Tag: activism

55 Days of Occupy Philly: Day 8

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I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
10/14//11
Friday 11:02 AM

Day 8 Up at 7:00.
Feel somewhat rested.
Morning spent on circulating idea for Occupy International –already have a Working group meeting scheduled so can send bottom liners to CoCo, get on stacks to announce at tonight’s GA.
Off to Liberty Plaza

Occupation – International

We would like to see an Occupy Philadelphia Working Group to
1) Begin plans to establish a regular, trans-Occupation WG
2) 2) … to set up communications & Tech infrastructure
3) 3)… to plan for Regional

     National
           International
           Occupation conferences to discuss Meta issues
          … and begin the process of how to formulate
           Cooperative Plans of Action
           we can bring back to our local sites.
           We are already an international movement.

           It’s time to take the next step.

           Peace & Solidarity

           Jacob Spirit-Stick

New York – they canceled the scheduled “cleaning” … crisis postponed. Bloomberg is a fascist asshole.

[What eventually came of this was a regional day-long
workshop at the Friend’s Center in December—which was
a total flop. Nothing but Power Point bullshit run
by corporate trained, if well meaning, “leaders”
who took the thing over and squashed every spontaneous, creative, radical impulse.]

Came home for nap. Made a difference. Another long GA. I never would have imagined being in a group this big where nearly everyone was more militant than me…

an impression that grossly misread the temper
of those who were there… as it became more apparent
that most people favored appeasement and compromise,
and the GA’s came to be increasingly dominated by
liberal moderates, while the anarchists and radicals
began to abandon the decision making process, leaving
the GA’s to those who used them, more and more,for
making useless petitions.

At this point, I hadn’t caught on to what was
happening—still caught in the euphoria (OP was only a week
and day old). I was late in recognizing how
poorly our process had kept up with how things had
been developing. Joining the facilitation team likely
contributed to that. The whole thing was pretty much
on its way to fragmenting into different affinity
groups with no center, or desire for one. ]

… the city wants to talk… they don’t understand our decision making process. We’ve become in a week, a different culture—nonhierarchical, inclusive.
[… another misperception. By this time, most of the few POC who had been there at the beginning, had left]

Spend so much time—if not on site—answering & writing email, responding to posts & comments on web pages—that I have no time or mental energy left to write.
Occupy International now an official WG. This is how we keep the revolutionary potential alive. We’re ants in a herd of elephants [grossly overestimating our outside support]—but there’s way more ants than elephants—and we can crawl into holes where they’re too big to follow.

BDS, Solidarity with Palestinians

Solidarity with the Palestinian popular resistance! Boycott Israel now!

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

solidarity-resistance-rev3

Whether the current phase of Israel’s intensified repression and Palestinian popular resistance will evolve into a full-fledged intifada or not, one thing is already evident—a new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of previous generations, rising up en masse against Israel’s brutal, decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.

World governments, especially in the west, are calling this a “cycle of violence” where both sides are to blame, ignoring the root cause of the colonial conflict and their own complicity in enabling Israel to maintain it and to violate international law with impunity. Almost all Palestinians today are calling for a full boycott of Israel and for isolating it internationally, in all fields, just as apartheid South African once was.

In this latest round, Israel has fanned the flames of Palestinian grassroots resistance by stepping up its attacks against al-Aqsa mosque compound, the Noble Sanctuary, located in the heart of the Israeli occupied Old City of Jerusalem. Fanatic, government-backed Jewish fundamentalist settler groups have persistently desecrated the compound, often verbally insulting worshippers with vile racism and openly calling for the destruction of the mosque. This has triggered widespread anger and protests in Jerusalem and among Palestinians everywhere in historic Palestine.

Typically, the Israeli army’s response was to protect the criminal settlers and punish the Palestinian victims, ultimately denying almost all Palestinians access to their holy site.

These threats are taken seriously by Palestinians who suffer daily the consequences of Israel’s official policy of “Judaization” of the city, a policy of gradually colonizing the land and replacing its indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian population with illegal Jewish settlers. This policy, which amounts to ethnic cleansing and a war crime under international law, is implemented through incessant land confiscations, expansion of the colonial wall, house demolitions, settler take-overs of Palestinian homes, extrajudicial killings, arrests and expulsions, all supported by Israel’s “justice” system, a constantly reliable, rubber-stamp partner in crime.

