Occupy Everywhere: From Wall Street to Main Street

The Occupy Wall Street has become so ubiquitous that its acronym – OWS – is now familiar. Still, it is primarily interpreted as a protest, which is only a small part of the movement’s intent. It is actually probably a bit presumptuous to call it a singly movement, when it is really a combination of many movements. While most people are focused on what appears to be a tidal wave, I think that the most important thing is that there are billions of people riding that wave, not being swept underneath its path.

A related movement, of course, is 99%.

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

While the recent days have seen police throughout the US break up tent cities and arrest mostly non-violent protesters, it is clear that the vast majority of Americans see that the basic tenets of OWS and 99% are true. They are upset over the bankers, the investment brokers, and the 1% that own and employ and enjoy the corporate welfare while continuing to exert pressure on the government through lobbying and threats to move capital and jobs offshore. Their threats work, because recent history indicates that these threats are real.

So what is left for the rest of us to do? Everything, really. It is not really Wall Street or Oakland or the city centers anywhere that we need to occupy. We obviously need to live somewhere. We all need to work, play, learn, love, eat, do, and sing and dance.

We need to gather and talk, to think and act, to be firm and certain, to question and reconsider. We need to be considerate and kind, deliberate and apologize when we are wrong. But we cannot continue to expect that somehow pandering to the greed and power of the 1% will somehow lead to a desirable end for all. It won’t happen – ever.

So OWS is here to stay, at least until WS is just another street where some blokes live. I will choose, then, to live on a stream, rather than a street, pursuing a less convenient life in order to find, with a bit of difficulty, the pleasures that come the hard way. But to get there, we have a whole lot of hard work ahead. Good thing that there are a lot of people willing to lend a good hand. Chippin’ in, as they say, with a little bit of a lot.

It’s mighty fine company we share! Good to be a part of the 99; it sure is lonely being the only 1.

This 2 hour video is from The Nation and The New School in New York City and is about the movement after OWS. It comes from a live broadcast of an event held on Thursday, November 10, at The New School in New York City. The New School hosted Occupy Everywhere: On the New Politics and Possibilities of the Movement Against Corporate Power, a discussion featuring award-winning filmmaker and author Michael Moore (Here Comes Trouble), best-selling author and Nation columnist Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), Nation National Affairs correspondent William Greider (Come Home, America), Colorlines Publisher Rinku Sen (The Accidental American), Occupy Wall Street Organizer Patrick Bruner and Richard Kim, executive editor, The Nation.com (moderator).

Tickled about Twylah

I just got started with Twylah. I found out about it from my friend and Social Media Marketing Strategist, Neal Shaffer.

Twylah is most importantly, a way of organizing and visualizing a person or organization’s Twitter stream, so that they can be made sensible to someone who is not a real active Twitter user. On Twitter, the stream is an endless roll of short messages that seem disconnected of logic or organization. However, using its analytical and display algorithms, the branded Twylah page becomes a convenient and effective means of directing followers of your personal or organizational brand to news, other content, and commercial activities, which can significantly increase the monetary potential of the brand’s Twitter presence.

Currently in Private Beta, Twylah is not yet above the radar. But I am certain that it will. I think that the potential to make an impact in many non-monetary areas where brand is still very critical is immense. I will continue to explore and tweak its potential.

Check it out!

What would you do as the new President of the United States?

The question was asked to Henry Rollins, the outspoken American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, comedian, publisher, actor, and radio DJ. He was the former frontman of hardcore punk band, Black Flag, and the lead of his own Rollins Band.

In addition to his prolific career as a musician, artist, actor, and dj, Rollins has also become quite well-known for his political activism. He has campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including promoting LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, and an end to war in particular, and tours overseas with the United Service Organizations to entertain American troops.

On October 1, 2011, just over one month ago, Rollins published a book, Occupants. The book is about Rollins’ extensive travels around the world, to places such as Afghanistan, Mali, South Africa, Iraq, Thailand, Burma, Northern Ireland, and Saudi Arabia, sharing his photographs and observations about the suffering, anger, and resilience of the people throughout the world.

Rollins’ disappointments with American foreign policy don’t just end there. He is very well voiced in Patriotism, based in careful study and thought about American and world history.

And so when some politicians say when a hurricane comes through Texas New York’s tax dollars shouldn’t be diverted to Texas to help, because Texas is Texas, 10th amendment, I say “No! It’s the United States.” We’re a team, America. I want to help the people in Texas. They are my neighbors. Take my California tax dollars to help these people. I don’t want to see them flooded. I want to see them rescued and that’s where we stick up for each other.

That is what the founding fathers (who some people like to mention so often), that is what they were beating each other up over in un-air-conditioned rooms in sweltering Philadelphia – that we stick together through thick and thin. That, to me, is being patriotic. That is what paying taxes is all about. That is what you see in great American cities. You see people looking out for one another. When we lose that, we lose the whole ball of wax.

It’s pretty obvious that we’re already losing “the whole ball of wax” when the next Presidential election is likely to be between the increasingly unpopular President Obama and the only person left standing on the right, Mitt Romney. Obama has become not only disappointed many of his 2008 supporters who were swept enthusiastically into politics for the first time by his emotionally charged, dramatic, and dynamic campaign, but also angered many of them for his apparent pandering to the political, economic, and military elite in order to secure small advances out of the quagmire that Washington has become. Romney, on the other hand, is most well known for his handsomeness and whose primary strength as he seeks to be the Republican nominee is that he is not crazy, mean, stupid, or lazy. Kind of sad, that the “Supreme Leader of the Free World” in 2012 will be a choice between a guy who has been accused of betraying his commitment to the 99% and another guy who won mostly because he is not pathetic. For many, apathy is more interesting than the alternative.

Apathy, of course, is not the solution. We need to return to the thinking that we can each do our part to change the world. Self reliance and personal responsibility, of course, will enable us to gain control of the things we can change and make better. But it is quite interesting to consider what impact a different leadership would have.

So when the Big Think went to ask Henry Rollins what he would do if he were elected President of the United States, this is what he had to say:

Henry Rollins on Big Think