I have no idea what precipitated the latest of many standoffs between Occupy Oakland and the Oakland police, this clash being of the May Day variety. All I saw was a cop chasing and eventually tackling a man in one of the crosswalks on 14th and Broadway, Occupy Oakland’s home base since the movement’s inception. From there, it was like a firecracker had gone off, or a bell signaling the start of the prize fight everyone had been anticipating. The Black Bloc sprang into action, armed with their bandanas and homemade metal shields. “Here we go,” “showtime,” they could be heard exhorting themselves as they marched towards the commotion. This was familiar territory for them, and they were prepared. The cops sprang into action too. They were also prepared.
The following post originally appeared on Adbusters on April 30, 2012 and has since been picked up by various other venues.
Photo credit: Daniel Goodman
Why are we striking? Or to put it another way – what’s wrong with the world?
Of course, most of us know what’s wrong with the world. We know about the poverty, war, violence and disease. We’re conscious of the injustice, but not fully conscious of it, because frankly, we have enough to worry about in our own lives. As such, we’ve come to accept these injustices as simple facts of life – prepackaged side effects of the human condition, as natural and intertwined with our existence as water to a stream, beyond our capacity to effect in any significant way. This collective sense of powerlessness and default apathy is why we’re striking.
Once you’ve become radicalized, it’s always amusing and enlightening to encounter the various stimuli which, in your pre-radicalized days, would have elicited a far different response. This happened to me last week when I was setting up a new email account for my Mom and came across a slew of fundraising emails from the DCCC. Though the messages were authored by a wide variety of familiar names – Biden, Pelosi, Reid and the like – they all contained the same general structure, which went something like this:
Dear Voter/Donor-
Did you hear this? Republicans just released a new attack ad saying Democrats sacrifice kittens. KITTENS!
Oh, and get this – Republicans sacrifice kittens. KITTENS!
We’ve gotta respond. The first quarterly FEC deadline of 2012 is in just 48 hours. Send us money now, and let’s send them a clear message that says we won’t stand for their lies, nor their kitten sacrificing. And if you act in the next 2 hours, we’ll triple the donation!
Reflections on a Revolution offers one of the best international perspectives I’ve come across on the many separate-but-connected global protest movements currently bubbling to the surface. Particularly striking is a recent exchange, shown below, between the site’s editor, Jerome Roos, and the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. While Roos’ precise and emphatic delivery in confronting the austerity measures of one of the world’s “men behind the curtain” stands on its own, even more noteworthy is the detached aloofness of Schäuble’s response. At once hopeless and hopeful, the scene is an ideal representation of the primary source of conflict replicating itself in the various venues of the world today. Hopeless, in the case of Schäuble’s utter inability to tread beyond institutionalized thought patterns, or exhibit any kind of concern or interest in the plight of those actually affected by his policies. Hopeful, in the sense that a broader, more all-encompassing perspective may not be held captive much longer.
That is all.
The UN has declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives.
Worker co-ops, an idea as old as the Industrial Revolution (and really, civilization itself), have the potential of becoming a major front in the Occupy movement, not to mention the wider global social justice movement. Like most people, I’ve known about worker co-ops for a while, but it was only recently that I became conscious of their far-reaching implications. For me, this happened during a night out with a friend, enjoying fine food and drink at a fine establishment. It was the kind of night that, some might say, could only have been made possible by our capitalist system. Yet on that night, somewhere between the first and second glass of wine, it occurred to me that no one directly responsible for making my first-rate experience possible – from the waitstaff to the cooks; to the producers, packagers and shippers of the food; to the people who made the tables, chairs and silverware; to those who designed and built the building – made anything close to 7 or even 6 figures.
You don’t have to be a new age bohemian or break out the chakra crystals on a regular basis to acknowledge the existence of a “collective consciousness,” a concept which simply refers to the current shared views and perspectives of a society. As is most often the case in people, the views and perspectives of a society tend to evolve and mature over time.
50 years ago, the collective consciousness of the U.S. held that segregation was OK. Had we reflected more, perhaps we would have realized sooner the simple ignorance of this view, and wouldn’t have needed such a messy movement to help us come to our senses. But reflection and second-guessing have never been our strong suit. We’re much more interested in winning the argument.
Today, we look back on that time with dismay. How could we have been so stupid? And yet we’re no less sure of ourselves, no less eager to defend to the death the various views we’ve chosen to identify with. On a personal level, we’re emotionally removed enough to reminisce on the naivety of our youth, or even laugh at our shortsighted indiscretions of a few years ago. But the conflict in our lives now? We have no greater inclination to look for its source in the mirror today than we did at any point in our lives.
The following post comes courtesy of Evolver blogger Rae Liera. You can read this and other posts – primarily dealing with bridging the spiritual and political – on her blog here.
You ARE a political being!
I’ve heard SO MANY spiritual people say, “I’m not political.” I have news for you. You ARE a political being. Like a fish swims in water, you swim in a matrix of political thoughts and institutions. And just like the fish is never out of contact with the water, you are never out of contact with the political world that has woven itself around you.
And just like the fish could only know it is in water through the experience of leaving the water, you will probably never understand the depth and degree to which your consciousness is interwoven with the political world until you pull your consciousness free from it, until you take the time to allow the invisible matrix to be seen.
Another protest movement against the government.
The Occupy movement is now in hibernation, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty going on. Perhaps a better analogy for OWS’s current state of existence would be Jesus’s 40 days and nights in the desert, or the pre-enlightened Buddha under the Bodhi tree. Before either of those sages could map out the particulars of the message they would transmit to the world, they had to map out the message inside.
When OWS introduced itself to the world on September 17th, the primary targets of its disaffection were multinational corporations, and their calculated extraction of wealth from the middle class. Not far behind, though, was a government that allowed them to do it. Indeed, if there is a single impetus that could be pinpointed as being the spark that ignited OWS, it likely would not concern any single corporation, but rather, President Obama. Finally, the soon-to-be occupiers had had their fill of dumbed down stump speeches, war escalation, and lobbyist written-legislation. Despite a soaring campaign oratory that had at times suggested otherwise, a collective realization was made that this latest Wall Street financed, coddling, and appointing president had never actually represented anything more than the most recent of a long and seemingly endless line of false choices.
Bhutan keeps it real
May 15, 2012
I’ve always been a big fan of Bhutan, if for no other reason than its hand in bringing the defiantly sensible “Gross National Happiness” idiom into our lexicon. Sure, they have problems too, but at least they view their problems as things to be solved, as opposed to the leadership in more “advanced” countries, who depend on and perpetuate their society’s problems in order to maintain their separateness.
GNH is like the sage advice we always ignored because it wasn’t convenient, but always knew was right, reminding us of the plot that has been lost – Hellooo! The whole point of economic expansion and technological/scientific progress is to increase the happiness and well-being of the world’s population, right? If that isn’t being achieved, it’s time to re-evaluate everything and ask ourselves the question posed by David Korten, which I’ve relayed here before and will do so shamelessly again: “Do we exist to serve the economy? Or does the economy exist to serve us?”
With that, I refer you to a wonderful and uplifting post from Lester Kurtz at Waging Nonviolence concerning Bhutan’s latest step in its march towards sanity – perhaps more of a walking meditation than a march. At the very least, it’s evidence of new paradigms emerging and new questions being pondered on a larger scale, which can’t be a bad thing.