By Colin Davis
occupy [at] dslextreme.com

The POC Conference

This past weekend was quite a thrill for me.  The Progressive Opportunities Conference was held at the David Brower Center in Berkeley California, and I had the pleasure of attending, in the nick of time, and with a comp’ed pass as well (Thanks Marc and Jody!).

This was a conference I had not heard about prior to this past week, but apparently many others had because it was totally sold out.  In one day, the promoters, headed by Jody Colley of the East Bay Express newspaper, booked about 25 speakers or panels of speakers to deliver presentations on topics which pertain to socially and environmentally responsible business platforms, monetary functions, lifestyle choices, public policy and the like.

Basically, the conference was a place for conscientious and free thinking business minded people to explore and explain to each other, the many formulas which presently exist, that are beginning to replace the current models of social and commercial organization – and that push the Corporatocracy out of popularity.

To my pleasure, I saw a lot of young people, and a good percentage of women, but I also saw a lot of middle aged and older folks, eternally young at heart, who are still pushing the envelope of social consciousness.  And I also felt something at this conference that was not physically visible.  I experienced a palpable sense that’s still with me.  Those were my people in there.  They were focused but kind.  They were open, but confident.  They were real.  Those were some real people in there!

I realized that I was in the presence of our future entrepreneurs and business professionals as well as future political leaders who will carry the meme of the new story into our society at large.  What story am I talking about?

Our Story

Google Charles Eisenstein for a more inspiring explanation, but the story we are telling is one that says that we are more powerful when we act together than when we act alone.  It says that our outer world is a mirror of our inner world, and that responsible, just and compassionate people create responsible, just and compassionate societies.  And the story says that the natural world is the highest representation of perfection and that rather than to childishly destroy it, the more mature and intelligent way to live is to do so in harmony with the natural environment.

The new story does not value scarcity; it values abundance; because humanity’s potential has no ceiling, just like the infinite universe it is a function of.  It does not value competition when that competition sets aside good faith towards people.  It values compassion – it values the feminine principle.  It does not emphasize top down structures as much as the current, but now obsolete, system.  And it values democratic and participatory models. In this story, the more who benefit, the more pride a culture has.   This is of course an ideal, but nonetheless, its one that does indeed have roots in reality and one that is very clearly moving forward, as evidenced by the popularity of this conference and others like it which are manifesting around the world.

The Progressive Opportunities Conference is a place for people who are designing ways to bring this story into the world of commerce, especially locally.  It’s a place for people who think along these lines to meet and network.  It’s a place to inspire them and to comfort them in the awareness that they are not at all alone.

Presentations

I was only able to attend 6 of the 20 something presentations due to the fact that my body can only be at one place in one time, but I recorded each of my sessions on a digital micro recorder and edited them for release, so you can download them if you wish.  Click here to download a rar file with each of the presentations in MP3 format.  If you are interested in ordering audio files of the other presentations, an outside company is providing them, click here.  You can also visit the conference’s website for full details on the speakers and their affiliations.

From 10 am to noon in the Goldman Theatre, the two-part Crowd-Funding for Local Economies presentation was conducted. There I learned that there are a variety of cutting edge ways to put start-ups and expanding business in touch with funding which are outside the typical models that are most commonly used in the business world.

Speakers Mary Rick of hoopfund.com, Jenny Kassan of Cutting edge Capital, Elizabeth U of Finance for Food and Arno Hesse of slowmoneynorcal.org each gave excellent presentations.  Among many other things, we learned about new ways of using internet based platforms to access funding directly from end users, how to avoid legal pitfalls in securities regulations when accessing funding from investors, understanding debt and equity methods of investment, and how investors can accept physical product for part of their investments as a hedge against inflation.

At noon in the Kinzie Room, I ingested a presentation from Al Weinrub of Local Clean Energy Alliance, who spoke about his efforts to introduce more renewable energy sources into the power grid, how localities can choose these alternatives, and how decentralized energy production and distribution works.

In the Tamalpias Room at 2pm, I listened to a panel speaking about the Localization Movement.  The speakers included Linda Currie of Transition Berkeley, Susan Silber of Buy Local Berkeley, Carolina Miranda of the Sustainable Business Alliance and Erin Kilmer-Neel of Oakland Grown, Hut London and the Locally Owned Merchants Association.

We learned in this conference that local businesses keep most of their money in the community and that when buyers keep their purchases inside the local business community, this has a great impact on employment and prosperity.  We learned about various ways of increasing local business awareness and pride, and about the personal efforts of these cutting edge individuals.

Next, I stayed put and watched Renee Rivera of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition give a vibrant talk called Bikenomics, which included break out groups that dealt with economics relating to the cycling community, new efforts to promote cycling, and the general state of the cycling-commuter culture around the country and world. As a cyclist myself, I am always pleased to hear about the progress of this movement.

At 4pm in the Goldman Theatre, a panel presented the nuts and bolts of the new B-Corporation model and its virtues.  Speakers included Andy Fyfe of B-Lab, Matthew Bauer of Better World Telecom, Timothy Yee of Green Retirement Pans, Jonathan Storper of the Hanson-Bridgett law firm, and Mike Hennigan of Give Something Back Office Supplies.

This presentation was really vibrant and hopeful.  The B-corporation is a new model for business which includes social and environmental responsibility in its platform to insure that profits do not come at the expense of human values and the natural world.  California has recently adopted this platform, and popular energy is seemingly now being channeled into this model.  I suspect that the Benefit Corporation business entity and the related B-Corporation business standard will thrive and prosper in the years to come.  I imagine a near future where companies compete with each other to prove that profits can come in addition to responsible practices, and where the public will be able to transparently see the results of their efforts.  The B-Corp can allow for this.

