupiers assume that the police could come in at any moment to start clearing out the camp, with the possible use of tear gas, rubber bullets, flash grenades, and rough tactics used in plenty of other cities across the country. Classes in nonviolent civil disobedience were being offered to Occupiers, and I think the man trying to get the GA's support for his proposal indicated that only those folks who had taken that class would be able to participate in the activity he couldn't tell us about. I guess the point of the activity is to get arrested, which he said would result in a small fine and quick release, but you never know how the police will deal with folks in that situation, so it is useful to have some guidance ahead of time about how best to react if they do get tough.
I went back over to the camp on Wed. to get contact information for a couple of committees I am interested in participating in. Since the City Liaison and Research committees did not have any meetings listed on the schedule on the whiteboard at the welcome tent, I asked the guy there for the contact info for the committee point people, since the gal the other day had told me I could get it from a notebook they had. But this guy said they don't give that info out, and when I asked why, he said that the one thing leaders of social movements have in common is that they get assassinated. He suggested instead that I leave a note with my contact info and then the point people could get in touch with me. So I wrote short notes on the back of a couple business cards, and left them there with the hopes that they would indeed pass them on to the relevant folks.
I went back on Thursday morning, to see what committee meetings and classes were scheduled for the day. I want to take the nonviolence training class, and they are also providing training for folks to serve as "medics" in case of a violent shutdown, people who could help those immobilized by tear gas, for example - I may be interested in taking that too. Since the nonviolence training wasn't til 1:30 and it was a nice sunny morning, I decided to go get my camera and spend some time taking pictures around the camp. I have it in mind to create some kind of photo essay, so I spent a couple hours taking photos of tents and signs and people and spaces and activities, trying to capture some of the scale and complexity and creativity reflected in the OLA community. By the time I was done with that I was tired and hungry, so I decided to head back to my room and save the nonviolence training for another day.
As of Friday morning I had not heard back from either of the committees, so I went to the OccupyLA website and provided my information as being interested in volunteering, indicating which committee I was interested in and why. By this time, I was starting to wonder if identifying myself as a USC professor was working against me, in terms of leading people to question my motives or allegiances. USC is known, of course, as a conservative institution, and it might be easy enough for people to conclude that it would be unlikely for a USC professor to be aligned with the OLA movement. As I was wrapping up taking pictures the day before, a couple folks sitting at a table together seemed a little suspicious of me and what I was doing, and one of them said something to the effect of "I bet you're on the other side." I could only conclude that, by appearance, I don't look like I belong or fit in with the crowd there, so add to that the fact of my questionable institutional attachment and maybe they are reluctant to get back in touch with me because of some concern about my intentions. I mean, it's hard to believe that they are so busy they can't send me an email or text message or something. I'm a little frustrated and disappointed by the lack of response on their part, as you think they would want to take advantage of as much help and support as they can get. I guess plan B at this point is just to show up at a couple of the other regularly scheduled committee meetings next week, and see if I can start getting involved that way.
In the meantime, there is a sense that the time has come to amp up the confrontation a bit, to start taking more actions that send signals to the world that we are serious and committed. When I arrived at the camp on Thursday, materials had just been unloaded onto the sidewalk with which to build some mobile gardens, smallish wooden structures filled with dirt in which to grow herbs, vegetables, and other edibles. There was a video clip posted on the OccupyLA website showing a discussion among a few Occupiers and a few cops, with the former admitting that the act was partly symbolic in that they would never grow enough food to really help out much and it was meant to indicate that they intended to be there for awhile, and the police then indicating that they had been in discussions with some Occupiers about creating an exit strategy such that bringing in a garden was sending the wrong kind of signal. I haven't learned yet how all that has been resolved, but it does highlight that fact that the Occupiers are still aiming to dig in for the long haul while the police are aiming to get them out as soon as they can. With some unknown civil disobedience planned for next week, things may soon start to get a little more exciting.
