Uncategorized

Where Do We Go From Here?

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

Since its inception, Occupy has been criticized for everything from aroma to Zuccotti.  Most of these criticisms have been rooted in a basic lack of understanding of protest techniques and objectives.  Every once in a while, however, criticism comes along that should be heard, pondered, and used as an outline for improvement.  Recently, that criticism came from one of my favorite cynics: Bill Maher.

Maher has a knack for hitting the nail squarely on the head and with great force.  He holds nothing back in his flagrant (and hysterical) verbal abuses.  He is grounded so firmly in reality, it is often frightening, and his straight forward approach leaves no room for misunderstanding his message.   His “New Rule” called “The Tent Offensive” was no exception to his routinely clean and cutting routine.  If you missed it, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmtFXp9NuRk.

The point Maher made was that Occupy’s goal of world revolution is futile without distinct and focused political action within (not just against) the current political system.  He made reference to how Occupy needs to become the “Tea Party of the Democratic Party.”  While I understand the profound desire for the Occupiers to prevent the movement and its message from being co-opted by any other group – especially existing political parties, and I do not agree that becoming the left’s Tea Party is the course we need to take, I do strongly agree with the fundamental idea behind his criticism.

Throughout American history, and all political histories, parties have come and gone, rulers have ruled and perished – leaving behind them messes or legends for later generations to contend with.  What started out as Whigs and Tories in the United States became Federalists, a recognizably Republican Democratic party, and a party of Republicans that resided their beliefs firmly in the ideals propagated by today’s Democrats.  Things change, but they rarely change without organized political influence.  Even when we rose up against British tyranny, we did not do so without sending ambassadors across the pond.

There are two ways to free an imprisoned people: fight or negotiate.  However much a fan of camping and marching and music I may be, I do not believe that the world’s foremost superpower will crumble to civil disobedience and a “guitarmy.”  It just seems like the job will take longer, will be far less efficient, and would unlikely be able to withstand the real slings and arrows – which, I can assure you, the powers-that-be have not even begun to fling in our direction.  So a conversation needs to be had about how we can more effectively and swiftly move this movement into the future and toward its ultimate goal of a changed political system.

Occupy has quite effectively used today’s technologies to push itself forward despite being shunned by mainstream media.  We did this by reaching into the existing media network and creating lines for ourselves.  Then, we built those lines into powerful threads for communication, promoting Occupy around the country and around the world.  We infiltrated an existing system, propelling ourselves forward using the tools available.  Why would a political maneuver be any different an approach?

The network is already in place.  It already has the power.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to push ourselves into the current system, create lines for our movement’s message and objectives, and obtain the power to change the system from within, than it would to attempt to use cardboard signage and marching folk music to bring an empire to its knees?

This has long been where Occupy has lost many of its would-be supporters.  Many Americans agree with the messages of Occupy and want to see the same changes Occupy speaks about, but they do not want to sign on to a group that is attempting to conquer an enemy it hasn’t fully assessed for realistic victory.

Occupy is organizing protests, sit-ins, and marches – all vital as the heartbeat of the movement, as well as conferences, committees, and teach-ins – vital as the brains of the organization, but it has yet to put its feet and fingers to work, taking the movement to new places and manipulating the highly valuable and imperative channels we could and should be accessing.  Meanwhile, thousands – if not millions – of would-be supporters are still sitting on the sidelines, worrying about and brainstorming ways to effectively change the system.  They are still staring at the same old options – vote against someone they hate, while voting for someone they don’t really believe in, or wait it out and pray we don’t end up the peasants in a neo-Feudalistic system controlled by a Fascist aristocracy.

So, taking Mr. Maher and his cutting criticism to heart may be more than just demonstrative of putting on our big boy pants and facing ourselves in the mirror.  It might just be the key to our success as a movement.

No legislation was ever written or repealed, no political system was ever given power, no set of rulers were ever overthrown by people who stood outside the gates walking in circles asking to be heard.  Governments are like people.  Change comes from within.  Get in there and change it.

Class and Education

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to speak on the topic of public education.  He did not form a federal educational plan, but he put forth the ideal that every American should have access to “a moderate education, and thereby be able to read the histories of his own and other countries.”  This statement became the catalyst for the educational system we now have.  Since the time of Lincoln, many presidents have made judgments on education and set into motion practices and policies that have both bettered and condemned the system – none so treacherous a debacle as No Child Left Behind.

For those who are not familiar, NCLB was signed into law by G. W. Bush.  Lobbied into the billions of dollars, it should come as no surprise that the biggest portions of the bill’s funding came from companies that would produce and score the standardized tests.  It was just the first step in a decade long waltz intended to undermine and dismantle public education.

Before I was a full-time mother, I was a full-time teacher.  I got my degrees from a school just outside of Philadelphia that is known for its superior Education program.  During those years, I worked in some of the best and worst schools in the nation.  The dichotomy of school districts in and around Philadelphia tell a story about public education in America – a story about wealth versus poverty, about parents more than students, a story that outlines in near bullet point format all that is wrong with public education, and a story that is about to take a turn toward tragedy.

It is no secret that wealthy school districts produce successful students and low-income districts are characterized by low-performance.  The guise of NCLB was that it was going to “level the playing field,” channeling more money into low-income districts and using tests to discover which teachers were not up to par.  The trouble – well, one of the many, many troubles – with the test is that it completely and totally ignores the countless social and cultural problems low-income districts face.

I did my student-teaching in Philadelphia school district.  I was placed in the most densely populated school in the city.  My students weren’t dumb or lazy, and they were – in theory – capable of passing “the test.”  Unfortunately, my students were hungry, angry, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, non-identified students with “exceptionalities” (“disability”), and far more focused on the father who was in jail, the mother who beat them, and the drug-dealers on the corner they walked past to get home than they could ever be on the base-10 number system.

Meanwhile, in districts like Lower Merion and Tredyffrin-Easttown, not only do the districts have a ton of money but so do Mommy and Daddy.  Breakfast was made by the live-in Nanny and piping hot 30 minutes before the bus stopped at their doorstep.  Any emotional disruption was handled by the child psychologist during their monthly visit.  Tutors were readily available.  And, not only were all special services diligently looked after by both parents and educators, but even average students had relentless advocates.  In fact, if I had a nickel for every time I or a colleague was “spoken to” by a parent about an assignment or grade, I could’ve out-earned the cushy retirement package my freshman year.  Failure was not an option… even if a student actually failed.