These folks also gave a second presentation the following evening at The Hub in San Francisco, which I attended, and it too was vibrant and positive. The panelists from the POC conference, and the author of the Benefit Corporation legislation in California, Representative Jared Huffman, were present. If you want to learn more about this model, check out benefitcorp.net and check out my audio file of this presentation, which is bundled with the other audio files, where more resources are discussed.   Sorry, the first few minutes were cut.

The final presentation of the Progressive Opportunities Conference which I was able to see was the Alternative Banking Models panel with speakers Marc Armstrong and Susan Harman of the Public Banking Institute, Mike Leung of The Worker Coop Credit Union, and Ester Park of RSF Social Finance.

This is a subject that I have been studying myself.  I have actually been working with the Public Banking Institute folks, who also have economist Ellen Brown on their board, on a foreclosure and Occupy related side project.  Each speaker gave an excellent presentation.  The reality of this subject may be that publicly owned and openly managed banks are far superior models for money issuance than the current centrally managed debt based Federal Reserve system, and the high interest money creation which flows from Wall Street banks that we currently predominantly use.  Why would any community want a private money management company (the Fed), which skimmed off half of their human energy in interest and taxes, when they could have that money for free and with only a tiny fraction of the fees?  Lets stop being stupid – get public banking in your county or state!.

In my current view, a combination of publicly owned banks which issue money based on local policy, and complementary alternative currencies, used in conjunction, is a clear way to economic freedom.

There was actually at least one presentation at the conference on local currencies, but I decided to see other presentations instead because that is an issue I am already somewhat versed in.  Let me recommend books by Thomas Greco if you are interested in these alternative economic options.

Conclusion

We must keep in mind that government, courts, commercial law and public policy are merely technology that we use to manage our human energies. If the human operators are personally healthy, the society will be healthy because it is merely the structure in which people live.  As with any technology, society evolves over time, because the people do, and this makes prior incarnations obsolete.  The time for replacement models is here, and in fact many of them have been here for a long time, waiting for the status quo to collapse under its own weight.

If taken together, the events at the 2012 Progressive Opportunities Conference could be considered a near complete blueprint for total reform of local business and commercial structure.  It’s now our job to customize these concepts and to work them into our communities.  If we don’t, there is really nothing to stop the eminent collapse of the current system, which worked well for a while, but which was ultimately destined to fail from the start.

By Howell Hurst

Let’s cut to the chase.

Occupy Wall Street’s basic truth is that secret big money has robbed almost all of us of democracy. Secret big money is the creator of the endless list of American ills that Occupy identifies. Secret big money is possible because of one thing: laws that authorize it. Secret big money emerges from the concept that corporations are people and that secret PACs [Political Action Committees] may clandestinely fund political campaigns. Supreme Court laws enable such big money to dominate.

Until the laws are overturned that authorize secret multimillionaire donors to fund political advertising to any dollar extent they wish, 330,000,000 or more of us have been robbed of our democratic rights.

Therein lies the opportunity that Occupiers and unionsmay take advantage of to unite the majority power of rank and file Americans in a common goal that will benefit most all of us.

The Occupiers unique ability to help Americans define and counter these laws rests in the unique relationship developing between them and unions. The Teamsters and other unions need help. The Occupiers need help. The mass of the American people need help. A majority of public opinion needs to coalesce into national involvement by the rank and file to emasculate the power of secret big money. Until this is done, all the street protests in the world will have little effect in changing our corrupted political situation.

All of us writers are wasting our time with lengthy analyses and endless egghead jawboning. If the unions and the Occupiers want to take on the serious

task of returning economic democracy to the American people, all they need to do is create the means for the everyday woman and man in the street to participate.

It has been suggested that “A People’s Convention,” held this year in such a highly symbolic location as mid-America Kansas, to contrast with the Democratic and Republican conventions, would be a powerful way to provide all Americans the opportunity to focus the media on the issues of importance them. It could be the  basic step needed to return to us all our democratic rights.

If the power of unions would combine with the power of the Occupiers to host such a convention, Americans by the millions would stick with the Occupiers and help them build the political coalition necessary for people to regain control of America’s democracy.

A People’s Convention could present the legal means to reverse or over-ride the Supreme Court decisions in question, which would block all secret multimillionaire spending on elections. The specific people move might be a plebiscite [a national vote by the people]; it might be some other strategy, such as orchestrating a constitutional amendment.

Whatever technical move might arise out of A People’s Convention, taking on the Supreme Court and the secret big money that calls corporations people, that funds most all politicians, and inordinately influences most all elections, is the key log in the log jam that denies most Americans our rights as citizens of a republic.

Unions and the Occupiers are ideally positioned to empower the majority of American workers and laborers to regain the democratic rights that are ours.

The question is: Are the Unions and Occupiers ready to get serious?

By Colin Davis

America, as a culture is very goal oriented.  We have a hard time getting a lot from process itself and we want to see results.  It’s a cultural thing.  Keeping that in mind, I think, will help Occupy related groups to keep the energy going.

I find it healthy that Occupy groups are oriented in a way which lets any and all opinions be heard and lets a group be steered by the members collectively rather than by a leader or core membership’s rule.  But I have to say that I think that there is a time and a place for slower, process heavy groups and more structured, goal oriented groups.  Its up to any one group where they want to be, but always shooting for goals is a good way to keep energy levels high.

