People on the Way to Occupy D.C.

People from all over the country are heading to Washington, D.C. this week.  A bit further on I discuss meeting with three of them heading across country to Occupy DC.  October 6^th marks the 10^th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  Ten years ago we were mourning the attacks on New York City, the District of Columbia, and one attack that was thwarted and became a crash site in Pennsylvania.  We had the world on our side, our country was more united than we had been in decades, and our finances were in good shape.

10 years later the American people seem to be awakening to an understanding that they have been lied to, manipulated and bankrupted in order to benefit the wealthy corporate and military interests that used an attack on U.S. soil to corrupt the democratic processes that regulate capitalist maximization of profit at the expense of human needs. 

The unemployed, the outraged, the peaceful have put out and are responding to a call to gather together.   The Wall Street Occupation is getting the attention today, the D.C. occupation will probably get the attention at the end of the week.  The fact that I haven’t heard discussed is that this is happening during the month after the 10 year anniversary of our country was attacked and  the 10 year anniversary

October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.

During the evening of September 29^th  I had the opportunity to talk to Xan, Peter, and Kevyn  as they came through Tucson on a caravan across the southern United States that was stopping in as many places along the way as people want them to talk about the issues or to join in a vigil or protest, or join with the caravan and go to D.C. to join the Human Need Not Corporate Greed occupation  force there.

The three original caravan members, others may have joined along the way by now, are associated with peace groups, Xan and Kevyn identify with CodePINK, and Peter is a member of Veterans for Peace.

Their stay in Tucson included protest with the local peace and justice community at weekly gathering in front of the Federal Building in downtown Tucson at rush hour, a candlelight vigil for DRONE victims in front of the gates of Davis Monthan Air Force Base at sunset,  connection with another weekly vigil  for those migrants who die in the surrounding desert nearly every week of the year in the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert.  Then with the Theater’s permission the lead Caravan Truck parked in front of the main theater doors with the with the side with  the beautiful mural painted by Phoebe Ackley so that viewers of a privately sponsored viewing of  The Future of Food  organized by the Tucson GMO Free Group  could see that individuals from diverse groups have the same concerns and can spread a message, have impact, and talk to  caravan members about the overlapping goals and agendas of peace and safe food groups. 

The concept of overlapping concerns and goals is a growing theme in U.S. civic action.  Talking heads, such as Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC today noted the amorphous nature of the reasons for the Occupy Wall Street actions in NYC that are spreading to other major cities across the United States.  The October 2011 web site that is the overarching informational site about the occupation of Freedom Plaza in D.C. has a list of 15 Core Issues of the Human Needs Not Corporate Greed actions in D.C.

The events commencing October 6 in D.C. are focused on redirecting war, military and occupation funds back to support of human and environmental needs.  The pledge on the October2011.org states,

"I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."

People’s motivations and wellbeing, as well as the ideal of democracy are complex constructs and cannot be condensed into the well-packaged marketing sound bytes easily broadcast by our media that now functions as much from press releases as from investigative journalism.  If the media, even those very few media outlets that are covering the Human Needs movement, does not understand what certainly seems like parts of a mass movement reacting to corporate take over of government functions around the world, well perhaps they will have to revert to old fashioned journalistic practice.

Today through Thursday of this week the CodePINK Caravan will travel through Shreveport, Louisiana - Jackson, Mississippi - Birmingham, Alabama, - Atlanta, Georgia - Charlotte and Henderson, North Carolina on the way to their arrival in Freedom Plaza in D.C.  at 9 a.m. Thursday.  “ Thursday,” as the participants note, “is only the beginning.” 

Xan has kept a blog of her activities at CODEPINK Journals since 2003.  She has made many cross country trips from her home in Berkeley to Washington, D.C. and was instrumental in getting the first on-going, long-term CODEPINK presence from all over the U.S. established in D.C. in 2006 and again in 2007 which lead to over two years of constant action in the Halls of Congress by women who came from every part of the U.S. to stay for a week or a month and focus on actions pertinent to them and the areas of the country from which they came at The Pink House, a cooperatively run house near Capitol Hill. 