You see, what standardized tests embrace is that every student is capable of learning – which I believe wholeheartedly.  What the tests suggest is that the only factor in students’ ability to learn is how well they are being taught – which is completely inaccurate; and what they totally ignore is everything that happens in a child’s life and psyche other than textbook learning – which is most of his life experience.

What’s more, NCLB doesn’t apply the test to measure student success or teacher failure.  The application of the test and its scores end up more a threat.  If the students fail to perform, there are consequences… and they aren’t constructive or pretty.  Sure, they say that the funding kicks in to provide extra services but when you compare the funding to the cost of test (which is covered by the districts) schools barely break even.  The services are far more expensive than any check has ever been large, and they take time – in most cases years – to yield improvement, especially when they are educational services that fail to address the real problems in failing schools (see paragraph five).

Schools that fail to show the necessary improvement with the addition of limited and underfunded services and within the limited time frame then move into the deeper stages of intervention (more aptly: penalty).  As the years progress, teachers are fired, then administrators are fired, and as districts struggle to rehire, reeducate, and recover from these staffing shuffles, the clock runs out.  That is when the districts are taken over by larger political circles.  After all, adding bureaucrats and politicians to a quagmire always clears things right up.

Once the politicians have their greasy hands on these districts, things inevitably go from bad to worse, as they did in Chester (PA) and are about to in Philadelphia.

With the state’s incapable of remote-managing these failing districts, repeated cuts to educational funding by state officials, and the false promise of charter school’s pillaging them for millions of dollars, the districts begin to fall apart.  More and more money is siphoned off, much to charter schools that consistently fail to deliver better student performance (but are still put on the Presidential pedestal) and the rest to private companies circling the state’s education departments like hungry vultures.  These companies peddle everything from textbooks to food to entire curriculums – most of which promote corporate agendas through propaganda.

During my days in Philadelphia, I witnessed the signing of a multi-million dollar contract with Aramark, a corporate food distribution company.  The contract was signed mid-year and paid out about $14 million to install complex computer-style cash registers in elementary school cafeterias.  Meanwhile, teachers bought their own staples and copier paper, and a 10-year-old boy in my second grade class who couldn’t read met for less than an hour once every two weeks with a special education teacher that the district couldn’t afford to bring in full-time.  This is the decay that is rotting public education, and when the system becomes so fragmented, so broke, so broken, and so far beyond salvage, they cut another multi-million dollar check for some firm in a far off city to brainstorm and fix the problem.  Their solution?  The for-profit model.

What left Chester County schools in shambles, a district where teachers have been working without compensation since October, is now being proposed in Philadelphia: more money to charters and corporations, closing schools, selling the remaining schools to educational corporations, and hiring a firm to remote-manage the entire process.

This is the result of NCLB.  This is what came from a test that was ill-conceived, ill-advised, ill-applied, and sold as the promise of better education.

When Lincoln brainstormed the possibility of a nation-wide public education system, he understood that education needed to be localized.  He rightly believed that only the people who lived in the community could accurately understand and tackle what knowledge and challenges students in those areas would require and contend with.  He also believed that those responsible for the children would have their best interests at heart, a fact which hasn’t changed.

Granted, the world has become “flat” but in that flatness the horizon that educators gaze upon has become quite broad, and if anyone has the vision to take education into the next millennia, it’s educators.  So, why hasn’t anyone thought to turn to these skilled, educated, dedicated people and ask them what their schools need?  Why are they being shut out of the conversation?  Why is it assumed that a team of trouble-shooters in a high-rise 500 miles away will know better than the people on the ground?  Simple: because denying the obvious ends in dollar signs.

Like countless other things – the expansion of the military industrial complex with the end of the draft, the appointment of former CEOs to head federal agencies of conflicted interest (Monsanto execs to the USDA, chemical execs to the EPA, etc.), the farming of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans to predatory banks – education has become the next great market… poor schools first.

Tonight, in Philadelphia, the School Reform Commission (the only thing pertaining to Philadelphia’s schools that the state has managed to adequately fund) had a public meeting to announce their plan for Philly’s public schools.  It is expected to follow the Chester model… right down the toilet.  Though the meeting was “public,” police were posted at all the stairwells and elevators, prohibiting hundreds of teachers and thousands of protesters from entering.  While I have yet to hear the verdict, I am not hopeful.  In fact, I’m already depressed.

Watching the blatant dismemberment of a public school district is – for me – the equivalent of watching someone rip pieces of the Constitution to use it for toilet paper.  Where is the justice for these students?  What is the future for those who have been sold by their elected officials and educated by corporations?  And where is the line between those schools and the one my own children will attend?

Well, that last question has a simple answer, doesn’t it?

That line in a township line.  Better tighten my belt and trim my budget.  I’ve got to make ends meet and stay on the wealthy side, because a quality education just became a class privilege.

Constitutional Exchange

/ JillArcangela / 6 Comments

I have found that at times in my life when things seemed darkest, as though the last glimmer of hope was about to be extinguished by the continued efforts of forces too powerful to resist, that is the moment when that glimmer explodes into light – blinding and blessed, burning with truth, faith, and good, old fashion whoop-… Ok, enough with the hyperboles.

In typical fashion, hope has pushed back. This week, the NDAA lawsuit has taken a huge leap forward in its march to victory.

For those who were unaware (and those who covered their eyes upon its signing and have still not peeked between their fingers), a team of activist, journalists, lawyers, and others filed suit against the federal government several months ago.  The lawsuit attempts to repeal the clause for indefinite detention that blackened this year’s version of an annual renewal for a bill that funds American troops and renews our commitment to them.

Never before had this bill been called into question, but this year it was, and for good reason.  The President, unwilling to compromise his timeline for constitutional correctness and the Republican controlled House unwilling to compromise anything (ever), passed a bill that suspended habeas corpus: the thing that entitles all American citizens to a fair trial, swift and clear charges, an opportunity to mount a defense, protection from cruel and unusual treatment, and more.