I’m attending a number of working groups and Occupy affiliated groups, and I see that each of them is struggling to establish where it should go, or they have marked their goals very broadly in order to be as inclusive as possible. Again, this is great for process oriented groups which want to strengthen personal bonds, but it can be a turn off for goal oriented people who want to see more rapid results.

We all have a certain amount of time and energy, and we want to use it for the greater good, but we sometimes find ourselves going group to group looking for a place to settle, and never doing so because each group we find is unsure about what its place is, and many are not effective at reaching goals.  So, here are a few ideas which may help in this regard.

Reach out to experienced members 

Many of our working groups are dealing with issues that are the specialties of career professionals, academics and individuals who focused their time on particular subjects.  One problem with inviting these folks is not what they know, but how they are accustomed to using that information, and their ability to modify their work to fit into new models that Occupy is experimenting with.  But I would suggest that anyone who is willing to join an Occupy group should be welcomed readily, because the very fact that they are willing to join means they may very well be capable of fitting into a new model.  And if they request modification of an Occupy working group’s structure to increase effectiveness, their input could be just what is needed to tighten up a group which is in need of discipline. Keep in mind that there are a great number of non-mainstream pros and their colleagues and followers who have been developing alternative models for a long time who can be called upon.

Recruit efficiently

I think its ok for working groups to issue criteria and request qualifications from participants. One way to include everyone, but to also insure qualified participators is to allow new membership without any specific experience criteria but additionally seek to recruit those who have certain qualifications.

Example:  Finance Working Group forming. Open to public.  Group is additionally seeking 2-3 individuals with academic or career backgrounds in banking, finance, economics.

Group around single issues

When it’s appropriate, groups can form around a single issue.  Working groups can be single issue oriented or they can form sub groups to handle their specific subjects.  Many members would be relieved to know that they can join a group and see their energy manifest more directly.

Use modified consensus 

As we have experienced, 100 percent consensus can be both difficult but also very satisfying and powerful when it’s reached.  The main block to efficient voting in a full consensus group is when participants, as a whole, are not linked enough by common values and goals.  The more diverse group membership is, the more difficult it will be to reach consensus.  Don’t be afraid to use 80 or 90 percent consensus when necessary.  Holding out for 100 percent consensus can lead groups to lose key members which will damage a group’s effectiveness more than anything.  When a group moves too slowly, moral falls, and groups can be rendered ineffective and go dormant.  I’ve seen it happen, and it happens fast.   Efforts can and should be made for participants to understand the dissenting views held by those in a voting minority.

Working groups which have a minority of highly qualified members and a majority of newcomers to a subject matter could still work well with modified consensus.  Most members will defer to the experts opinions, but will also be free to contribute openly and reject expert’s opinions when needed because they have a large majority voting block.

Focus locally

Because Occupy is a national and international movement, it’s capable of taking on national and international issues.  It has successfully organized actions which were participated in by large numbers of local Occupys.   This is positive and will continue, but focusing nationally and internationally is more effective with demonstrations than it is for implementing actual solutions to the problems we focus on.

Just as we have found that it is difficult to get members of a single general assembly or working group to agree on propositions, it may be too difficult to implement national and international remedies at this stage in the movement’s evolution.  The future may bring modifications to the movement’s functions that could change this, but for now, mostly smaller scale solutions can be put in place – but this is actually a huge positive.

One of the great tragedies of modern American culture has been the slow dissolution of the democratic process and the rise of a consumer and ego driven culture, which has effectively damaged the self-esteem of citizens badly.  Material wealth has proven to be a completely inadequate replacement for self work, family work, community and civic participation.

Because of this trend, many people feel that they are incapable of actually effecting change, even on a local level.  They have become disempowered to the point where they are more willing to look to clearly incapable, prevaricating Ken and Barbie dolls to lead them rather than become their own leaders.  Of course we are told by the greater culture that law and economics are subjects for braniacs and politics should be left for another strange breed of human most don’t understand.  In actuality, these subjects are appropriate for many more participants, even those with no college education.

One remedy for this disempowerment is local action intended to bring people back into touch with their community, their own values and personal powers, and for their local governments to become instruments of an informed citizenry.  Eventually, the goal is to have a national government which represents its people as a whole, but when people do not remember what their own values are, and do not have local models, there is no way for a government to represent the people properly.  Logically, change must occur at the local level before it can happen nationally or otherwise.  And equally logically, change must happen on the personal level before it can be successfully implemented within a community.  I don’t think anyone wants to follow the leadership of people who have not done the personal work necessary for them to become morally, emotionally and spiritually upright.

To my mind, the future of America is local strength, local diversity, and state government obedience to the values of the people which are expressed locally.   National and international government is then designed to tie together the values of the sovereigns, not to act as its own entity, which is separate from the states and the people.  The identity of our country is based on what we share in values, so those values must be expressed in actual, on the ground models that we live by every day.  Local solutions have a chance at becoming national, but national solutions have no chance of satisfying local problems as a whole if they are not worked out at the lower levels first.

The solutions already exist

One reason why it may be difficult for groups to solidify around a single issue is that people are inexperienced or unaware of what solutions are out there.  We all can make a list of the problems, but we are often at a loss to come up with substantive responses to them.  I think that is simply because we have not spent the time looking at solutions and because we are distracted by the large number of problems which society faces.

