Nonresistance, UC-Davis Style

I find this photo remarkable:

Photo: Brian Nguyen

I'm struck, too, by what James Fallows calls the moral power of an image in this Atlantic article.

Whether you support the Occupy movement or not, you have to admit it's incredibly interesting. I feel, at turns, cheered, energized, afraid and puzzled by and for it.

The United States Constitution states the following in the First Amendment, of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

"The occupation is not meant to become a butterfly"

I like this:

Yesterday I went down to Zucotti park. It seemed like there were at least a thousand people and probably more surrounding the park, pressed up against barricades, wondering why they weren't allowed inside. In the park were maybe a hundred police officers, occupying the park. The park has lights on the ground, in the concrete. You could barely move on the sidewalk. Around six p.m. they began letting the occupiers back into the park through a small opening in the barricades, searching them for tents and sleeping bags. It was lightly raining.

There were numerous editorials about the end, and beginning, of Occupy Wall Street. They were often written in the tone of a proud father. They were encouraging: Now was the time to grow into something else, the next phase. The movement is leaderless, its demands unclear. You could hear the editorialists smirk. Why do we do that?

Yesterday a stockbroker stopped on the corner of Cedar and Broadway to argue with some of the protesters. At first it was tense, then it became friendly. What do you want? he asked.

We want the rich to stop taking our shit. Stop placing the tax burden on the poor and expecting us to be grateful. It is no longer OK to give away all our money to the richest 1%, to bend to the will of the financial institutions and the labyrinth of dividends, offshore tax havens, and money making schemes. Stop referring to fair taxation as socialism. Stop telling dishwashers and migrant farmers that you earned your money, that you work hard for what you have, because lots of people work hard and don't have. There are a lot of hard working people who are not rich. Don't look down from your fairy tale and tell us that people get what they deserve. Stop quoting Reagan. Stop telling us that riches beyond imagination breeds innovation. Stop pissing on our leg and calling it rain.

Occupy Wall Street is not a set of demands, it is a statement: We exist.

It began, though not noticeably, when Obama extended the tax cuts for the wealthy instituted by George W. Bush, referred to by Dick Cheney as "Our due." At the time it didn't seem like there was the political will on the left to do anything else. Occupy Wall Street is a manifestation of political will. It would be a awhile before the tents and libraries and occupations across the country, but that is where it began. It's hard to gauge which step is one step too far, but there it was.

The occupation is not meant to end, or become a butterfly, or sadly peter out. It's not indebted to paternalistic leaders giving a pat on the head and assuring the child: You will do better. The occupation doesn't need to negotiate or lay out a list of specific demands. Stop taking our shit. We notice when you steal from us. The occupiers sleep in the park and in the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The occupiers will invade the political rallies in 2012. Of course they will. The politicians will notice, they already do. The occupation is a seat at the table with no intention of going home.

-- Stephen Elliot, The Rumpus

There are mustaches to be worn

The world is spinning around and there's much to discuss. There's The Age of Aquarius which began just the other day, there's the OWS movement, there's the ka-ching of money and the hallowed football halls of Penn State where men are allowed to rape little boys and heads are turned and gray areas are evoked and entered into, there is black and there is white, there are new medications on the horizon for seizures, and side effects to consider, the heart sunk; there are surgical procedures for the brain and software to buy for computers to help the brain, there is poetry popping out and memoirs written in situ; there are political debates to mock and more to dread; there are websites that track the doings of the diabolical left, there are vegetable gardens to be planted and baseball games to be won; there are relatives beginning radiation and relatives getting old; there are dinner parties to attend and mustaches to be worn.

How to do it when you're 98 years old

I have a friend with whom I'll often argue, good-naturedly, most of the time, about private and public schools. Her children go to two of the most expensive schools in the city of Los Angeles, and she is adamant that they are two of the "best" schools, that having money gives one the opportunity to have one's children go to "the best schools." And while she doesn't come out and say it in these words, I know that she thinks the public schools in Los Angeles are terrible, and that if one had the money, one would never go to them. I chafe at this and have probably reflected for hours upon it. Would I send my boys to "the best schools" if I had the money? Am I so filled with resentment that I don't have a lot of money that I find reasons to not want to send my children to these bastions of privilege?