The National Defense Allocation Act included not only the suspension of these inalienable rights, but it assigned the power of arrest to the military and named the President as the only person with any authority over military judgment.  Additionally, the justifiable causes for such an arrest (and the indefinite detention that would follow) were so vaguely worded that one could essentially be arrested for just about anything even remotely related to anything else that sounded terroristic in any way.

Not only was the language of the bill dangerously ambiguous and the power it entitled to one person easily corruptible and unacceptably bloated, but the clause was thoroughly unconstitutional.  Now, in the America of the very recent past, this bill would have gone unnoticed.  We would have continued in our daily grind, drunk on food additives and blinded by supermodel marketing, but in a post-Occupy America, it was contested by the public before it was even passed by the House.

Today, not only is the bill being rejected by the public, the public is actually doing something about it.  Moreover, the public is winning, because – despite their best efforts at the degradation of our promised freedoms, despite the constant legal antics of hyper conservatives and those who would rule by religion and gender, despite the growing nerve of the growing-rich who are attempting to develop an elitist sect of political aristocrats – the Constitution is still there to defend us.

I live near Philadelphia.  I love history because it is the ultimate piece of literature, real life human drama marked by the stories of once-living people who made personal choices that yielded amazing results.  The combination of my geography and my interests gives me a distinct appreciation for our national documents.  Drafted by people who walked on the cobbled sidewalks that I have walked upon, in buildings I have been in and around for decades, and fought for on fields I’ve picnicked and pondered on, the Constitution is as much a part of Philadelphia as the cheese steak and Rockie Balboa.

More than just the product of my city, more than the work of my favorite (and the most quintessential) Philadelphian: the beer-loving and brilliant Benjamin Franklin, more than that which stuck it to a British king, the Constitution is a living document.  It is the central belief system on which we not only base but build our nation.  It guides us into a future in which its fundamental values of equality and hope can be made a reality in which we all dwell and from which we lead the world.  It protects us from the foolish whims of selfish men who would attempt to rule for themselves and their benefit alone, and it stands as an impenetrable force between all of us and a few of them.

The Constitution is alive because we have kept it thus, and for as long as we honor and love and know it, for as long as we revere and protect it, for as long we respect and preserve its core values, it will honor and love and know, revere and protect, respect and preserve us.

It is no easy take, all these “men… created equal.”  The Constitution constantly asks us to look beyond the confines of other societal traditions.  It begs us to see things in ways that are often counter to our personal and religious beliefs, that stretch our tolerances, and that challenge our ideas about the role of government.   What’s more, it asks us not only to change our perspectives but to evolve our nation’s politics with each passing generation.

Since it was penned, we freed the slaves, liberated the women, and made equal the minorities.  All of these things, in their time, were fought over by those who attempted to constrain the Constitution, who wanted to keep freedom for themselves, something that is in direct conflict with its very message.  Did the founding fathers foresee a society in which we would use their words to do these things?  Most likely not, but the cultural impressions of their day should not limit the ideology behind their vision.

Throughout our history, we have been asked to fight for the vision of a handful of men who believed that oppression and tyranny were wrong under all circumstances.  Those battles brought us to the forefront of the world, making us the wealthiest, safest, strongest nation on Earth.  Even now, as we fight to restore our tribunal rights, we fight for the Constitution – and it returns the favor… as it will, so long as we keep it central in our hearts, our lives, and our nation.

______________________________________________________________

A note to my regular readers:  Thank you for your patience.  My post this week is late because my old and faithful computer finally took the nosedive into “obsolete.”  With the help of my loving husband, we were able to quickly recover the mess and get back online with a brand new piece of technology.  Also, I have – for now – reduced my posts to bi-weekly (which you probably have noticed).  With several large life-events on the horizon, I felt this would take some pressure off me and allow me to take the time to generate more researched and meaningful posts.  I hope you continue to read and share these posts, and I thank you for your support and readership.

The Many Colors of May Day

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

When I was a child, every May Day (or whatever school day came closest to it) the entire population of my crowded elementary school would walk down to a nearby park – our school yard being a small black top area surrounded by chain-link fence.  The boys wore ribbons around their waists and the girls wore them in their hair.  They streamed in the breeze as we walked in double-file.  When we arrived, we set ourselves around a small center pavilion and danced.  I didn’t really understand much more about the event than that it was called the May Fete.  Today, I know more.

In our American history, May Day has been – like some many things – politicized to death.  Originally a pagan celebration turned into a day to honor the working class, May Day was a European tradition carried across the sea to America.  Eventually, it came to recognize the men and women who died fighting for labor rights or in the accidents that sparked the fray.  During the Eisenhower administration, with the nation still queasy from its McCarthy hangover, May Day was legally made a national holiday called Law Day.

Dreamed up by Ike’s legal counsel, Law Day was intended to shadow the dangerous and ugly communist sounding value of appreciating worker unions, bringing instead to the foreground a celebration of the role of law in society.  Upon its announcement to the public, Eisenhower proclaimed that “the world is no longer a choice between force and law.  If civilization is to survive it must choose the rule of law.”

Today, this politicization holds a profound and unique duality.  What Occupiers rally around, and what the American government will be forced by our hands to adhere to, is the knowledge that it is the socialist spirit of banning together balanced against the characteristic American will for individual freedoms that will preserve the promise of liberty for all.  The rule of law will only ensure the survival of civilization if the law is civilized, not wielded against the masses by special interest groups and religious fanatics for the purpose of financial, personal, and societal control.

We realize that the role of governmental law is not to limit the freedoms of the people or to create avenues of exploitation for the filthy rich, but to protect all people from said exploitation, to prevent the power of one man over another – regardless of status, and to insulate the best interest of the nation from the pillaging of thieves – even those who wear suits instead of ski-masks.

We understand that unions are not socialist regimes poised to overcome political freedoms in the name of level playing fields.  They are a necessary part of a nation that allows people in menial jobs to convey their needs and issues to corporate higher-ups who are routinely detached from and negligent of the realities on their factory floors.

We see the duty of government to ensure safety and opportunity for all Americans.  All school districts being created equal, all neighborhoods safe for all children, all doctors accessible to all who ail.  How each man chooses to take or squander these opportunities is his business and will leave him in a life that is the summation of his efforts, but no one should suffer or be denied the opportunity to earn a decent and honest living in safety and health because of the socio-economic status into which he was born.