I went to the General Assembly meeting on Tuesday night, and got there right about 7:30 when it was scheduled to begin. It was easy enough to find the location, as lots of folks had already gathered and a number of drummers were playing while a few women were dancing to the rhythms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVGz9D2dj7o
The meeting itself was pretty interesting, both in terms of content as well as process. First they went through their shared principles of solidarity, as well as principles of nonviolence derived from Gandhi's work. Then people from a number of committees made announcements, followed by announcements from individuals who had information they wanted to share. The rest of the meeting then focused on addressing proposals brought forward by people who wanted to get the General Assembly's support. The GA operates by consensus, which they have defined as 90% agreement, although I'm not sure they ever really take a vote to be precise about that. One or two proposals were approved fairly readily, and a couple others generated a fair amount of discussion and were eventually tabled until the next night, with the obligation on the part of the proposers to do some more work, get better clarification, talk to more people, etc. - to address issues raised in the discussion. The last proposal of the evening was the most controversial, and ultimately generated enough "hard blocks" - three or four people who were unwilling to support it - that it was left unsupported by the GA.
The issue itself was pretty interesting. A man announced that some other groups were going to be sponsoring an activity the following week that entailed civil disobedience, and he was asking the GA to provide their (verbal) support for the activity. The problem was, he wouldn't tell us what exactly the activity was, because he said it was important to maintain secrecy in order for the event to be effective. While there is some logic to that, a number of folks present felt like they couldn't support something that they didn't know what it was, especially knowing that, by definition, it was going to be provocative, and thus potentially confrontational and even possibly violent. He assured us it was nonviolent, but his arguments couldn't convince a few to be willing to voice their support - and thus allow the GA to give its support - so it was left at an impasse as the meeting had to come to an end in order to respect those who had planned some kind of vigil or memorial to begin at 10pm in that same spot.
In the discussion regarding this proposal, it was clear that the Occupiers assume that the police could come in at any moment to start clearing out the camp, with the possible use of tear gas, rubber bullets, flash grenades, and rough tactics used in plenty of other cities across the country. Classes in nonviolent civil disobedience were being offered to Occupiers, and I think the man trying to get the GA's support for his proposal indicated that only those folks who had taken that class would be able to participate in the activity he couldn't tell us about. I guess the point of the activity is to get arrested, which he said would result in a small fine and quick release, but you never know how the police will deal with folks in that situation, so it is useful to have some guidance ahead of time about how best to react if they do get tough.
I went back over to the camp on Wed. to get contact information for a couple of committees I am interested in participating in. Since the City Liaison and Research committees did not have any meetings listed on the schedule on the whiteboard at the welcome tent, I asked the guy there for the contact info for the committee point people, since the gal the other day had told me I could get it from a notebook they had. But this guy said they don't give that info out, and when I asked why, he said that the one thing leaders of social movements have in common is that they get assassinated. He suggested instead that I leave a note with my contact info and then the point people could get in touch with me. So I wrote short notes on the back of a couple business cards, and left them there with the hopes that they would indeed pass them on to the relevant folks.
I went back on Thursday morning, to see what committee meetings and classes were scheduled for the day. I want to take the nonviolence training class, and they are also providing training for folks to serve as "medics" in case of a violent shutdown, people who could help those immobilized by tear gas, for example - I may be interested in taking that too. Since the nonviolence training wasn't til 1:30 and it was a nice sunny morning, I decided to go get my camera and spend some time taking pictures around the camp. I have it in mind to create some kind of photo essay, so I spent a couple hours taking photos of tents and signs and people and spaces and activities, trying to capture some of the scale and complexity and creativity reflected in the OLA community. By the time I was done with that I was tired and hungry, so I decided to head back to my room and save the nonviolence training for another day.
