Recommended Items about Occupation

One or more of our members have found these interesting enough to recommend:




The way to Occupy a Bank is to Own One
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32194.html

Time for an Economic Bill of Rights
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27611

Systems Thinking for OWS
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2011/11/is-occupy-wall-street-a-testament-to-the-need-for-systems-thinking.html

The Growth Paradigm has Become an Embarassment
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-14-2011-growth-paradigm-has.html

Transition Towns and Occupation - parts of the same movement?
http://transitionvoice.com/2011/11/transitioners-debate-how-to-engage-occupy-movement/

Makana sings his original Occupy song
http://www.youtube.com/v/xq3BYw4xjxE?version=3

How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/republicans-being-taught-talk-occupy-wall-street-133707949.html
 
The Occupied Amendment
http://www.theoccupiedamendment.org/    

A Top Ten List of OWS videos
http://www.care2.com/causes/top-10-must-see-occupy-wall-street-videos-slideshow.html

Democrats Occupy Occupy
http://news.yahoo.com/democrats-occupy-occupy-050017272.html


If you have more that you believe we should be aware of, then please add them in the comments.

Lazy Bums

About the Occupiers I hear "They're just being lazy bums sitting around and doing nothing but complaining."  Please let me explain.

Other than life itself, time is the most valued possession of every human being  on this earth. The harshest way we punish guilty criminals is by taking from them their time. We make them waste it in prison, or we take all they'll ever have by ending their lives. We also value our comfort quite highly, and neither sleeping out of doors in tents, nor being pepper sprayed are comfortable.

So if a person sacrifices both their time and comfort for a cause, they are sacrificing considerably.  And when large numbers of people feel they have valid reasons to make personal sacrifice, disagreeing with their reasons may be acceptable, but ignoring or belittling the cause they are sacrificing to champion is an insult; one we should afford nobody.

We know that a recent, successful revolution in the Middle East was sparked by a college graduate who poured gasoline over himself in the town square and lit a match. Why? Because conditions were such that he and many other college graduates in his country were barely able to eke out the most meager of livings. He sacrificed all the time he had left on Earth.

A large percentage of the thousands of Occupiers in cities around the world are recent college graduates, heavily in debt and unable to find work, or students still in college already deeply in debt and facing prohibitive tuition raises. They are also our children and our neighbor's children, our brothers and  sisters, our nieces and nephews, our cousins and our grandchildren. Right now they are out there sacrificing their time and comfort. Can we afford to be so foolish as to stand by and require them to sacrifice more than their time and comfort -- their  lives -- before making a serious attempt to understand and redress their grievances?   

Greg Schindler

No Problem

We hear people on the right saying that if the Occupy Wall Street people can't tell you solutions to the problems they're pointing at, then they're just complainers and nobody wants to listen to a bunch of complainers. But the fact is that a person who identifies a problem is often not the one who solves it.

If somebody tells you your house is on fire, you don't tell them to put it out or else it's not a problem. If a scientist spends his whole life proving that there's global warming, you don't say you don't believe him because he can't tell you how to reverse global warming. When Paul Revere tells you the British are coming, you don't call him a complainer and not listen to him because he can't tell you what to do about the problem or solve it himself.

The first civil rights protesters were pointing out a problem and so were the first Vietnam war protesters. Gradually more and more people came to agree that these were important problems that needed solving and then the government that we elect to solve such large problems figured out how to solve them and did so.

There's nothing wrong with the discoverer of a problem offering a solution. However, we often agree on the problem and don't agree on the solution. But to discount the problem because its discoverer couldn't solve it is foolish as well as ridiculous. Yet that's what the right wing Fox News people would have us do. It's their way of avoiding any discussion of the actual issues.

What do all these Occupiers want? They want us all to see the problems they are pointing out. They want enough people to see that the problems really are serious. And they want us all to then figure out how to solve the problems. If you listen to them and don't think they're pointing out valid or significant problems, that may be fine. But don't succumb to the false logic that because you don't understand or agree with their solutions you should ignore them and the problems they point out.