The latest Israeli attack against the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, moreover, is not an isolated incident. Hundreds of historic churches and mosques have been destroyed by Zionist militias and later the Israeli state since 1948. Last summer, during the massacre in Gaza, Israel bombed to the ground 73 mosques. Many Palestinian churches and mosques have been defaced or otherwise desecrated this year alone by Jewish extremists in so-called “price tag attacks,” including the Church of Loaves and Fishes (Multiplication), overlooking Lake Tiberias, which was set on fire last June.

These racist and criminal attacks against Palestinians and their freedom of religion come as an extension of a massive shift in Israel to the extreme right and the unprecedented prevalence in Israeli society of overt, deeply-seated colonial racism and racial hatred against the indigenous Palestinian people.

Virtually all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza are denied access to Jerusalem, which is besieged by walls, watch towers and barbed wire, and are subject to daily assault and humiliation.

In a typical so-called “period of calm”, Israel enforces its medieval siege of Gaza, conducts incursions into Palestinians cities, confiscates Palestinian land, including in the Naqab (Negev), destroys Palestinian property, and builds illegal Jewish-only settlements. In its ongoing attempts to entrench its system of apartheid and colonial rule, Israel denies Palestinians their full spectrum of rights in the most banal of ways, from a child’s right to education to a mother’s access to health care, to a farmer’s ability to reach his/her land and to the right of a family to even live together in one home. And all this is done with the blessing of the courts.

In light of the apathy or direct complicity of world governments and the UN, and as a result of Israel’s impunity in perpetuating this system of injustice against Palestinians, in historic Palestine as well as in exile, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made great strides in redefining Israel’s positioning in the world stage as a pariah state.

Through boycotts of institutions that are complicit in Israeli violations of international law, through divestment from corporations supporting Israeli oppression and through a principled call for sanctions against Israel, the BDS movement has increased the isolation of Israel and started to impose costs on its regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and occupation.

The World Bank has revealed that Palestinian imports from Israel are falling significantly. Israeli businessmen are reporting that European investors are no longer willing to invest in Israel, while a UN study confirms that foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 46% in 2014, as compared to 2013. A Rand study predicts that BDS may cost Israel between 1% and 2% of its GDP each year over the next ten years, and, most recently, credit rating agency Moody’s has reported that BDS is a potential threat to the Israeli economy.

More needs to be done, however, to hold Israel to account and shatter its still strong impunity. Complicit governments must be exposed. Corporations that are enabling and profiting from Israel’s human rights violations must pay a price in their reputation and revenues. Israel’s military machine, including its research arm, must face a comprehensive international military embargo, and all Israeli leaders, officers and soldiers who are involved in the commission of the current and past crimes must be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court as well as national courts that respect international jurisdiction.

Israel is not just oppressing Palestinians; it is exporting its ruthless model of securitization and repression to the world. Israel is deeply involved in training and arming death squads in Latin America, often as a US proxy, selling weapons and military expertise to dictatorships in Asia andAfrica, often to both sides of a civil war, and militarizing police forces in Ferguson, Los Angeles,London and cities around the world. Israel today is a key player in domestic repression against racial, social, economic and environmental justice movements around the world.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian leadership of the global BDS movement, calls on people of conscience around the world to support Palestinians in their quest for freedom at this crucial moment by stepping up BDS activities against Israel’s regime of oppression. In particular, and related to the current mass revolt on the streets of Palestine, we call on supporters of the Palestinian struggle to:

  • Build awareness about Palestinian rights under international law and support for BDS through media outreach, including social media;
  • Campaign against Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems;
  • Support boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit companies, such as G4S andHP, that are most blatantly complicit in Israel’s infrastructure of oppression;
  • Pass effective and strategic, not just symbolic, BDS resolutions in unions, academic associations, student governments and social movements that can lead to concrete measures, and enhance the cultural boycott of Israel;
  • Consider legal action against Israeli criminals (soldiers, settlers, officers and decision-makers) and against executives of corporations that are implicated in Israel’s crimes and violations of international law.