As of Friday morning I had not heard back from either of the committees, so I went to the OccupyLA website and provided my information as being interested in volunteering, indicating which committee I was interested in and why. By this time, I was starting to wonder if identifying myself as a USC professor was working against me, in terms of leading people to question my motives or allegiances. USC is known, of course, as a conservative institution, and it might be easy enough for people to conclude that it would be unlikely for a USC professor to be aligned with the OLA movement. As I was wrapping up taking pictures the day before, a couple folks sitting at a table together seemed a little suspicious of me and what I was doing, and one of them said something to the effect of "I bet you're on the other side." I could only conclude that, by appearance, I don't look like I belong or fit in with the crowd there, so add to that the fact of my questionable institutional attachment and maybe they are reluctant to get back in touch with me because of some concern about my intentions. I mean, it's hard to believe that they are so busy they can't send me an email or text message or something. I'm a little frustrated and disappointed by the lack of response on their part, as you think they would want to take advantage of as much help and support as they can get. I guess plan B at this point is just to show up at a couple of the other regularly scheduled committee meetings next week, and see if I can start getting involved that way.
In the meantime, there is a sense that the time has come to amp up the confrontation a bit, to start taking more actions that send signals to the world that we are serious and committed. When I arrived at the camp on Thursday, materials had just been unloaded onto the sidewalk with which to build some mobile gardens, smallish wooden structures filled with dirt in which to grow herbs, vegetables, and other edibles. There was a video clip posted on the OccupyLA website showing a discussion among a few Occupiers and a few cops, with the former admitting that the act was partly symbolic in that they would never grow enough food to really help out much and it was meant to indicate that they intended to be there for awhile, and the police then indicating that they had been in discussions with some Occupiers about creating an exit strategy such that bringing in a garden was sending the wrong kind of signal. I haven't learned yet how all that has been resolved, but it does highlight that fact that the Occupiers are still aiming to dig in for the long haul while the police are aiming to get them out as soon as they can. With some unknown civil disobedience planned for next week, things may soon start to get a little more exciting.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Downtown LA
A couple of weeks ago I decided to get a room in downtown LA for a month. There were a number of factors involved in that decision. I had just returned from a couple weeks camping in the national parks in southern Utah, which had followed shortly on the heels of a five-day trip to Black Rock City to take part in the amazing spectacle that is the Burning Man festival held annually out in the middle of nowhere in northern Nevada. On top of two months traveling in Europe over the summer, I just wasn't too enthused about heading out somewhere else this fall. So despite my interest in going someplace more novel and exotic, like Cuba or Venezuela or Thailand, I also had a desire for some stability and familiarity.
I was also feeling a little pull to get some work done, which in this case means making progress on some projects and papers which are in early stages of development. For me, getting that kind of work done, especially if it means doing any writing, requires some focus and dedication that is hard to maintain if I am mobile and/or staying someplace that I want to spend time exploring. If I had gone to Cuba, I know I would have gotten little work done. Despite some people's perceptions, a sabbatical isn't supposed to be a long paid vacation. The whole idea is to be absolved of all other professorial obligations in order to focus on research and writing. My own moral commitments would have left me feeling a little guilty if I had spent the entire fall semester "playing" and not being productive at all.
Not that I can't handle a little guilt, especially when resulting from self-imposed judgments, so the above two reasons may not have kept me from leaving the country if not for the influence of a third factor. My decision to go camping in Utah coincided with my decision not to go to New York to join the Occupy Wall Street folks. But while I was camping, much to my delight if not surprise, the OWS movement caught fire and spread to lots of other cities around the country, including of course LA. So upon returning from my trip, I now faced the decision of whether or not I would go put up my tent at City Hall and join the Occupiers there.
On Oct. 15 there was a protest march, with a thousand or so folks heading downtown to walk through the financial district making noise before arriving at the OLA encampment in a show of solidarity. I joined the march and checked out the camp, and after reflecting on it for the rest of the day, decided that I just wasn't up for going down and "roughing it" for a few more weeks or more. As much as I felt drawn to be part of the movement, I have been sleeping on the ground so much over the last few months that I couldn't really talk myself into another extended stay in my tent in what weren't likely to be comfortable conditions.
