Occupy DC Ain’t Giving In

Last Friday Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who are in charge of a subcommittee that overseas D.C. affairs, put pressure on the National Park police to evict Occupy DC from McPherson Square.

Issa and Gowdy, tea party supporters, came to the conclusion that they had enough of all this truth-telling and the helping of the homeless from the occupiers. It’s time to shut them down. Gowdy said this about camping in McPherson Square:

Unless it occurs in designated camping areas or is specifically allowed by the National Park. A flier posted and distributed in McPherson Square by the Park Service emphasized that ‘camping is not permitted’ in the park.

Also, members of this committee say that the occupiers need to be evicted because of health concerns. Members of Congress say that they’re worried about the well-being of the occupiers because of the “rats” and “squalor” seen around the camp.

If I can recall, D.C. has always been infested with rats. And you want to talk about squalor? Just take a visit down to Southeast. I doubt any of these slimy politicians have the guts to visit Southeast without the Secret Service. They don’t care about squalor. They just don’t want to leave their offices while they make backdoor deals with K Street lobbyists and have to see the faces of the people they are affecting. With Occupy DC being positioned on the most corrupt street in the nation, a face has been put on the lives members of Congress are ruining. Occupy DC personifies the American spirit. Congress can’t have none of that.

Want Congress really wants to say is: Keep your rats, smelliness and filth away from where us upper class citizens stay. We don’t want to have to see your faces when we wake up and leave our offices everyday. Take that “squalor” down to Southeast where the blacks and homeless run rampant.

Issa and Gowdy have been grilling Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis in recent hearings. In particular, Issa wants to know if politics had anything to do with Park Service police allowing occupiers to sleep in tents:

Really though? I love when politicians act like one side is dabbling in politics while their side isn’t. It’s politics! Everything is political. So let’s flip that question around and ask Issa if his politics have anything to do with worrying about an occupation in D.C. that has been, for the most part, peaceful. Do I even need to explain this any further?

After getting pressure from Congress, the local police put notices on occupiers’ tents letting them know that they would have to leave their tents open, remove all sleeping material and remove the food from their kitchen. Wow, what a way to care about the homeless and people’s well-being, huh?

These actions by Congress are all too familiar to Mayor Bloomberg and the treatment of protesters in Zuccotti Park. As soon as it turned cold, Bloomberg tried to freeze the protesters into submission by telling them any type of heater would be confiscated.

Flyer

So now, Congress is trying to starve and sleep deprive the protesters of Occupy DC. As of Monday, occupiers had to adhere to the notices from the park police. Twelve o’clock came rolling around on Monday with media crews and bystanders everywhere. They were all expecting a violent riot, but the occupiers complied to the police’s requests.

Some occupiers said that they were being targeted by the police one by one, so the occupiers came up with an idea. They grabbed a huge piece of tarp and draped it over General McPherson’s statue. The tarp tore, but it worked out well as said by occupier. Plus, it kind of makes McPherson look like he’s wearing a huge kilt.

Protesters were chanting “let us sleep so we can dream!” One spokesperson got on the megaphone that night and shouted that the occupiers demand to be allowed to sleep so that they can dream for a better tomorrow for everyone.

Occupiers now call the tent “The Tent of Dreams.” They did this because this way, if they all huddle together under the tent, they couldn’t be picked off one by one.

The only skirmish between the police and Occupy DC was when a protester was tased for resisting arrest. I have to admit, Occupy DC could have handled themselves a lot better. Just because you haven’t been voilent doesn’t mean you aren’t obstructing justice. From what I heard, the protester was tampering with flyers, but even if he wasn’t, he shouldn’t have resisted arrest. And no, this is not a lawsuit…

Now, let’s be real. Are the occupiers in D.C. sleeping in tents? Yes. But why are Issa and Gowdy (whose jurisdictions are nowhere near D.C.) so obsessed with enforcing “no camping” laws? Because in this age of transparency of overt corruption, Issa can’t afford to have light shined on his cronies on the Hill—Especially the ones in the White House.

The relationship between cops and protesters in D.C. has been a respectful one and from what I’ve seen, they both want to keep it that way. Occupy DC will most likely avoid having the occupation turn out like the one in Oakland, but if Issa has anything to do with it, the protests will turn violent so that the smear campaign can continue.