Like their parents’ generation, the thousands of Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jaffa, Nazareth and elsewhere who have taken to the streets in large protests against Israel’s occupation and apartheid are first and foremost shaking off despair and liberating their minds of the myth of oppression as fate. They are also nourishing the entire Palestinian people’s aspiration to self-determination and living in freedom, dignity and a just peace.

It is high time to isolate Israel’s regime of militarization, securitization and racism as a danger not just to Palestinians and the Arab region, but to humanity at large.

Translations:

DECLATACIÓN EN CASTELLANO AQUÍ

This entry was posted in Statements and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Related Campaigns: , , ,

– See more at: HERE

55 Days of Occupy Philly: days 5-7

I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, click:  55 Days of Occupy Philly.

Monday
10/10 Day 5
96 tents last night. Encampment still clean and orderly.

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Tuesday
10/11/11
6:00 PM Day 6
Clouds closing over.
Facilitators meeting (went to training at 4:00). Blanket stolen yesterday—discovered when I went to my matt to sleep.

horns and chants

Process unchanged.

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10/12/11
Wednesday Day 7
Leave for KWH in 5 min. Jerome Rothenberg. Took late evening & ½ dy off for R&R. Facilitated Porta Potty proposal at GA last day.
Slept till 7:30 this morning.
Straightened & organized writing space & computer table. Working out schedule to give time to read and write.
Lucky 13
10:00 PM – one glass of wine—try to get up at 5:00 AM—gonna be a long day. Maybe not. I’m really tired & the food group seems to be managing. Gil worked for a while there today. I bottom-lined the GA. Light rain at first—when it began to come down hard we moved to the Friend’s Center. Met in the 1515 Cherry Street Meeting house.

Jerome Rothenberg looks so stern in his photos—a dear sweet man in person. Began the reading with a soda-can-rattle—chanting an Amer-Indian song.
Thursday
10/13/11 One week

	Glass towers lost in fog
… searching for facilitation
so many cops today
red arm bands announce
civility(?)      Affairs 
            of state 
            bear arms
A quarter to 12 (noon not midnight)
and still no 
                 sign
                       no final word
                           no end in sight

7:55 PM
Temple Center City.. poetry. (across 15th Street) I left the GA early—a contentious issue coming up on the agenda. I’ll have to find out what happened tomorrow. I can’t find words for how tired I am. While waiting for the facilitation meeting, I lay down on one of the wet marble benches—on my back, and fell asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes. Hallucinate half-dreams. Poetry. I needed a break—not sure I can stay awake.

After the reading I went back across the street. They were only beginning to vote on the response to the City’s second ‘liaison’ proposal – 7 amendments. Three hour GA, not over till 10:00

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55 Days of Occupy Philly: Days 3 & 4

I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, Click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.

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10/8/11 Day 3. No journal entry,
but an article, CBS News
Notice the quotes around “Occupy Philadelphia,” and “Occupy Wallstreet”
and photos from CK1 Photography

March through Center City, in the Metro

Sunday Day 4
5:35 PM
10/9/11 The drum circle begins. The end of my nap. /with a break for the General Assembly they’ll keep it going till midnight. 75 tents last night—a new row of them in front of City Hall. The Occupation gradually expanding, spreading out across Dilworth Plaza. 22nd day for OWS. Cut back hours on Food Working Group—exhausted. Try to do the morning pre-breakfast set up—6:45. Hope I can keep it up after it gets cold & I have to sleep at home. This will be my 4th night. I wake each morning wondering whether I can do another day. I walk through the camp in the pre-dawn dark.

Last night’s GA – fragmented—sound problems with the speakers and the people’s mic—those speaking more than usual—who didn’t know how to project their voices. The sound system drives people away from the speaker creating a physical disconnect. Too many there unfamiliar with the process—or the discipline required to make it work

The people’s mic more than a substitute for amplification-it’s a marvelous learning tool.
I sign my name: Jacob Spirit Stick… so people here will know where/how to find me.

Spirit Stick

Pale blue sky between glass towers. Two men play chess—argue whether our electoral system can be saved. The Food station well staffed now—and has overhead canopies. There was a scramble to move to the North, along JFK. People blocking traffic dropping off supplies.
Finally arranged a pick-up for the foam. Medical emergency truck pulls up on Broad in front of /city Hall—take a gurney from the back, head north on Dilworth Plaza. A fight between two old men. Plain clothes cops locked one up, says a toothless man standing near by. The rescue team takes a man who’s lying on the ground. It’s unseasonably warm. Winter looms.