Yesterday, the streets of our American cities were alive with the spirit of our future nation and the meaning of our historical May Day.  The people who claimed the parks and thoroughfares, sidewalks and rooftops see this balance, this vision of a dualistic and perfect America.  They celebrated both the labor unions and the rule of law, because they know that through unity we find individualism, through law we find freedom, and by rooting ourselves firmly into the moment we find the wings on which we will fly into tomorrow.  They see this balance, this duality, as that which defines America and makes her different from every other place on Earth.

True to form, this year’s May Day celebrations wore the brilliant colors it has since my days of ribbons swirling around dancing children, since its pagan founders crowned queens and wrapped poles in streamers, and since the day the sun shone on the first human flesh of varied skin tone.  Let this multitude of colors serve as a reminder to us, and to all who serve us in our political and municipal offices, that there is no such thing as a black-and-white issue… and that often there is no gray area either.

Freedom is the birthright of all humans.  Equality is the gift of all gods.  Medicine, education, and sustenance are basic human rights.  And the preservation of liberty and the law that protects it is the duty of each of us.

Happy May Day, Occupiers.

Good show!

Vacancy

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

As cities get fired up for the coming months and camps begin “spring training,” the small camp in my town folded its tents.  What I was hopeful and excited about as a vision of Occupy’s future, became a short-lived failure that missed its mark both within the camp and with the surrounding community.  Why?  The question must be asked and answered if Occupy is going to reach all 99%.

Struggling with the complaints of area businesses who claimed to be suffering in an already fragile economy and an even more fragile location, the borough passed an ordinance banning the tents from the small center pavilion.  One tent and its single Occupant, rumored to be a vagrant who was using his Occupier’s voice and labors to advocate for the election of a write-in Democrat (running against a local Democratic incumbent), moved to a small park way out of sight, on the other side of town.  A statement released by the Occupancy stated that the camp was moved “due to a fear of tents” expressed by the director of local “’farmers’ style market.”  Disappointed by the slander and put off by the political motives that seemed to underline the camp’s activities, I’m attempting to withhold personal judgment on the camp and instead focus on what went wrong with a small town occupation that should have set up a model for the spread of the movement.

Sitting in a local business, I overheard some community members talking about the Occupation, noticing that it was gone.  One woman commented that she was not sure why they set up camp here in the first place, “after all, this isn’t a corporate center or anything.  There aren’t any big businesses or even banks with bad reputations around here.”

The issue of people not understanding the presence or point of Occupy is one of our biggest problems, whether in a small town or a huge city.  While the overall message of Occupy is one that is generally heard, the smaller works of our camps are being missed by those we need to reach.  In urban settings, it is easier to find projects to get involved in because the problems plaguing American cities are clear and numerous.  Occupy has fed the homeless, cleaned up trash, beautified vacant lots, and so forth.  In small towns, however, the problems are not so glaring.  Picking up small amounts of litter that blow out of sidewalk trash cans isn’t going to cut it as “community service.”  Small town occupations simply have to develop new and finely tuned strategies for outreach and support.

From major cities to small town America, the impact of camps on local businesses puts Occupy at immediate odds with those they are intending to help: the common citizen, and hence, small business owners.  Even taverns that bordered Zuccotti Park in the great tourism capital of New York City complained of the incredible impact the camp’s existence had on their business.  What protesters see as an acceptable loss, a casualty of war, local business owners see as counter-intuitive and extremely personal, putting at odds two groups that should be united in their vision of an improved nation.  Setting up special working groups to communicate with local business owners in close proximity to camps might help ease relations, control undesirable effects of camps, and build bridges between campers and business owners that can turn into powerful alliances for both.

Another common complaint about the occupation in our town was that there was never anyone there.  The camp consisted of about six tents, but when people would approach the camp, there was rarely a camper to be found.  In fact, one local reporter shouted into vacant tents and sat around for more than an hour before giving up on interviewing Occupiers for her story.  What is the point of tents if not to house people?

As we learned when the camps in Zuccotti were rolled up by police last fall and Occupy Wall Street answered with the biggest march of their campaign, you don’t need tents to Occupy a location.  Occupying is a lot about possessing a space, but that space is often more inside our heads than in an actual geographic location.  We cannot allow our mission to obtain a physical space become our purpose or our mission.  Our mission is to occupy the minds of people around the world, to occupy the headlines in an effort to promote our social messages, and to occupy the political spectrum with the goal of changing the game that is rigged against us.

If camps, large or small, fail to see the meet local objectives they will never meet the movement’s goals.  Occupy cannot and will not achieve anything without the support of the people.  We can battle it out against the police.  We can tolerate the elements.  We can withstand the hours of legal drama after arrests.  What we cannot do is continue to spread a message to people who are no longer listening, and the quickest way to deafen an ear is to never stop talking.

Conversation is a two-way street.  Problem solving is based on hearing all parts of the problem.  Direct democracy is about respecting everyone’s voices.  And revolution is about changing the whole game, not just one part of it.

As a movement, we need to see the common denominator (hyperlink), the root cause that connects all of our issues and attack it at its root.  Small businesses in Jenkintown (and every town) struggle because the odds are stacked against them.  Why is Jim struggling to get the loan he needs to fix up and rent his building on the corner?  Why is patronage at the Main Street Market down when grocery sales at Wal-Mart soar?  Why does it seem like the local politicians are working against us?

Occupy isn’t only about occupying.  It’s about healing, uniting, and educating.  None of those things are going to come out of empty tents.  If we aren’t going to “Occupy” these communities with proactive and productive activism, we may just as well hang signs on our foreheads that read: vacancy.

New Slavery

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

With the Paul Ryan budget plan being passed through the greasy hands of 1% lackeys in Congress, the recent hike in student loan interest rates, and everyday Americans – in their struggle to make ends meet – slapping everything from gas and groceries to the mortgage payment on their plastic, it is hard to avoid the topic of debt.

When most Americans think about the “debt crisis,” we think of the national debt.  Since our bills for the Revolutionary War started rolling in, the national debt has been a thorn in the side of the American people and our politicians.  Some presidents, beginning with Andrew Jackson, made it their mission to eliminate the debt.  Others, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, used the national debt as a way to invest in the future of America, investments that paid off with a thriving middle-class and secure economic times.  Some spent without looking, carelessly and unnecessary on trumped-up conflicts, overzealous defense systems, even high-priced contracts to vice presidential cronies; and then there were those, like Ronald Reagan, who actually propagated totally fabricated economic theory because those who wrote the actor’s script were poised to profit from such lies for generations.

