Written & contributed by Sheperd Bliss
Occupy Wall Street gatherings, on October 15 at around 1500 sites in some 80 countries, revealed a global uprising for building democratic learning and action communities. People were joyous to be together in streets and parks, on church steps, outside banks, and elsewhere—playing music, chanting, and exercising their freedoms. They sat in circles, paraded around with bands, and fed each other in dramatic outpourings of anger, aspiration, feelings, energy, humor, yearning, and wisdom.
Creative signs were displayed at the Occupy Santa Rosa gatherings in Northern California outside City Hall, which I attended on October 15, 16, and 17. For example, pink-clad, three-year-old Liliana Averill described her sign as “a love heart because I love my mom and my dad,” who is apparently unemployed. Her older, also pink-clad sister Jasmine sported a “Big Sister” t-shirt and a “Be Good” sign. These are among the many essential and diverse messages of this movement, which is more than merely a demonstration or protest. In about a month, it has already changed the political landscape here in the United States and internationally.
“Fight the Big Cats,” read one dog’s sign. Other signs included the following: “The People are Too Big to Fail,” “They Got Bailed Out; We Got Sold Out,” “This is So Not Over,” “History is Made by Those Who Show Up,” “Free Hugs,” “I Like Turtles,” “How about a Maximum Wage,” “When’s It Our Turn for a Bailout,” and “Prepare for the Beginning.”
As a military veteran, one of my favorites was of two vets in uniforms with a sign with the peace symbol and the words “2nd Time I’ve Fought for my Country. 1st Time I’ve Known My Enemy.”
The following email and youtube video is circulating around and beyond the vets’ community: “One Iraq combat vet tells 30 NYC police “there’s no honor” in hurting peaceful unarmed people – and wins. NYPD cops assigned by One Percenter Mayor Michael Bloomberg to keep the streets clear of disturbing ideas have their hands full with Marine Corps Iraq veteran Sergeant Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY. He seems a bit more than these protectors of privilege and the status quo are ready to deal with. Just think if he had been a 19-year-old who weighed 135 pounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEHcOc0Sys
Young people have led this movement. They lead by doing and attracting a diversity of others to their good work. Many occupying over-night here are students at the Santa Rosa Junior College. Some of my Sonoma State University students were there as well as some of our current and retired faculty, such as David Walls, an activist with moveon.org. I wore my California Faculty Association t-shirt, which says “Save public education! Keep the doors open!”
What can college students expect of their futures if the 1% continue to rule the 99% of us? Huge debts, few jobs, and many moving back with their parents. Why not occupy, go to the streets, and elsewhere to speak one’s truths?
“We don’t need to waste more time being miserable, watching injustice happen,” observed occupier Heather Williamson, 22, who currently works on an organic farm. “This movement is a first brave step, a very loud, bold step—saying that it really isn’t fine to bow our heads and pretend that everything is OK. This is the beginning of a new world.”
“In contrast to many protests where signs are pre-made,” gardener Steve Fowler, 71, noted at a meeting of a group called Earth Elders, “these signs were home-made. Many voices were heard. They have occupied political space and they are not going to give it up.”
Another Earth Elder, Bill Wadsworth, 70, said, “I went without thinking I would stay over-night, and decided to. We have to keep this going. The support is inspiring. Neighboring stores gave lots of food. Pizzas arrived from out-of-state. The whole consensus decision-making really works. They use hand gestures and sign language.”
Decision-making that occurs at General Assemblies provides laboratories for learning and practicing democracy that is all-inclusive and leaderless, or “leaderful,” as some would say. In Santa Rosa and at most sites, occupiers have worked cooperatively with police. One inspiring video circulating is titled “Marine Defends Occupy Wall Street.”
