The (R)Evolution of Occupy Wall Street’s Conversation

The viral story field set free by Occupy Wall Street is morphing and spreading to hundreds of cities. The multifarious conversation of transformation is popping up everywhere like mushrooms in a forest. Both alternative and mainstream media are filling up with it, trying to understand, trying to suppress, trying to spin, trying to ride the wave, trying to contribute to the motion, turning, turning, turning, turning up, turning down, turning toward, turning away, turning, turning…

The tidal wave is turning, turning;
We turn around and find we care.
Kaleidoscopes keeps circling, circling…
and (r)evolution’s in the air…

“Little wheels spin and spin, big wheels turn around and around…” — Buffy Sainte-Marie

The derivation of “converse” is “to turn together.” And the derivation of “evolve” is “to roll out.” It is well we should learn to do both these things elegantly.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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Here is a taste of some of the truly remarkable articles on Occupy Wall Street that I’ve run across in just a few days:

“People ask about our demands, but we are not saying: ‘We’re powerless, we want to ask [someone else to address our grievances]’. If anything, we are going to list our goals as we are building them. It is about the world we want to see, a world we are happy to live in where we feel respected and our voices are heard and respected. It allows for continual evolution. We are building the community we want to live in and we’re doing it in public.” – Ari Cowan, a community organiser from San Francisco now with Occupy Wall Street

“Can we really cheer an increase in housing starts, when there are 19 million vacant housing units on the market already? Can we really applaud a new oil field, when the atmosphere is past the limit of how much waste it can absorb? Is more stuff really what the world needs right now? Or can we envision a world instead with more play and less work, more sharing and less buying, more public space and less indoors, more nature and less product? …. To those holding the reins of power, let us say, We will be your witnesses and your truthtellers. We will not allow you to live in a bubble. We will not go away. We will show you who you are hurting and how. We will make it awkward to do business, until your conscience cannot stand it any longer. We know, in the beginning, many of you will try to escape us; perhaps you will leave Wall Street for suburban corporate offices on private land where there is no “street” for us to hit. You might also retreat further into your ideologies of globalism and growth that deny the obvious. But nothing will stop us, because our tactics will constantly shift. In one way or another, we will speak the truth and we will speak it loudly. Where speaking the truth becomes illegal, we will break the law. We will not wait to be invited. We will enter, in some way, every physical and ideological fortress…. We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep.” – Charles Eisenstein (see link below)

Charles Eisenstein – This is really about the end game of our money-based economics and politics
http://www.realitysandwich.com/occupy_wall_street_no_demand_big_enough
(This is my favorite of this series. If you enjoy it, get his book “Sacred Economics”)

Occupy Wall Street seen from abroad – notes the primacy of changing the political system
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/opinion/occupied-wall-street-seen-from-abro…

Occupy Wall St primer (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-wall-street-a-prim…

Occupy Wall Street: the direct action committee driving the protest’s success
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/05/occupy-wall-street-direct-action?ca…

Quick guide on one group process used in people’s “general assemblies”
http://takethesquare.net/2011/07/31/quick-guide-on-group-dynamics-in-peoples-…

Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? Then you don’t get it..
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html

Naomi Klein: Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now
http://www.thenation.com/article/163844/occupy-wall-street-most-important-thi…

The Moral Clarity of Occupy Wall Street (a bit “which side are you on?” but has as much light as heat)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/whose-side-are-you-on-the_b_1…

Robert Steele’s Occupy Wall Street Trip Report Oct 6 – promotes Electoral Reform
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/10/robert-steele-trip-report-occupy-wall-stre…

Wall Street Protest Spurs Online Conversation on Inequity
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/nyregion/wall-street-protest-spurs-online-c…
“What began as a small group of protesters expressing their grievances about economic inequities last month from a park in New York City has evolved into an online conversation that is spreading across the country on social media platforms….”

And if you want to see what inequity LOOKS like (statistically speaking) check out
Thom Hartman’s remarkable statistics and charts to clarify the 1% and economic injustice
http://therealnews.com/t2/component/seyret/?task=videodirectlink&id=11051

And for another mind-boggle, here’s a book that shows how equitable societies (and states) are healthier than inequitable societies (and states) – by dozens of unexpected statistical measures!
The Spirit Level – by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/13/the-spirit-level
(just to add a bit more fuel to the Occupy Wall Street fire….)

