Occupy Philly

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.

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.

The City of Brotherly Shove

/ JillArcangela / 6 Comments

I live just outside Philadelphia, and while I draw inspiration each week from occupations across the nation, I have participated in actions and general assemblies (via streaming video) with the Occupy Philly group.  This weekend was a big one for OP.  After months of peaceful occupation and tenuous cooperation with the city, the camp was issued an eviction notice at the end of last week.  The notice itself came as no surprise to the occupants, as construction was scheduled for Dilworth Plaza (the location of their camp).  With the group acting in direct defiance of the eviction order and staging a huge show of solidarity which was supported by hundreds of OP friendlies, surviving Sunday night completely unthreatened by the police forces surrounding the plaza was a bit more unexpected.  What was most amazing, however, was the internal struggle of the group’s conflicting political opinions and how they turned this conflict into palpable resolve.

 

There is a mix of facts and rumors still to be sorted into a full account of what actually happened to create the friction that plagued the group and culminated in a screaming match of a generally assembled debacle on Friday night.  The long and short of it is that a group called Reasonable Solutions, which spoke with the city on the group’s behalf in an attempt to negotiate the messy business that is urban occupation, began making decisions that didn’t accurately represent that consensus of the larger group.  Reasonable Solutions was able to procure an agreement from the city to move operations to a plaza across the street.  Significantly smaller in size, the plaza would support only what the permit allowed: three collapsible canopies to be assembled and removed – along with all persons and operations – in accordance with permitted hours (9 am to 7 pm).  Now, I have not been close enough to the situation to pass on any reliable details of it, nor would I speculate as I believe speculation is akin to gossip.  What the intentions of the individuals who comprised Reasonable Solutions were, are being debated by many.  Be they agitators from the upstart or those who paved the road to hell with their good intentions, I know not, and I presume nothing.  The end result, however, involved a permit the majority of occupants did not want, a megaphoned hijacking of an important general assembly, and a public statement by OP severing ties to the Reasonable Solutions subset.

 

While I marveled from my living room, watching the chaos unfold via live stream on Friday night with a repeat performance circumvented with relative dignity on Saturday evening, I couldn’t help but ask myself what the justification was for not leaving the plaza.  The construction would, after all, create lots of (short-term) employment for the union workers; it would beautify the city, create a space for concerts which raises local revenue, and create (though extremely limited in number) some employment for those maintaining and managing the space.  The cost was extraordinary but it was mostly grants that had to be spent a certain way, and it was being paid into the local groups building the space.  Blocking the project seemed short-sighted.  I sat back, however, and refrained from passing judgment until I had more perspective.  I followed closely during Saturday’s GA and tried to find the reasoning behind this campaign to resist eviction.  The meeting, however, was business as usual.  They made plans for the eviction and discussed and voted on several other items, none of which gave me any insight into the reason for the stand or the split.  Then the time came for the campers to pack their tents and move out.

 

On Sunday, the camp was prepared for eviction, and so were the campers.  With a backdrop that seemed naked compared to the previously colorful, packed, and bustling center of democratic fervor, the occupants of Philadelphia’s camp and their supporters sat down on the steps of Dilworth Plaza and awaited their eviction… and waited… and waited… and waited.  They waited all night.  They filled the time and space with voices, some expressing themselves in the echoes of comrades during an “open mic” and others cheered and sang through vibrant drumming that lasted well into the night.  People in camp visited the people outside of camp via the video stream, answering questions and chatting.  In the morning, the camp was quiet.  Not because it was empty, as so many thought it would be, but because it was sleeping – piled in greater concentration than ever before in the few remaining tents.

 

Somewhere between the locking of the arms moments before the scheduled eviction and the sound of post-midnight jubilance, I realized why these people chose to make this stand, to sacrifice a relatively peaceful experience, to throw away months of positive relations with the local police, and to risk bodily harm.  The answer was simple: the deal was not acceptable.