Personally, I have spent a good number of years researching alternative solutions to many well known problems.  I’ve found that there are many extremely talented and qualified people, all over the world who are proposing cutting edge solutions to just about every societal problem you can think of.  This ranges from energy, to health, to monetary reform, to education, to psychology, to – you name it.  From what I have seen, the solutions are out there, they really are.  And for the problems where solutions do not yet exist, they will become available if energy is directed towards them.

If one wanted to develop a scientific response to a problem, the way its done is to first generate a hypothesis that explains the problem and a proposed solution.  Then build an experiment to test the hypothesis.  Then, if the results are not positive, go back and alter the experiment.  Finally, when the experiment works, share the info with peers and see if they can replicate it.  When they can, they share the experiment with the world in the form of pure information, or as a product or service.

So according to the scientific method, one starts small, then they perfect that experiment and then try to replicate it in a larger form.

So logically: Design and implement locally, then regionally, then state-wide, then nationally and internationally.

Building on the preceding, I might propose that groups which want to specifically effect change consider the following:

1.  Create groups or sub-groups around a single issue.
2.  Attempt to understand the problem and how it came about.
3.  Look around the world for individuals who have already developed cutting edge solutions to these problems – some are already in your ranks.
4.  Plug in one or more of their solutions to solve the problem on a local scale.
5.  Use public pressure to have the solutions implemented in a municipality and to share those results with other localities.  Teach by example.

For many implementations, there might be a pre-stage where these ideas simply need to be disseminated into the interested public so discussions can occur.  Public forums where these thinkers are invited can be convened.

The next step might be to create a “manual” to help other groups meeting around the same issues to implement solutions. For example, in Petaluma California, we are designing a Foreclosure Prevention Zone and an FPZ manual to go with it.  The next step is to share the manual in its locally modified form with residents and local officials.  Individuals who want to run for local government positions could be empowered and create platforms based on the solution oriented work that had been done and the implementation of the manual into municipal laws and policy.

The Occupy strategy of using sit-ins and mass demonstrations promoted via the internet and social media has been extremely effective at gaining attention.  Now Occupy is moving on into stage two, and I would suggest that this stage is one that implements solutions to the problems we have identified on local levels and then shares that information with other localities for them to modify and implement as well.   We have occupied the problems; now let us occupy the solutions!

This revised and re-published article is also at

http://thefutureofoccupy.org/2012/02/03/occupy-the-solutions/

By Madeleine Lansky

The current debate about the Occupy Wall Street movement and its foibles—its vague demands, “communist” leanings or “rag tag” participants—reminds me eerily of family dynamics that I have seen play out in my child psychiatry practice.

If one were to describe the populace of the United States as a family, who would be the children, and who would be the parents?  I would argue that the occupiers, as representatives of the 99%, would be the “children”, and that the parents would be a self-serving Wall Street and a sluggishly responsive government.

To therapists, calling someone a “child” is the opposite of an insult.  It’s often the children who are the most thoughtful, insightful, caring and aware.  The body politic—in this instance a metaphor for a family–is one in which the people in charge are not taking care of the family system as a whole, despite their hold on the power of the system.

The occupiers have been criticized for rambling complaints and temper tantrums, but the problem itself is as complex as the emotional turmoil that characterizes families in trouble. It is as though father demands his child’s paper route money to get drunk and buy a new car, and then cries “poverty” when it’s time to buy books for school.

Children have a uniquely keen radar for messages that reward bad behavior and punish cooperation.  Yet that’s the state of our economy right now.

Groups of any size will organize themselves into the only relational structures we really know:  the family. We might think that our corporate, governmental and civic systems are arranged differently, but there are only so many versions of social architecture that can occur.

Disavowing the heartfelt pleas of a family member is a doomed trajectory.  It sends disturbing signals to a child who already has no control over its environment, leading to feelings of neglect or even abuse by the adults in charge.  The child becomes almost compelled to “act out” inorder to shake the family unit from its slumber.

These systems—be it a family or a nation—function best when a sense of interconnectedness is fundamental, when the family’s individual members and its strength as a unit are nurtured and protected.

Depriving vast swaths of the population of access to clean water, clean air, fresh food, health care, education, housing and safety is not a wise economic plan.  You get what you pay for.  Many participants in the Occupy Movement are just aching to work, to be of service, and to usher the United States into a new era of prosperity and environmental repair.

So we should listen early and often.  While you still have a chance, go to the Occupy movement site or event closest to where you are.  Walk in, smile at the first person you see, and start a conversation.  Be aware that that person might not be talking in what you might call “adult” terms.

But listening to language that might not be familiar is part of being a member of a healthy national family.

Originally published at:

http://www.thirdreport.com/third-report.asp?storyid=791

Madeleine Lansky, M.D.  is a child psychiatrist who teaches and practices in the San Francisco Bay Area.  A former environmental educator, Lansky is the founder and executive director of Profound Sustainability, an educational and consulting service that works on projects at the intersection of mental health and environmental sustainability.  She teaches Composting Anger workshops at Occupy SF.

by Magick

We, the people, of OccupySF, are here to create an authentic consensus based democracy, that recognizes the value of all life.

We are determined to respectfully and with the full dedication of our hearts, minds and bodies, do everything in our power at this eleventh hour to rise from the rubble of disaster capitalism and celebrate the brilliance of the human spirit.

To give real respect to the indigenous people of this continent and the people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, we recognize the rights to speech, assembly and the occupation of the commons as a human birthright that cannot be limited by governments, nations or corporations.

