Turning Points?

The Occupy Movement Keeps Spreading Amid Rapid Change

The Occupy Wall Street movement is alive and growing rapidly. It continues to expand and spread despite early cries of an early death. Even in the face of ridicule and dismissal the movement continues to defy predictions. The mainstream mass media and the punitive pundits among the 99% who’ve sided with the 1% continue to scoff at the protesters as “stinky hippies and punk rockers,” or “communists, socialists, anarchists,” even “racists.”

These lackeys for the 1% ignore the masses of families with children, middle-aged professionals, blue- collar workers, and just regular folks supporting OWS at their peril. This mass welling up of dissent and “I’m not gonna take it anymore!” protests has reached a tipping point where anything can happen.

People are pissed off! More and more people are getting pissed off! Yet they’re not retaliation in the form of mass violence and rioting. And the dismissive chattering harpies of the mainstream media reveal their own ignorance.

Several recent events are worth looking at as harbingers of change. These points of note are:

·      Many on the streets and on social media are already calling it a “revolution.” It was unexpected and spontaneous, although one can point back to the Arab Spring, the mass protests in Wisconsin, and the riots in the European Union as inspirations.

·      There is the beginning of convergence where some police, military personnel, and war veterans have joined in the rallies and marches with the Occupy demonstrators.

·      On Saturday, October 15 the Occupy movement is nationwide and goes worldwide. I saw photos from places as unusual as the Alaskan tundra and Antarctica with protests signs. Violence breaks out in Rome, Italy between anarchists and police.

·      Veteran U.S. Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas (retired) challenged the New York City Police Department in Times Square on October 17, challenging the cops on why they’re really there and shouting “There’s no Honor in harming unarmed civilians.”

·      On Tuesday, October 25, former Marine Lance Corporal Scott Olsen (retired), veteran of two combat tours in Iraq, was wounded by police officers clashing with Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland, California. He suffered a fracture skull and required brain surgery from a projectile fired by police. Many other protesters were wounded by rubber bullets, tear gas, and flashbang grenades used by the police. These two incidents galvanized military support for Occupy Wall Street, especially by veterans disenchanted, even appalled by the Global War on Terror.

·      Escalation of Police violence is increasing with intimidation of protesters, selective enforcement to harass protesters, mass arrests, the use of SWAT teams, the use of agent provocateurs to infiltrate Occupy groups and incite or fake violence between demonstrators and police to provoke excuses for police retaliation, and in the case of New York City, the CIA working with the NYPD in an unconstitutional arrangement.

·      Baby Boomers are in the process of passing the baton to Generation X. Even though many people of all ages are involved in the Occupy movement, large numbers of those actually camping in “occupied” areas tend to be Gen X and younger.

·      Aside from primarily police attacks, the Occupy movement is a peaceful one. The majorities I’ve read about and spoke with personally have no desire to engage in fights and battles with cops. They simply don’t want to get injured is part of it, and while they’re willing to be arrested they don’t want to be caught in a war. Efforts are made to urge fellow demonstrators to stay peaceful. Much is said the quickest way to lose the support of the Middle Class and Main Street is to engage in battles with the police and riots that destroy homes and small businesses. Novel terms are used such as bloodless revolution and nonviolent guerrilla warfare.

·      More and more are seeing a convergence of common themes between the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Both share many of the same complaints and agree on the problems but different solutions.

o   The Tea Party began as a Libertarian upwelling with Representative Ron Paul of Texas as the central figure, yet it was quickly coopted by the Republican Party and financed by billionaire far right conservatives such as the Koch Brothers, allied with Fox Media, and pumped up by celebrities such as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachmann, leaving Ron Paul and his Libertarian crowd cut out and ostracized. The Democratic Party, however, tried to claim the Occupy movement and was rejected. Many in the Occupy crowd had voted for Barak Obama, felt betrayed by him, felt he sold out to the Big Banks and the corporations, and thus scorned him. The Occupy movement claimed to represent the 99% and declared that included the Tea Party, too (to the horror and indignation of many Tea Partiers) and warned the Democratic Party to back off. Exceptions were made for people such as Jesse Ventura, Independent and former governor of Minnesota, and Representative Dennis Kucinich, progressive Democrat from Ohio. Even so, the Occupiers refuse to embrace any politician and have held the feet of many to the fire. Things are rapidly mixing and gelling at the same time.

·      The lack of overarching, centralized leadership, once viewed as a weakness, is now being reframed as strength. With social media technologies mobile bands of protesters network with a blend of spontaneity and intention around the globe.

Clichés abound. This is amazing. Awesome! Outrageous! Inspiring! And it continues do morph and change even as Winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere. Will our world tip over? Lean into it.

By William Dudley Bass

October 29, 2011

© 2011 by William Dudley Bass

Electoral Reform is Overdue and Needed Now

Electoral Reform is Overdue and Needed Now

          Electoral reform is urgent. Many proposals have been presented in numerous countries including the United States over the years with little results. There is too much inertia within the Establishment. The political machines and the transnational corporations including the Big Banks controlling them easily resist such threats to their power.

It’s easy for them to do so as they control the voting: they simply vote “No!” when real change is presented. We jerk about like puppets on strings and deride one another as “sheeple” or  “bloodthirsty communists” or “capitalist pigs.” Aren’t you tired of that? I’m tired of it.

What will work? It will take noisy mass movements out in the streets combined with quiet and deliberate political actions to legally infiltrate the Establishment by winning at the ballot box to initiate changes. If we can actually win power even when we win an election. And it seems too late as so many challenges demanding significant transformation, not just change, are avalanching down upon us all.