 

The city issued its original permit for a 24-hour occupation, permitted camping, portable toilets, electricity, and even reduced police presence to ensure that those wanting to approach the camp would feel comfortable doing so.  Suddenly, now that the city had to commence a $50 million dollar project, that only stands to create 20 full-time jobs and promises to disrupt the lives of hundreds of homeless citizens, a restriction was being put on the functions of the Occupy movement.  With so many locations in the city to choose from, many with the space and features necessary to support the camp, the city wanted to force the camp – which is the movement itself, symbolically – into a smaller space with limiting ordinances.  What happened in the signing of the construction contract that made it legal to limit the first amendment rights of the people using the space?  What clause was there that gave Mayor Nutter the power to vote free assembly?  Was it somewhere between who will lay the concrete and who will plant the shrubs?  Of course, not.  So, they stayed – dividing themselves from a unit which, regardless of their intentions, was willing to bargain away their first amendment for reasons unknown to me but speculated by many.

 

Philadelphia, which literally means “brotherly love,” has never been a place renowned for its charm.  We are city of working class people, strong on culture and rich in pride, opinionated and close-knit, critical of our leaders (and sports teams), and fabulous at applying more swear words to a sentence than words comprising the actual thought.  We are sarcastic and sharp at the tongue.  We are as tough as we are loud, and we are equally unapologetic.  It is this character, read through our snickers and jeers, that often leaves the nation asking “where is the love?”  I try to help others understand us by asking them recall how their brother loved them.  He poked; he pinched; he knocked you around; but he loved you unconditionally, taught you to stand up for yourself, and never let you down when you really needed him.  We are the birthplace of the freedoms this nation has taken from granted and this movement is determined to put to work.  We are great in a debate, but even better in a fight.  And, we are really, really good when push comes to shove.

 

Occupy Philly demonstrated all things bold and beautiful about the history and character of this city.  They were uncompromising in their stance and unrelenting in their stand.  They saw an element that endeavored to sway them toward a compromise that left them holding all the short straws, regarding their camp and regarding their rights.  They withstood, with peace and dignity, the chaos that ensued when this now annexed portion of the project attempted to divide and harass them.  They made clear their objective and their ideology with their rejection of an insufficient negotiation that tried to limit their rights and their reach into the community.

 

This movement is not about compromise.  This movement cannot rely on those in power to do what is right for the people.  This movement cannot take leave of the rights written right here in my city so that mayors can be credited with a keeping on the peace sown by our commitment to non-violence.  And above all, this movement cannot be negotiated into smaller space and smaller time at so critical a moment in our American history, especially for the continuance of the same type of progress that has been pushing our nation backwards for half a century.  If the leaders of our cities want us to move, they are just going to have to give us the space they call their office – because that is what we are after: change in leadership.  Not by name, not by party, but by thinking, by conduct, and by construct itself.

 

It was a beautiful moment for Occupy Philadelphia.  It was a moment of epiphany for me.  And somewhere between the locking of the arms and the drums that celebrated long into the night, I’m sure the fathers of nation who lived and walked on these very streets, who rallied the servants of an empirical British doctrine designed for the profit of kings, who wrote the words on which we all stand now, did their own mic check.  We might not have heard it, but it was loud and clear to those who were paying attention, and it started off something like, “We, the people…”

Victory and Challenge

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

Students of history know that every war is comprised of battles.  Some you win, and some you lose.  Ultimately, the side that wins the most battles, the biggest battles, the most important battles, is the side that wins the war.  We will keep returning to history as a learning tool throughout my posts, as there is no better teacher.  For now, and in good form, we’ll start with the most basic of lessons: Winning battles wins wars.

 

The movement reveled this week in a handful of early victories that are both compelling and critical.  While the media is attempting to ignore us, except for the occasional local news fluff and the oral diarrhea that has come to characterize the dramatic Right, we continue to make our presence heard and attract the eyes of the world.  I suppose you could say that this fact is a glimmer of a pending victory over a reluctant corporate media, but we cannot rely on these networks nor deem it necessary to win that battle.  The battles we can and should win are those that bring closer the collective human conscious, the non-televised reality of the occupancies, and the people outside of them.  Victoriously, these are the battles already being won.