Though the national debt is indeed a crisis, the real problem exists far from the Hill in the check registers of average Americans.  With more than 80% of Americans strapped with debt in one form or another, many of them owing tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt alone, we have entered into a new kind of civilization – one of indirect indentured servitude.

Now, I’m going to be honest and tell you that my husband and I (living together 14 years) have no debt.  We own our car; we rent our home; we funded our wedding with DIY, savings, and gifts; and we live within our means.  I was blessed to have parents who were not only willing but fiscally nimble enough to manage their debt successfully and pay the portion of my college tuition that wasn’t covered by academic scholarships (they paid tuition for all four of their children – and since the youngest graduated a few years ago, they spend a week in the tropics annually – celebrating their financial freedom, I’m sure).  To this day, to be honest, I don’t know how my parents accomplished so much with one income.  I only know that when things were lean, they were really smart, and when things were lush, they were even smarter.

Money wasn’t really discussed in my family.  There wasn’t much to talk about.  Our needs were met – no labels attached; we vacationed mostly in tents; and complaints were only heard on the fourth Friday in February (do the math).  Anything else you wanted, you earned the money for yourself.  My working papers were signed a week before my 14th birthday, and I had my first job the week after.  I worked from that week until I had my son two years ago.  I, like my mother before me, am a stay-at-home mom – not because I can afford to be, but because it is (to my family) worth the sacrifices.

For years, I thought that people who had debt – aside from the obvious like cars, homes, or college – had it because they were foolish.  I was raised to believe that if you couldn’t pay in cash than you couldn’t have it, and my first (and short-lived) experience with a credit card taught me how incredibly important it is to live by that rule.  I watched people put their egos before their sensibility, brainwashed by the season’s must-haves to the point of financial disaster, a coach purse that carried an empty wallet and a two digit interest rate.  I never felt sorry for these people.  I still don’t.

The trouble today is that the majority of people in the sinking ship of personal economics are in it because they have to feed their kids, not because they have to wear Prada.  True, there is an entire class of wanna-be-Joneses who are burdened with large homes, luxury cars, and blatant ignorance, but a growing number of us are feeling the weight of far more reasonable and unavoidable costs.  The cost of living is climbing daily but the wages we earn don’t budge, stretching the resources of everyday people to the limit.  In desperation, things like rent, electricity, food, and fuel begin making appearances on the monthly Visa statement with increasing frequency, while securities like health insurance and savings accounts go by the wayside.

Meanwhile, resistance to a life of poverty feeds the debt disaster by pulling in thousands upon thousands of young adults with every graduation ceremony.  They may as well shackle you with a ball-and-chain as you cross the stage.  With few prospects for those holding just a high school diploma, and not many more for those holding only bachelor degrees, students are being roped into loans they’ll be paying off until they retire, if they retire before reaching the age of infirm.

This vicious cycle of debt and struggle is peddled, of course, by none other than the filthy rich and their political custodians.  Turning the wheels on the rack, stretching every monetary limb of those who have nothing left to lose, and wringing every last cent from our financial lives are those who have nothing left to gain.  The people at the top are so disproportionately well-off that they have to get creative to spend the money they take from those who are literally going hungry.  And all the while, the system in play is being purported as necessary, acceptable, and even healthy by a group of political vultures granted access by their criminal handlers to the rotting remains of the bloodied middle-class.

What will happen to these predators and scavengers when they have consumed us all?  How will they feed their insatiable need for constant fiscal growth then they have absorbed all there is?  When the rest of civilization lies in ruin?  Will they then turn the chains of debt into chains of iron?  Rounding up the poor, starving masses to do their bidding in exchange for food?  After all, those who have nothing to trade, no money, no goods, have only themselves to give – only their physical resources with which to earn.

Will we witness offices in which people are paid in food rations?  Stylists tipped with half empty tubes of mousse?  Farmers whipped in their own fields?  Not likely, but if you extract the flow of cash from the current scenario, it is exactly what you already have: people forced into slavery by their financial obligations, obligations determined by those on the receiving end.

How do we free ourselves from this system?  How do the extorted beat the racket?  The only thing that comes to mind is the shear (albeit bizarre) genius of Fight Club.  However, since Ed Norton isn’t actually a split-personality with a secret army of dedicated blue-collars, and destroying a handful of buildings wouldn’t really reset the debt record, it just might be up to Occupy to break the silence and the chains of market slavery.

The first rule of Occupy is that you have to talk about Occupy.

Erosion

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

A game of legal cat-and-mouse is in full swing as legislatures scramble to outlaw everything that falls just outside the perimeters of that which is constitutionally protected.  You can protest, but not near any political figure relevant to your message.  You can vote, but not without this single, specific form of identification.  You can have an abortion, but not until we are done violating and humiliating you.  You can get an education, but not without the burden of lifelong debt.  You can have a picnic, but not without a permit.  Like a plane working its way across a piece of wood, the layers of our civil liberties and their protective laws are shaved away, landing coiled and useless on the floor as the corrupt and insane shape the new America.

Just beneath the gliding sound of the plane’s dark work, you can hear the lapping of the ocean – a vast body of corporate initiatives and the endless goals of the financially insatiable – as it pounds its relentless force against America’s delicate social fabric.  Cultural and religious freedoms, logic and reason, checks and balances, individual liberties, privacy, personal choice are all eroding along the edges of our society.  Each tumultuous swipe of the sea strips away more and more of that which we hold most dear.  Yet, unbelievably, the lemmings – distracted by imbecilic obsessions (“Did you watch Idol last night?!”), led by the cunning and manipulative (“Fracking is safe.”), and obliged by the insanely religious (“[The Christian] church needs to be the conscious of the nation!”) – keep marching headlong into the cold and terrible depths.

America was a nation built by people seeking freedom from judgment, discrimination, persecution, and fear.  It was a nation designed so every citizen could create a life individually tailored to him or her, in which personal goals could be set and met through hard work and determination.  It was a nation of hope and liberty in which all voices and matters could be heard and what is best for all could be deduced from intellectual debate – free from the slant of varying religious ideologies, unencumbered by the motives of small-minded men, and unmarked by the scars of ancient human error.  She has sadly now become her own adversary, blanketed in the filth of bigotry, hot with the tempers of misogynists and racists, and corrupted by limitless, unethical, and vicious greed.