Electoral reforms are a must as it will allow us to more effectively and radically address our problems. Open, free, and fair elections under the eyes of impartial observers and vote collectors and counters are vital for any functioning republic. Elections are one of the cornerstones of Democracy. This is especially so for a democracy such as the United States of America that is a constitutional federal republic.

Yet we find our political parties and the electoral process corrupted by Big Money, i.e. private control of the money power. Two dominant parties, Republicans and Democrats, work together so much to control elections at all levels from the national to the state and local they are often detested as “the two-headed snake.” Together they accept financial support from the same corporations to such a degree many politicians are generally considered “bought.” Such corporations leverage this special relationship to finance powerful lobbying groups to advocate on their behalf.

The two parties partner up to dominate state primary and caucus systems, control debates including marginalizing reform-minded Republican and Democrat candidates such as Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), block or reduce third and other minor parties from access to the electoral process, and create celebrity dramas around major candidates to obscure real and serious issues they don’t want to address or even acknowledge.

While electronic voting machines have many advantages, obviously fast and efficient in an age of digital telecommunications, enormous populations, and multiple languages, they generate additional problems. They are apparently easy to physically tamper with for fraudulent purposes and can also be easily hacked into, even by remote control.

Perhaps worse, these public machines are owned and repaired by private corporations. These corporations own the software and refuse to allow government officials or independent observers “inside” these electronic voting machines, machines they consider their private property. Such machines don’t leave a paper trail, and any printed could be done after being tampered.

In turn some, such as ES&S (Election Systems & Software) and Diebold were founded and controlled by Far Rightwing families such as the Ahmansons who embrace Dominionist or Reconstructionist beliefs. These are powerful, extreme Christian sects who believe America originally was and once again should be a Christian nation. These theocrats believe the Bible should replace the U.S. Constitution as the highest law of the land.

Numerous still unresolved controversies and allegations of election fraud and bloodless coups remain from the past three presidential elections (2000, 2004, 2008). Some controversies predate electronics and go back to corporate interference in elections of the 1960s.

Thom Hartmann, successful entrepreneur, liberal political activist, and progressive radio host takes on the privatization of our politics. “Why have we let corporations into our polling places?” he asks as he considers polling places to be “sacred to democracy.” Hartmann stands the corporate infiltration and subtle takeover of our electoral process ranks as the “greatest” of “all the crimes against” American citizens and their democratic republic.

Elections are also a show and a sham in one-party states and other governments where police, the military, and private militia and gangs intimidate voters. Even in America we’ve had businesses pressure workers to vote a certain way or risk losing jobs, promotions, and benefits all the while proclaiming “And you’re still free to vote for whomever you want.”

Electoral reform as well environmental reform cannot occur without also instituting significant reforms of the financial and economic sectors. Some of these reforms may require constitutional amendments. Others may be accomplished in other ways including at state and municipal levels.

Just for the United States alone:

·     Ban political parties from politics. They’re free to assemble, but cannot run candidates or endorse issues, candidates, referendums, bills, nor donate or give money, labor, and resources to politicians and candidates.

·     No financial contributions from any organization – corporations, NGOs, labor unions, clubs, religious groups, etc. shall go to politicians, political candidates, and referendums and bills, etc.

·     Financial contributions can only be from 1) a fully transparent government election fund.

·     And/or 2) individual American citizens from their personal funds, not their corporations or non-profits or any other organization and must be fully disclosed, i.e. transparent.

·     All electronic voting machines and their software must be open to public audit and possibly transparent public or community control, or we return to or develop a new system of secret ballots and public control. We cannot permit private, corporate ownership and/or control of any aspect of our voting process.

·     Abolish the Electoral College.

·     Abolish Winner-Take-All Voting and replace with an alternative system from several proposed, including open, direct elections with IRV, Instant Run-off Voting.

·     All election campaigns for all public offices, especially at the national and state levels, must be considerably shortened in length of time. As we debate what is the appropriate amount of time per electoral office, we must consider the amount of time it takes to campaign for office in small nation-state such as the United Kingdom may not be practical in a vast, sprawling federal union of 50 states and territories. Barring political parties will shorten this.

·     Territories such as Puerto Rico must vote for either statehood or independence.

·     Regarding the Legislative branch, study the merits of a unicameral body (one house) vs. the current two-house one vs. proposals for a tricameral system of three houses. Tricameral systems vary including the third house as a “People’s House” or a “National Wisdom Council,” to name two very different examples.

These are my proposals. There are many individuals and groups out there with a number of proposals from all sides of the political spectrum. Some share certain things in common, such as getting corporations out of our voting systems and ballot boxes, or banning political parties from elections, or abolishing the Electoral College.

There are back and forth arguments for or against term limits, salary caps, interpretations of responsibilities (is serving upon being elected to public office an honor, a volunteer service, a paying job, a career, or all of those?), etc. with heated emotions and misinformation all around, and they can be deliberated upon as well.

Yes, electoral reform is overdue and needed now. We may disagree on the details, and most of us can agree on two items: 1) reforms are needed, and 2) reform is urgent.

What reforms do you propose?

William Dudley Bass

Seattle, WA

October 20, 2011

See also my article “Abolish Political Parties from Elections” on my blog “At the Brink” from earlier this month at: http://atthebrinkwithwilliamdudleybass.blogspot.com/2011/10/abolish-political-parties-from.html

Sources:

Hartmann, Thom. Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – And What We Can Do About It. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. San Francisco: CA. 2006, 2007. Pp. 143 – 148.