This week a 92-year-old Pete Seeger marched and sang with Occupy Wall Street.  Goldman Sachs pulled both its donation and its presence from a fundraiser for a local credit union in Manhattan when it was announced that OWS was being honored at the function.  Eric Cantor cancelled an appearance scheduled at the prestigious Wharton School of Business, a college of the University of Pennsylvania, because the public audience threatened to consist of Occupy Philly’s successful student walk-out which showed up at Wharton’s front door.  Occupy Houston managed to reroute a march after police tried to lead them down a desolate side street, forcing police to cooperate with them and bringing their march into more visible areas without anyone getting arrested (or run over).  All of these notable events come in addition to the nightly victories won over police and local governments that repeatedly attempt to evict you from your camps.

These things, no matter how small the media blips, are victories for our movement.  While large victories make headway for our cause, small victories are the ones we build upon.  They keep you in the news, even if only for a moment, reminding people outside of your physical sightlines that you are there, day after day, night after night.  Most importantly, these victories are the basis for morale that inspires you into your next action and keeps you warm in a cold base camp.  Every inch you gain, every new vote of support, every night the camps survive, and every time the elitists snub the movement, you win.

With each win, you return to your humble and beautiful collection of tents and allies with even more hope and determination.  Warmed and fueled by the light of your own fire, you stand ready for the nightly eviction notice and the dawn of tomorrow, which you will surely live to see.  The daily victories may be small, but they are battles won on the path to true and complete triumph.

The future of this movement is still uncertain.  There are many challenges that lie ahead.  There is a future that cannot be predicted.  There are problems we have not yet imagined.  There is the undeniable reality that as we progress, winning battles and overcoming obstacles, the counterattacks will be planned in matched intensity.  The further we march across their field, the more vicious their mechanisms will become and the more brutal our fight for success.  The meanest faces of resistance to our revolution have yet to be seen.  The most difficult days lay ahead, and they are not just comprised of nightstick engagements and wafting clouds of chili powder.  They are environmental as well as political.

The winter is coming to many of these occupied cities.  The cold will be long, and the snow will seem relentless.  As the fights heat up, the camps will plunge into frigidity, bringing you to the true test of your dedication.  As you huddle in, you will come to face a thing within you that will become the greatest battle of your occupancy and probably your life.  You will come to the real fight – the one with yourself.  The winter will seem an allegory for the battle both within and without, but survive it and the history you will write will be someone else’s learning tool.  As is true for the many victories you revel in at this moment, those ahead will reward you with a supreme strength in character and, hence, confidence.  In the meantime, however, arm yourself.

The enlivening glow that will keep you warm in those toughest times is ample at your fingertips today.  Bottle this sensation.  Gaze upward and take it all in.  Remember each moment of revelry and awe and love for your movement as a series of sensations.  Capture the details of these inspired times, without failing to notice the true beauty of your strength and unity, and store them in your heart and mind.  These victories, these moments will keep you warm – burning, in fact, and ready for what comes.

As you climb closer to your goal, the challenges will get harder and more frequent – making your celebrations shorter lived and longer between.  You will not get too many moments like these, in which to revel in small victories for long periods.  However, as the path becomes harder and the fights more vicious, you will know that your goal is that much closer… And just imagine what that victory is going to feel like.

Who Are “We?”

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

The Declaration of Independence starts with it.  It is chanted in the street.  It is called out repeatedly in the general assemblies.  It is the position from which millions speak these days.  It is “we.”  Our uses of the word “we” give us a sense of solidarity, and they enable us to pull people into the streets for a march, into the camps for a peek, and into the GAs for an education.  However, with camp life centered on its own occupants and activities, with supporters from outside the occupancies seeing mostly tweets and posts, and with the talking heads of the Right criticizing the human fabric of this movement while the Left remains largely silent, the question can be raised, “Who are ‘we’ exactly?”

“We, the people…” is a title bestowed upon us with great honor by the first among us to rise against powers that attempted to exploit our labor and natural resources, tax the working class without remuneration, and endow the wealthy and connected, all while ignoring the needs of the people.  More than two centuries later, we find ourselves in colonial shoes, and the reference to our declaration doctrine is empowering on the lips and to the ears.  It reminds us that we were here before, and it rallies us to rise and defeat those tyrannical and oppressive forces again.  It gives “we” – the plural pronoun that names us – a singular designation: the people.  It is an identity based in unity, all of us together as one.