The next day I decided to check craigslist to see if I could find a room to stay in for a few weeks if I were going to remain in LA. The third listing from the top was for a room in downtown LA for $975 a month, which upon investigating turned out to be just two blocks away from the OLA camp. A bus to USC runs right by the hotel, which allows me to park my car on campus and essentially forces me to get around downtown by walking or using public transportation. I've never spent much time here, and certainly not on foot, so while I have the benefits of being in a place I am basically familiar with, there is also sufficient novelty in my daily experience, and opportunities to see some new "sights," that it is also a lot like being a tourist.
I've learned from previous experience that it takes me a couple weeks in a new place to get comfortable, figure out where things are, learn how to best get around, etc., to reach a comfort zone where I am more inclined to be active and proactive. I've been here for two weeks now, and in addition to just adjusting to being here, I've been putting in a fair amount of time on a paper and other work-related tasks, so I hadn't connected at all with the OLA folks until yesterday. Since it was Halloween, I went out and bought a bunch of candy and walked around among all the tents at the camp handing the candy out to all the Occupiers hanging out at the time. From the reactions I got, I bet a lot of them hadn't had anything sweet to eat for awhile!
I finished up at the welcome tent that the Occupiers have set up to serve as a repository of lots of information regarding what's happening at OLA. There is a General Assembly meeting every night at 7:30 that anyone can attend, and a white board listed all the committees that have been formed and provided a schedule of when they were meeting that day. There are a number of committees I am interested in, so I plan to go back today to get contact info and start getting involved. They also had a prioritized list of items they would like to have donated, and the item at the top of the list was tents, implying that they have more people wanting to stay in the camp than they have tents for. Having walked through the whole camp, it certainly seems to be thriving. There's a food tent, a library, a kids' play area, a first aid station, and what the LA Weekly estimated to be about 400 tents packed in on the lawn on three sides of City Hall. LA has the benefit of nice weather and, so far, a benign city government, so the energy in the camp is peaceful and pleasant, and I have a feeling it would be a very positive experience to be camping there with all the other fired up 99 percenters!
Even if I'm not there physically, I am with them in spirit, and intend to find other ways that I can make a contribution to the movement. I will use this blog to describe some of what's going on here in LA and to comment on the OWS movement more generally. The drama yet to come should be compelling. The Occupiers are not going away, such that those in power have to choose between making some meaningful concessions or trying to repress the movement. So far, in many cities, they seem to be opting for the latter, apparently failing to recognize that their repression just fuels the fire, as has happened in reaction to the wounding of veteran Scott Olsen in Oakland last week:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/occupy-veterans-movement-growing/t/story?id=14848003
Any repression of domestic protestors also makes blatantly obvious the hypocrisy of our government officials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The mayor of LA has already put out a warning that the Occupiers can't stay there indefinitely, so the stage is set for some kind of showdown at some point down the road. One way or another, sooner or later, here and around the country, this confrontation is going to escalate, as the forces for change continue to build in reaction to the forces that resist it. The possible scenarios for how this will all play out are myriad, so there is no way to anticipate how the story will unfold. But I'm glad I've decided to be here, to be a part of it, to do what I can to help change the course of history. I'll keep you posted as to how it's going!
Para la gente del mundo,
Pedro
11/11
I was also feeling a little pull to get some work done, which in this case means making progress on some projects and papers which are in early stages of development. For me, getting that kind of work done, especially if it means doing any writing, requires some focus and dedication that is hard to maintain if I am mobile and/or staying someplace that I want to spend time exploring. If I had gone to Cuba, I know I would have gotten little work done. Despite some people's perceptions, a sabbatical isn't supposed to be a long paid vacation. The whole idea is to be absolved of all other professorial obligations in order to focus on research and writing. My own moral commitments would have left me feeling a little guilty if I had spent the entire fall semester "playing" and not being productive at all.
Not that I can't handle a little guilt, especially when resulting from self-imposed judgments, so the above two reasons may not have kept me from leaving the country if not for the influence of a third factor. My decision to go camping in Utah coincided with my decision not to go to New York to join the Occupy Wall Street folks. But while I was camping, much to my delight if not surprise, the OWS movement caught fire and spread to lots of other cities around the country, including of course LA. So upon returning from my trip, I now faced the decision of whether or not I would go put up my tent at City Hall and join the Occupiers there.