Kovacs, Eduard. “Electronic Voting Machines Highly Vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle Remote Attacks,” Softpedia. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Electronic-Voting-Machines-Highly-Vulnerable-to-Man-in-the-Middle-Remote-Attacks-224130.shtml. September 2011.

THN Reporter. “Man-in-the-Middle Remote Attack on Diebold Touch-screen Voting Machine,” The Hacker News. http://thehackernews.com/2011/09/man-in-middle-remote-attack-on-diebold.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheHackersNews+(The+Hackers+News+-+Daily+Cyber+News+Updates)&utm_content=Google+Reader. September 2011.

© 2011 by William Dudley Bass. All rights reserved.

Abolish Political Parties from Elections

Abolish Political Parties from Elections

Yes, abolish political parties from electoral campaigns at every level. Ban them from lobbying on behalf of their agendas. Ban them from endorsing candidates. Ban them from organizing front organizations, shell companies, PACs, shell NGOs, and other rackets on behalf of candidates and party agendas. Ban political parties from giving money, assets, and even volunteer services to candidates. The term “candidate” refers here to both human beings running for elected office or nominated for an appointed position as well as proposed legislation including laws, bills, referendums, etc.

Abolishing political parties and any similar organizations from the political process is a necessary, even urgent electoral reform. Many may view it as a radical reform. Which it is, especially when you consider one of the earlier meanings of the word radical is “root.”  Returning to our roots, in a sense, as the American Founding Fathers abhorred the concept of political parties.

The Founding Fathers had just survived the Revolution. They had different views, opinions, understandings, and judgments concerning many issues. Even so they put aside many of their differences in shared sacrifice for the common good. They did not anticipate political parties in America, surprisingly as they had existed in the UK and British Parliament for a little over 130 years prior to the end of the war. The Founding Fathers also had intense dislike of these parties and dismissed them as “dangerous factions.”

Political parties in the UK were associated with quarreling groups competing for power. The home islands of the British Empire were riven with factions and “political clubs” representing different religious groups, aristocratic nobles, nationalist groups, fed up peasant farmers, and increasingly politicalized merchant classes. Such political parties in the UK were associated with civil wars, revolutions, and rebellions. The Americans, having recently emerged from their own revolutionary war, wanted no part of such vicious internal strife.

What the Founding Fathers preferred, first through the Articles of Confederation and later in the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, was group deliberation arriving at agreements. They upheld a vision of logical collaboration to resolve conflict and address issues where people and groups put aside petty differences and personal beliefs for the greater good and the common weal. The best interests of the community, the state, and the nation were placed over the narrow competitive drive for personal power, regional domination, and group self-interest.

Such “groups” were churches and religious groups as well as organizations rooted in different socio-economic classes, states, cities, counties, the frontier, and trades competing for power and resources. Many of the Founding Fathers, while understanding the rational for different groups to self-organize around common local causes, still expected these same groups to subordinate their narrow self-interest to the general welfare of the nation.

Political parties were viewed as divisive and self-serving. They would compete for power at the expense of their fellow citizens. Rather than collaborative processes of deliberation with wisdom tempering headstrong emotions, political parties would rile up the masses and agitate them against one another so rabble-rousers could manipulate them to seize power. The possibility of election campaigns between such parties was viewed with dismay and disgust.

The Founding Fathers feared such elections would divide the nation rather than bring forth the best and brightest together in wise republican government. The United States of America was to be a constitutional democratic republic with measures built in to prevent mob rule and tyranny. The Founding Fathers achieved astonishing success in many areas, such as navigating together constant changes and many obstacles from the end of the Revolution through the Articles of Confederation to establishing the Constitution. They dealt with commerce and financial battles between the states, the first armed rebellions against the national government, and even a movement to create an American monarchy.

A system of government was set up with a Federal system balanced with state’s rights, with triangular “checks and balances” between the three “branches of government,” with separation between “church and state,” with an independent press, and a Bill of Rights. Dismal failures, however, were to haunt the Founding Fathers and their descendants. These included the failure to conclusively address slavery and racism, women, property rights, relations with Native American tribes including genocide, whether or not to have a national or central bank and if so would it be public or private, and the failure to envision the rise of political parties and their corruption of the political process.

The irony is political factions began early on in the process to organize people into parties around shared beliefs opposed by others. The first such political parties began to emerge during the administration of the first President, George Washington. Eventually those Founding Fathers who chose to stay in politics were drawn inexorably into these new political parties. Once in, they embraced them and leveraged them to pursue their own agendas.

Political parties do have much to offer. They provide poles of polarity for people with shared beliefs and values to rally around. Political parties organize people; raise funds, pool resources, and work to campaign on behalf of their candidates and planks (public lists of issues they support or condemn). Once in power they have entire teams of loyal, like-minded people to draw upon to quickly fill positions in government offices and institutions. And these parties track and monitor each other, plotting to return to power or stay in power. To some degree they do take the best interest of the general public to heart or else they would not be elected.

For a secular nation with many different religions, classes, regions, and ethnic groups political parties served two additional purposes. One, they served as a secular church or temple of sorts and those passionate about politics and engaging in games of power came to regard politics as a sort of secular religion. Two, political parties were able to pull together people from different groups and in doing so establish broad alliances and coalitions across the nation.

In doing so they have entrenched themselves in politics in ways where they do far more harm than good. Political parties have proven destructive, and it is time for them to go. They embody and exemplify the worse aspects of tribalism. It may be a Postmodern world, and these parties have reduced loyalty to blind, violent tribalism. In many other countries political parties arm their members to engage in violent election campaigns that resemble mini-civil wars. Many political parties also have armed militias and even armed forces. In totalitarian nations one political party is often identified as synonymous with “the state” or “the people.”