We are the 99%.  Even though it is more symbolic than statistical (especially when you consider the upper-middle class who foolishly and arrogantly align themselves with the Billionaire Boys Club to which they will never truly belong – but that’s another post), the statement is meaningful and powerful.  Most importantly, it is accurate in distinguishing the opposing 1%, the real target of our frustration – regardless of what Fox News tells the nervous and miseducated upper-middle who are installing security cameras at their McMansions and crouching protectively over their Beamers.

March chants like “we won’t take it anymore” and the use of the word “we” in addressing the group during GAs give us a sense of union, reminding us constantly that this isn’t the time or place for the I-statements we were encouraged to use as children struggling to vocalize our emotions.  Ironically, for all that we were taught, it is not “I” that helps us confront our fears and express our preferences anymore.  Our frustrations are universal, and our emotions are shared by millions.  Speaking in the first person suddenly seems limited and short-sighted.  Turning on the television to survey the opposition reinforces the antiquity and self-centered sound of “I” in the context of our current human and environmental climate.  We cringe as they bang their fists on the desktops, regurgitating the proclamations of egotism and entitlement: I worked for what I have.  I pay enough taxes.  I shouldn’t have to pay the bills of the lazy and the inept.

Barked between their corporative and megalomaniacal talking points are blips of what they think of us, who they think “we” are.  According to them, we are Socialists.  We are unemployed because we are lazy or because we didn’t work as hard as they did.  We are inconsequential, confused and moronic, disorganized and doomed, a passing trend of protest from a spoiled and savage group of hippie youth who are looking for the next handout.  We know that we are none of these things, but still the question pleads an answer.  Who are “we”?

We are artists, teachers, writers, strategists, analyzers, techies, farmers, foodies, medics, organizers, philosophers, intellectuals, laborers, spiritualists, scientists, and legalists.  We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brother, husbands, wives, and children.  We are those seeking platforms and those seeking enlightenment.  We are those who wish to speak and those who wish to listen.  We are the young, the old, and the in between.  We are the thinkers, dreamers, and doers.  We are a representative sample of the entire human population.  We are everything we need to be to change the world.  We are hope.  We are vengeance.  We are calm, quiet justice – inevitable and liberating.  We are individuals banned together by common plight and common goals.  We are crowds of thousands occupying an ever-growing number of cities worldwide.  We are mankind, standing together until the last glass castle falls.  We are the people of the world… And we are mad as hell.

*If you would like a visual perspective of how big this movement really is, please see this collection of photos as posted by The Atlantic.  It’s truly awe-inspiring how massive we are, and hence, how powerful.  (http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-spreads-worldwide/100171/)

Protest Is For Pansies

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

There is a lot of talk, conjecture – really, about what is happening on the streets of cities all over the world.  The critics, mostly those who stand to lose and their media marionettes, spout a lot of misinformation, half-truths, and whole lies in an effort to discredit you, your intelligence, your efforts, and your mission.  We know that this is simply weak propaganda.  It is an attempt to convince those who do not understand what is happening that nothing is happening.  It aims to sway those who may be on the fence about where they stand or what they believe in their favor, to affirm for them that there is no future other than the one that they have written.  They say a lot of insulting and inflammatory things in their insolent postulations, but none are as insulting as their repeated use of the “protest.”

This is not a “protest.”  Allow me to explain.

By definition, a protest is “an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid.”  We are not engaging in a “protest” because this is not simply an expression of our disapproval; nor are we “powerless to prevent or avoid” the fate that would be ours if we were merely protesting.

We are, by definition, a “movement.”  We are “a group of people working together to achieve a political goal.”  For us, however, the definition of our movement is even deeper than this.  This is not just about achieving a political goal.  This is about survival, reform, and dare I say, revolution.