The rich 1% are the ones telling you it's really no problem that they have all the money. When you hear: "If those protesters can't come up with the solutions, then just call them complainers and ignore them," that's Mr. 1% himself, billionaire Rupert Murdoch talking to you through his Fox TV station.

Greg Schindler

Two Events on Tuesday, December 6, 2011

WSU TEACH-IN

Sponsored by the Wayne State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and the DeRoy Lecture Series
Everyone Invited, Free to All

11:00: Angela Davis video and general discussion of Occupy Movement
11:30: From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street­, Prof. Abdullah Al-Arian (History)
12:00: Protesting the WTO and the Anti-Globalization Movement,­ Sarah Coffey, Occupy Detroit (OD)
12:30: Latin American Struggles­, Dr. Luisa Quintero (Romance Languages and Literatures)
1:00: The Experience of Occupying Detroit,­ Panel Discussion with Occupy Detroiters
2:00: The Horizontal/Consensus Model, How and Why­, Killian O’Brien, OD
3:00: Occupy Wall Street and Globalization, ­Prof. Sarika Chandra (English)
3:30: Students and the Occupy Movement, ­Aaron Petcoff, OD

Location: WSU Alumni Lounge adjoining McGregor Memorial Conference Center
Parking at the Palmer/Cass parking structure

= = =

RALLY TO STOP THE EVICTION OF DETROITER KYRA WILLIAMS

5:00 p.m., 1140 HIBBARD, DETROIT (just north of E. Jefferson, east of Van Dyke)

Kyra Williams had a lease agreement on a property located at 1140 Hibbard, Detroit, MI 48214.   Ms. Williams and the landlord had an agreement under which she was paying rent with an option to buy the property.  Kyra Williams paid a significant amount of money in rent to the landlord.  25% of the monthly payment was being collected for the purchase of the property.

Kyra Williams received notice of an eviction hearing for Dec. 21, 2009.  The reason for the eviction hearing was that unbeknownst to Ms. Williams, the landlord and owner of the home had defaulted on the mortgage for the property with CitiMortgage. 

Kyra Williams attended the 36th District Court hearing and tried to explain she was the tenant in the property and had a lease with option to purchase the property.   The lender CitiMortgage finally agreed to sell the property to Ms. Williams.   She provided proof of funding and even made repairs to the property in anticipation of purchasing the home in conformance with this agreement. 

Ms. Williams waited the final approval of the sale and a closing date.  Instead of a closing date, Ms. Williams recently received a message that CitiMortgage changed its mind and was moving forward with the eviction.  A writ of eviction has already been signed and Ms. Williams can be evicted at any time.

The City of Detroit has lost 250,000 people to foreclosures and evictions because of the actions of all the major banks, Citi, Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, etc., who have shown utter disregard for the rights of individuals like Ms. Williams and the destruction to our communities that evictions and foreclosures have wrought.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Occupy Detroit and Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice are joining together to say enough is enough.  We are prepared to do what is necessary to keep Ms. Williams in her home and defend others like her.  We are joining with the Occupy Our Homes campaign which is staging actions all over the U.S. on Dec. 6.  And we are demanding that the governors and President Obama immediately enact a two-year moratorium on all foreclosures and foreclosure-related evictions, especially in light of the trillion-dollar bailout to the banks which takes place with every foreclosure and eviction through the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Contact:
Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs
www.moratorium-mi.org     Call 313-319-0870

Libraries in the Occupation

At a meeting last night in the Huntington Woods Library, where 50 or so people gathered to discuss Occupy Detroit, one of the topics was the library created by OWS at Zucotti Park, now destroyed by the Bloomberg raid. Occupy Detroit does not yet have an organized library, but one most likely will be set up as they move into their 5000 square foot winter quarters. Also discussed with quite a bit of enthusiasm was the need for some way for Occupy Detroit to work on overcoming the severe literacy problem in Detroit and the possibility of creating a Free University. A library will be be useful for both efforts.

The article below, which I found at http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-11-17/occupy-primer-essentials, is supposed to be available on the http://occupyeducated.org/ website. I have not been able to connect to occupyeducated.org, so I have copied the text below.