In the United States today, the Democratic and Republican Parties are both polarized within between vitriolic, internal factions. They have become so broad in their attempt to be the Center many no longer identify with these parties and are fed up with how both parties fail to address truly serious and complex issues to focus instead on riling people up over emotionally-laden social issues. Both parties have been corrupted and are beholden to the Big Banks, Big Corporations, Big Unions, Big NGOs, Big PACs and Special Interest Groups, and their swarms of lobbyists. Political parties, especially when they get big enough to earn attention, serve as routes of infection into our government by Big Business and the banksters. Yes, politicians from time to time attempt to overthrow the yoke of the money power, battle corruption, punish corporations, or regulate the financial sector. Sometimes it’s all a show. Often the politicians don’t have the power to enact meaningful and deep reforms.

They work together to squash dissent within the own ranks from innovate visionaries as well as extremists. Republicans and Democrats work together to maintain control over the machinery of government and dominate the electoral process. As such they block reforms and prevent the rise of any minor political parties to major party status. Viable third parties such as the Libertarians and the Greens today and the Progressives, Bull Moose, and Independent parties of bygone eras don’t have the power to seize power and instead often serve as spoilers to draw votes away from the other two. This is often glossed over with the justification third parties have the freedom to highlight controversial stands publicly avoided by the major parties but eventually coopted by them.

We need to clear out the logjams of political parties and release their stranglehold on our elections and politics. Significant reform is necessary in numerous areas now. As long as politicians rely upon outside corporate structures to raise, capture, hold, and funnel wealth to then and their election campaigns they will rarely if ever fully vote for the public interest. They will instead work to benefit their benefactors. They are beholden to the outside Money Power. Many well-intentioned men and women become politicians to sincerely make their county, city, state, and nation a better place. They even want to help make the whole world a better place. And once inside they find they have to compromise away their values not in the best interest of the nation for the common good but to betray themselves to uphold the powers of their benefactors.

We need major reform of our entire electoral process as well. Political parties already block such reforms and will continue to block any threat to their chokehold on elections and thus on power. Thanks to the Democrats and the Republicans and all those parties preceding them in power Government has become separated in the minds of the people from the people and instead identified with the party in power. If a hallmark of Totalitarian regimes is identification of one party with the government, what would we call it when we see the same two parties in such domination of the political machinery as to be identified with the government?

Tyranny. Tyranny disguised as democracy because people were led to believe they had choices they could freely vote for.

Political parties…Abolish them all!

To be clear, the Constitution gives human beings the freedom to assemble and the right to free speech among others. So people would have the right to organize into political clubs and parties to discuss their passion for politics over rounds of beer. Political parties are free to espouse their opinions and views. They would simply be banned from politics.

What does this look like?

To be effective, abolishing political organizations from the political process means:

·      One cannot hold public office, an appointed government job, or employment in a government position as an active candidate of a political party. Similarly, military members have to resign from the military to serve in civilian capacity in government.

·      Political parties cannot run candidates for political office or support them for appointed positions.

·      Political parties cannot endorse candidates for office or any appointed position.

·      Political parties and their members cannot organize and work on behalf of any candidate as an active member of any political party.

·      Political parties cannot contribute, loan, donate, or otherwise give funds to candidates and referendums organizations.

·      The ban on participating in elections and supporting members for appointments include all levels of government from the national to the state and local levels.

·      Political parties include PACCs, clubs, NGOs, unions, or any group that masquerades and claims it is NOT a political party yet behaves as one.

·      Political parties and related organizations may not endorse, front, or otherwise have armed gangs and militias.

·      Campaign finance and other electoral reforms must be instituted as well. Such reforms will reinforce one another.

In a long, round about way perhaps the original views and intentions of the Founding Fathers toward political parties will be vindicated. Perhaps a Constitutional amendment is necessary to abolish the participation of political parties in the political processes of our nation. Or maybe this can be done without such an amendment.

       In other countries around the world the people must also find methods to liberate themselves and their political processes from political parties. Such reforms will also empower politicians to take on the Big Banks and the Corporations as well as institute reforms in any area. Political parties clog the machinery of government as tumors from inside a body choke off life.

       We the People can reclaim our Government as one of the people, by the people, and for the people.

by William Dudley Bass

Seattle, Washington

USA

Cascadia

Planet Earth

Friday, October 14, 2011

© Copyright 2011 by William Dudley Bass. All rights reserved.

Give a Damn! Occupy Seattle! My Impressions from a Few Hours on the Streets

Give a Damn! Occupy Seattle!

My Impressions from a Few Hours on the Streets

For the first time in ten years I felt We the People had Purpose. Purpose with a capital P. And greater clarity than the mainstream mass media would dare admit. As zombies staggered down Wall Street chasing dollar bills recently, at least they gave a damn.

The mainstream mass media think it’s cute when crowds of otherwise “normal people” dress in bloody rags and paint themselves up as zombies to parade about setting new zombie world records. The same media, however, heap scorn and ridicule upon all those “crazy people” costumed as zombies to protest the insane gluttony of Wall Street and its cronies. Well, at least those zombies give more than a frakkin’ hoot. They gave a damn.

When elderly war veterans, middle-age White ladies hobble together down the street with old hippies, tattooed punks, the newly homeless, Native Americans, grizzled union workers, and white-collar office workers, all getting in the way of our fellow 99-percenters willing to slave away for the Puppet Masters among the 1% superwealthy, well, we have an insurrection, folks.