Our United States government has been hijacked by a corruptive, corrosive force that aims to use financial means to enslave the population.  The advance is fierce, and what’s more, it is blatant.  The corporate agenda for political manipulation and societal control has been underway for more than a century.  Before Carter lectured us on materialistic values; before Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex; before Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts; Abraham Lincoln warned us about corporations having been “enthroned and an era of corruption in high places” to follow.  He told us “the money power of the country would endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

While we may not have heeded the warnings of countless individuals over the course of our history, we see now that we have reached the tipping point.  We have come to a time when these corporations are so brazen, their future so secure, they do little to even veil their unscrupulous manipulations of politicians and citizens alike.  Big business lobbies for legal change, spending billions of dollars to fund bills that will change the construct of our political, legal, and economic systems to favor their business interests.  They use campaign contributions, which without term limits translates to purchasing long-term positions in Congress, to support candidates that will best serve their corporate agenda through regulation, deregulation, voting for or against bills, and the awarding of contracts.  They forge conglomerates, taking over media networks, to create a means of societal control, feeding the public everything from tainted information about political, environmental, and financial conditions to hyping the latest craze for the purpose of increasing their revenue and distracting us with material needs and celebrity drama.

If we do not succeed in our mission to awaken the world to the injustices committed against humanity by these zombie-like, non-human entities and to stop them in their relentless pursuit of consumption, we will all be crushed under their impending system of control.

We cannot and will not allow our lives to be determined by the fluctuations of numbers scrolling across a ticker board.  We will not permit a handful of insatiable parasites to feed on the blood, sweat, and tears of those forced by economic and political manipulations into any version of indentured servitude.  We will not tolerate any practice by business or government that attempts to promote a neo-feudalistic society in which a person’s future is determined at birth by his lineage or economic status.  We will not forsake the liberties, freedoms, and rights bequeathed to us by our forefathers in contracts written in earnest and paid for with the blood of generations of Americans soldiers.  We will not turn a blind eye to the decimation of basic human rights or the exploitation of the human will to work for survival.  We will not set aside our hopes and dreams to work for the fortunes of others.  We will not forgo our needs so that others can live out their every whim.  And, for the love of mankind and all that is good in the world, WE WILL NOT PROTEST.

We are more than protesters.  We are revolutionaries.  We are the future of this nation, the future of the world.  And if we think we are going to have any future other than to buzz around in circles, worker bees taking only their allotted share and functioning under the stern law of the few who rule, we must be ready to rise against any and all challenges.  We must do more than protest.  We must push, advance, agitate, march, propel, shift, shove, and force.

We are a movement… a group of people working together to change the world, to bring the power back to the people, to shape a future in which we can be truly free.  We are not protesting.  We are moving.

The Ants Go Marching

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

“Mic check!”

“MIC CHECK!”

“Mic check!”

“MIC CHECK!”

And just like that, my heart is pounding.  A cold gust of wind whips the excitement around the crowd and registers more like electricity on my skin than it does the chilly foreshadowing of a coming winter.  The crowd closes in a little as a reverse echo, quiet than loud, reminds us of the things we know and informs us of the changes.  Then, the closing remarks, each phrase repeated by the shouting crowd, “We will be peaceful… …and non-violent…  …We will respect… …all property… …both public and private…  …And above all,…”

As I shout these words, I reflect on the statements I have made.  I think about how they are so important to the health, safety, and success of this movement.  I think about the acts of vandalism and public indecency, even defecation, which are being played up by those who attempt to discredit this movement and should never have happened.  A mix of hope and sadness color a whirlwind of thoughts, so many in a split second, and then a cheer rises from the crowd – a hooting, hollering response to the final words in our pledge, “WE WILL BE LOUD!”

I am pulled back from the momentary mental flood – the head plague of all writers – into this moment, this place, these people, this march.  Another cold wind forces its way through the crowd, supercharging the surface of my skin.  The beat of a single drum begins somewhere near what is about to be the front, and the movement moves.

It is hard for me to believe that this is the first time I’ve ever done this.  I feel nervous, almost self-conscious, and the sound of my own voice yelling is strange and uncomfortable, but I press on.  As the group moves further from the starting point, I have the feeling of being in a parade, something I have done.  I notice the people on the sidewalks looking at us, some smiling, some cheering, others scowling, and many taking pictures.  I resist the temptation to smile and wave like a half-witted beauty queen atop a moving pink-and-white iced wooden cupcake.  I refocus on the people ahead of me, and I continue to yell even though I feel a bit silly.  I know that what I’m doing matters, that it has to be done, and if I am unwilling to do it than I do not deserve to benefit from its efforts.  I think about how many people know they will feel as I do at this moment, and I wonder how many of them aren’t here for that reason.  I credit myself for stepping beyond my shallow suburban comfort zone, and by the time the group turns the first corner, so do I.