We All Go Into the Dark

singapore-21

The photo –because Singapore represents a particularly frightening form of alien dystopia for me.

The Darkness Before the Right

I suggest reading this in conjunction with Deleuze & Guattari: The Eternal Return of Accelerating Capital, posted on Alien Ecologies.

A right-wing politics for the coming century is taking shape. And it’s not slowing down.
by Park MacDougald September 28, 2015

More generally, critics of capitalism have often argued that it is an inhuman system, and that our task is to somehow subject it to our collective political will. If we don’t, it will destroy us all. Land agrees that this is the issue at hand, but sides with capitalism nonetheless. And if “the Cathedral” is the name for attempts to throw the emergency brake on the capitalist machine, Land’s neoreaction is a sort of secular Satanism, effectively suggesting that it would be better to just end it all anyway. Or – perhaps most frightening – that we no longer even have a choice. As the sci-fi author and artist Doug Coupland recently put it in the FT:

The darkest thought of all may be this: no matter how much politics is applied to the internet and its attendant technologies, it may simply be far too late in the game to change the future. The internet is going to do to us whatever it is going to do, and the same end state will be achieved regardless of human will. Gulp.

Read the rest HERE.

55 Days of Occupy Philly: Day 2

I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, Click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.

10/7/11
Friday Day 2

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5:45 AM To sleep on my mat—quilted blanket—sound of trucks, buses, people talking—grows quieter—slip into dreams with the same images, sounds– in dreams as waking. Aware even in sleep how quiet—how strangely quiet it’s become. See shadow forms of sleepers wrapped in blankets when I open my eyes. Reasonably warm.
—
Gradual stir, city waking up. Buses queuing up for first run. Street venders bringing in their carts. I’m awake. Sit up. Pull on the heavy sweater I got from Ecuadorian street venders years ago.
Walk the rounds. Shadow tents. Shadow sleepers. Here & there someone up. Conversations. The permit. Do we apply? Do we go without? Told that Nutter came down around 1:00 AM. Talked with people at Safety. Thanks for keeping people safe. Talk with Medical about coming cold. Young woman—food crew—trying to sleep on two chairs—a single blanket. Looks cold. Take one of my blankets & cover her.

Man comes by with two boxes of Dunkin Munchkins. I open them and put them out on the breakfast snack table.
The day begins.

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LINK from NEWSWORKS

LINK from  METRO

55 Days of Occupy Philly: Day One

I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, Click  55 Days of Occupy Philly.

10/6/11
Thursday
Up at 5:15 AM 40 minutes to eat and be out the door. A personal grocery cart with poster boards tarps an upholstered cot mattress put out for pick-up outside the shop on Passyunk. Have blocks there too but will have to have someone with car to pick them up.
7:00 AM
… on Dillworth plaza police gates to courtyard closed

Glassy towers gleam in morning sun TV trucks helicopters – spread tarp SW corner loaf of bread 2 small jars of peanut butter – loaves & fishes! food for thousands 5:00 PM nap on cushion drummers drumming people gather to talk & talk & talk – numb from lack of sleep – quilted blanket under invisible stars to drum beats sliding into dreams approaching dawn how strangely quiet shadow form of sleepers murmur of the city waking buses queuing up on 15th Street for the first run street vendor’s carts back over the curb walk in morning darkness told the Mayor came to visit some time after midnight – two boxes of Dunkin on the table – breakfast under way. The day begins
7:50 AM
On Dilworth Plaza – Police—a strong but discrete presence. Not quite “invisible” but making a show of force not the plan. Entrances to City Hall closed. Sky absolutely clear—in the 50’s—say it’ll be 70 before day is over. First one here… waiting for peeps in Food Working Group. TV news trucks here – more visible force than cops.
5:00 PM
Took a little nap on the cushion I brought in my grocery cart this morning. Helicopters overhead. Drums, people talking. People talking. People talking.