The movement’s signs, slogans, and themes are communicated with ingenuity and the expressive potency of many grievances. Their diversity reveals an underlying commitment to values such as social justice, direct democracy, engaged learning, and decentralization. At circles, we dealt with issues related to power, privilege, oppression, and class analysis. Such circles facilitate vital conversations and sharing stories. People build relationships and explore their dreams and alternatives. This movement encourages, challenges, stimulates, provokes, catalyzes and convenes. It satisfies our “needs to gather, mingle, and rejoice,” according to one of my students.
With around 3000 participants, the Santa Rosa occupation, according to the New York Times, was the sixth largest in the nation. This is in a small city of some 150,000. Local organizers say that they plan to stay at least until Dec. 24, which is the date that the national movement has set to end the occupations and evolve into its next step, whatever that may be. The learning and action communities can be expected to continue in various forms. A gathering of people from the many General Assemblies is scheduled for July 4, 2012.
It was good to see some friends in the streets that I had not seen in years. Amidst the joy of being in a multi-generational and multi-cultural gathering, we were able to catch up. We have a strong GoLocal group here and they were there with signs, as were members of the Living Wage Coalition, Unitarian Universalist churches, Peace and Justice Center, North Bay Labor Council, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and other longtime groups.
As a college teacher, I am glad to see signs with quotes from the classics, such as Goethe’s “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” The movement’s activists contend that they represent the 99% who are ruled by the 1% who dominate here in the United States.
Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz writes that we now have a government that is of the one percent, by the one percent, and for the one percent. What happened to “of the people, by the people, and for the people”?
The current outcry against Wall Street is not new. A high school American history teacher sent me the following quotation from 1890 by Mary Elizabeth Lease: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. Money rules…the political parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…We will not pay our debts to the loan shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. The people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware.” The great nineteenth century poet Walt Whitman also expressed similar sentiments after the Civil War.
Some members of the 1% have joined the movement. Robert S. Halpen, for example, is a retired Wall Street trader who has been helping fund Occupy’s nonprofit magazine. Defectors from the 1% are welcomed into the movement. The Canadian magazine Adbusters is credited with stimulating the movement when it sent an email this summer to its 90,000 readers. Halpen has been a long-time funder of the anticorporate magazine and its spoofs.
Former Sebastopol Mayor and city council member Larry Robinson attended and posted the following comment online: “Washington’s failures are a direct result of policies directed by Wall Street and for the benefit of Wall Street. Most Americans know this in their guts. We may have finally reached the tipping point!”
If this occupancy movement remains peaceful, it will grow and attract many millions around the world. It has chosen a worthy target, Wall Street, and appropriate strategies and tactics. It currently focuses on defining the problems here in the 21st century, which are numerous, as the gap between the rich and the poor grows. It is being patient and not jumping prematurely into solutions.
Readers might consider a visit to an occupation nearby where they live, see for themselves, and converse with those occupying. From sitting in circles of people of many generations and cultures with different ideas, one can participate in democratic learning/action communities. Food donations are welcome.
The U.S. government has been steadily loosing moral authority, which the occupy movement is helping the American people gain with its burst of energy. In less than a month, it has already dramatically changed global political power arrangements.
A New Story is unfolding before our eyes. One thing that may be sure is that its future and our futures are uncertain. A better future is possible.
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Dr. Shepherd Bliss teaches at Sonoma State University and Dominican University, has run an organic farm for nearly 20 years, and is a member of the Veterans Writing Group. He has contributed to over two-dozen books and can be reached at [email protected].
Brenda Hutchinson says
Where exactly in San Francisco is the Sit4Change going to occur? Sincerely, Brenda Hutchinson
xformedit says
Hi, Brenda
Sorry to take so long to respond. We currently don’t have a specific site or time for SIT4Change at Occupy SF, though we know people
will be there. If you want to come across the bay, you’re welcome to join us at the amphitheatre at Occupy Oakland from 12-2pm. A group
there will be doing meditation, ta chi, and a Japanese martial art form called jo kata–we call it 3 | one practice.
Hope to see you there.
Simha