Occupy Underground

I feel that there are several things to be said for camping, as was done in NYC at Zuccotti Park last year. It was, IMHO, a statement that the Earth belongs to all of us and not the corporate masters who have wrangled their way into owning all that sustains life. By their way of thinking, soon they will own our body parts, our every waking minute, every thought. There is an internet meme of 'why should we have to pay to live on the planet we were born on?'

Sort of in line with this saying by Chief Sealth (often called Seattle):

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people."

What is being done to this planet is not being discussed and people are having a hard time articulating what is wrong. It is wrong to turn the Earth into nothing more than a money making grid, that takes life and exchanges it for paper. In a system that is rigged by those who have shown no respect for others, and who tell us we have no right to even ask these great questions of life, death, destiny. We are called terrorists, lunatics or irrational for demanding that we be allowed to exist outside that belief system that has been forced on the peoples of the world.
So the camping was resistance.

In Zuccotti, it was also a meeting place that was freer, still in the air, for people of all walks of life to meet up. Twitter and Facebook and all of those things are heavily monitored and harrassed. The original OWS website is virtually useless due to right wing spamming and hate posted on it. It is also limited as most of the movement, to those with the means to get online. I personally know many people who spend very little time online, know little of politics, yet when I tell them about the goals of Occupy, they are very enthusiastic and uplifted. They are seeing the world differently The push to get people out of the public eye in the physical realm is harder for TPTB than censoring these issues in the one percent owned media. And they own all of it.

So, even if the camping out is not going to be effective, I am thinking that mass demonstrations as in the Vietnam era will be required to get past the media blackout. There needs to be a physical presence that cannot be ignored, but it must be non-violent. I don't know where the organizing grounds for such things would take place; everything seems so fragmented now. Back then, we met on university campuses and we had what I can't deny, was a liberal media We truly did and they reported what we did, were eager to show people what we wanted. Now the media is full of people who would not pass muster on a newspaper, being overpaid to read stories they know nothing about as there is no investigative journalism anymore. Just demagoging. At least on the mass media. The time of the working class having a media voice is long gone.

Let those you talk to know movements of the past accepted almost all comers, like OWS did. I'm not sure why there has been a rejection of civil rights leaders, but this generation has grown up on Fox and Alex Jones and there is this kneejerk thing that liberals, progressives, unions and all the Democrats are all part of the problem and dirty words. Yes, the Democrats haven't done that great a job welcoming them in, either.

I gotta stop writing this book here. Get back with you if I have anything useful to add and I don't know if I do. If it's a generational thing, nothing I say will be listened to at all.