The OccupyParty Candidate for the 2012 US Presidential Election

I’ve just got to ask.. What kind of political activist group isn’t getting politicians to vie for their endorcement in the upcoming election. Or maybe a better question is, How does an anarchist political system feel about national politics? Is it more valueable to meet (halfway) with conditions in order to overcome them, or is that just a myth?

In Argentina, international corporate politics are consider a hinderence to occupier goals of self-determination. It would be easy to say that the Occupation itself is a class endevor, but really it’s something deeper. It’s struggle lies in its very own structure, but is this really an issue worth solving or just an attempt to hold on to past ideas, no matter how well we know the past for its outcomes, but where will we land?

Occupiers in America right now have an interesting set of options that could, by exercising them, strengthen their political value and complement their own goals by supporting an official that is friendly to the cause. There are a few political options that have surfaced, in all the events, to side with the support of the Occupy Class including; Barry Sanders, Ron Paul and a few others that could be of more help, advancing the occupation, than the current leadership.

But is this selling out the core of anarchy to simply fit in with a aging system for the political comfort of the half hearted or less? Even though it has fantastic strategic implications. Another brilliant tactic to promote a richer structure for the occupation is to call for a Constitutional Convention; demand our goals be included in the v2.0. On the other hand it promotes the structure of the state run political will, or local will, but is that a needful avoidance? Shouldn’t part of the goal be to occupy local politics?

Another, more significant option, is to stregthen the community base and set further reaching future goals to take back local resources. Cities may “obtain” possession of real estate for local projects and or “other” use, etc. The bottom line is that it seems, to me, advantageous to strengthen the ideas of what Occupation can accomplish and organize around developing the infrastructure, and a sustainable business plan, for those goals. Ones that include filling the gaps of a decaying system as the need might arrise, and eventually occupying everything.

All things considered, it might help benefit the Occupiers to support a presidential candidate for 2012. It would only take a few days to make our force a condition of the next presidential race, that would have to be met with by any candidate running. Ignoring Occupy is impossible at this point. It has become an institution and should begin acting like one politically! And, if there was a move to grease our own candidate for a run in 2012, I bet we could pull it off! Wouldn’t that be an interesting revelation for folks…

The Occupy Movement – The Roots are in the Arts

Most people may be briefly familiar with the original blog post, that went up in July to announce the Occupy Movement. Adbusters posted the invitation to #occupywallstreet, but the wheels for this generation had been rolling for over 10 years, waiting to percolate up into the moment when it was ripe.

In Argentina, the movement was called Horizontalidad. It was a public direct response to a catastrophic economic event that can be seen having it’s roots in IMF loan policies being advanced by Argentine president Carlos Menen. One of the first actions taken in this sideways movement was to blockade one of the main highways and demand concessions from the government for having sold out their jobs. They held the position for several days and made all their decisions in a General Assembly, in order to be more efficient.

While the concept of Horizontalism was coming to life in Argentina it was later used in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain and Greece, before landing on the shores of North America. Several members of these actions abroad were brought together over the 10 years at a place off the Bowling Green called 16Beaver Street. !6Beaver has been hosting anarchist panels and meetings, over the years, to discuss occupation as a viable means for change. A few of the original group on August 2nd, who gathered for the first GA Meeting, were directly responsible for some of the core elements that made this movement so very successful. First and foremost, it’s collective agreement to a Horizontal model.

One thing that has been a difficulty for many writers has been to put Horizontalism into context, when I think the real difficulty lies in our construct rather. We want things to ride along a course we can plot, with points of references we’re familiar with and Horizontalism isn’t a goal. It is a method or means for collective decision making. The real power behind it is its simplest factor, which is communication. When people gather around ideas, they can learn from each others perspectives of events much faster than they would if the information were to carry along the normal routes of communication. It promotes exchange and compounds insight with discussion. I doubt we’ve seen the end of it.

The Occupation at Zucotti Park which spawned a global movement under one banner is a direct expression of the shift in human consciousness. It’s a subtle effect, inspired by our current Internet culture, that has taught us to question our social constructs and explore other regions of information; to reignite the question of why we exist together on this planet. Is it to produce and consume the natural resources or is it something else? We yearn on a very deep level to know what everyone else thinks; whether they agree with us or not, or what other options might exist. I have even noticed that when I tell people about what Occupiers do, they express a sense of relief that seems to come from their inner sense of hope.