Congress is going to do everything in their power to make sure the occupy movement is delegitamized. They hope that they can squash the movement all together. No time to hear the truth these days.

After watching some of the livefeed this week, it’s amazing to see these people still going at it. I applaud them. First they tried to build a makeshift home for the homeless, but that quickly got removed. Now they face eviction from bitter members of Congress and they still manage to find a way to stay in the square.

As I write this, some occupiers have been up since 10 am on Monday. They’re going on 40 hours without sleep. They invite people to join them this Friday and stand in solidarity. They need chaperones and people to watch over those that may be suffering from a lack of sleep. They want you to make a statement with them by joining their “No Sleep Slumber Party” where you stay up with them for a full 24 hours.

Check out Occupy DC’s page here.

And their livefeed can be followed here.

You can follow what’s going on with the occupiers as they continue their no sleep protest. Here is their Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ODCSleeps

A Week Passes and Occupy DC Transforms into a Real Occupation

I have attached a slideshow of the people and events at Occupy DC and K Street. They are occupying McPherson Park (K Street and I) in the nation’s capital together. Just down the street, Stop The Machine is gathering at Freedom Plaza. Both entities know of each other’s presence, but for the most part have been separate. The Stop The Machine group is composed of people from the Wisconsin union protests, Occupy Wall Street in NYC and people from all around the country. Occupy DC & K Street is mostly composed of locals from the D.C., Maryland and Virginia metropolitan area.

Just last week there were less than 100 people scattered in the park without any real tents or stations. There were some sleeping bags and about two tarp coverings. It was disorganized and seemed more like a gathering than an occupation. A week later and it looks like a tent city; A complete 180. The park is now equipped with a kitchen, a medical area, a library, a media center, sleeping & sanitation areas and a place where entertainment can be enjoyed. To say the least, it is organized.

I was shocked to see the speed in which people could come together to create a self-sufficient community (for the most part). It had the feeling of a festival or agricultural fair that we are used to during the summer.

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Why I Stand With Those Who Want to ‘Occupy’

Caption: UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg

I have been following the Occupy D.C. movement quite vigorously. I have physically attended one general assembly (watched at least five of them), talked to dozens about their motivation, and watched half a dozen protests and live events on UStream and similar streaming venues.

From listening and watching the many talented acts and voices, I can tell that this movement is something a little bit different from what we’ve seen recently; A complete 180 from what the Tea Party protests were about.

Let’s compare the two movements for a second: The Tea Party is a faction of the Republican Party. The Occupiers don’t want to have any relation with the many political actors that want to take credit for what is going on despite the many political interests trying to associate with the protests.

The Tea Party brought semi-automatic weapons to rallies and claimed “We came unarmed, this time.” The Occupiers are, for the most part, peaceful and want to see change happen in a rational way.

The Tea Part are collectivists. Though they were a minority before the 2010 elections, they took the political field by storm. Now that they pretty much dictate what the Republican Party does, they feel as though the political system should bend to their needs. For them, the fewer and more rational conservatives who are slowly being weeded out of politics don’t have much say within the Republican Party. From the general assemblies I’ve witnessed, the Occupiers would like everyone within the movement to take action as a unit, but they state that every individual has the right to say or do as they please, as long as it is respectful and on topic. And the Occupiers denounce the actions taken by violent anarchists. You would be pressed to find Tea Party members who spoke out against racism; Many did not even recognize the racist factions within the party.

Yes, I am aware that there are over 1,000 Occupy events happening in cities over the world, but what intrigues me is that every one of these events is a little different from the next event. The more organized events are the ones that have not received the mainstream media’s attention, like the Stop The Machine, Occupy K Street/D.C. and the Occupy Kansas City protests happening at Freedom Plaza, McPherson Square and Kansas City respectively. At these events, the people are not interested in politics. They think the system is broken and poisoned and needs to be restructured or drastically reformed to where the people’s votes carry the same worth as campaign spending, hence “One dollar, One Vote.” They want to limit the powers of the government and the people who own the government, the corporations, the international banking systems and the Federal Reserve.