A young man in Downtown Seattle held up his sign and challenged us: “GIVE A DAMN!”

Damn right.

GIVE A DAMN!

Bright, blue letters blazed neon from cardboard on a wooden slat stick.

It’s time. Leave the Parties behind. Coffee, tea, water, and whiskey; milk and soy, almond whatever. It’s time. Time to get to get serious.

On Saturday, October 8, 2011, just the other day, but already feeling like once upon a time, I bussed into Downtown Seattle with my friends Syd and David to participate in Occupy Seattle, the local uprising of dissent inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests. We met others we knew. People asked us about the protests and voiced support for us from the bus stop and on the bus. I felt somewhat shy as well as proud so sat quietly on the bus with my enormous sign. Earlier, David, Syd, and I chopped down and rewrote my protest poem to make it appropriate for the demonstration. In bold, colorful letters it hollered out loud and clear:

“WHY STOP @ WALL ST.?

OCCUPY THE BANKS!

SEIZE THE FED!”

Once off the bus I held that big sign aloft with pride. As I carried it during the rally and the subsequent march, it sure generated lots of attention and commentary. Those who understood the intricacies of the global financial system including the relationships between the Big Wall Street Banks, the Federal Reserve System, and the international central banking system voiced support.

“Right on!” people said. “Gotta stop the Fed. End the Fed!”

“Yes, go right to the source,” I shouted back. And to a man with questions about what the Fed has to do with all this protesting, I explained the Federal Reserve and stated the proposals ranged from abolishing it to reforming it including placing it under the Department of Treasury. It must at least be placed under transparent public control and be held accountable. He got it. I kept on.

“My stand is we must have public control of the money power similar to civilian control of the military power,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he said and nodded his head. He really got it this time, and his thoughtful, scrunched-up face relaxed into a smile.

I stood on the sidewalks and curbs of Westlake Plaza and held up my sign. I also accidentally bumped a few people with it, too. My sign was big! Maybe too big! And my shoulders got tired.

Man, I was glad for all that weight training over the years. I held up my sign a long time. Later on the march I knocked some popcorn out of some dude’s cup full of popcorn at a bus stop as I strode by. Oh, he was angry. I apologized and moved forward.

As so many passionate people swarmed around me I felt waves of hope, love, and solidarity. I was on Purpose.

My long-time, dear friend Syd Fredrickson, a veteran activist settling down into the comforts of middle-age life with a job, a home, and a husband, had come back out on the streets. She was outraged at the destruction and dysfunction wrought by the corporations upon our environment and communities. She felt depressed how corrupted the political process was and how beholden many politicians were to the Puppet Masters of the money power.

And she felt hope, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Syd had mellowed out over the years, however, and had become far more compassionate and loving and less righteous and one-sided. She’s always been a stand for inclusiveness and agreement making, especially consensus. Everybody knew Syd. Everyone loves Syd. And she is a passionate woman, a goddess of smoldering fire.

With a smile, she moved through the crowds greeting people while I stood like a silent sentinel. She had a feel for where to go and when, except she was always losing sight of her husband, David Wright, in the crowd, and he, her. I love Syd for her focus on the positive and for championing what’s possible without complaint. She marched around holding up her sign, which read in letters red, blue, green, and red again:

“LET’S CREATE A CARING ECONOMY.

The Extreme Inequality is Killing Us –

Our Commons, our Democracy.”

Sing it, Syd!

David Wright was one of the cofounders of Sustainable Ballard and remains active in many environmental and neighborhood causes. He also focused on the positive and reached out with his simple demand for a new awareness. His sign shouted loud and clear, without any blaming and shaming. It simply declared:

“WE WANT COMMUNITY RIGHTS!”

Profoundly hard-of-hearing like me but much more outspoken, David was in his element navigating the crowds. He was a champion of neighborhoods and communities coming together politically to educate people on sustainable urban agriculture, recycling initiatives, and other actions to encourage people to grow their own food and reduce waste.

This movement began with the first “occupation” in New York City back in mid-September. In Lower Manhattan on September 19, 2011 people from Occupy Wall Street began protesting against “the 1%,” the percentage of superwealthy Americans whose control of Big Banks and large corporations dominate the rest of us, i.e. “We are the 99%!” To the surprise of many, it quickly ignited widespread unrest.

This largely peaceful uprising has now spread to 25 American cities and is merging around the world with other uprisings. There is growing international solidarity against the Global Empire of “the banksters and robber barons.”

Occupy Wall Street is merging with the Arab Spring, the anti-austerity revolts within the European Union, the insurrection in the UK, and uprisings elsewhere for a cry for global democracy and freedom from tyranny. Saturday, October 15, has been declared a day for Occupation Earth. I saw a declaration for “Occupation Everywhere!”

Unlike traditional territorial and colonial empires of old, this attempt at World Empire is financial and economic subjugation disguised as democracy and free market enterprise. The Big Banks, the international central banking system, the Corporatocracy, the G20 and the Bretton Woods Three, the military-industrial-intelligence complexes, and the national security states are interlocked together in a web of global alliances held together by the Financial and Power Elite (the 1%) and their Allies from the 99%.

Guess where the largest concentration of police officers was positioned? Right in front of the entrance to Chase Manhattan. How ironic, too, as Bank of America just across the street was abandoned to the occupation. BoA didn’t seem popular with anyone today, not even the cops, especially after announcing its imposition of high debit card user fees after all that work to get people to switch from using credit cards to debit cards. A well-dressed, middle-aged man accompanied by his wife held up a cardboard sign simply stating “Bank of Asshole.” No one stormed the bank, although the word was out the police in St. Louis, Missouri had to sent SWAT teams out to protect BoA from its customers.