I doubt if history will tell the story of how a group of artists from NY hi-jacked a movement that changed the world. It’s not that we aren’t fascinated by the culture behind it, really. It’s rather, the very nature of the movement itself. It positions everyone together on one level playing field. In this way everyone is the silent leadership of their own actions. It’s self learning through a round house discussion of the life and experience of occupiers, sharing their experiences and reflecting with each other, learning from those actions, and putting the result into action.

It has become abundantly clear since the subprime fallout that the current Global socioeconomic model is ruled by Method. It has the lens of capitalism by which this model is etched and fixes our perception to see the World through this agreement. Capitalism fails the true test of phenomena, which is nature; to be a self sustaining, symbiotic equilibrium. Yet it has awakened something new in all of us. It is widening our perception to include possibilities that have previously remained just out of focus, through the unique challenges it manifests. It is boring and redundant and the desire to move on to something more substantial is over-whelming!

The New Paradigm is an Autonomous Collective Where Information is King!

An obvious shift is happening to the global culture than can easily be attributed to the introduction of the Internet. If you think about it, there is always some form of communication involved with dramatic and successful cultural shifts. The printing press, oil paints, the telegraph; these different models of communication have had dramatic affects on global perception. Each more powerful, further compressing time and space to be more obtainable. Exponentially increasing the efficiency of mass comprehension.

The Internet is a highly effective window into the history of information; the accumulative wealth of experience condensed into insight. This has a powerful resonant effect to increase the mass awareness, through the specialization of information compiling. Each new generation of information adding more resonant frequency to ideas.

In a simple form it offers, everyone connected with this information, the opportunity to discover variables hidden by acclimation or innocence. If people in Tim Buck Two are successfully accomplishing their goals, we tend to share that information with each other, and invention is necessities child.

We are actually quite ahead of the curve when it comes to new things on the Internet. In fact, a lot of the things we think are new have been brewing for years in different people. The future of our experience hasn’t caught on yet. Its still a new site with a small but dedicated membership. It may have a time in the sun eventually. It just needs a reason.

The very nature of a World Wide Web is a cauldron for innovation and anarchy. It unlocks the vales that hide the real reason behind most things, and offers us more and more ways to take action. We are uniquely entitled to make our own choice about everything, and if we find something interesting we can share it with close circles and grow more aware together.

Occupy Wall Street is the outcome of the imbalance behind the truth and lies of the media, and the capitalism behind it. It is a catalyst of ideas and experience that has proven successful for others. It is a process of learning compressed from infinite individual angles to increase the efficacy in realization, and it just opened it’s eyes!

The core message that makes this one different from other types of protests we’ve seen is the culture it forms. Without a core group setting the pace there can be little longevity in any kind of movement that stirs up the mainstream. It is designed to resist everything accept true change, which it is committed to destroy. The trap is trying to destroy it gives it strength; feeds it intent.

The call behind the cultural shift around us is information. It is opening more eyes and predicating intelligence about it. It’s a chance to talk about what is happening, to share more information directly instead of relying on the media to provide it. It’s a chance for us to call into question the very ideas that form the model of our society, scrutinize them in the light of more truth, make consensus based choices as a society of self determined individuals! Truly experience direct democracy, horizontally!

Why We Occupy! – The West Coast Port Shutdown.

Okay, so let me address this issue that keeps coming up in conversations I’m engaged in. People ask “Why” occupy the Ports. How does it help to shut down the economy. This is a great philosophical question, and I think the Occupiers have done a pretty good job of going around it. I have heard different takes from different groups that say different things. Some say it’s a prosperity annoyance to “disagree” with the current power structure.

You know what I think? I think it’s a response to the structure shutting down the Camps. Think about it. A portion of the occupiers is a homeless crew that had more to lose from the breakup of the parks than others, add the frustration of Police enforcing rules to “silence” Freedom of Speech. Then add in the general feeling in America, the unemployment and college debt, with no hope in sight, and Boom!

It’s a shame we even have these types of interaction in our culture; our community, incommunicado. Such resistance to the freedom of happiness.  Why on Earth do we interact with such trepidation. Whose loyalties do you serve? Shouldn’t you serve your own first, and around you form a trust, just to talk…  Much can be learned from a chat! This is the position that occupiers seek to yield, but it’s a two-edged sword.

The people who are asking the question ‘why the ports?’ are right in asking this! To me it seems obvious the system, made up of so many rules and sub-rules that interlock to form the degree of perception it holds is fact! Trying to break it alerts the structure, and the structure fights back, but if one moves with the flow of water, one will eventually see the horizon.