We recognize the rights to clean water, air, and earth for all life forms.

The world community is forming, the borders that stand between nations are dissolving as the evolutionary forces of human consciousness awaken to the possibility of sustainable communities. Corporations are the usurpers who cross borders to exploit labor and the environment, buying off corrupt politicians to reap their profits, while families are being ripped apart by deportations that stop people from exercising their rights to a decent living.

The mayor of San Francisco has threatened OccupySF with eviction in a veiled offer to give us a new location at a school in the Mission.  Many see this as an attempt to save face by appearing to be generously giving us a place to stay so when the riot police are ordered in the media will spin the story in the Mayor’s favor. This gated, fenced in cement lot has only enough room for half of our present occupants, we would be invisible to the public, and no children would be allowed.

The restrictions are too numerous to mention. It is our understanding that this space has been inundated with repeated rat infestations, and that an Environmental Impact Report, EIR, is needed because of the structural issues caused by Mission Creek that runs underneath.

There are those among us who saw the benefits of this offer as we are tired, it is cold and wet, and some hoped for some shelter from the storm. We honor the members of our community, who in good faith, explored this option.

One of the foremost issues that OccupySF is wrestling with is the very human tragedy that is haunting all of our communities. When each site is occupied what happens immediately is the disenfranchised folks that live on the streets come to us with the all too real nightmare of their daily lives.

We want to change the world, consensus democracy has spontaneously surfaced from the deepest recesses of the collective consciousness, and we are occupying the centers of cites and towns across the world. The possibility of freedom beats in our hearts. We are all remembering who we are and that each of us matters.

The human rights of speech and assembly matter, the right to have a home, healthcare, education and a meaningful livelihood matter.

Then those that stand in the shadow of our broken world show us the abject failure of the current system to compassionately care for all the wounded people. All that the homeless suffer from is a direct reflection of the lies that our capitalist oligarchy sells us. Alcohol gives you social status and drugs will cure everything.

The pharmaceutical industry has a corner on the “feel good” market, while these painkilling drugs end up on the streets and the already wounded find their only hope in the next fix.

Addiction is promoted by corporations and criminalized by our justice system when it is in reality a symptom of deep psychological and emotional wounding.

The Mayor has said he supports what we are doing in spirit, but if the city wants to assist us in our work they could recognize us as an alternative resource delivery system and give us the help we need. We are serving the people that system has failed to care for.

Stop talking to us about health and safety, the hypocrisy is deafening. There are 10,000 homeless on the streets of our city, where is the concern for their health and safety? Although we recognize that many community groups are doing the best they can, the continuing criminalization of the people by the state is cruel and shortsighted.

The prime directive is to keep them out of sight so business as usual can continue. The no sit/no lie ordinance made this intention explicit although it violates our human rights.  The corporations, like those who want us out of the financial district have been the rising stars in the drama of the world and we, the 99%, are the talent designated to the supporting role of worker and consumer.

Remember after 9-11 Bush told us everything was fine, go out and shop. If we fail to fulfill our function then the directors and producers, otherwise known as the politicians and their backers, call in the long arm of the “law” to deal with the “recalcitrant”. But the “law” is amoral and unethical; its only imperative: protect the rich.

People who have been abused, deprived, oppressed and neglected are really unnecessary and disposable. This is not a harsh overstatement it is the reason why society as a whole is not helping the most needy in our culture.   It is because we have been programmed to believe they have failed to fulfill their prime directive and therefore have forfeited their rights to any of the benefits that capitalism has to offer.

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps means that no matter how wounded you are, no matter that you as a child were not loved and cared for, no one who is invested in capitalism cares a wit to scratch the surface of the dysfunction. It really doesn’t matter what happened to them all that matters is the maximizing of profit.

That is the very underpinning of any corporate culture regardless of how many benefits are put on top like frosting.

Everyone is expendable.

Even the rich are expendable if they tarnish the name of a corporation or fail to make enough money.

So the underlying issue is not about the rich hoarding all the money and taxing them to get it back. It is that human lives are of no intrinsic value. The only value of the 99% is to be laborers and consumers. All compassionate and caring programs are only put in place under extreme pressure from the people if the oligarchy feels threatened.

In capitalism’s final decline we are seeing the veneer of any sense of humanity or moral responsibility being stripped away. Schools, health care, welfare, are all under attack. Privatization is the only solution offered for our libraries, parks and schools.  The military funding grows by the hour, as our government pretends to defend and promote democracy. In actuality the military has only two functions: To protect corporate interests and buy and sell the machinery of murder.

Drones circle the planet joysticking it to anyone who interferes with the prime directive; profit and power must be defended at all costs.  Every social program that exists only got there because a politician needed a few more votes.

We are not mental health workers, but we do know that the homeless first of all want to be seen as human beings and treated with dignity. We are doing that. We share the food we have but we are overwhelmed because these folks need long-term help. Where is it?

By Magick

(Speech delivered by Magick on the steps of SF City Hall on October 15^th, the International Day of Protest for Occupy Everywhere!)

The media and the government ask us what do we want, what are our demands? What is our political platform? And we answer we do not have one issue or demand; we do not want to win over each other, one side against another.

What we offer is an invitation to the greatest experiment in the history of the world, a global experiment in true democracy. We are not waiting to be thrown a bone while the empire continues to lurch towards mass destruction.

The governments of the world have failed the people because they are not governments of the people.

We are practicing and learning consensus-based decision-making that arises out of protecting life itself.