A core group of activists and groups have promoted various views of and solutions to the misuse of government. and the peoples wishes and funds,  over the last 10 years.  Without them the current, extremely diverse 99 Percent might not be able to move in synch in what now seems to be a an organic trajectory rather than a single minded group.  Just like the Caravan built on already occurring events in the local community, what is building in the U.S. builds on years, and indeed years of awareness of the growth of greed. This is the stuff of which revolutions are made.  I think the people of the United States had their revolution and now they want it back.  Democracy is powerful and it is far more than a memory to the American People. 

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 I can provide contact information to interested independent journalist bloggers who wish to request an interview with one or more of the caravan participants. 

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Fragments of ... This Week

Blogging Tips and Tricks

There are "tricks" used in the blogging community to simplify, prompt, and facilitate frequent blogging.  One of these is Wordless Wednesdays.  I haven't done wordless anything as yet, because I do not have a good camera to capture the sort of images that I love to hunt.  Never have.  Silly really because we are not poor.  But there is always a larger need for the $400 or so buckeroos that the camera I want costs.

Fragment Fridays is something I just learned about.... so I guess that is what this post is.  It may be something I repeat.   It sounds good to me as it takes time, lots of time, to string my thoughts together sometimes.  Now I will just post them on Fridays! The first mention of them I could quickly find from a Google search is from the same person, Mrs. 4444, pronounced Mrs. Fours,  who wrote a post today that I read because she follows me, and I now follow her, on BlogHer. 

Writing Equipment

Right now I need a new laptop.  I'm a writer.  I've authored only a few things but I've written tens of thousands of things:  letters, essays, poems, stories, nonfiction, some fiction, blogs, email,  journals.  I write all the time.  I've written all my adult life, all my teen life, and a bit before.  I bought an electric typewriter when I was 16.  I've used Apples or Macs since the early 80s.  I have a great desktop computer with a huge screen (for graphics) that I purchased with some of the small inheritance I received when we sold Mom's farm house, paid her debts, and split the remainder 5 ways.  Now my MacBook laptop from 2007 has died and I'm on an older laptop of my daughter's an iBook that would randomly not recognize the keyboard and type gibberish, which I've kluged into working for a while, cross your fingers, but that has melted power cords like lunchtime grilled cheese sandwiches for its entire working life and currently has pink duct tape holing the power cord together.  I have to have a portable computer of some sort that is reliable before BlogHer. 

Unemployment

I've been unemployed for the last 7 months.  I need to go to BlogHer in early August as my writing career, low to no pay though it is at times, hinges on this network of savvy women writers and entrepreneurs.    Fortunately,  I can drive to San Diego where the conference is this year, after I get a cruise control issue on my car fixed.  Damn, these effing uber elite greedy sons and daughters of fascist ruling families that are tanking our economy for a few more coins in their off shore bank vaults.  My husband has worked so damn hard his entire life and his work is for the benefit of human kind, and the rewards just haven't come monetarily. Huge corporations will benefit after his patents expire, but they are just biding their time.  While they have all the rights of people, they are immortal and can wait to profit from any given scientist's labors.


The Last Shuttle Flight


I'm sad.  I'm watching the very last shuttle launch as I write.  T minus 31 seconds. Pause.  Then 10, 9, 8, 7,  6....   Lift-off.  WTF,  I'm tearing up.  I'm crying.  What happened to My America?  Where did it go?  Why did the conservatives want to kill it?   My Uncle Carl worked for NASA.  I remember the Challenger disaster clearly.... I was living on Sylvia Street in West Lafayette when I saw that horrible Y of smoke and debris.  But there are good memories too,  I will always treasure getting into Edwards AFB as a VIP for the first test of the on board computers when the shuttle still reached the sky piggy-backed on a Boeing 727 to then coast in and land on a dry lake bed at Edwards with my uncle and three friends in the late 1970s.  I grew up believing that I and America could do anything... largely because of the space program that put men on the moon.  The development of our space program has been given over privatization. 

It is July 8th

Today is July 8th.  Six months ago my life changed.  I'm a Tucsonan.  January 8th is forever etched into our hearts, minds, and memories. Why?  I still don't understand why.  A man obviously in need of mental health care killed and wounded many people on that day because he was not on medication nor receiving the counseling or environmental setting he needed.  Why?  To my mind at least it is because  Republican Presidents have led the way to dismantling every social service that was put in place between the 1930s and the 1960s.  It has taken them since the time of Nixon's presidency to now to do it, but the SOBs are so good at lying, making alliances with people for the short term, that will eventually f*ck those partners, but benefit  Big R Big Bigness in the long run.