Apparently so many had sought to close their accounts, Bank of America stopped doing so, customers got angry and mad and made threats, and BoA called out the cops. Have you ever noticed “Labor Wars” are called labor wars and not management wars? That the Big Banks and the Corporatocracy are so powerful and so entrenched local governments will used whatever armed forces they have, including the police and state national guard, to protect the banks and corporations and not the general public.

I was glad my wife and I switched from the Big Banks to our local credit unions. There we are owners. My sign shouted “OCCUPY THE BANKS!” While I wasn’t going to charge the cops guarding the doors or throw any rocks, no way, I would join any mob in any attempts to peacefully yet powerfully enter the bank lobby. And it didn’t happen. Wasn’t gonna. Not today, anyway.

Close to 5:30pm we began marching. We marched all the way from Westlake Plaza to across from the Columbia Tower, rallied for about a half hour or more, then marched back. We stuck to the sidewalks most of the way, a few agitated demonstrators went out into the street and wondered why aren’t we taking to the streets like people did in Tunisia and Egypt and even Wisconsin? Like people used to in America? We had agreements with the police to keep it peaceful and not obstruct traffic. Pissing off motorists is not good public relations. Nor being seen fighting with cops. Especially not letting the media focused on a handful of misfit types with wild hair and clothing styles as representative of the rest of us.

“Stinky hippies?” Yeah, a few. So what? Maybe if people who’ve never camped out before in their lives would spend a few nights down in the streets without regular bathing and shaving they might get a clue. They might even look and smell like “stinky hippies,” too. Oh, shudders! Imagine being soldiers enduring weeks and months of constant combat in terrain from Afghanistan to Iraq. Go watch Restrepo, the award-winning documentary film about the Battles of the Korengal Valley and then talk about stench.

I have to roll my eyes at these kind of derisive comments by middle class pretenders. There were all kinds of people. Real flesh and blood human beings. Well-dressed people rallied and marched, too, even a few in suits but more in business casual. People of different ethnic groups and ages. All kinds. Even military veterans in dress uniforms. The wars of Empire left many of them “all fucked up” with blown off limbs, shredded genitals, and unhinged minds while the big corporations profited from their labor in defense of Big Oil, military contracts, and “free trade” with “democracies.”

Either the banksters and the corpo-corpses in their ignorance and greed don’t understand the bottom line of business is not money but human beings and their relationships, or, in a more sinister way, they do understand as to exploit people while they can.

Earlier this Saturday Native groups came out for Indigenous People’s Day as a counterweight to Columbus Day. Anti-war protestors showed up and joined in. So did labor union men and women. There were children. Not a lot, but they ranged from babies to teenagers. Many marchers appeared to be middle-aged people who were fed up with banks, corporations, and the corruption in government.

I saw Muslims and Jews and Christians, or to be more accurate Jews and Muslims in the traditional clothing associated with their religions and Christians praying openly when a minister took the stage and called out to Jesus to save everybody. I ran into Pagans I knew, recognized Buddhists, and even saw a sign or two by what appeared to be a small cluster of Atheists. I would imagine people from a variety of faiths stood together in the plaza. Many students crowded around. And many who were unemployed, underemployed, deep in debt, overtaxed, uninsured, and had been foreclosed upon. One held up a large sign echoing recent news one million military veterans are unemployed.

“SERIOUSLY?? ONE MILLION JOBLESS VETS - SERIOUSLY!!”

Our numbers, however, felt disappointingly small. Perhaps a thousand people were involved earlier in the day, and maybe 400 then 600 later during the march. Maybe a thousand again at the end. I heard Portland, Oregon had many more, and they’re a smaller city.

Near the plaza a small number allowed themselves to be arrested for blocking an intersection or crossing the street when ordered to move or not move by the cops. Those who honked their horns in support of the demonstrations were pulled over and ticketed by the cops, especially if they honked after 10:00 at night. We got many honks from drivers earlier in the day, cheers, thumbs up, and curious looks. Even the customers on the notorious Duck amphibious tour buses seemed to support us and one of their drivers pumped his fist. Cabbies pumped their fists in support, too. Right on, damn right.

“MR. OBAMA, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL STREET!!”

Thus shouted a sign in neat, stenciled letters held up high on a tall slat by a well-dressed White gentleman in his 60s. He was professional, silent, solid, and full of grit. A “stinky hippie?” I don’t think so.

“END CORPORATE POWER NOW!” sung out from ragged cardboard. Seems pretty clear to me. You?

“END THE FED!”

An old man scooting along in a wheelchair with that hanging off his back. Yes, end the Fed. We locked eyed and nodded. Both gave the other thumbs up. We knew. Go to the source.

“COLLEGE USED TO GET ME A JOB!” shouted a sign held aloft by a young woman. Being a Liberal Arts graduate, I had my opinions about the purpose of education, it ain’t about the job, and my opinion here doesn’t matter. I get her point. And I support it.

A young blonde woman all dressed up purple for white-collar work raged under her cardboard sign. Hers shouted in blue and red:

“I Went to the UW and all I got was a SHIT-TON of DEBT!”