No matter how you dress up the constitution it is a document whose bottom line is property ownership, created by invaders, white men, who did not recognize the rights of even the ones they claimed to love. Whose own women and children were enslaved. Who in fact owned slaves to reap their profits from the suffering of others. Who were complicit in the genocide of the indigenous people of this continent.

It doesn’t matter how many rights and freedoms we attempt to pile on top of that lie, the rich get richer and the people lose their homes, their jobs to outsourcing in other countries whose own corrupt governments allow corporations to exploit labor and the environment. Our schools are being privatized to manufacture automatons to serve the machine of capitalism. The very food we eat is poisoned for corporate profit.

We must go back to the beginning and undo the lie. The first occupation of this land was a cruel, death march across a beautiful free continent inhabited by people who knew they could not own the earth.

We are reclaiming the word occupation as we march for life and relinquish domination and ownership. We are occupying everywhere, even now in China and Iran in India and Africa in Bolivia the cry for freedom rings. We our swarming in the centers of our cities like bees a buzz with the desire from a new home and we are meeting each other, embracing each other in a joyous dance of liberation!

We need to be patient and kind to each other, we are wounded, we have been beaten down, our brothers and sisters suffer in for-profit jails. We have almost forgotten who we are, but it is not too late.

We can create communities together by imitating the way nature takes care of herself through permaculture practices that are being rebirthed everywhere. We will not own the land but establish agreements that incorporate the principle of safeguarding the earth for future generations.

Since 911our government has twisted our grief into fear and used a tragedy to tell us to hate the Arab nations as terrorists so the military industrial complex could declare war and steal their oil.

Now these very people are leading us in as glorious Arab Spring blossoming in the streets of Cairo and even losing their lives in revolts against the very dictators the US has propped up for decades.

Ecuador and Bolivia have led the way with constitutions that incorporate the rights of nature to have justice. That trees and rivers have standing.

All the solutions are bubbling to the surface, as the dominant paradigm of greed and propaganda falls, we will inaugurate health care for all that is based on the holistic principles of wellness not disease.

We will return to organic food, we will use the knowledge of those who see how to create zero waste. We will educate our children to bring forth their dreams and offer them the tools to make them real.

We will use all the forms of alternative energy like wind, and solar!

We will undam the rivers and daylight the creeks!

We will free all political prisoners and create rehabilitation centers for healing those who have lost their way and bring them back home.

This new wave of young people were only momentarily co-opted by the last election but now they know that one person cannot lead them like children to freedom. They are ready, capable and willing to take responsibility for creating and governing themselves. May we who have walked from the 60s to now offer our wisdom, our encouragement and our support. But do not tell them how it must be done.

All of us our working together and we are very serious about have a great time while we do it.

We will create art and music and beauty everywhere. One thing humans are really good at is a celebration.

We will dance in the reign of terror and we will not be afraid!

As the Empire Dies the People Rise!

By Ethan Davidson
Not long ago, I talked to my girlfriend’s 84-year-old great aunt at a family reunion in Kansas.

”I never doubted your intelligence” she said “but I doubted your conformity.  Don’t forget, I am a traditionalist.”

She had my number, of course.  But what I should have said was “In San Francisco, to be a non-conformist IS to be a traditionalist.”

I have been living in or near this city most of my life, and participating in it’s activist politics on and off since 1977.

But in recent years I have been feeling more and more like the San Francisco I love, the city of activists, poets, eccentrics, artists, visionaries, seekers, and just plain weirdoes, is dieing, drowning under wave after wave of dot com money.

But then something like Occupy comes along and reminds me that old San Francisco is not dead.  It was only resting.

One of the fun things about hanging out at the Occupy camp, especially the information table, was seeing people I knew from all over the city.

Now that the camp has been closed down, like so many Utopian experiments before it, the reverse is happening.  I am meeting people FROM the Occupy camp, and it’s visitors, all over the city.

In the elevator of my tall and mostly anonymous building, a guy told me that a demonstration against the prosecution of the founder of Wiki Leaks was happening on Saturday, 3 PM.

A surprising number of the members of my Buddhist sanga have been involved in OCCUPY in one-way or another.  A student with a teenage daughter lived there for a while.  Another woman showed up frequently.  Another guy taught a yoga class there.  And yet another guy cooked for it.

Riding the Muni with a friend, I was telling her about a particular person I knew at OCCUPY.  A stranger who had lived there jumped in, telling stories about that same person, much to the hilarity of my friend.

San Francisco is in many ways a small town pretending to be a city.  Your neighbors may not be up in your business, but there is a good chance that they know it.

Let Fox News mock us for banning happy meal toys while legalizing public nudity.  If America wants to laugh at us, well, laughter is healthy, and there is a long tradition of truth telling jesters.  OCCUPY will continue to exist here, by one name or another, for a long time.

I believe that we should be traditionalists and keep giving America reasons to doubt our conformity – and to prove America wrong if it ever doubts our intelligence.  If we are able to do that, OCCUPY, or whatever we may call it, will never die.

By Howell Hurst

The unique opportunity of a lifetime stands before The Occupiers. A presidential campaign is in progress over which they can wield the major influence – if they are willing to assume the responsibility. The Republicans hold a Convention next year. The Democrats hold a Convention.

The Occupiers are better positioned than anyone in the nation to host in 2012:APeople’sConvention.

Consider the benefits The Occupiers could bring to the country if they would focus the American people’s energy on defining in their own Conventionwhat they demand from a President today.