Soldiers called by moral obligation, Occupiers and their supporters stream into the streets, driven by a fiery sense of urgency and invited by promises made to them in our founding documents.  The peaceful warriors who deny the continuously slipping status quo and fight for the fundamental rights that keep us from a swift descent back to the 14th century are met by the private armies of billionaires, both hunter and hound donning the uniforms of those sworn to protect us.  Like the Reich marched from the basements of Munich’s brew houses into the heart of the German people only to butcher it with a knife of pure evil, our public servants wear the badge of honor and the mask of deceit.

Make no mistake, our government is working quickly, quietly, and pointedly at political, societal, and legislative manipulations intended to control and stifle us.  Undoubtedly the new laws and market manipulations (from the Trespass Bill to the doubling of student loan interest rates) are maneuvers of those in power to improve their position, gaining from what the rest of us lose.  The steady erosion of our freedom serves to strengthen their political hand in a high-stakes game between the haves and the have-nots, America’s new aristocracy versus the strong and faithful who built this country with their bare hands.

Inevitably, the makers of this war on all that is fair and just will come to find that the people will only take so much.  Eventually the sugar-coma of modern life (or should I say, “high-fructose-corn-syrup-coma?”) will wear off.  The lemmings will realize, as they stare at the lessening shoreline, this year they don’t feel much like swimming.  With Occupy opening up in the spring warmth like the impatient crocus, spreading out across the land, carrying its message of freedom and justice farther than ever before, the criminals on the Hill will find the masses at their feet growing in number and in rage.

Rise, my fellow Americans, like the mountains – higher than the sea.  Stand up and preside over your nation with the same majesty and immovability.   Spring forth from the depths of those waters like the beautiful, volcanic islands that defy that rippling temper.  Push back against their attempts to strip from you that which is yours by birth, yours by right, yours by law.  No matter how many profanities they scribble on the pages of our history, they cannot erase what is already written there.  We have been endowed with certain unalienable rights.  We have the right to speak or yell or write…; we have the right to assemble peaceably and to be left in peace while we do so; we have the right to demand our government hear and address our grievances; the right to a trial by jury; the right to live free of involuntary servitude (even if those who attempt to enslave us are corporate entities); the right to a free and appropriate public education (for all students of all ages – post-secondary included); the right to a clean and safe abortion; the right to practice our religious beliefs even if those beliefs compel a person to practice no religion at all; the right to a safe work environment and fair compensation; the right to live without fear of discrimination – be it racial, gender-based, or for sexual preference; the right to drink clean water and breathe clean air…  the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

These things cannot be taken from us unless we let them.  There are no laws, no chains, no cages that can contain what is right and good and fair.  We are not the sand and soil that washes clean away with no resistance to the ebbs and flows of their temperamental tides of change.  We are the rocks, the roots, the concrete pillars of a people who have proven time and time again that in the face of grave injustice, we stand united.  We will prevail.  We Will Prevail.  WE WILL PREVAIL.

How To Win A Neighborhood

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

Over my desk, I have a grease board.  It tells me what to do.  For weeks it has been telling me to write about the Trespass Bill, and I will, but not today.  Today, I have more pressing matters to address with you.

As you know, Occupy Jenkintown started here a few weeks ago.  I expressed, and still experience, excitement about the Occupation and my hopes for what it can accomplish.  There are problems, already, however.  These are not problems unique to this Occupancy.  In fact, they are the same problems that plague many Occupations and are of serious detriment to the movement if they are not addressed swiftly and effectively by all involved.

The Occupation in Jenkintown has taken its residency at the center of town in the “square,” which is a small space with a gazebo and a brick pavilion where we conduct most of our town events.  Everything from the annual Christmas Tree Lighting to the seven month-long weekly farmer’s market takes place here.  The farmer’s market, which is already being threatened by borough politics and a nearby indoor market about to open 7 days a week, draws considerable business to the community on what used to be the slowest day of the week.  With the market season quickly approaching, and local business owners on the far side of the pavilion already sweating over (what they claim to be) negatively affected sales, the relationship between Occupy and the community went from temperate to tenuous overnight.

Nothing is friendlier to the wildly passionate, the motivated protester, or the inner-hippie than a group of tents, but for those with more conservative life formats – even if they have shared political views – the tents seem messy, intimidating, and unapproachable.  Almost immediately, rumors of homelessness and filth erupted, as they have around all Occupations.  Swift “not in my backyard” mentalities roared to the surface.  A few people have approached the camp to discuss concerns (and the Occupiers are working out a new location so to not harm local businesses), but fewer have done so to find out more about Occupy and get involved.  This is a problem.  After all, isn’t raising public awareness and spreading the important messages of the movement the purpose of the Occupations?

In places like New York City, where tourism is everywhere and the population is incredible, the characteristics that make Occupations unapproachable to some seem to have less of an impact on the camp’s overall success, but it is all a game of averages.  The percentage of the population that is offended impacts the success of camps a lot less when the total population (100%) numbers into the millions.  In a small place, like Jenkintown – for example, the same ratio has a much greater affect.  Moreover, in smaller communities, where the majority of people already know (and have established feelings toward) one another, rumors and slander fester more quickly, more venomously, and more detrimentally.  You don’t have to get the vote of a board representing a million people with a million interests to push Occupy out.  All you have to do is get four friends to call “Fred,” the police chief who lives down the street.

If Occupy is going to meet the challenges of camping in small communities, its members cannot simply set up and sit in.  They have to show up and reach out.  The focus of small camps has to be on becoming part of the community.  Making this even more dynamic is that approaching people at random can be a bit of turn off to the blasé, non-political, and avid head-in-sanders, also creating a bad taste in the mouths of those we need to enlighten.  So, what do you do?