The Occupy primer: the essentials
by Staff

This is an emergency response to the destruction of the library at Occupy Wall Street, a clear attempt to destroy the education of passionate people who are tired of living in a deeply flawed system. Razing libraries and burning books has historically failed every time; this will be the most colossal failure to repress education in history, because the education will not be centralized.

The only thing no one can ever take away from you is your education.

If you are curious about why Occupy Wall Street has turned into Occupy Everywhere, if you want a basic understanding of the problems in the system that make this stand necessary, these are the books to start with, in no particular order.

•Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein
•Debt: The First 5000 Years - David Graeber
•End of Growth – Richard Heinberg
•In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
•Griftopia – Matt Taibbi

These #ows primer books have been selected because they

1.give a basic yet rarely-discussed-by-media understanding of the structural problems that need to change
2.are often-requested books at the Occupy Wall Street Library
3.are relatively objective, even though trolls and false media will profess otherwise
#Occupy has spread from Wall Street to the entire globe, and occupiers everywhere are proving that tools of the system cannot break a movement simply by tearing down a few tents and beating up your fellow 99% citizens. It’s time you empower yourself, occupy everywhere; stop your contributions to the system and move to fix it.

Other books that are extremely valuable will be added to the list, but we feel this is the minimum education to understanding the state of your current world.

*These books, of course, do not represent all there is to know, nor does it necessarily represent the opinion of 99% of the country or 99% of the movement; that can never reach consensus, which is a good thing. Many more books, films and other media will be listed soon, but this is a good emergency start.

[end article from occupyeducated.org]

Here's another article about the destruction of the Zucotti Park library:
http://www.shareable.net/blog/authors-and-publishers-react-to-the-raid-on-the-peoples-library

Any comments or suggestions on this topic will be welcome. That's what this blog is for.


Art Myatt

Occupation as a Movement

At the meeting today, we were talking about how the Occupation in Detroit will have to change when it is forced to move out of Grand Circus Park. There was some concern that, if the tents come down, it would mean that the occupation has been defeated. The tents may come down. It will not mean defeat.

We might, for a point of reference, remember the movement for civil rights. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was the leading organization at some of the most dramatic events, but it was certainly not the only one. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had its share of dramatic events, as did the Freedom Riders. The NAACP was constantly translating issues into demands on elected officials. Up north, the Congress of Racial Equality did some significant organizing. In different locations, different churches and unions lent their resources to the movement. Black Muslims and Black Panthers provided a definite edge in their rhetoric and their actions.

The movement for civil rights was a true movement, not an organization. No particular organization was in control. Not all organizations in the movement agreed entirely on the goals or on the means to those goals. However, all parts of the movement challenged business as usual and together changed the character of politics, forcing both parts of the two-party system to address, in one fashion or another, all the issues involved.

The civil rights movement was developing some very serious potential to upset the whole political system because a variety of unions got involved, the student movement got involved, the anti-war movement got involved and the nascent feminist movement got involved. The civil rights movement was showing signs of merging with all these, or absorbing them.

One could easily point out that the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy served to allow aggressive promotion of the war in Vietnam. Whether this was the intention of the assassin or not, escalation in Vietnam was one prominent effect.

If this way of looking at John F. Kennedy's death is correct, then the subsequent string of assassinations - Malcolm X in February of 1965; Martin Luther King in April of 1968; and Robert Kennedy in June of 1968 - were increasingly desperate attempts to shut down this plethora of movements against the American Establishment.

Killing some leaders, however important those people were, did not shut down the movements. What it took to quiet those movements was giving in to a number of their demands.

The Voting Rights Act and similar legislation was passed. A number of schools and more slowly, many neighborhoods were integrated. The draft was ended. The war in Vietnam wound down slowly, culminating in a clear defeat for body counts, pacification of the countryside and all the other idiotic strategies for American military dominance in South-east Asia. Sexual harassment was made illegal, though the effectiveness with which the law was implemented left a lot to be desired. Many unions got cost-of living raises built into their contracts. Service unions entered on a period of growth even as manufacturing unions started their long decline.