Yeah, I get it. My wife can’t seem to pay her student loans off decades after she graduated. Took me many years, too. Student loans cannot be discharged in BK, in a bankruptcy. They are set up as a form of legalized loan sharking. Ever heard of the industrial-academic-financial complex? The money mill feeds the academic mill feeds the industrial mill and around and round till the whole damn wheel broke off and crashed. It was too lopsided and out of balance, corrupt and rotten to the core. And its own employees conditioned to think they’re helping people, people who are so desperate to get in because that’s what they’ve been led to believe they do what desperate people do; go to loan sharks. It’s nice if the loan shark office looks good and carries some degree of credibility up front, but it’s all a racket.

“GIVE A DAMN!”

That guy with the goatee and cap was everywhere with that neon blue sign. More power to him. I chugged a long with my big sign, feeling old, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t hear for the love, but I was here because I love, and I care.

I only witnessed two openly hostile people. One young White woman in the passenger seat of an SUV who maintained a steady “Fuck You” middle finger at us as her driver sped down the street. The other was a tall, Black man who came over to those sitting down in the street blocking traffic and complained to them. “Look, I support your cause,” he said. “But why block the busses, huh? Why block the busman? We folks trying to get home, we got things we gotta do, too, so why block the busman, huh? Why not just keep marching? Why block the busman like that, huh? Shit, people, let the buses through.”

After about 7:00, I caught a bus home, too. I had a household full of people to get back to. Wife, kids, and foreign exchange guest students awaited for me to return home. Friends were over for a surprise visit and dinner. It seemed another world, and I didn’t transition well. While supporting the general themes of the Occupy demonstrations, my family and friends wanted well-articulated positions from the protesters with clarity of proposals advocating what they stood for and not simply long lists of complaints and self-victimizing.

Everyone there generally supported Occupy Wall Street, but didn’t want riots nor wanted to hear self-declared victims whine how persecuted they are on a drama triangle of their own making. Furthermore, people down there, regardless of how terrible things are, and they are terrible for many folks, have to get hate out of their hearts.

Well, I was down there. I saw some hate, more anger, but little rage. I did see many expressions of love, forgiveness, and compassion. Most of these expressions seemed sincere and were also backboned by firmness. President Obama’s lack of spine and the Republican lack of heart exasperate the majority of people not just downtown in Occupy Seattle but in every conversation the grim power plays between Democrats and Republicans arise. Many loathe the “Dimocrap-Repugslug” two-headed snake with the head of a braying donkey on one end and a mud-slinging elephant on the other. People were fed up with political parties. There even seemed to be growing sentiment against third parties.

I felt moved and inspired by my experience of Occupy Seattle. This is even so despite the at times chaotic and disorganized aspect of the protests, such as late starts, communication delays, and the lack of cohesion between some of the groups down there together. I experienced a wonder and an awe I had not felt in over a decade. Indeed, I felt hope, and I’m not one to usually waste time hoping.

People are fed up. That is clear. This is a rising up of the masses in a spontaneous manner. Both the Democrat and the Republican Parties don’t seem to quite know what to do with this insurrection. Both are also trying to co-op the movement. Tea Partiers and Coffee Partiers find things to hate and to love about this unexpected revolt with riots. (At least so far.) But people on all sides are frakkin’ fed up! And both sides constitute the 99%. People are dismayed, angry, and even ashamed. Many feel despair.

“THEY GOT BAILED OUT, WE GOT SOLD OUT!” many shouted.

In countries around the world people everywhere are fed up with the current economic and financial situation. We are furious about the tyranny of the Big Banks and the Corporatocracy upon our lives in all areas, not just politics. This Saturday coming up, October 15, remember, is Occupy Earth, so please make a point to go down and offer support.

I feel this is the reemergence of the Cultural Creatives spearheading change. Cultural Creatives were first identified back in 2000 by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson. They saw those who transcended and moved beyond the old paradigms of right vs. left, of conservative vs. liberal, of the spiritual and religious vs. political-environmental-economic activists, of progressives vs. traditionalists as the Cultural Creatives.

There were estimated to be 50 million in America and 80-90 million in Europe back then with more elsewhere. The Cultural Creative Awakening was prematurely snuffed out along with the Anti-Corporate Globalization Revolts of the late 1990s/early 2000s after 9/11 and the Global Long War on Terror. The dramatic trauma of the 9/11 attacks and the anvil and hammer of the Patriot and related Acts rearranged priorities.

Recall the violence of the Anti-Corporate Globalization Revolts. They were large-scale riots involving many tens of thousands of people in a global revolt. Most of the people I saw in Occupy Seattle had no desire to repeat such violence. The Cultural Creative integration of spirituality and political activism was vibrant and evident even if the label “Cultural Creative” is no longer in the public awareness.

I saw a tremendous effort on both sides to keep things peaceful when I was downtown. Even the few arrests were staged and relatively peaceful. One guy went around patting his chest with one hand and quietly reminded people to "occupy your heart first." A burly Christian minister strode out into the streets before a phalanx of police, turned to face his fellow protesters, and shouted "No more blood! Keep it peaceful!"

He spun around slowly in all directions, a giant of a man, his face contorted with righteous indignation. This time he bellowed.

"REMEMBER, NO MORE BLOOD!"

I was reminded six days earlier by a Buddhist teacher to not make the other my enemy. Toward the end of my beginner Vipassana or Insight Meditation course, Rodney Smith, an ex-monk and Buddhist teacher here in Seattle, spoke for emotional self-control. “Feel your emotions, of course, just don’t allow them to run you. You have choices here.” After I raised my hand and asked how do I maintain such equanimity during street protests and described Occupy Wall Street, he nodded and said, “I got it.”

“It’s fine for you to go out into the streets and protest,” he said, “as long as you don’t make those on the other side your adversary.”