Last meeting after breakdown—food put away as best we could manage. Boxes stacked on tables. Worry about rats. Plans for tomorrow. Turns for breakfast, lunch… food teams become servant class if we don’t give each other relief to go to GA’s, be part of the community conversation. Exhausted. A 19 hour day. More a part of food group end of day, less of the facilitators—exhausted. numb—so numb, sleep walking—deliriously happy—and ready for sleep.

occupy-philly-panorama-1800px

Day One Occupy Wall Street to Philly October 4–LINKED HERE

55 Days of Occupy Philly: Day one OWS to Philly, Oct. 4

This first post covers the 20 days from September 17, 2011, the first day of Occupy Wall
Street, to October 4, when the General Assembly at Arch Street Methodist agreed to begin the Occupation two days later, Thursday, October 6, on Dilworth Plaza, in the shadow of City Hall

I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.

To view all posts to date, CLICK  55 Days of Occupy Philly.

These are, for the most part, raw transcripts, drawn from more than 70 pages in my journal, supplemented by contemporary articles, and posts that appeared on my blog, Jacob Russell’s Barking Dog. I’ve done some minor editing, formatting, added photos I found on the web, and poems that I wrote during the Occupation. I’ve blanked names at times when I thought they might be hurtful. Actions matter more than personalities.

A journal is a record of immediate impressions. Where my views have changed–and I thought it important, I’ve added afterthoughts [in brackets and italics]. Whether those few weeks be judged as important or insignificant for history, for many of us who took part… in the assemblies, the working groups, the direct actions–they changed our lives, left a mark that we will not soon overcome: reason enough, I thought, to make this record (limited as it is, in point of view or insight, for how little I was able to see and record), available to public view.
–Solidarity/Love/Imagination/RESISTANCE!
August 26, 2015

September 17
… was my youngest son’s 32nd birthday. I was following the progress of my sister’s final illness, waiting for payment for some editing I’d done. Counting the days till my next Social Security Deposit.

It was the first day of the occupation of Zuccotti Park.

I had, on this day, yet to hear anything about it on the news.

September 22.
I had a tooth extracted. Couldn’t afford the prescription for penicillin. Learned about OWS from Twitter.

September 23.

                                  6th Day of OWS

Rain. Drone of the fan in the window. Humid. Dark.
Watched demonstrations/ Wall Street last night—Promising. Unusual degree of creativity—semi-chaos for this stage—sustained this long. I hope they grow. How are they going to deal with the rain?
–Journal. Book 55. Page 6309

9/24/11 All day watching live feed of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. After a week, still almost no media coverage. Sent links Tweets, posted on my blog. Watched as cops penned several women, then maced them. As many as 100p arrested when they marched to Union Square.
Went to the Chapterhouse reading. Others are not as into this as I am.
—
But Debrah Morkun is there! & CA Conrad is in NY & has been there.
Here’s a link to an INTERVIEW ON HUFF POST with Debrah and Frank Sherlock. I’m going tomorrow—Chinatown bus. Spend the day. Gather info.

Sunday, September 24, 2011

Driving through the Holland Tunnel on …
     …the way to Occupy Wall Street for every tile worker’s
     hand the trowel he held 32 million tiles in the ceiling
     2.9 million on the walls
     set
          one 
              by 
                  one
     how many laid by one man in an hour
     a day       counting
     them in his sleep beside his wife
     in a walk-up in Bayonne

     14 workers died building that tunnel…
     not one of them
     named Holland

—Page 6310

9/25/11
Sunday
On the New Century bus—2 way ticket in pocket—NYC & back. Dim light—lights not on yet–or AC—very hot—drenched with sweat.
I have poems to hang from trees in Zuccotti Park.

No Revolution without Poetry!
No Poetry without Revolution!

Across the Ben Franklin. Battleship New Jersey looks so small. NJ 38… Discount Mattress—mattresses hanging side by side—like Zoe Strauss photo—cover of City Real and Imagined. See the hi-way corridor of commodified ruins with new eyes. Twenty minutes out & its cooler, but not enough to dry the sweat. See a dime under the seat across the isle—wonder how I can reach it without drawing attention.

EZ Pass

Tag Holders and Cash Only.
Goldenrod by the side of the road. A few trees beginning to turn—telling us the earth is tilting on its axis toward winter. Language of trees. Did those neutrinos really exceed the speed of light?
–Page 6311

General Assembly

Hand signals. Agree.
Point of Process— –block—not approve but not block—
Mic Check!
Quaker style consensus.