In general, we can say that all the movements so active in the 1960's won at least some concessions and reduced their activities greatly during the 1970's. The American political scene then became quieter and more contained in the two-party system for several decades - until just recently. Now it looks like a movement is starting again, or perhaps it will prove to be many movements.

No doubt anyone with a little knowledge of history could find flaws with this short summary of several decades. It leaves out a lot, including the beginnings of the environmental and GLBT movements. It leaves out peak oil, which happened for the United States in 1970 but was not widely understood until much later.

No matter how much the summary leaves out, the point is a new movement with a lot of parallels to the civil rights movement has started. Like civil rights, this movement challenges business as usual and politics as usual. It is not contained in the two-party system.

The new movement is not going to be controlled by any one organization. It can't be defeated by breaking up any one encampment or discrediting any one organization or event.

We have a political system promising democracy, freedom and justice for all coupled with an economic system promising fairness, rewards for hard work and prosperity. The failure to deliver on any of these promises is both obvious and painful. The failure to deliver drives a movement of protest. While there are a few true believers who will imagine the American Dream is viable in the face of all evidence to the contrary, most of us are more attached to our everyday reality than to dreams.

The everyday reality is no job security for those who have jobs, and many do not. Those of us who have homes - and many do not - could see them taken away as soon as a paycheck fails to arrive or savings are eaten up by unavoidable medical expenses. Seniors who worked for forty or fifty years paying into Social Security and Medicare and now depend on both are seeing both programs threatened by both parties, in order to balance a budget in which hundreds of billions for the military cannot be questioned. At least, it cannot be questioned by the politicians in office, no matter how many ordinary citizens question it.

We are told the economy is recovering, although it is a recovery without jobs, a recovery without prosperity. It's a recovery for the 1% and not for the rest of us. It's a recovery which has no solution for climate change; no solution for acidification of the oceans; no solution for desertification; no solution for overpopulation; in short, no solution for most of the real problems which mean the future can easily be worse than the present - and we are not happy with the present.

This is an economy in crisis. The clowns who are contesting to be nominated for president are not trying to be political leaders. They are trying to be the least worst in a field which does not have a clue about solving real problems. If they cant be the least worst, they will settle for appearing to be the lesser evil.

This includes Obama in the field of clowns. His performance to date demonstrates he has not only not solved any economic or social problems; he hasn't even tried. The policies he has followed have been Bush's policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, China, and so on. His policies are Bush's policies with respect to torture, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, the Federal Reserve, bank bailouts, no prosecutions for mortgage fraud by banksters, etc. Many of his appointments have been a continuation of Bush officials or replacement of them by their friends and proteges, especially in anything having to do with the economy.

This economy was in undeniable crisis during the Presidential election of 2008. Anyone hoping for change during that election has been disappointed. A tremendous amount of money has been spent propping up the institutions that failed, but practically nothing has been done to either change those institutions or to replace them. With no solutions, politics as usual is perpetuating the crisis.

The Occupations are the most recent expression of a movement to protest the simultaneous failure of prosperity and democracy. If encampments continue, occupiers will strain to create better tactics and strategy. If encampments are shut down by force or by weather, other and more effective organizations will be created.

Occupy organizations are not the whole of a movement, though they are at the moment an important hub. The movement will not go away unless and until the crisis that called it into being is resolved. The 1% can't give in to the demands of this movement without losing their own political power. There is no indication that will be happening anytime soon. We are just getting started.

Art Myatt

Prosperity, Politics and Peak Oil

For the United States, peak oil production happened in 1970. Global peak oil is the current reality. World oil production has been flat (within a few percent) for six years now, while the price of oil has doubled and doubled again. Because oil exporting countries consume more, the amount of oil available on the world export market has decreased over this time. The United States is using less oil because it has to, not because of a sudden passion for conservation.

Up to date charts and numbers are available at http://scitizen.com/future-energies/time-to-worry-world-oil-production-finishes-six-years-of-no-growth_a-14-3714.html and at other internet sites. Googling "peak oil" will bring up more references than any one person can possibly read.