However, I do have to admit that I am not totally for what many are doing at Wall Street and at Stop the Machine. They still want to change things with the old way of thinking. They want to change the political system to another political system, but that is what has been happening for hundred of years. Every time one political or economic system goes down, another one pops up and becomes just as corrupt. I would rather not put all of my energy into starting a revolution and just choose to disconnect from the system itself. We, the people, are the ones with the power and we prop the system up. If we don’t buy into the system, then the system falls apart and will be forced to adapt to our wants and needs. The current system works so well because so many people put much of their energy into perpetuating it. I say we stop mindlessly consuming, invest in credit unions and local banks, start growing our own food and buying local produce, invest in cleaner, more efficient energy, not buying pharmaceuticals when sick and start taking control of our lives that way.

What is yelling at buildings, having a bunch of signs and disturbing the peace inside the Air and Space Museum going to do? This was really a low point for the protests. Protesters should be smarter and more respectful than that.

We have to reach for change by starting with a look into ourselves. Change starts from within. Teach one, teach all.

*P.S. be careful with the misinformation that has been occurring on the Internet and fake blog sites. The blogger at http://www.toddkinsey.com/ is a troll and insider for the Tea Party and Republican Party. He or she is spreading lies. Their pictures of people crapping on the flag are fabricated and are not from the Occupy events. They are from 2003. Please discredit this person.

In the meantime, enjoy this interview from the talented journalist Alyona Minkovski with Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author.

What I Experienced at an ‘OccupyDC’ Event

Sign at an Occupy DC event

I try my best to be a conscientious person. I don’t like to participate in things because I feel or believe in something. I want to do as John Trudell said—I want to think. We all have a beautiful creation of the universe inside of our skulls and we should all want to use it to its full capacity.

I have been an active supporter of these ‘occupy’ events, but recently I’ve had to evaluate my actions and thoughts. This is a healthy thing to do and I urge not only people who support the protests to do so, but also people who are against the protests. If you are really against these protests, ask yourself what you are for. Are you for being a slave to a monetary system that preys on the weak and enslaves through debt and the worry of losing your job, family, home and/or car?

Getting hom from the OccupyDC event, I wanted to look at the actions of the participants and most importantly myself. So let’s look at the term occupy. The definition of this term is as dualistic as my perspective on these events. This word has two pertinent meanings. Meaning one: To engage or employ the attention or concentration of.

This definition of occupy has a positive connotation. This seems to be the message of the people I have talked to and met. If members are trying to call attention to important issues, I stand behind that. I stand behind the protesters who want to employ the attention of the government, the banks, the system and the people around the world. If you read my previous post, you can see that there definitely are things to be upset about, especially if you are a part of the younger generation and feel as though your future has been stolen from you and as if you’ve been slighted by the system you were told to buy into since being birthed into this crazy world.

The second definition is “to seize possession of and maintain control over by or as if by conquest.” This tone evokes negative energy and this is what I would advise participants to be aware of. I don’t fully stand behind this. Are we really trying to conquer something that we’ve all had a hand in creating? Some may respond to my rhetorical question and say that they are taking back what was stolen from them. This is a valid point, but we as humans should learn from the past and from our mistakes and not repeat the dark history of this country. This includes the painful stories of enslavement, worldwide occupation, Manifest Destiny, biological warfare and murder. As our once insightful leader JFK said, “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” So I ask our young and tired souls to evaluate our past and correct it, so that the generations after us can look back at us and say we didn’t repeat past mistakes, but corrected them. This would mean that America didn’t make a mistake in the first place, but it failed in order to better itself. In other words, it evolved.

Most of these protests are made up of teenagers and persons in their early twenties. This in and of itself is something positive. Many call our generation lazy, apathetic and freeloading, but I then respond by saying, “Culture is passed down from previous generations.” Many of the youth today may be lazy, but where do they learn it from? I’m relieved to see that not all of us are obsessed with celebrities, athletes, TMZ, impulsive consumerism and clubs, i.e., the Matrix. But the question we should ask ourselves is “What is the Matrix?” By being angry, disorganized, spiteful, hopeless and misguided, are we not playing into the Matrix?