A transformative moment for me.

Lucky 13
Loooong conversation with a machinist… not just what I saw—it changed me. Also wore me out.
9/26/11
Monday 7:25 PM
Peggy [my sister] in hospice…
… all day getting info out & together for Occupy Philly.

Just caught Michael Moore on live feed at OWS.
11:42 PM
Working on my account of Sunday at Occupy Wall Street. Have been writing for almost 2 hours—and still have to write about the General Assembly, post to my blog.
–2:23 AM Finished about an hour ago. Then discovered the FB Occupy site—had been posting only public status—on the web page,

Occupy Together – Philadelphia.
Then Deborah Morkun sent an invitation to the Wooden Shoe meeting – to organize a ‘rally.” A rally? Is that all this is about? Very disturbing—and so late, can’t get any clarification.
Relax… deep breath. No “organizers’ are going to usurp this meeting.
My points for consideration posted: 4:27 AM. to bed

9/27/11
Voice text from _________: my sister hanging on—comfortable. I have a feeling this will be the day.

Let the Second American Revolution be my mourning jacket
Page 6313
___________

September 27, 2011
Peggy Johnson Clark
April 8, 1946 – September 27, 2011
_________________

Today Cornell West & Amy Goodman at Occupy Wall Street. Beginning to get some attention.

Such contradictory emotions.

Comes in waves. I’ll remember something. Then—not numb. Not an absence of feeling. A quiet. A stillness. As a leaf on a tree, as a rock feeling the wind. Feeling time pass. Nothing is final to the heart—no wonder we invented after-life. This can’t be all there is, we tell ourselves.
Page 6315
__________________________

9/28/11
Wednesday
So humid—drenched with sweat.. hypoglycemic… stopped at ACME for a banana & an orange. Empty my ACCESS money. $1.65 till Monday.
1:20 AM
Wrestled a couple of poems from notes—rest of day—on Occupy Philly. Tomorrow planning meeting. First scheduled for Wooden Shoe—which holds maybe 50 or 60 people—changed to Arch St. Methodist—almost 300 signed up as Attending on FB, with even more “Maybes.”
Didn’t get that worked out till well past midnight, & without sufficient notice—decision was to meet at Wooden Shoe, then walk to Broad Street—even better—especially if we can get posters or flyers at Wooden Shoe.

Go to Wooden Shoe—arrive by 5:30. Pick up posters if available—go to Arch St. Methodist—don’t wait for group walk to start. Take subway, South to City Hall.

FBook’s hall-of-mirrors causing all kinds of confusion.
So…it’s 2:30 PM. Leave here at 4:50. Have 2 hours 20 minutes.
–Read—eat—try to stay off FB.
—-
1:48 AM
Have to print out report from my blog. Almost 400 showed up. We’re underway! Outreach/Planning/Administration (?)
My hours playing info editor/interceptor were useful.

Cops followed whole way from Wooden Shoe to North Broad. Cops IN the church lobby. No doubt in audience. 400 in the church?

… to bed

9/30/11
Report from last night’s meeting at Arch Street Methodist Church:
The first Philly meeting turned into an ad hoc General Assembly with all the tension and underlying threat of disruptive chaos one might expect from a gathering of some 400 people, no time get to know one another, no time to build trust and a sense of a common purpose—even if that purpose might be yet to be discovered.

Began with a sobering report from the legal team—they have our backs (everyone in this movement should be damn grateful and happy they do–they have a superb record of support for free speech in a town that often doesn’t hold much stock in the 1st Amendment… how many years did Lynn Abraham press her heavy hand over the courts here?)– but we’ll be the ones risking bloodied heads and jail time while we wait for them to perform their legal magic to get us out of the slammer.

It was kind of all downhill from there—depending on which way you take that—the laws of gravity on our side (easy going… ), or a non-stop slide to the pit of no return. I don’t say that out of discouragement—democracy is damn hard work, and not a form of labor most of us have any experience with. The real thing is more than pulling a level in a voting booth, or doing circle jerks in legislative chambers to produce endless iterations of the same old same old. Everyone in that room had at least begun to catch on to that—how the crumbs of reform tossed by Good Cop Democrats do nothing but appease discontent so the Bad Cop Republicans can keep steal most of us blind, and throwing as many of rest of us as they can in prison for laws they pass cause, like prohibition, they know damn well we’ll break them. Shit, when you got nowhere else to go with your life and ten minutes watching the corporate news is like a siren call to end it all & be done with it—a toke on a weed seems like a fucking Plan!