I don't know, and I think I do know.

I know what I want to be. I know what I hope my children will be. I know that I don't want to be surrounded by wealth and privilege. I know, too, that my judgments of that wealth and privilege are often harsh, but I don't know of any other way to be, to reconcile this churning conflict. While I yearn for peace, I have a red-hot core most of the time and feel, when I look at the excesses of our culture (including the spending of $40,000 to send one's child to high school), of our country, of capitalism in general, that it's all rotten and perhaps even rotten at the core. I don't know what that means -- whether I'm just an angry fucked-up individual, or whether I am just out of place and should, rather, be flying my freak flag with similar minds.

Anyhoo. (how revolutionary does that sound?)

I watched this series of videos of Grace Lee Boggs who thanks and champions the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I was most struck by her challenge to the Occupy Wall Street protesters to examine their own minds and motivations on whether if given the opportunity, they would join the culture they are against.

Part 1



Part 2


Grace Lee Boggs' Message to Occupy Wall Street Part 2 from American Revolutionary on Vimeo.


I think I know where I want to stand but do I have the guts and strength and fortitude to stand there? These are the questions that torment my little mind when I'm not peeling my daughter off the floor after a seizure, or arranging medical consultations or buying laptops that need to be installed with special software for the learning disabled or warning my son about the dangers of sniffing crushed Smarties (he didn't but kids are doing it).

How about you?

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day -- Thomas Paine

Yes, I've been reading, albeit cursorily, about the folks "occupying Wall Street," and I have a neighbor friend who's actually participated in some of the rallies here in Los Angeles. Everyone who reads this blog knows where my political persuasions lie, but lately I've kept my head in the sand, deeply depressed, to tell you the truth, more convinced than ever that we're living in a plutocracy, or perhaps an oligarchy but certainly NOT a democracy. My family is struggling mightily -- and I have to say that while the stress and grief and loss that accompany being the parents of a child with severe disabilities takes its toll, behind that stress and grief and loss is overwhelming love, love that makes it all bearable, all the time.

Behind financial and economic stress is literally nothing, a black hole, a gaping maw, a terrifying void.

I don't know why this is, but it is.

I'm moved by the photos of We Are the 99 Percent that you can see here.  There's this one:

and this one:

and I'm educated by Hendrik Hertzberg's article about the movement in The New Yorker.


Here's an excerpt:

The process, not the platform, is the point. Anyway, OWES is not the Brookings Institution. But its implicit grievances are plain enough: the mass pain of mass unemployment, underemployment, and economic insecurity; the corrupting, pervasive political influence of big money; the outrageous, rapidly growing inequality of wealth and income; the impunity of the financial-industry scammers whose greed and fraud precipitated the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; a broken political system hobbled by a Republican right willing and usually able to block any measures, however timid and partial, that might relieve the suffering. 




From the introduction to We are the 99 Percent:


They say it’s because you’re lazy. They say it’s because you make poor choices. They say it’s because you’re spoiled. If you’d only apply yourself a little more, worked a little harder, planned a little better, things would go well for you. Why do you need more help? Haven’t they helped you enough? They say you have no one to blame but yourself. They say it’s all your fault.


And here:

The American Dream is not to become rich. It is to see the fruit of your labors, whatever they may be. It is to EARN your rewards. But Corporate America has taken the rewards away. All that is left is work and desperation. (Or no work, and even more desperation) A home, health insurance, providing for your children, giving them a future…those things SHOULD be attainable.  But unions are gone or ineffective. Politicians are corrupt. The Supreme Court values the speech of corporations over those of the people.  Jobs are taken overseas. 

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” Thomas Paine said that.  He also said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” 

And there's this astonishing article.

There's something very different going on here -- it's not scary to me as much as inevitable. Dare I say exciting? Hopeful? Possible?


What do you think?