Annabel Park joined us at the Occupy DC event and it was a shame she left so fast because I wanted to talk to her and get a little guidance. For those of you who don’t know who Annabel Park is, she is the creator of the Coffee Party movement, originally a grassroots organization meant to bring the power back to the people in realistic and obtainable ways. She too was a person that was fed up with business as usual, so she took things into her own hands, but she did so in a coherent way. She urged like-minded people to hold meetings around the country, focus on important issues and pressure the political system to take notice (there goes that occupy word again) of what was going on. But they never demanded anything.

The one piece of advice she told our group that resonated with me was to be positive and focus on the affirmative. For instance, try not to divide, but get people to come together through positive language. Instead of focusing on what the government and these corporations are taking away from us, focus on what we can do to bring about change. This is a great philosophy because the universe does not operate in positive and negative language, it does so in the affirmative. For instance, if you say you don’t want to die, the universe does not recognize the word don’t. It only recognizes the action word die. So don’t say, “I don’t want to die.” Instead say, “I want to live.”

At the Occupy DC event, I saw a lot of people who had coherent arguments and ideas to fix issues regarding injustices, but I also experienced a few people who were angry, divisive, and focusing on conflict. Being the young people we are, it’s good to be passionate about something, but we should spend some time really evaluating what we want to accomplish and most importantly, take advice from people who have been there; People like John Trudell and Annabel Park who have more wisdom than we do.

Overall, I’m excited to see where our future is headed. I’m glad people are no longer asleep and in the dark, but this is only the beginning. Again, we got the ball rolling, let’s just make sure we don’t let it turn into an uncontrollable avalanche. Let’s give people a reason to take us seriously.

I want to thank everyone for listening to my opinion and for everyone who is willing to stand up for a cause bigger and more important than themselves. Peace and blessings to all.

*Please take a look at the John Trudell speech I have posted. It holds a special place in my heart and I think you’ll enjoy it.

What ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Can Learn From the Tea Party

Demonstrators at an Occupy KC event. Credit to Twitter.com/brandyn_a81

The protesters of Occupy Wall Street need to be careful because they are very close to having their movement tainted. So far Michael Moore, Cornel West and union members have shown up to these protests, capitalizing on the enthusiasm of people upset with the direction of their country (sound familiar, eh?). For the time being, it seems as though the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are headed down the same path as the Tea Party.

The Tea Party started out with what seemed to be a grassroots movement, but quickly got out of hand with increasing amounts of media attention, celebrity freeloaders, corporate donors and extreme views of how politics should be fixed. As with anything, humans will grows narcissistic and narrow-minded in their attempt to control people. This was definitely the case for then Tea Party leader and racist Mark Williams. The mainstream media was vying to get inside of the Tea Party’s mission and this one man (along with other political factions) ended up poisoning whatever message the Tea Party was trying to get across. This is the issue with having leaders represent a movement; Leaders can be manipulated by opposing forces and lose sight in the cause all together.

There are some lessons that can be learned by the Wall Street protesters from the Tea Party. For one, be careful of celebrities and other factions that capitalize on something that they really had no hand in creating. I think it’s always a good thing for the media to be aware of what is going on at the protests, but the media can also play a large role in extinguishing the fires of a movement. Once the media sees Michael Moore give a speech to a crowd, he then becomes the spokesperson for the effort and the same goes for Cornel West.

This takes away from the movement because it is the people who should be questioned and given the microphone to speak. When the people who participated in the early Tea Party protests were interviewed by the media, it gave people a better understanding of what these people were about. When Mark Williams was given the microphone, a lot of people were turned off from the movement. When celebrities, politicians, political factions and high-profile persons take part in these protests, it takes away from what the protests are really about: the people. Because the mainstream media is lazy, they will begin to only interview high-profile persons and cast a wide net over the whole movement based on the actions of a few. This is largely what happened to the Tea Party.

When it comes to the Wall Street protesters, not having a definite leader has its drawbacks. It makes it difficult to mobilize people under one message. I say this because of the unions and other political factions taking a part in the Wall Street protests. The protests should be open to all, but participators should let leaders of these political factions know that they do not represent the movement. Yes, it would be easier to push this message with a leader, but this doesn’t mean it is not possible to do so without one. It is up to the protestors and those in the general assemblies to get this point across.

Demonstrators in a park in Kansas City. Credit to Twitter.com/Brandyn_a81