But knowing how to shape an egalitarian society, even in microcosm—the real deal I mean—it’s not gonna be easy going—not coming from where we do in the Land of the Wage Slave Sound Bite and the Savior who never quite turns out to be what we thought he was on the campaign trail. Cause an egalitarian society—arriving at consensus where everyone has a voice, where no one gets left behind or shoved outside the circles of power so the simple majority can get on with the business of trampling the rights of the minority, and the even smaller minority can steal us blind and… but we been through that one. You know the dope.

There are powerful residual habits we’re going to have to unlearn, and it’s going to feel like pulling teeth—in the old days I mean—before Novocain—when they did it with pliers and a shot of white lightning. We’re going to have to trust one another, trust that we can do this, that together we have the genus, the creative power that surpasses even the brightest individual—cause no individual can know what it is we want as a people, can know how it is we want to live together—since living together is our only fucking choice. And since it is, we better do it with love. And respect. And cooperation. And all those virtues the power hungry (or is it power-starved?) wage slaves and servants of those who think they own us and the earth and everything in on and under it—all those virtues they like to make fun of, like they’re signs of weakness.

Friday Up at 8:00. How deeply have I gotten myself into this? What’s going to happen to my quiet life?
Need to take pains to read & keep up with poetry.

Comcast down (?) Bad time to lose connections.

3 days till Soc. Sec. Gave coins to a homeless man. down to one dollar in pocket.
Internet ok when first turned on computer. Does seem to be Comcast.

I plan to spend a couple hours in the morning reading. Instead I fuss with the modem, take laptop to B2 Cafe—can’t find a network there–& screen near impossible to see outside. Come home. Definitely seems to be Comcast. It’s the “cable activity light” that’s consistently off.
12:22 PM
Took a nap. Tried again—got a signal for about a second—something’s changed… but doesn’t last. Couple moving in upstairs.

Woke from my nap—drowsy & walked to bank but didn’t shake it.
Listen to hourly news. NPR & head for the library with my laptop.
8:28 PM A day lost. Have to take the modem to a Comcast center.

1351 Columbus. 8:30. Saturday?

To bed at 9:30. Awake at Midnight. Read. A poem of sorts. 2:02. back to
bed.

10/1/11
Saturday
9:36 – Off to 1351 Columbus – hope I come back with a new modem.
Street work on Morris. 29 bus rerouted. Sign says, catch it on Broad. Veggie vender here hasn’t seen one for an hour. Been here a half-hour. Still no sign of it. Persist.. Persist.

2nd & Tasker. Modem (new) in the bag.

One. Thing. After. Another!

1:33 Outreach meeting at 3:00.

Draught Horse Restaurant.

My Soc Sec deposit made!

Long meeting—outreach. Need to work on this.
NY – cops trapped 300 on Brooklyn Bridge.

… here at L. 13 texted Gil. He had to work so not in NY today.
Phillies up 9-3 in the 8th. Halliday’s not given up a hit since the 3rd inning home run that put them up 3-0. Retried the last 20 batters.
—
Lucky 13
Shouldn’t have come back, but found my lost shoulder bat—use it to carry my lap top.

This was a crazy day. Half of it getting the modem & router working—the Outreach meeting. Catching up on Occupation news. Email.

Damask press wants to publish a 5 poem sampler of Chronic Chronos Kairos–& a broadside.

Sunday
10/2/11
700 arrested/ entrapment—Brooklyn Bridge. I suppose this is going to mean another arrest [for me] in the not too distant future.
10:18 Was up at 6:00. have to meet at Love Park for a Canvas Training session. (I’ll be one of the trainers). Time enough for a nap.
10:20 Most of these past couple of years—alone in my room, poetry readings, writing—growing into a new sense of myself. Woke up after I got home from New York—lost. Briefly. What have I done? What have I committed myself to? Still off-center at the first meeting Thursday. Today… went to Love Park. “Training” for canvassers, I was the alternative—the un-rapster. Let Steve do his spiel… I mean. Waited. While he talked. Said my piece (brief) & came home. Not for me—the street canvasser shit we were doing for Obama. Had forgotten to take my asthma meds—Advair—or BP pills. An excuse that was no excuse. But all that aside… felt a deep opening, a settling in. A letting go. This is what I’m going to do. This is for real.