Invite them in.  Everyone loves a party, so throw one.  Sponsor small events cheaply by talking to local bands, business groups, and charitable clubs.  Bring some attractions to the space, and while the people are there, hand out information on Occupy’s issues, have fact sheets posted, organize tables that represent different local and national interest groups, and have a GA schedule posted.  Have sign-up sheets for specific types of emails: petitions, food news, women’s issues, local issues, etc., and narrow down what you are sending them.  (When I see a bunch of emails from one group flooding my inbox, it isn’t long before I put that group on my mental “auto-delete” list, highlighting for deletion as I read the sender, not the subject.)

While you are chatting it up with the locals, about more than politics – please, remember to ask questions about what needs to be done in their community, what their local concerns are, and how Occupy can help them meet the challenges they are facing.  In Jenkintown, we have a problem with vacant store fronts, a local economy that is surviving but not meeting its full potential, and property owners who don’t want to renovate crumbling commercial properties.  A reasonable way to reach out to the community would be to set up a space for a town meeting to address the issues, flyer the neighborhood advertising the meeting, and then head a local group that corrects the problems.  Every town has its issues.  Find out what they are and head organizations to address them.

I’ve heard a huge number of people take issue not with what Occupy wants but with what Occupy does.  They don’t feel that living in tents, blocking traffic, interrupting public speakers, and civil disobedience are mature and effective ways to combat the system.  Now, I’m not saying I agree.  I think every tactic has a time and a place.  I do, however, understand that we are not going to reach the rest of the 99% by continually reapplying the same tactics over and over.  What’s more, we are going to offend them and lose any chance we have of bringing them in.  Those we have not reached in six months need to be approached other ways.

It is harder to win a heart than take a park, to open a mind than pitch a tent, to create change than to recognize problems.  If you are going to win the war, you have to win the people.  I’ve been reeling (and often retching) over politics since I was old enough to understand what is unjust and unfair – and if you have kids, you know how young that can be!  The closer an issue is to home, the more important it is to people.  If you help them solve their problems, you win their trust and loyalty… which is exactly what we need if we are going to fix the problems within our Occupations, in communities around the country, and in the halls of America’s most powerful addresses.

Wag The Womb

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

We’ve all heard of wagging the dog, right?  It is the political protocol of those who are so deeply woven into the corruption that rots our political system that they are unable to discuss the actual issues.  The first time I distinctly remember anyone wagging the dog was the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, during which time it was discovered that the then-President had approved the sale of military super computers to communist China, increasing China’s nuclear capabilities.  In the years since, I’ve noticed it happening every election and most days in between.

In the past few weeks, an argument over insurance covering pharmaceutical contraception has triggered a conversation that is so ridiculous it’s hard to believe it is actually being entertained.  For generations, it was up to insurance companies to hammer out the details of the plans they offered, and it was up to women and their gynecologists to determine their medical needs and measures.  With the rise of the spin doctor, however, medicine has become political gun powder.  Suddenly, I’m looking at a panel of five men – most of whom are sworn to celibacy and have (in theory) no sexual experience whatsoever and none of whom are medical professionals – publicly debating the religious correctness of women taking birth control.  As the news unfolds, all I can think is, “Where are we going, and why am I in this hand-basket?”

Setting aside the dubious separation between church and state, which summarizes to churches taking funding and wielding unreasonable political influence but paying no taxes, I can’t help but wonder what a different world this would be if men got pregnant instead of women.  A brave woman I know well often quotes an even braver friend who had once said that “if men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”  The thought is striking, not only for its vulgarity but for the weight of what it implies.  First, that this is, for all our bra-burning, still a man’s world; and second, that the men of this world are still indulging at their gender-given ability to relieve themselves of any and all sexual responsibility, should he choose.  (Stay with me, guys…)

No one is arguing about whether or not insurance should be covering vasectomy.  (Many plans do.)  No one ever stands outside an abortion clinic with signs calling for the castration of dead beat dads, one-night wonders, or incestuous uncles.  No one ever yells about the guy who fathered multiple children and fell behind on his child support, blaming his morally questionable libido for an overextended welfare system.  Yet the women who bear the pregnancies, the children, and the scars of such circumstances come under attack constantly, from the ceaseless trimming of already insufficient social services to the threats of reducing access to care in women’s clinics.  These injuries are then peppered by the insulting rants of people like (Head-) Rush Limbaugh.

Without getting into the fact that the same groups of people who complain about legal abortions and birth control are also, ironically, often the same ones who want to cut welfare programs supporting the impoverished communities that most need access to such services, tossing aside the basic logic that if the poor and underinsured can’t get birth control then there will be more children on welfare…  Leaving alone the reality that conversations about the accessibility of women’s contraception should be about health and civil liberties, not morality and judgment…  Completely ignoring the fact that the support these arguments receive from notorious chauvinists and discriminators should be enough to send any sane person looking for the quickest way to distance himself…  These arguments are, without a doubt, nothing more than a simple diversion from the issues that are real and damaging to the nation.

Every election is the same routine, like a scene from a movie we have all watched a thousand times: a flaming arrow is shot into a barn while the thieves make off with the gold.  The powers-that-be ignite the crazies and gas the flames, creating a conflagration through the glare of which we cannot see the perils of their true workings.  People ignore the voting records of these politicians, their former-lobbyist appointees, their multi-million dollar estates, and hone in on arguments that appeal to their inner-bigot.  Meanwhile, they slowly chisel away our rights with things like indefinite detainment, the Trespass Bill, and surveillance drones, simultaneously lubricating countless palms (including their own) with plans for pipelines, fracking, and genetically modified foods.  The whole time, we are running back and forth dumping pint glasses of water on an inferno that is timed to self-extinguish the minute their deals are signed.

It is a series of marionettes cascading down the great political stage, puppets controlling puppets.  Wanting to change the conversation, the corporate puppet masters pull on the political representatives that are indebted to them.  The reps then pull on the leaders of special interest groups, because no one is happier to plunge us back into the dark ages; and they – in turn – yank the strings on the people they control with the most proven measure known to man: mysticism.  Within a hot media minute, the whole world is on its head in a mess of wood and string, a Pinocchio production gone berserk.

The current debates over things like women’s reproductive rights and civil unions are important issues, but they aren’t the issues.  The issues are the ones that allow systems like this to even exist.  The fact that we live in a society where access to affordable healthcare is a problem for millions; that corporations have the power to determine so much about how our government and society function; that politicians and their radical supporters can call women terrible names but can’t stand up to a Wall Street tycoon; that legislation can close health clinics serving the poor but not Bank of America; that five men with religion for a resume can speak about female contraception but the only human in the room who might actually take it isn’t allow to speak at all; all while the citizens acting as the voice of the people, carrying out their most basic right in a last-ditch effort to save the nation, are arrested for standing on the steps, not the sidewalk.