“True freedom does not come from consumer variety, but from a deep devotion to hearing all people’s voices. The times when I find myself most free are in communities like this one.” – Jesse A. Myerson, a freelance journalist who now does labor and media outreach for Occupy Wall Street

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Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY – http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work. Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
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2 Responses to "The (R)Evolution of Occupy Wall Street’s Conversation"

hipbone says:

October 9, 2011 at 6:26 am

Hi Tom:Charles Cameron here — I remember you from Y2K days, when I was at The Arlington Institute. Thought these two docus might be of interest, as showing a convergence between (not necessarily Repub) TeaParty and (not necessarily Democrat) Occupy:**An Open Letter From FedUpUSA To Occupy Wall Street Protestors All Over The Country:*http://www.fedupusa.org/2011/10/an-open-letter-from-fedupusa-to-occupy-wall-street-protestors-all-over-the-country/This is a letter to OWS from FedUpUSA, one of the original Tea Parties: We support you in exercising your First Amendment Right. We are outraged that any peaceful demonstrator would be assaulted or abused by any authorities. If you are protesting because there are no jobs— We stand with you. We are for a free economy and recognize that what we have now is NOT a free economy; it is not capitalism – what we have is a fascist state or crony-capitalism. There is nothing free about doing business with Countries that manipulate their currencies to attract cheap labor. We agree that these jobs need to come back to America. If you are protesting because no one has gone to jail— We stand with you. Regardless of what is being said from the white house and media, we know that there are many in the financial district and the banks that have committed fraud and outright theft and we too want to see them prosecuted. We support the stop looting and start prosecuting. If you are protesting because everything costs more— We stand with you. We see prices rise in our food, gas, clothes yet our wages have stayed the same or have decreased. The Federal Reserve has bailed everyone out but us and not only are we going to have to pay for that, those bailouts make the price of everything else go up because it devalues our currency. We support monetary reform. If you are protesting because you are tired of our bought and paid for government on both sides— We stand with you. We are also against the banks and big corporations buying our politicians and writing laws that favor their special interests. We understand that our economy is broken BECAUSE of this and that all of our other issues will never be addressed as long as the financial elite control OUR government. We understand that these issues cross party lines and ideologies and effect each and every one of us. We also understand that these issues will never get fixed as long as we continue to let the media, the elite, and members of the government separate us by our differing ideologies. Only Together, can we Implement Change It is time, We Americans, put our ideologies in our back pocket and not let them separate us so that we can work together for this ONE COMMON GOAL: to get the special interest money and elite out of OUR Government and return it to US— the people. As long as the banks, largest corporations, and wealthy elite control our government, we will never have a representative republic and laws will continue to be passed that only benefit the few 1% at the expense of us 99%! Demand that NOT ONE MORE LAW gets passed until they pass: Lobby reform: It is a Federal Offense punishable by a minimum 5 years in prison to:Lobby any member of the US Congress outside of the district you live, work, or own a business. Lobby a member of congress while they are physically outside the district they represent. Campaign Reform: It is a Federal Offense punishable by a minimum 5 years in prison to:For any one person, corporation, enterprise, group, union or the like, to donate more than $2,000 to any one candidate during one campaign period. For any member of the media to deny equal access to competing candidates. These two laws will cut the control the Financial elite have on our government by leveling the playing field. You will have just as big as a voice with your representative as the big box retailer that resides in your town. Simply, it will end the Crony-Capitalism that is strangling our economy. I encourage all my fellow Tea Partiers to join Occupy Wall Street protesters in their non-violent, peaceful protests and together demand that the Government be returned to the people. After all, this is precisely what the Tea Party was intended to be before it was taken over and marginalized by the establishment politicians. FedUpUSA.org**Occupy Wall Street: Another View:*http://www.fedupusa.org/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-another-view/You know what the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is? It is all the things that were in the original Tea Party, but were steadily ignored as the TP became a Republican booster club.*Warm regards,Charles

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shalommakers says:

October 9, 2011 at 4:32 pm

Tom, I offer another few paragraphs to add to the excellent Occupy responses that you posted. It is from my website: http://www.shalommakers.com. Why in the name of Economics are powerful policy-makers, organizations and institutions failing to see, hear and respond to the agonizing cries of the suffering masses who are jobless and underemployed; who are physically and spiritually hungry; who live in the woods because their homes have been foreclosed; who are imprisoned by a grossly engorged criminal justice system; who have lost faith, trust, and their investments in equity-producing systems and programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) that were established by a past generation for future well-being? Why in the name of Human Life are the factorings of federal and state budgets producing bottom lines that afford abundant benefits to the powerful, the wealthy, the influential, the elite, well-fed, well-housed, and the well-insulated; while unilaterally consigning the vulnerable masses to struggle and suffer in a sea of scarcity? Why in the name of Politics are we so complacent, so accepting of inequity, so comfortable, so isolationist, so quick to judge, so cocksure, and so angrily limited in mercy? Why in the name of God are we not unifying with mutual empathy across our many differences to form interdependent communities of well-being (shalom) that collectively build, rebuild and sustain the common good?

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