I kept reminding myself of his words as I watched both the police and some of the more agitated demonstrators. In some ways, we were all on the same side.

Many of the police officers expressed support at least for the general ideas expressed by many the protesters. The cops seemed much better trained to handle crowds as well as to attack and arrest. I hope this largely peaceful aspect continues throughout these protests everywhere.

Was there rudeness and provocations from a few on both sides? Yes, from a few protestors acting like asses to cops ticketing drivers and fining them $114 for honking in support especially after 10pm. So far it was very unlike my experience in the 1999 Battle of Seattle against the WTO. During the struggle cops attacked demonstrators and innocents alike to provoked much of the fighting while small bands of anarchists and looters took advantage of the chaos to engage in hit and run vandalism.

I was most impressed by my friend David Wright. Fearless and confident, he reached out to the Seattle Police as fellow human beings. He often went over to shake their hands and say “Thank you” for their service. David explained to those cops who would listen what he could about the Occupy Wall Street movement. In return many cops voiced support for the movement. Education was a major component to success. David saw us all as human beings. “Everyone down here is part of the 99%,” he muttered. Then he shouted out loud in unison with many others as he pointed to fellow marchers in the streets:

“WE ARE THE 99%!

YOU ARE THE 99%!”

I sang it, too. The roar of the protesters, the drums, the honking of car horns, and the guitars and banjos drowned out my voice. A man dressed in the American flag screeched upon a whistle, while another blasted the air wide open with a vuvuzela, a South African horn made famous for its strident buzzing during the 2010 World Cup soccer games.
At one point David quickly scribbled together a sign for the cops, scrawling:
"POLICE: YOU ARE THE 99% TOO! JOIN US!"

I am reminded, too, of Paul Hawken's vision of “Blessed Unrest,” his depiction of vast waves of activism in all areas emerging against the forces of Empire around America and the world. To his great surprise and delight instead of only a few hundred thousand groups he discovered over two million groups. Their numbers continue to rise. No one leader rules over anyone. No one overarching idea unites them. But a worldwide network of activist groups network together on issues local to global. They often disagree on many points, and agree on many more.

This movement has great promise. It evokes many of the protests that erupted during the beginnings of the First Great Depression including the Bonus Army Revolt of 1932, a peaceful protest and camp-in by the veterans of World War I. The Bonus Army was crushed violently by U.S. Army forces under Republican President Herbert Hoover.

Occupy Wall Street also has much in common with and many in it are inspired by the civil rights marches, freedom rides, sit-ins, and anti-war rallies of the 1960s and early 1970s. Many of those resulted in violent riots, too, so much that some historians refer to the turmoil of that time as a disorganized, multifaceted civil war or quasi-civil war.

Now so many more want peace. They want peace. I want peace! People demand peace! Liberty! Justice! Respect! Love! Power! Blessed Unrest is peaceful, loving, and powerful.

I stand with the Cultural Creative viewpoint here - we need creative action in all areas, spiritual and physical, heart and mind, spirit and soul. I value the integration of spiritual action and political activism. I uphold the power of prayer and the focus of meditation while taking a stand for urgent action in the here-now of our physical, mundane reality.

My biggest heroes are those who, despite their deep character flaws and they all had them being human beings, turned from violence to nonviolence and were able to build political activism upon a foundation of spirituality. These heroes of mine are from fairly recent history. Three still live today although they’re elderly. My heroes are Attorney Mohandas K Gandhi of India, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. of America, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also of South Africa. There are others of equal valor, but these are the ones I remember from all the many candles blazing on the cake.

Ten long years after the horrors and mayhem of 9/11, a long-wiggling chrysalis has given birth to a new, more mature, and wiser butterfly. The names may no longer be the same, but the Cultural Creatives, the Anti-Corporate Globalization movement, the Blessed Unrest network of networks, and the Postmodern digital revolutionary entrepreneurs are emerging and mixing in whole new ways from the chrysalis. Already the results are astounding.

And as people shouted and sang along the way, one man with a bushy beard darted and ran among his fellow marchers. One man on a mission, he dashed about patting one hand over his chest and reminding us all to occupy our hearts first.

Adam Kahane quoted the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., at length throughout his 2010 book Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change. We share the same hero, and King’s writings inspired the title of Kahane’s book. Theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich also inspired Kahane. Addressing power and love as what they are rather than what people think they do or lead to, Adam Kahane affirms Tillich’s realizations. For all three men power is the drive to recognize and achieve one’s purpose and the love the drive to unite and become whole.

Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in “Where Do We Go From Here?” a title that feels almost prescient these days, about his take on power and love. King felt people confused power and love with their polar opposites so much that love, unfortunately, became “identified with the resignation of power, and power with the resignation of love.” You can almost hear him sigh.

“Now we’ve got to get this right,” King goes on. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”

What King said next underlies and unites all the crises converging today, including the ones bringing people out in droves to Occupy Wall Street, Seattle, and cities around the world. “It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our time.”

Yes, now that we’ve occupied the streets and challenged the Mammon of Wall Street, we have to work together to determine where we go from here and what are out next steps.

First we remember over and over again to occupy our hearts.

Do that, and we will truly, finally, after all these millennia, transform our species. Occupy Wall Street! Occupy the Banks! Seize the Fed! And, yes, occupy your heart.

         As the Dalai Lama said, “World peace must develop from inner peace.”

         You have to care.

        

By William Dudley Bass

Seattle, Washington

Cascadia

October 10, 2011

© 2011 by William Dudley Bass.