A current national poll documents that 50% of all Americans are either on the edge of or under the poverty line! These are the allies of The Occupiers.They would support, attend, and participate in A People’s Convention.

Consider what could happen if the following model for a Convention were hosted by The Occupiers.The Convention could consist of two parts:

The Convention: where a Platform [a list ofvoter demands] is created by the people participating: Essentially, how to win our vote!

A Week Long Fund Raising Event: where The People’s Convention invites all musicians and entertainers, who want to help reform America,to donate their talents in a modernspectacle  accompanying the convention. These funds can be used to materially affect the outcome of the presidential election, to help put in place a president The Occupiers can support.

A People’s Convention would help coalesce millions of votes into a concrete American agenda that clearly reestablishes for the bankers, politicians, and the Supreme Court that corporations are not people. That only living, breathing, human beings are people.

A People’s Convention would attract hundreds of people-based activist groups, all of whom agree that America’s people [not corporations] are the life blood of our country.

A People’s Conventionwould create a job-producing list of ideas to turn our economy around. Not high-sounding politicians’ media sound bites, but solid concepts that could put millions of Americans immediately to work, creating income.

It is not my place to define this in detail. That belongs to group action by The Occupiers.But, let me present a handful of ideas that come to my mind:

The American economy can literally afford a Minimum Income for its people. It could establish a living income level, requiring of each citizen in exchange a Contract with America.

The Contract would require that each American, who is poor enough to deserve the Minimum Income, will commit [depending on their circumstances] either to:
A Job.

Job Training.

Education.

Establishing a private enterprise, or

Physical or mental aid [if needed.]

The Contract would require that all major sized corporations equitably share the actual human work they presently provide for 90% of willing workers with the remaining 10%, who presently have no income. [Those working now do so on average 45 hours a week. In Europe, the work week is from 35 hours a week.]

An environmentally sound national ecological strategy could be required to balance the financial needs of business with the basic needs of our over-all public health.

A national recycling exchange [Creates Jobs!]

could require that landfills be terminated, and that all natural resources be conserved with the present financially-viable technology that is commonly blocked by large corporations who benefit by exploiting waste.

A banking reform could require that the banks, whom we bailed out with our tax dollars, must meet minimum capital lending standards to small businesses, [plus remove all fees for taking our own money out of the bank!]

A People’s Conventioncould define how to end America’s present corporate socialism and create a balanced economy that shares the nation’s wealth with all citizens willing to work and meaningfully participate in it.

I have seen The Occupy Movementdevelop and grow. I too have stood in the streets. I have spent hours in meetings with others. I have watched national and international media reports.

It is clear that, although at least 50% of Americans agree with The Occupiers, they do not always enthusiastically agree with their strategy and tactics.

We must admit that the movement has taken income from some of its allies in various actions. [Port closings.] It has cost cities millions if dollars for them “to control” the movement.

The Occupiers have had a massive effect on the national agenda and have gained worldwide support. It is now time that they listen to the request being made of us by the rest of America.

We have captured the nation’s attention; we have refocused millions on our message. Millions agree with us.

However, Americans, in turn, now require that we do something entirely positive, which is: Make concrete suggestions and proposals to repair America.  We have either to fish or cut bait.

A People’s Convention is the perfect tool to accomplish that. And The Occupiersare the most credible people to host it.

 A People’s Convention will acknowledge that our basic American system remains workable, but that the wrong people are now controlling it with wrong priorities and policies.

A People’s Conventioncan put poorer American people visibly up front and give them the means to organize their millions of votes into a defining political power in the 2012 election. It will gain us massive media coverage worldwide.

I believe the real issue is this: Do The Occupiers have the will to stop protesting about America and, instead, guide and orchestrate actual change in the present election?

Do The Occupiershave the will to step beyond simple demonstrating, and assume responsibility for offering Americans what they want: A Voice in our country’s politics and economy? A fair share of the nation’s wealth? Education? Jobs? Income?

As Clint Eastwood would say: Well, fellow “punks,” do we?

By Colin Davis

I’m sorry to tell you all this, but our present system is not in any way fixable.  And from what I can see, many of the younger folks, myself included, are just not that interested in trying to fix it.  We are trying to figure out what it is exactly, and then we are going to replace it.  Civilization as it is built, and the type of economics it uses, cannot possibly work in an equitable way, so we are going to replace it – that’s my prediction.

All of the basic laws of commerce are written to create and then leverage creditors over debtors.  In fact, the fundamental laws and customs of nearly every “modern” country pre-suppose a hierarchical system built to subjugate and dominate other humans, children, females, animals, nature and even the universe itself.  And right now, that system has become so alienated from its ancient human requirements that it’s spinning out of control like a smoking jet engine.

I recommend Derrick Jensen for those who want to take a whiff of the stench of the environmental havoc that civilization is reaping.  And I point you to Alex Jones for a dose of the hatred that governments and the elites that control them are spitting at us.  To round it off, try a Gabor Mate video to understand the psychological ramifications of our society in its present state.

Anyone in the western world who is honest and who puts a little thought into it will recognize that virtually nothing we call modern is sustainable.  Not the food, not the factories, not the cars, nor the energy systems, not the petroleum, not the schooling, not the parenting even.  Not the medicine.  Not the political and economic theories.  None of it is sustainable and there is no way to make it better – all while the world population relies on it and grows off of it – which will hit 8 billion shortly.

I know deep down that if we try to beat the system at its own game, we are destined to fail.  But if we invent a new system, we can only make a better one.  We would never make a new way of life that is worse than what we have.