Hand signals. Point of Process/block/approve/No, but no block/ Get on with it/
Wrote my piece on the Thursday meeting—gonzo polemic. Gonna do more of this. I was tired when I started—drowsy, I mean. But it took off. Took over. Gonna be the gonzo philosopher of this movement. Yeah, right….
Jacob Russel Poetry

10/3/11
Monday Planning: Robin’s
12 here so far. Good. Not too many… 10 more… and more… 50 or 60. A long meeting—second half we began to find the flow. We decided on an agenda, preliminary procedure—and that we would select a site & time for occupation. Tomorrow.
Gene—Points to me and says that I should facilitate. We’d picked facilitators. I declined. He had something other in mind—someone to “take charge” –to lead the way. I don’t know what made him think I might be one do this. I didn’t ask. But I took his concern about the undisciplined procedure to the point—people interjection—raising hands but not waiting to be recognized—as though I might do something. He had in mind that I speak up—take charge. I choose to lead by example—even if invisible. And to surround myself with a field of calm… was that what made a difference? I don’t know. But the second half was much more orderly—and at times almost as though my example—the concentrated calm—as though it
had an effect. I would hold my hand out, palms down, and the people would stop for the moment—stop talking out of turn.
After the meeting he took me by the lapel, asked if I drank—offered me a drink. I didn’t refuse. Led me to the Westbury.
10/4/11
Got to Broad at 5:00 met with group—facilitating welcome & agenda. Worked with them till 6:20. Took 20 minutes for everyone to get into the church & get seated—1000 people! And we worked through the agenda like we were born to do this—adjourned ½ hour early—all by consensus.

CITY HALL – THURSDAY 9:00 AM!

We fucking did it!

images

A thousand people!
1000 people came to the general assemble at Arch Street Methodist Church. Filled to standing room. The long difficult meeting night before—with only 60 in attendance… how could this work?

It worked.

Went through a potentially divisive agenda and made decision after decision—by consensus, chose City Hall for occupation, Thursday October 6 (today)… ONE day for all the logistics involved. Broke into Working Groups (committees) outside after. Meeting was over half hour early… ended by singing Solidarity Forever.

Turning point, when deadlocked between Love Park, Rittenhouse Square and City Hall, asked for a break—everyone turn to your neighbor and talk about this for ten minutes, give voice to what you think—and they gave voice, oh they gave voice, a sound like a great rush of wind, like a waterfall, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, strangers deciding together, searching for that wisdom that is greater than any one of us. It was beautiful, beautiful…

People gathering at 4 points to walk to City Hall. We have Dilworth Plaza north to south.
Nibbles from the Powers, making nice, making use… this will be the beginning of a more difficult challenge, more trying than pepper gas or jail cells. Philly not New York. “I’m the 99% too” Mayor Nutter is reported to have said…fucking bullshit

Thursday October 4, 2011, Arch Street Methodist Church
A brief hesitation…
     a single breath before
     sea-sound
     a thousand voices
     pitch
     & yaw
    
     the tents across the plaza
     sprawl imagination
     grasping
     more than  human hand can hold

Personal goodness will not change the world

A hard lesson: What is a good man in a corrupt institution, that has created great harm over the centuries… and continues to create suffering and harm? Or a good man who becomes president of a country that has staked out the claims of an empire, and cannot, for all their goodness, change the nature of that state?
The goodness of the person has no bearing on the reality of the institution they represent. I don’t doubt the goodness of Pope Frances… or President Obama. But pointing out their essential goodness as persons should tell us something about the irrelevance of personal goodness–once that person has committed to being an instrument of the destructive institution.
Better save, and dedicate our “goodness” as outsiders, outriders, gadflies and provocateurs bent on replacing those structures… and willing, yes…even that… willing to sacrifice personal “goodness” when it does nothing more than serve the powers we need to destroy.