The essential fact is that, after the peak, the trend for the foreseeable future is declining supplies, as it has been for some years now. Our adjustments are just beginning. Once we are ten or fifteen years past the global peak, it should be possible to identify the exact year and perhaps the exact month of the peak. By that time, we will be far deeper into the consequences of decline, and charting the historical peak with precision will be of little practical interest.

Peak oil is about oil; black liquid that comes out of the ground when an oil well is working. People interested in denying the peak and in confusing the issue try to count as oil a number of things which are not oil, but from which liquid fuels can be made, as "unconventional oil." Many academics who study peak oil have gone along with this approach. In my opinion, they are wrong to do so.

"Heavy oil," which has to heated or dissolved in a solvent or both in order to be extracted from the ground, is counted as oil by some studies. Synthetic crude, created from bitumen separated from tar sands by mining, heating and solvents, is counted as "unconventional oil," though bitumen is not oil. "Shale oil," created from kerogen which must be separated from shale rock, is also counted as "unconventional oil." Biofuel - mostly ethanol made from corn or sugar cane - is counted as part of "all liquids" production, though corn and cane and ethanol are most certainly not oil. Natural gas and coal, though we all know these are not oil, can in desperate circumstances, be processed into liquid fuels, and there are active proposals to do this as regular oil increasingly declines.

The trouble with all these non-oil sources for liquid fuel is that processing them into fuel takes substantially more energy than processing oil into fuel. Alternative liquid fuels don't just bring less net energy to the society. They cost more to produce, and they generally cause more environmental damage.

It is true that with more deep-sea drilling, we can expect more disasters like BP in the Gulf of Mexico. We might say that oil is catching up to alternatives on both types of cost.

Many politicians are willing to relax or abandon environmental regulations in order to get the economy growing again. Doing this will succeed in intensifying damage to the environment, but it will not result in an increased supply of liquid fuel and it will not result in restoring growth.

Peak oil is why the price of liquid fuels and the price of every commodity that uses fuels for production and distribution is creeping up during this Great Recession. It's why those sectors of the economy that depend on liquid fuels - vehicle production, airlines, construction, vacation resorts, industrial farming and so on - cannot grow but instead are contracting. This causes plenty of financial problems, but it is not fundamentally a financial problem. It is a shortage of liquid fuels, a shortage in which higher prices are not producing more supply.

There is a reasonable argument that peak oil is a fundamental cause for the Great Recession, though failure of the global financial system is certainly the more immediately visible cause. Without getting into a pointless argument about the "real" cause, we might be able to agree that financial frauds and failures contribute to economic contraction, and peak oil also contributes, as does overpopulation and environmental degradation.

No possible change in financial regulation or political policy will create more oil in the ground or unburn oil that is already burnt. Practically every political candidate has some scheme for getting the economy growing again, for restoring the prosperity of our recent past. To the extent that past prosperity was based on the availability of plenty of cheap liquid fuel to run and expand industrial transportation of all sorts, none of the plans for restoring prosperity will work. Abundance of cheap fuels is gone forever.

On the downslope of the oil depletion curve, many companies can still profit by shutting down operations and laying off workers. In Michigan, we have experienced this for decades. The rest of the country is generally behind Michigan in this painful development. Here, we know directly that none of the plans for industrial renaissance have flowered for more than a season. Efforts to revive the economy from the top down have failed the 99% so often that we should expect continued failure from more subsidies benefiting the 1%.

We should realize that local, state and national governments need to look to the general welfare in times of economic growth AND in times of economic contraction. Growth and prosperity make taking care of the general welfare easier. Unfortunately, we don't have growth and prosperity, and all the plans to recreate it are not working. Governments at every level need to refocus their efforts into taking care of the general welfare from the bottom up.

Art Myatt

Out of Thin Air

A singularly difficult idea for people not in the banking industry to wrap their minds around is that private banks create new money 'out of thin air,' as the saying goes. As hard as it is for us to see how this could work, and as unfair as it is that they are allowed to do so, the fact is that's exactly how our fiat money is created. The 99% have to earn their money. The 1% do not. It's a fact that the Occupy Wall Street movement wants to change.