Personally, there is nothing more exciting to me, nothing more challenging and worth doing than to re-imagine our society and build it exactly how we want it to be.  There is no need to fix the Federal Reserve, face the poverty, a poisoned environment, endless wars, and the rest of the garbage when one simply rejects civilization as we know it.  It’s a cancer virus that is out of control.  Catherine Austin Fitts has a term for it actually – she refers to the “tapeworm economy”.  Think about it for a while.

That virus lives in the world of ideas – in the world of memes, which have infected that human faculty that we call the ego and is using it to eat everything it comes into contact with.  And one primary vehicle for that virus is what we call money.  The money, as it is currently imagined, with all of its intricacies, is a major lifeline for the virus.  Our acceptance of the economic models currently in place, and our use of them, is one major way we poison and enslave ourselves.

If we simply refused to accept the concept that a few men can control all of the world’s “credit”, to which they attach “interest” and therefore disturb all human beings on this planet with their philosophies of control and death – if we simply write them off for what they are: sad and tragically abused children in men’s bodies, who have very little ability to feel what it is to be human, and have no credibility worth taking seriously – then we are free to go.

You are free to go.  You are not being detained.  You have not been arrested.

No one is forcing us to play this ridiculous game.  The only reason we were going along with it before is because we felt powerless so long as everyone else was not willing to leave the Matrix.  Now that we have some who are willing, we are free to go – but we must go together.  Unless we can trust each other to back each other up, we will rapidly fall back to where we were.

Total freedom from the decrepit paradigm is at arms reach right now.  But that freedom will come at a price.  It comes at the price of giving every minute of the rest of your life to revolution.  Now that means a lot of things.  It doesn’t mean that you need to grow tired.  It doesn’t mean you need to be in poverty, or in danger – quite the opposite.  It simply means that you must challenge everything about the way we currently live, and make the decision to abandon just about all of it for something else, when something better is made available (by us).  Eventually, the skin of the snake will be shed.

Right now, there is a solution for just about every societal problem that we face.  Our people have the answers – many are ancient.  They have been sharing these with us for eternity – but we have not listened for the most part.  Now though, we can not only hear them, but we can take their advice, customize it for our uses and re-build from the bottom up.

I am going to start making a plan.  I hope you will make one as well.  Then lets compare notes!

In the meantime, I propose we take a first step.  Occupy erupted out of economics.  So lets start with that - a new currency for our standards.  An alternative currency which is truly equitable.  A currency that supports our new way of being.

What do you envision?

We exchange our life’s energy with money.  Money represents human labor, human thought, human endeavor of all types.  A unit of “money” represents time and energy.  How did you obtain that money?  Through the expenditure of energy.  Maybe it was focused slowly with physical labor.  Maybe it was focused rapidly, like with intellectual labor.  Either way, money comes to us in exchange of our energy.  And according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, time and energy are intrinsically linked.  Therefore it is said that time is money.

Energy can be directed, like in a circuit.  It can be stored in a capacitor, or slowed by the use of a resistor – or focused and amplified, or any number of modifications.   The way we focus our energy determines the way our world, both inner and outer, looks and performs for us.

Right now, with the Federal Reserve fiat currency system, and all others like it around the world, the circuitry is built to bleed a great deal of our energy off to a select group who then refocuses that excess into a world of death, scarcity and domination.

Why is this happening?  Because we want it to happen.  If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have played the game for so long.  But its ok, it was a phase, it was an experiment.  It was a worthy experiment to see how external we could get.  And we got so external that we traveled into outer space and then into the quantum dimensions of subatomic space, and everything in between.  It was an exciting journey.  But obviously when you leave home on a trip, you leave behind your origins.  And unless there is something to sustain you, you will starve.

We are spiritually, emotionally and physically starving while we simultaneously marvel at the material successes of the ego.  Imagine the individual who spends his entire life savings on gold, which he hoards at the expense of his family and community’s health and well being.  Ebenezer Scrooge – a very ugly representation of our radically individualized lives.

Of course, there is an end to all “good” things, and that end is always wrought with dysfunction.  Wrought with rot – with damage, and illness, and sadness and sickness – hence our current situation.

This is a time of transition.  It’s a time of metamorphosis, a time of imagining, a time of revealing.  It’s not a time to repair what is fundamentally broken from its inception.  This time has been prophesized for thousands of years by countless traditions.

Yes, it’s a time to talk, and to be together again, and to share and experience community – that is essential.  Community is the ground of our collective being.  But it’s also a time to start making plans and start implementing them.  We are all at different stages of awakening to our true powers.  There is no need to rush, there is only a need to do what we are doing the best we can do it – and to follow our hearts, not our heads.

What we presently have isn’t special anymore.  The superhero mythology has become abusive and no longer serves us.  Its ok to abandon what doesn’t work.  Its rotting on a thread and we all know it.  Remember, we are much more powerful than we are given credit for by the “establishment”(serpent).

Each and every one of us is here at this time of transition for a reason.  We have chosen to be here and to do this work.  The entire fate of our planet is in our hands.  But that need not be a stressful burden. It is a blessing of proportions I can barely fathom.  I thank the eternal living being each and every day for this opportunity.

So, the faster we can admit that the metaphorical season is ending and can not be turned around, the better equipped we will be for both the coming winter and also the pending spring which will bring new life and light.  And lets not forget that it’s the journey itself which gives us what we are all really seeking after all – the joy of being alive.