Could Occupy Save the Housing Sector?

Since the collapse of the camps, Occupy has been soul searching. looking for the next level, as some have put it. A part if the movement has their hearts set on reoccupying their camps, while another sees a different vision.

Since the fall of Chapman and Lownsdale squares and Terry Schrunk Plaza in Portland, their GA has expanded their online and community presence. NYCGA has turned their focus to the community and led a National shift, when they stopped the first foreclosure. It should be the federal government that’s actively stopping foreclosures, but it’s not! It’s the occupy movement that finally realized the  solution to bad lending habits!

Other occupy groups have followed with there own internal restructuring. Building their own solutions like office space and public spaces for meetings. Each group has begun to follow the leads of NY’s stand against foreclosures. This is a two pronged solution to the problem that the camps had inadvertently created unknowingly. Occupy now belongs to the whole 99% by submerging into the community.

Think about it. Occupy, in essence, is a simple platform that allows a community of people to engage. Engagement was the core of the general assemblies intention. Society should be chosen by the people living within it! And not the banks or the politicians that work for them.

The other thing this may effect is housing prices. Slowing or stopping the foreclosures has been the goal all along. It’s the salvo for stabilizing the dollar. If housing prices started to climb again, it would likely bring back lending and we’d be off to the races again. Highly unlikely, but that’s the theory the Fed’s betting on when they print mad cash and monetize the debt with it. The come back! It’s coming!

But consider this! The banks and the US created this issue by failing to regulate the banks, that were directly creating the mess. Then, they got together and, right in front of us, agree to solve their issues with “our” flippen money. Then… They turn around and start taking homes our men and women built with their sweat and labor, and the US let’s them! WTF!

Well, at this point, all I can say is apropos. They say that necessity is the mother of invention and I give you the inertial response to reckless policies. Occupy Our Homes was born out of a void left from the camp raids. It is motivated by an imbalance of political will and rhetoric, while exasperated by the shear desire for true change. And, it might just be the correct move to right the economy.

Call to Close the West Coast Ports – Sounds Like a West Coast Tea Party! Constitutional Convention/Burning Man!

And wouldn’t that just piss off the Tea Baggers. I think Occupy should shanghai the entire movement, Co-Opt the Tea Party! Instead of dressing up like Indian’s (which are from India BTW) I could see a whole crowd of pretty Church world suits and red bow ties, and Fox News Media Supplies.

But… as an anarchist movement, we should definitely give the event some of the natural colors so famous for the dirty homelessly disorganized krusties that just took hold of the entire planets curiosity. OMG! What do they want?!

And there lies the beauty of the entire movement in a nutshell. The divine power of silence. Truth is that we aren’t enough of the whole to make decisions for the rest of us. What is Occupy, is very easy to answer! It is the chance to talk about our society with each other.  It’s not so much a direction that occupation holds, it’s the way.

The Call to the Ports should be a call to something worthy of the entire movement. Set an example to others in the World of what true value holds for a public gathered. What our society has as its strength and core value is the people who call it home! The foundation of this event called America is the Constitution that proclaims our intentions as Americans, and what we expect as a culture!

Why isn’t every event like its own Burning Man? Why don’t we gather to celebrate our culture. Instead we are met at the gates of our serenity by Police in Bad Costumes for anything fun! Buzz kill, if you ask me! Remember the good old days? Well don’t feel bad, neither can I. All I know about the World around me started with Vietnam, so the whole Freedom things seems a bit theoretical if you were to ask me!

Here’s the thing I have never understood throughout my life. The World around me seems effortless to define, and we all go along with it, but what if it’s the wrong description of the events were seeing? What if it’s something other than the one were reporting to each other, confirming? What if it’s a progression that is leading us through the events and revealing the path along the way! Seems a bit obvious, but what if the change is already happening to us as we figure it out, which innately changes our environment, and we adjust to the change.

Straight up I can tell you that I don’t have a lot of faith in the idea that the Man is going to fold in on itself. Or that we will ever secure substantial or lasting change with the cooperation of  the current system’s momentum. Our goal is not perfection, but rather the principles of freedom be expressed. To stand against this in any way is just silly, and frankly that is my feeling on the way authority practices position, and whether they like it or not, they ultimately serve the people.

We are a Star Fish!