The group is yelling things like “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” and “no representation without taxation.”  I believe what I am saying.  I’m settling in.  I notice that the crowd is swelling, putting my middle position much further from the front and back than I was when we started only a few short blocks ago.  Another high-voltage breeze pushes through the crowd.  Signs held high wiggle as their bearers struggle to control them.  The wind sweeps upward, carrying our voices high along the shiny walls that narrow the sky above us.  I follow our voices with my eyes, realizing that the places to which our cries sore are the parapets of the glass castles in which our tyrannical adversaries hide, enthroning themselves with political manipulations and drenching themselves in the thick rewards of their loathsome, unscrupulous behaviors.  I yell louder.

I find myself gaining momentum as the march presses on.  The crowd in yelling, “We are the 99%.”  An echo within the group is bouncing back, “and so are YOU!”  The ones in the secondary call are making eye contact and pointing directly at specific people who watch from the sidewalk.  “Spectators” pops into my mind.  I remember being told once that life is not a spectator sport.  This, I realize, is why I am here.  It is also why, against my husband’s wishes, I have my two-year-old on my back.*  I want him to learn participation the same way he learned speaking and eating, by just doing it all his life.  I suddenly feel a gratitude I’ve never felt before, gratitude for the very thing that got me in most of the trouble I’d been in during my life thus far: the wing-walker gene.  It is the little thing in my brain that makes me able to take chances without fear; a sensible nervousness and a bit of looking before leaping, sure – but not fear, never fear.

In my moment of appreciation, I have again turned my face skyward, and this time I notice people in the windows.  Some, in the lower levels, are pumping their fists in the air.  In the higher windows, they are tight-lipped with folded arms, expressionless except from a furrowed brow.  There they are.  They are just men, I hear myself thinking above my now throat-straining shouts, men with jobs that pay for the food on their table… and the Land Rover, but ok – there’s no crime in owning an expensive car or even an expensive yacht, for that matter.  It is the job at which they work that bothers me, as their life’s work has become the business of taking the food off my table and a future of opportunity from the 30 pound promise on my back.  What will his world be like if I don’t march?  And yell?  And throw my fist in the air?

The group stops here, and a girl with a bullhorn spouts off disgraceful facts about the companies housed in these lofty offices.  I repeat her calls with a sense of disgust growing in my stomach.  I watch the windows as I yell.  They are looking back from high above the city streets, from behind their glass ramparts, scowling faces and silken ties.  To them, we look now the same way they always see us, small and insignificant, like ants scouting for and surviving on their crumbs.  They have that part right, at least.  We are, indeed, like ants.

Ants, an army of individuals who alone seem quite puny, but I have never opened a cupboard door to find an army of ants devouring the sticky dripping of my honey pot without that distinct “oh, shit” moment.  The thing about ants, you see, is that they don’t have to be big because they come by the thousands.  They are capable of moving things hundreds of times larger than the body mass of their entire colony, the human equivalent of moving mountains.  They are resilient and relentless, focused and cooperative.  They work together to pick apart things that they never dream of approaching alone, and with time and patience there is nothing they cannot tear down.  When ants are marching, it is for the purpose of their survival.  They head for the target, without breaking their line, without faltering at all, and they attack their mission with tireless dedication until the work is done.  They are, for all intents and purposes, unstoppable; and though they seem small from above, they are, in the grander scheme of things, a force to be reckoned with

Again, I come back to where I am.  Feet planted firmly on the ground, son on my back, fist in the air, hearing myself chanting in unison with the people who also had the courage to be in this place in history.  “…AND WE WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”  A huge cheer erupts from the now enormous crowd.  Again, the beat of a drum, and we continue of our path.  The ants are marching.

* A note of thanks to Occupy Philly, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the Office of Mayor Michael Nutter for making our city’s occupation safe, so that I could experience this day and share it with my son.