The House

The House

Thursday, December 15, 2011

In homage to a Tunisian fruit vendor, an American Sgt. and.....Occupy Not Destroy

I posted this on the local Occupy Canon City and have/will take this to our local party headquarters, taped it to our city hall and county buildings. and anywhere else I can think of. This will be my own little protest for the third month anniversary on Saturday.
Protests are a right of the citizen claimed by our founding fathers and reiterated in the constitution and numerous court rulings throughout this countries brief history. The Occupy movement in this country is a reflection and echo of the protests throughout Europe and the Middle East, but have a long history from the 16th century protestant reformation to more recent protests by corporate backed Tea Party and the success of Occupy to change the conversation from narrow corporate interests to the larger needs of people.
A very cogent and reliable source of the history of protest can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest.

The big question is; What are they protesting about? If you listen to Fox news and much of the main stream media they ask this question and then do not seek or care to listen to an answer. I can boil it down to a few points:

1. Give Peace A Chance

2. Greed is not Good

3. We are all in this together

4. The planet is being poisoned.

These are a simplification but create an easy starting point as well as giving all of us a way to encapsulate the point of the protests.

It has also been said of the Occupy that it is not organized. This is not true at all. In less than three months the movement has gone from 56 individuals in Zucotti/ Liberty Park in New York who were feeling discouraged by the lack of interest in their protest movement against the gambling hall that Wall Street represents. The first protesters were inspired and supported by Adbusters and a group called Anonymous who coined the phrase OCCUPY. The model of non-hierarchal groups, the hand signals, the break out groups from the larger General Assembly are modeled on the Spanish protests. The movements peaceful approach comes from Ghandi and Martin Luther King among many other peaceful leaders for human rights. For a more detailed history of the beginnings and inspiration of the the U.S. movement go to
http://www.alternet.org/story/152761/occupy_wall_street_is_a_movement_too_big_to_fail/?page=entire also search “history of Occupy” on Alternet.org for an archive.

The intelligence, creativity and skill sets of the organizations around the world (a verifiable 900 occupy of some sort in the U.S. and over 2400 world wide) running the gamut from young and old, of all political and ideological stripes is not the product of unwashed masses, lazy or “hippies”. Lazy does not organize protests world wide that we witnessed on November 17th.

Our two party system has been a partner in crime in the anarchy created by corporations and the lie that is free market enterprise. Corporations are killing capitalism by subverting democracy. Independent parties are to narrow in scope and have focused on smaller more myopic views on the “right” and “left”. The cry for the movement to embrace or become involved “like the Tea Party” in electoral politics would be a waste of time in a system so bought and paid for and corrupt. The system must be exorcised of the money interests. 400 Billionaires, 1300 multi-national so called American corporations, an approximate 700,000 millionaires (exclusive of the wealthy who are in support of the movement; 1% for Occupy) 12 mega banks we bailed out and a global ponzi scheme that is killing people and destroying the planet.. A pox on both parties houses for giving into the lowest common denominator among us. Greed is the last of the seven deadly sins and the wannabe rich are as bad as those who are old money. The concept of noblesse oblige, noble obligation of those who are in power to those who aren’t has been lost.

The movement has not failed by any means. it has empowered the powerless. The most disenfranchised among us have rattled the chains that bind all of us. The loud and bold cry of the “emperor has no clothes“ while pointing at the money machine, the militarization of our civil society is awakening the American soul. The movement has brought loud, musical artistic attention to the inequality that has been perpetrated upon us intentionally. Julain Assange of Wikkileaks said"; we are ants to them" (the elite). There are some who like the idea of killing ants just for the joy of killing them like the ilk that do nothing but judge, spit and defame their fellow citizens while wrapping themselves in the American flag, waving t religion in our faces. If you live in a utopia in your own little universe and you think the movement is trying to free load off your hard work and not bathe or think, that is the wrong target. 400 billionaires and 1300 multinationals think the same thing of you! The truth is the 1% have done more to extract from the 99%, in a form of free loading unprecedented in history.

I think the hopefulness of the movement, despite the natural tendency of humans to create social pecking orders (which btw the elite have used against us ) is a marvel of organization, skill set, creativity and courage . The hardest being, to face the brain washing of you and me against each other and the acceptance of the elite position of superiority over all of us. It is Occupy Not Destroy. The model for equality is here it has been co-opted by the power elite, they kill us with our love of country. The model is called democracy and we are trying to save it not destroy it. No one was listening to the homeless, the disenfranchised, the mental ill, the aged, the unemployed, the ripped off service workers, the fire man the police the teachers, the kids. No one is listening to the gasp of a dying planet. We write, we petition, call, we argue, we vote till we are blue in the face. We try to be polite, understand the opposite view, compromise. try to not cringe at words like un-American, hippie, socialist, dirty, lazy. Lazy doesn’t start movements, un- American doesn't work harder than hell to raise up someone else who is worse off. Stupid doesn’t' see the intelligence in the eyes of someone of a different gender, race, age, religion or politics. The few things that have been damaged by protesters have not been permanent and cost all of 100 bucks to fix all across the country, if that, and the movement has stepped in to cover the cost and clean it, and call to task those who would destroy. Occupy not destroy. Take our country back. Democracy and the Constitution are mine just as much as anyone else’s. Soldiers sent off to resource wars are told they protect America and the constitution, so does occupy from those who are anarchists who hate government by the people. The powers that be don’t want us to compare notes much less join forces. The lobbyist, political foundations, elite rich, bankers , financiers and monopolies want it all for themselves. We have given them every chance in the world to show that ideology and free market could bring prosperity to all. They have failed and they don’t want to recognize this.

I will be addressing local issues that apply to Canon City, Fremont county and the region per se. Talk is cheap and I hope that eventually we can as a community address the issues that plague us decade after decade. To that end I encourage anyone with an interest in dialogue write in response at viewsfromanoldwhitewoman.blogspot.com. 













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