those who come and go

those who come and go

i wanted to say that whether you physically occupy a camp, or no, it is irrelevant!!

those who come and go, are VITAL members of the collective "we" of the occupy movement!!! you are the foot "soldiers" (hate that the most descriptive language i can employ is militaristic). you are the ones who whisper over fences to your neighbors, in community groups to your friends, in households over meals. you are the ones who sway minds and hearts of family and community members, you are the ones who open the door for those who don't yet know or understand our movement.

in short, you are we.

we are a diverse body of beings, beginning a conversation to build new systems that exist outside of the broken ones that have kept marching the 99% along!!

we value yer work.

you are our hero.

we are all heros!!

greetings from the front

today is october 28th, a big day for the world's consciousness and the rising.

i'm in a tent, on the occupy tucson camp/us.

i write from here, the heart, to say we need a new language ... and that starts in our hearts and minds.

there is a contingent, and that contingent is one of "control"

PLEASE JOIN US.

please! please! please!

this movement has an URGENT need for people who work with the community, who work with youth at risk, who work with the indigent, the homeless, and the prisons. this movement also has a need for every citizen who is a member of any of these groups!!! you are a part of the 99%!

PLEASE STAY!!!

all of you who feel disempowered, small and voiceless ... do not leave the ranks. rather plant yourself more firmly ... resist the urge to fold your hand and leave the table. without your tenacity and your input on camp/us or the ringing of your voice in general assembly, we are lost. we have failed to grow.

it's a chaotic process; if the silent ones do not stay to find and exercise their voice. if we do not learn to participate together as the once powerless who rise ... if we do not band togehter to resist and help those with a will to power who are not aligned to the true calling of this movement to rise for the collective good, to learn to listen, to displace their desire for their 15 minutes and give instead unto 7 generations, it will be a loss for this rising.

i say to everyone: trust the chaos!

there is a certain fractious contingent, in every occupation and that contingent is one of "control" or self-designated leader.

in this movement, this issue, this issue of control and power, is being reflected and focused from the micro to the macro ...

the one's who have bought hook-line-and-sinker into our cultural paradigm of power and control, who have internalized it, so to speak. they show themselves. they rise from within our camp/us communities. they try to dictate, usurp, and manipulate, &etc.

it is no worry ... we must ALL rise!!!!!!!

these people who show themselves, who employ these methods, are simply the ones who will receive the first rite of passage: the KNOCK down ... the ego bump. you are on a level playing ground. you must learn that your while your skill sets are appreciated, when you attempt to use them for self glorification, they are useless to the whole, because wielding them as a means to broker power, bankrupts the collective. we are to give wholly, for the common good. so park your ego outside the camp/us. if you can't shed it before attending general assemblies and working groups, it will be wrested from you, and if you do not relinquish it, you will ultimately leave the movement. we do not want the self-serving here.

if you're reading this, please know that your community needs you ... come to the camp/us pitch a tent and learn to live, and resolve, and sythesize for the collective. if you don't camp attend as many general assemblies as you can and learn to register your voice ... so we MAY GROW TOGETHER.

in the spirit of commonweal to the revolution

i fear the development of a second location in another city park is going to hurt our local movement at large, most specifically in relation to the city council education meeting that will follow last week's assembly of the 99% at city hall.my fear is that during the sixty minutes of time alloted to the education/study session of city council, that the members will look at two things, our citations (which now stem from two separate sites), and the two public intoxication citations (which we took last night at armory park) ... since we have two allies of the movement who sit on council but they do not hold the majority, both developments can prove very damaging.

when i heard that there are now to parks being held, well... that made me wanna roll over and die. because i sense that this will seal the punch. "look, they can't control their own members, and further more, they have already moved into YET another site ... if we give them an inch, they will take a mile"

on the 15th of october, the first day of the formation of our occupy camp/us, i was somewhat taken aback by the fact that we had not approached city council in an attempt to be permitted for a long standing open-ended event at armory park. this caused me great consternation. that the legal team didn't advise us to go through this process, and THEN establish our right to convene if said permit was denied, or if they made the hurdles too impossibly high for us to be able to be permitted. this seemed the logical first step to me. for it would lay the foundation for our argument when and if conflict with the city arose. the council and mayor would already be well aware of our presence, and our objective, and there would be no question that we had made attempts to work within the system before asserting our constitutional rights.

on the matter of separating out into two camps, i understand that there are egos and power struggles and personality conflict, but it is important in this movement, for all of us to be unified ... as it is ONLY through this mechanism that we can retain the strength and the stamina as a movement to sustain the rebelution.

what we must recognize, is that we are dealing on a micro level (each individual's ego/mind) with what we are trying to resist at the macro level (power/control usurped by the will to power through economic greed). what happens on the micro level is a slow revelation as to how enculcated each of us is with the abstract paradigms that fuel our culture with notions of self worth and privilege. we are often blind to the manner in which we internalize our culture's values, how they are stitched into the fabric of our being. it is through living together and sorting through our differences by learning to listen to and accept each memeber's viewpoint as equally valid to our own that we will re-dress social and economic inequity in very real terms.

in this manner, each person reflects their own internalization of the power paradigm of our cultural background ... in these small (but large-in-life) infights and struggles for power or recognition and the fractious outcomes, we are all being presented with the need to reflect upon our own relationship to the paradigm within ourselves, and within the group.