Blogger and Wrap Up

I'm still not sure about this new interface that Blogger dropped on us.  I think I like it. 

These were all supposed to be fragments, but somehow I think there is an undercurrent of a theme here.  Maybe? 

Conservative Calls Labor Members Slobs and Animals

Just heard, on the Lawrence O'Donnell show, The Last Word, on MSNBC,  State Senator Grothman of Wisconsin refuse to apologize for calling the protesting constituents who are camped out in the Capitol "slobs."  In not doing this he also managed to dig a deeper hole for himself.   It seems union workers, public servants and the like are a different "breed" of people from the Walker supporting constituents of his district.  Just click on the link above and start watching the video 1:45 min. into the clip.


Does this consdescending, pompous *bleep* really understand that he is calling the public servants of his state animals?  He might as well have said, "Oh the common people, I do think they should be kept out of sight when the upper classes are about."

This shows a basic BIG problem in the U.S. that is presenting itself all the way from Wisconsin to Arizona.  Somehow ignorant people, truly ignorant people who despise education and knowledge, people that did not finish college and have found themselves in the upper socioeconomic brackets of society, through no efforts of their own, have taken over much of our political system.

These authoritarian elitists really think that they inherently are better than every one else and have the right to impose their beliefs on the rest of us and force us to do the work as they reap the benefit.  These folks are no better than anyone else and in my opinion have no class, no honor, and no conscience.  Our country was founded to help regular people have control over their own property.  We attempted to eliminate the power of the Monarchy with our War of Independence.  We created our country so rule would not be consolidated and inherited by a privileged few.  Common landowners were citizens with equal voice in governance; there were to be no rulers. 

While the common person was watching TV and consuming the opiate of the masses, the same little *bleepers* that would have been the simpering tax collectors of the monarchy switched their loyalties to the new monarchy - the corporation.    The U.S. originally gave the corporations no rights.  They did this for a very important reason.  The East India Tea Company was buddy, buddy with the Monarchy, Lords, and Ladies.  If you haven't read about corporate personhood, you should. 

I sincerely hope that legislatures start listening to their constituents because we are not that far away from another bloody revolution.   I don't want that.  You don't want that.  If anyone in your family works for the city or state, or receives any assistance from the county or state, or belongs to a private union you are cutting your own throat by supporting corporate interests.  Forget Repulicans, forget Democrats, look at who is in favor of progressing the state of the common person.  Traditionally Democrats support labor and Republicans support management.  This is no longer true.  Democrats now support labor and management.  Republicans support corporate management and owners.  Progressives support labor and local business.  Conservatives - well that word has been co-opted to the point where it means nothing.  If you are talking about religious conservatives, well that has no place in our governance structure.  Fiscal conservatism... well, no one has been fiscally responsible for decades.  Let's just get back to government of the people by and for the people.

And if our government refuses to represent the interests of the people, well we have to change the government.  I was at a PDA meeting last week and it was amazing, a couple hundred people showed up rather than the group of 20 that were present when PDA tried to start up in Tucson a few years ago. There was an energy there that was calling to be channeled into an aggressively progressive. 

At the same time that PDA is gaining steam, the Start Our State, or Baja Arizona, movement is getting attention.  Phoenix has been draining the coffers of Tucson returning far less than than an equitable amount to our community, allowing religious conservatives and pseudo-libertarian corporatists to impose anti-American legislation on our state, gut our K-12 and Higher Education systems, and insure a low wage workforce.  People are getting fed up. 

I for one am very tired of living in states that are absolutely regressive, but I love Tucson. When you are connected to a person who teaches and does research at a University level, you are tied to working in states that may not be your first choice if all other things were equal.  I would love to live in a state that somewhat supports my belief in democracy and equality.  Baja Arizona might just do it for me. 
But if elitists like Walker run Wisconsin, and wackos like Brewer run Arizona, I'm not sure where is safe to go other than metropolitan areas, and I don't want to have to do that.  Somehow I feel like my rights are being stepped on.