If you or I attempted to create new money out of thin air, we would soon be arrested for fraud (or counterfeiting, if we did it with paper and printing). If we write a check without first having deposited sufficient money in the checking account, the check bounces. Because creating money is illegal for ordinary people and businesses, and we know these laws are enforced, the logical assumption is that creating money is illegal, period. Our instinct is to reject the "thin air" assertion as simply impossible.

It is not impossible. The law is different for banks.

Let's repeat that, to give it a chance to soak in. The law is different for banks.

The central bank - in this country, the several private banks governed by the Federal Reserve Board, collectively called "The Fed" - creates money simply by making an entry on its records. The Fed puts this new money into circulation by recording it as a loan to a commercial bank or as a purchase of "securities" from a bank or other financial institution. Among the institutions from which the Fed purchases securities is the Treasury Department of the United States. The Fed is empowered to do this by law; specifically, by the act of Congress which, in 1913, created the Federal Reserve System. When the Fed purchases Treasury notes, this is called "monetizing the national debt."

The law is different for commercial banks, too. If we want to loan money to someone, we first need to have it. If we don't have the money and we can't borrow it, then we can't spend it or loan it. That's how it works for households and ordinary businesses, but not for commercial banks. They are not limited to loaning out just the money they have received as deposits. If they were so limited, that would be called a "100% reserve requirement."

Private commercial banks do not have a 100% reserve requirement. They have a fractional reserve requirement - typically 10%. This number may change. The typical 10% figure comes from a booklet was originally produced and distributed by the Public Information Center, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This booklet is available for free download from http://www.rayservers.com/images/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf.

With a 10% reserve requirement, a commercial bank bank is allowed to loan out $90,000 on the basis of holding $10,000 in reserves. Now, the bank may not be able to loan out the entire $90,000. It may only loan out %50,000 or %60,000. Whatever the amount, the loans are not loans of money on deposit. The loans are of money created by the commercial bank. When these loans are repaid, the bank is not just making a profit from the interest collected. The entire repayment, less expenses, is profit for the bank. That's how banks can afford a large and well-paid bureaucracy, luxurious buildings and total losses on some loans, while still showing significant profits.

Commercial banks and central banks alike are empowered by law to create money out of thin air. The rate at which commercial banks can do this is limited by reserve requirements. The Federal Reserve has no reserve requirements and in fact, money created by the Federal Reserve can be counted as reserves. The rate at which the Federal Reserve creates money is limited only by political considerations. For instance, if the Fed creates too much money too fast, a politically undesirable amount of inflation may result. (Italics indicate a revision for clarity made a month after the original posting of this article.)

You can buy gold, silver and other precious goods with dollars, but our money is not backed by anything except "the full faith and credit of the United States." In the case of other fiat currencies, the Euro, Renminbi or Rial is backed by the full faith and credit of other nations.

There was a time in the history of the United States when the function of creating money and controlling the nation's money supply was directly the responsibility of the federal government. The Union side in the Civil War was financed through "Greenbacks" issued directly by Lincoln's Treasury Department. The money so created did create a certain amount of inflation while it was greatly stimulating the economy of the northern states. It also allowed the war to be conducted without a great increase in taxes on the population of those northern states. All the new money created by the Treasury was owned by the US government, not by private banks.

If the Federal Reserve, which was created by act of Congress, were to be abolished by a new act of Congress, the right to control the money supply and the power to create money could once again be transferred directly to the Treasury. The benefits of creating money could go to the government, instead of to the Federal Reserve. Increasing reserve requirements for commercial banks would transfer a portion of the benefits from those banks to the government.

Of course, in order to accomplish any such thing, political control of local, state and federal government by banks and other corporations will have to be ended. The two-party system in which both parties are controlled by banks and other corporations will have to be discarded. How to do this is the main question the Occupy movement will have to answer. Understanding the basics of how the banking system works is just one of the important things Occupiers need to do.