On Oct. 15 there was a protest march, with a thousand or so folks heading downtown to walk through the financial district making noise before arriving at the OLA encampment in a show of solidarity. I joined the march and checked out the camp, and after reflecting on it for the rest of the day, decided that I just wasn't up for going down and "roughing it" for a few more weeks or more. As much as I felt drawn to be part of the movement, I have been sleeping on the ground so much over the last few months that I couldn't really talk myself into another extended stay in my tent in what weren't likely to be comfortable conditions.
The next day I decided to check craigslist to see if I could find a room to stay in for a few weeks if I were going to remain in LA. The third listing from the top was for a room in downtown LA for $975 a month, which upon investigating turned out to be just two blocks away from the OLA camp. A bus to USC runs right by the hotel, which allows me to park my car on campus and essentially forces me to get around downtown by walking or using public transportation. I've never spent much time here, and certainly not on foot, so while I have the benefits of being in a place I am basically familiar with, there is also sufficient novelty in my daily experience, and opportunities to see some new "sights," that it is also a lot like being a tourist.
I've learned from previous experience that it takes me a couple weeks in a new place to get comfortable, figure out where things are, learn how to best get around, etc., to reach a comfort zone where I am more inclined to be active and proactive. I've been here for two weeks now, and in addition to just adjusting to being here, I've been putting in a fair amount of time on a paper and other work-related tasks, so I hadn't connected at all with the OLA folks until yesterday. Since it was Halloween, I went out and bought a bunch of candy and walked around among all the tents at the camp handing the candy out to all the Occupiers hanging out at the time. From the reactions I got, I bet a lot of them hadn't had anything sweet to eat for awhile!
I finished up at the welcome tent that the Occupiers have set up to serve as a repository of lots of information regarding what's happening at OLA. There is a General Assembly meeting every night at 7:30 that anyone can attend, and a white board listed all the committees that have been formed and provided a schedule of when they were meeting that day. There are a number of committees I am interested in, so I plan to go back today to get contact info and start getting involved. They also had a prioritized list of items they would like to have donated, and the item at the top of the list was tents, implying that they have more people wanting to stay in the camp than they have tents for. Having walked through the whole camp, it certainly seems to be thriving. There's a food tent, a library, a kids' play area, a first aid station, and what the LA Weekly estimated to be about 400 tents packed in on the lawn on three sides of City Hall. LA has the benefit of nice weather and, so far, a benign city government, so the energy in the camp is peaceful and pleasant, and I have a feeling it would be a very positive experience to be camping there with all the other fired up 99 percenters!
Even if I'm not there physically, I am with them in spirit, and intend to find other ways that I can make a contribution to the movement. I will use this blog to describe some of what's going on here in LA and to comment on the OWS movement more generally. The drama yet to come should be compelling. The Occupiers are not going away, such that those in power have to choose between making some meaningful concessions or trying to repress the movement. So far, in many cities, they seem to be opting for the latter, apparently failing to recognize that their repression just fuels the fire, as has happened in reaction to the wounding of veteran Scott Olsen in Oakland last week:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/occupy-veterans-movement-growing/t/story?id=14848003
Any repression of domestic protestors also makes blatantly obvious the hypocrisy of our government officials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The mayor of LA has already put out a warning that the Occupiers can't stay there indefinitely, so the stage is set for some kind of showdown at some point down the road. One way or another, sooner or later, here and around the country, this confrontation is going to escalate, as the forces for change continue to build in reaction to the forces that resist it. The possible scenarios for how this will all play out are myriad, so there is no way to anticipate how the story will unfold. But I'm glad I've decided to be here, to be a part of it, to do what I can to help change the course of history. I'll keep you posted as to how it's going!
Para la gente del mundo,
Pedro
11/11
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