There is nothing new under the sun.  We are witnessing the old stand-by call from a worn out playbook, the burning barn.  So, while Occupy writes the current attack on women’s civil rights onto the schedule of teach-ins and rallies, adding it to the heaping junk pile of American issues we, the people, now need to address, it is critically important to see (and make clear to others) the overarching theme that ties all these issues together: America is being stolen from her people while the masses are gazing wide-eyed at the long-nosed liars parading from strings in a song and dance we know too well.  Cut the strings.  Free the people.  It is time to wag the tail, not the dog… or in the case of the current spectacle, the womb.

Meet The New Neighbors

/ JillArcangela / 4 Comments

The early signs of spring are appearing.  The promise of change and revitalization teases us in the form of trees with tiny buds, too young to be green, and the stump-ish beginnings of long, slender tulip pushing their stems through the soil’s surface.  But aside from the crocus, something else wonderful has popped up in my small town: tents.

I almost crashed my car when I saw them, honking in support – scaring the hell out of a guy sitting in camp… I’ve had some trouble containing my excitement.  Although the early onset of spring has me seriously worried about both my summer garden and a crop famine my unborn great-grandchildren might have to suffer through, I am truly revved up for spring… especially now that there is an Occupancy in my town.

Let me start by saying, thank you to Occupy Philly and the founding campers of Occupy Jenkintown.  Inspired by nothing short of brilliance, they have decided to bring the movement into places more graspable to those looking to get involved and more visible to those who are simply missing it.  While urban occupations are important and productive, they are also sitting in places that are relatively cut off from the people Occupy needs to reach next.

It is as though our nation is designed in circles.  Like those emanated from a stone thrown into calm water, populations ripple out of urban centers in decreasing magnitude as they delineate.  Since September 17th, the stamina of the movement has been discussed by everyone on all sides, as has its ability to reach large portions of the nation.  This is the first real sign that Occupy may be up to challenge.

Jenkintown is small.  It is just over one half of a square mile, which means our annual 5K race has to loop through as well as round our town.  In truth, however, we are small but mighty.  About 4,500 people call this bite-size borough home, a pretty dense population.  We have our own school district and police force.  We are encapsulated on all sides by the American phenomenon of true suburb, thickly populated and overrun with corporate chains of every kind, but our town prides itself on a central hub of Mom-and-Pop shops, a farmers market, and an historic movie theater that we faithfully support.  We are primarily middle-class, and we are – like most – feeling the sting of the corporate-political bully who has been slapping America in the face for decades.

My neighborhood is ripe for change, as are countless others across the states.  Setting up tents and signs, and working with Occupy Philly to make sure that there is a constant presence (when local Occupants are at work or at OP functions) brings the movement and its message into the path of the average American.  It makes representatives accessible to people who may be on the fence or plainly uninformed.  It helps make involvement and interaction a possibility when driving into the city for a GA at dinner time, leaving the family behind, after a long day at work doesn’t seem so desirable.

Most importantly, however, it takes the very important step of extending the possibility of true democracy.  For generations, we’ve been calling America a democracy, but it is not now – and never really was – a democracy.  We live in a Republic, a governmental structure that empowers representatives to hold office and work (in theory) on behalf of the people.  A representative system has the strong advantage of narrowing the political players into smaller, more productive groups, but it bears the characteristic burdens of easy corruptibility and simple misrepresentation, two problems that ail the current system.

In a true democracy, the people are engaged, educated, and participating in the decisions being made.  They are the government.  They make the decisions as a unit.  Democracy, surprisingly, is natural to species throughout the animal kingdom.  It is how herds and flocks of all kinds decide when and in which direction to move, and in some cases, it even holds contention is whether the winner of a fray becomes the seated alpha of a pack.  It isn’t always harmonious, and it certainly isn’t easy – especially with populations into the billions – but it can work.

The trick to a better, stronger America is to make it work in cooperation with a representative system, and that starts with tents in places like Jenkintown.  By engaging the members of smaller communities, bringing real, counter-media information to its members, and making people unavoidably aware of what is happening within the small offices of the local representatives we largely ignore, Occupy can stretch direct democracy into functioning reality.  We can hold these elected officials accountable, force them to represent us, and remove them from office if they don’t.

What’s more, if we directly involve the people in small communities, particularly in the further, less pronounced ripples of the population circles, we can reeducate people about the realities of consumption and the effects it has on human and political behaviors (as well as the environment).  In towns like mine, Occupy has a leg up.  We are a small borough surrounded by larger, commercially dense communities, but we stick to our own and forge strong personal relationships with one another and with the small businesses owned and operated by our community members.

In larger areas like those around Jenkintown, that lack town centers of commerce and community, Occupy will face greater challenges in uniting the people.  Engaging in local politics, acting in schools, shaking hands with local business owners, and handing out information in places like parking lots will help the movement root itself in these less centered areas.  Similar strategies will help bring Occupy into the fold of more rural communities as well.  If we can successfully reach out to these communities, unit the people by finding their common ground, and promote basic political, social, and economic understanding, we can raise these communities from crowds of apathetic consumers to educated, aware social participants.

Imagine what we would be capable of if people saw themselves as not only members of empowered local communities but empowered national communities – or, dare I say, the human community.  We could control the people who are controlling us; we could put the full-court press on representatives who use blatant manipulation and bold-faced lies to retain their power and position; we could level the playing field and stop the exploitations of our people and planet that will surely spell our inevitable doom; we could oppose the growing volumes of ridiculous and unconstitutional legislation meant to suppress the people and their voice; we could wield the power bestowed on us by our forefathers.

So, while I swallow the jagged pill of early spring, the frightening reality of yet another weak winter, the foreshadowing of increased garden pests and fierce allergies, I admit there is something beautiful about the warmer weather… the furling and flapping of tent tarps and cardboard.  Though I am constantly worried that the planet might be dying, liberty is alive and well – as is the promise of a still blooming and growing Occupy movement.   If for that alone, I can peacefully and honestly proclaim my welcome to spring.