 

 

A Call for A Constitutional Convention – Occupy America

 

It’s seems pretty likely at this point that the people resting in the positions of power in the US have chosen to defend the Institution vs. defend the Constitution. They have coordinated an attack against the 1st. Amendment Rights of American’s, by sending in hundreds of Police wearing riot armor to stop the Free Expression of citizens protected under that Constitution. They have Sworn Oaths to Defend and Protect the Constitution.

This is an open call to bring the Constitution into the future of all Americans. It has been treated without regard for the words contained within it. The Patriot Act and House Apportionment Rules.

The only constitutional rule relating to the size of the House says: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.”^[4] Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911.^[1] The number was temporarily increased to 437 in 1959 upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census. –  wikipedia

The intentions of the Founders made it clear that the goal of the House was meant to be a amorphous public voice driven by the  shifts in popular trends. Locking in the number at 435 is like taking the voice of the public interest away; making it more susceptible to the influences inherent in Capitalism . This direction has led this country inexorably down a road further and further marked by the distance from the average US citizen.

The Fourth Amendment has been crippled by those who seek to undermine the protections we all share under the Constitution, to practice our right to privacy. This has been outdated by technological advances that couldn’t be foreseen by the founders and needs to be addressed.  These changes to the basic notion that Congress can shape the Constitutional meaning to fit whatever scenario they have invented for the American People, but I tell you this, there is a process for changing the Constitution called an Amendment. It must be approved by 2/3 of the states within a year, and makes the Patriot Act illegal, as does the idea that our phones can be tapped, ever, without a warrant.

This leaves American Citizens only one way to call into question the positions of Authority, that they be governed by the people they represent. That we call for a Constitutional Convention

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government

These words took time to resolve, even as a free sovereign community. We have every right to stand up and be heard as Americans with a legacy of rebellion in our history.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”

Fortunately we haven’t reached a time where we have entirely lost faith in the system we have. We have in fact come just in time to save the general agreement we have as Citizens of the US to engage in an Open Dialog that gives the proper respect to the founding ideas this country was forged by. Whether or not it is respected, we are a Democracy of People and choose to support the surrounding environment politically, but if it can no longer be proved to be a representative system, then we are demanded by the founders to perform this “Duty”!

It is the wish of this group that we begin the dialog to talk about the Constitution. How can we keep money out of political processes, and how can we clearly define the things like Apportionment at 30,000-1. We Call for a Constitutional Convention, and demand representation clearly defined as “public”.

We demand a Constitutional Convention!

Occupy Wall Street, After the Campout – What’s Next for the Movement

First let me mention that I don’t agree at all with the idea that American’s can not put up a tent as an expression of free speech. I think that’s a piss poor decision for the courts, considering “flag burning” is okay, but camping is a health and safety issue. Look, I don’t know about you, but I feel like TSA is a huge waste of my time in a free society. I put up with it during the big 911 response, but it’s time to get back to being Americans!

Occupy, in my eyes, is riding along prevailing winds, and has only begun to reveal the energy and brilliance behind it. So, here we are at the eve of having the biggest Occupy camps in the country dismantled by the Man! This is where a dozen news groups and media outlets will do their best to play on the unknown about it, as a scare tactic to weaken the movement. “They don’t know what they want?” or “They need a leader to be considered real”. But here’s the thing…

If you consider the language of the event; camps across the country are gone, and now the morph begins. Having a bunch of big camps was starting to play out a bit “socialist/liberal” for me. Oakland has even called for a support action of Washington Port Workers. Personally I think it needs to grow roots now. Take the time this Winter to seep into the community and plan front-yard CSA’s. Take to the streets to collect funding for space, and help Bank Customers learn about the differences in Banking institutions.

Small groups of Community Assemblies have begun forming in every town in the country. It makes sense that if America is going to change, that we should have a conversation about it. I find it amazing that our media and political systems have escaped the reality that we can do whatever we want. It’s the whole reason the Constitution was written. And, what is being revealed is the difference between the people and the institutions. Shame on the coordinating with local law enforcement. The idea that that all happened so precisely without central coordination is ridiculous. It reveals that there has been a break between the Constitution and the People who will defend it!

It’s time for the culture of America to meet and discuss the fate of our society. If people don’t or won’t see the dangers in the Fed actions to support the World’s economy by printing money and monetizing debt, then don’t worry about it. But if you see what I see, then you see the need for a true dialog with the members of this ship to discuss the current situation and options available to us as Americans! The World is defined by our willingness to engage with it. It can be anything we want.