Art Myatt

Goals for Occupy Royal Oak

It is obvious to a lot of us that security, stability and prosperity have not been improving for decades. They have been visibly declining, along with real estate values, employment and real income, for the last five years or so. There is no end in sight for this trend, just more instability ahead.

In the Detroit area, we are very aware of the state of the auto industry. Production of 16 million units annually used to be normal. Now 12 million is considered a pretty good year - and there is no guarantee that next year will be good. Layoffs and wage concessions are what we have come to expect.

Local governments that depend on real estate taxes and state government that depends on income and sales taxes are all seeing declining revenues leading to cuts in services and employment. Teachers, police, fire, road and construction workers generally, if they still have a job, can't count on having one next year.

Pensions, health insurance and home ownership are becoming unattainable for more and more people, including some who believed they were secure in all of these. Student loans, instead of being a bridge to a better future, have become a crushing burden for recent graduates who can't find jobs.

The only group of people who have benefited economically from the developments of recent years is the top 1% in terms of wealth and annual income. The recent report from the congressional Budget Office is just one in a string of studies and statistics confirming this fact.

For the rest of us, (the other 99%) the society, the economy and the political system is failing. that's the basic fact driving #occupy Wall Street, as it was the basic fact driving the Tea Party  when they were protesting. It's the basic fact upsetting political organizations across the entire spectrum.

The Democratic and Republican parties are stuck with trying to defend the system they have jointly created. they are each trying to sell some version of the idea some marginal adjustment in taxes and government spending will fix things. This narrative is not convincing, and becomes less convincing with every new development in the continuing crisis of our economy.

More and more people are figuring out for themselves that something is fundamentally wrong with our economic and political trajectory, and that no marginal adjustment is going to fix things.

The genius of the #Occupy movement is that it has emerged from a process, repeated in city after city, of rejecting politics as usual in favor of encampment and general assembly conducted by consensus. The commercial press mostly identifies #occupiers as "demonstrators." This is not altogether off the mark, because #occupiers do sometimes demonstrate, and many traditional demonstrators have allied themselves with #occupiers.

Typically, political activity outside the electoral arena has been some type of single-issue activity. Many organizations exist to promote their version of a single issue through lobbying, publications, public meetings and demonstrations. The Sierra Club is concerned with protecting the environment. Unions try to hold the line on jobs, wages and working conditions. The civil rights movement focused on eliminating racial discrimination; the woman's rights movement, on eliminating gender bias. The peace movement opposes wars. Physicians for a National Health Plan is for a single-payer system sometimes called Medicare for All. The National Rifle Association promotes every citizen exercising a right to own a gun. Right-to-life groups want to make abortions illegal. The list could go on and on.

All these single-issue organizations often pick Democratic or Republican candidates to support, with donations and campaign volunteers. They lobby legislators about their particular issues. They organize demonstrations about their issues. They officially stay neutral on all the issues outside the range of issues with which they are concerned.

As a well-publicized #OWS sign says, "It's Not One Thing - It's Everything!" All the important issues - jobs, environment, war, human rights, health care, democracy, prosperity - are not just related but are inseparable. The time for single-issue campaigns is over. The job of the general assemblies, and of #OWS in general, is to figure out how to make progress on all the issues.

It's not clear that the general assemblies will be successful. The encampments that support the general assemblies are being worn down by weather, police pressure and the exhaustion of most committed long-term campers. However, the general assemblies have already been successful in setting the goal for all of us, just by defining the scope of the problem.

We need to support our local encampments and to work out how to carry on by other means as the encampments are worn down. Our failing global economy, declining military empire, degrading environment and stupid sound-bite commercial barrage that passes for political discussion in the two-party system will not let us do otherwise.

I'm not proposing we set up an encampment in a park in Royal Oak. I'm too old to be sleeping on an air mattress in the cold in any case. I'm not proposing a general strike, though it will be interesting to see how Oakland, California's general strike goes. I'm thinking more of how we can survey our neighborhoods to get a sense of what kinds of actions our neighbors would support, and how to start that action in the spring. The movement is started. The question is how to continue from here.


Art Myatt