every being is a valuable member of the community. through learning to live together collectively we are learning how to reframe reality in a grand social experiment. if we separate out economically, generationally, by creed or race, we face an epic fail. it is only if we learn together how to face each other and resolve our differences, that we will learn how to work together to synthesize our various views into a collective voice of change.

despite the pain, of the roller coaster ride. we all have to grow, and we will.

but, it is true, that united we stand, divided we fall.

in the spirit of commonweal to the rebelution

occupy y/our head!

i am you... you are me... and we are all together

i've been a digital agitator for occupy since the beginning ...

i've stirred the pot to watch the numbers grow.

early on, it felt like watching your favorite team at a playoff. it was an amazing exhilaration and sometimes an anti-climatic disappointment. in fits and starts, i've cheered with elation and then turned fearful that we would not get numbers high enough for the movement to take root. as the numbers climbed, i became more happy and secure that, not only would we succeed, but we would grow into a mighty oak!

even back then, i realized that 250,000 would mean we had only just taken root. while the numbers behind this movement are large, we have a long way to go. we are nowhere close to reaching critical mass and that is of absolute necessity.

the media, even when it looks positive, puts a spin on us.

one that i am trained to see and deconstruct.

we are trivialized, discounted and discredited in all manner of ways.

we have no leader, we have no demand.

this is intentional. yet it is used against us.

we are hippies, homeless and youth ...

the truth is, the movement consists of citizens from all walks of life and all kinds of economic backgrounds.

i have faced the threats, the jeers, the jabs.

i have listened to the caustic stuff, and sat with it.

i learned how to respond, in a manner that i think is right:

for instance, colleague #1 said "unless you pick up a rock and throw it, i'm gonna beat you senseless."

my reponse after 17 hours of long thought on it: "well, beat me senseless then."

our work is not about having people know what we're doing, it's about raising awareness and having them locate the solution in the collective response of the movement ... to take responsibility for ourselves, our politics and our environment.

i am you ... you are me ... and we are all together.

provocation of inclusiveness

in tucson, i proposed we have a campaign for the 99.1% to invite the large body of motorcycle club members here to join the movement. it met with resistance. i understand the history of violence in certain clubs. i do, i truly do. i have had up close and very personal experiences with 1%ers.

but 1%ers know how to fight for their rights ... they know how to campaign and stand up for themselves. they know how to petition the government and it's representatives to repeal laws. they can hang tough. and i believe we shouldn't overlook any groups because we fear them. now is the time, when each human can stand up to be recognized as a valuable member of society, of humanity by joining the occupy movement.

i have also lobbied for an invitation to be issued to young people of color, often found in gangs and urban areas, through occupy the hood.

to invite such groups to the table is not intended to be provocative. it is intended to generate a discussion, to have folks examine their relationship to the exclusion of specific groups (be it mental or actual) in practice.

this exclusionary practice is something the movement must redress.

fear is no longer a viable operative. it never has been actually, it is what has kept us comfortably numb, turning our heads and averting our eyes, hiding our heads in the sands, while agendas have been enacted to protect the powerful, and consolidate their control over our resources. all the while our collective power as a democratic voice and our rights as free citizens, have steadily diminished and the world's economy has been gutted.

our fear silenced us and allowed the fox to creep into the henhouse ...

it's time to gather up our lanterns and bring our collective light to roust the cretin there, before it is too late!!

we can not persist with this notion of exclusivity.

the "we don't want to invite this group, or that group."

everyone, everyone of us must come to the yard.

and we must all agree to roust the fox with our presence and our knowledge that the fox is feeding in our hen house!

this is a primary principle of solidarity!

all factions must put down their colors, and no longer tear our yard asunder.

we must flush the cunning fox out.

in my professional community which is pretty liberal community of tattooists, i have faced countless jabs, people pissed off, people who think the movement is bunk. i find it so hard to believe that there are people who think that the occupation is NOT important.

i am an idealist and i am watching the people rise ... the future is now ...

i keep thinking the tribal leaders, the medicine chiefs, have surely known this moment was coming. surely we can find a way to have the wisdom of these native leaders join the table, to help mend the world in this circle of life, where all living beings are aligned in heart and mind with each other and our mother earth?

i have no idea how to go about this.

i pray that we can all lay down our preconceptions, our relations to the history (not our ancestors) of the past ... i believe the great medicine chiefs know the moment has arrived. i want the medicine chiefs and the tribal elders to come before us, and guide us ... i think their wisdom, (that which has been guarded and protected) is SO necessary. there is wonder in this world and in the way that, when we trust each other, and the great creation (the universe, god, whatever), things meet up ... it's kinda magical that way.

in my own mind, i am still without words, yet i have waited for this moment to arise since early childhood. sometimes, when i try to talk about it, this moment, right here, right now, that we are in ... i weep.

i dunno, i have faith in us, in every single one of us little peons on this planet.

i believe that we might just rise to what we were entrusted with from the get go ... as caretakers of each other and this bountiful world.

much pain will be necessary ... i will sacrifice myself in good conscience, because we ARE building the sustainable future unto all the other generations.

it won't be easy... but i am brave and happy to sacrifice, even my life, to clog the gears of the monstrous machine that is destroying us (the living beings and this planet).

such exciting times ... this cross road. i believe that now is the time, now is the time, the paradigm shift is happening and we need to develop a new language that does not yet exist... we need the elders of this land ... to forge this great path which can lead us onto the path of whole(i)ness ... together we shall find the path not yet tread.