Forum Post: "So Dad, what is Electricity?" "It's energy son, we use it to make light, and machines."I said. "And computers?" He asked. And for a moment I paused and mused, and thought about occupy, and the forums, I thought about typing this title....
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 20, 2011, 6:22 a.m. EST by blazefire
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What IS that conversation going to sound like? Are we heading for the 'fall of Rome'? What does the future look like? And what will we say in that moment? What will our children ask us about?
Will we say we fought? Or that we went with a wimper? Will we talk of the beauty that came from the change? Or the shattered hope of one never realised?
What future is it that we are gifting our children?
There is an old Indian proverb, "We do not inherit our land from our fathers, we borrow it from our children."
Will our children ask us about occupy, and what it meant? Will they ask us about money, war, or the share trade? Or will they have no understanding of such matters....being so far removed from them. What ARE we building, and rushing towards....
I hope we can describe it something like this,
"Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of the society"~Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
The Equality of Conditions
A very different vision of America is offered by one of its earliest observers. Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United States in 1831. He met presidents and ex-presidents, mayors, senators and judges, as well as ordinary citizens, and everywhere he went he was impressed by the 'equality of conditions'. 'the blending of social ranks and the abolition of privileges' -- the way society was one 'single mass' (at least for whites). He wrote that 'Americans of all ages, conditions, and all dispositions constantly unite together', that 'strangers readily congregate in the same places and find neither danger nor advantage in telling each other freely what they think', their manner being 'natural, open, and unreserved. And de Tocqueville points out the ways in which Americans support one another in times of trouble.
Should some unforeseen accident occur on the public highway, people run from all sides to help the victim; should some family fall foul of an unexpected danger, a thousand strangers willingly open their purses.
Excerpted from "The Spirit Level"
I must be in a emo mood. Because i got a tear in my eye while reading this.
Yes....it's a bit like that....
As historians bend the truth, they will blame us, like we blame the past, and wish for a better life and a better world in which to enjoy it.
I suppose that depends on who writes those books....
The same old same ol'. Humanity works on deadlines. We pick up after the fall. Everything else just serve as temporary props that keep the real work from happening. As long as there is a struggling 99% there will be a 1% to reap the rewards of the struggle. Stop struggling and spit out the damn pill. There is another choice. Occupy your life. Occupy the space you are in. 24/7/365
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It's only money. We need to be concerned about food, water, and power. We confuse the two while playing their game. We're feeding the beast with our struggles. New rules equate to new profits. The struggle to house our citizens resulted in record profits and a false market that only benefited the top 25%. Today we pay and blame the 1%. These are only figures. Manipulated to confuse the issue. Manipulated to draw support from the lowest ranks that will end up once again paying.
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That is all it is good for and not even needed for that. It is there to simplify, not to make profit from. In giving it further importance, we make it the commodity. We trade money for money. We lose all when it's hoarded. The tool is broken.Let them keep it. When they have it all, we will find new tools that don't splinter.
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It's perpetual when we don't do anything different. Protesting falls into that perpetuation.We have little more insight than the people if any at all. General assemblies become the elite. What we save today becomes the commodities of tomorrow. We must each become producers first, consumers second and businessmen last.. Turn your protest into a public garden. Fill your landscape with food and beneficial plantings.Give it away. Weekly potlucks in the park. Fashion new tools.
i guess we supposed to eat less and use less power... have you seen food and energy prices spiking?
That depends on how much you eat. It depends on what you eat. The markets are full of non nutritious food. It takes more, in turn making us fat as well as leaving a larger void in our stomachs to fill. Not to mention the waste we literally leave behind. It's an addiction fueled by commerce where quantity reigns above quality. We don't need more food, we need better food. Local food. Just that one simple change in our habits will do more than any protest.
you miss my point, or you might partially be addressing it. Do you think that it would be possible for everyone to not use money and to eat locally starting tomorrow?
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And the child asks:"were you a yuppie?"
I thought this is what history class was for.
Today IS history, in the making.....
What's your point? The Revolution is taught in school not by word of mouth.
This thread, was simply there to wonder about that future history class.....just that simple. It is only designed to encourage people to think of today as history in the making, as it is, and to remember who we're working for and why we're doing it...
Nothing more profound than that, although I would say that IS profound....
Daughter: "Daddy, why are all of those people yelling? What are they doing?"
Father: "I don't know. They don't know either."
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I couldn't find the answer to "what are they doing?" in that response.
They're blocking traffic. Clashing with cops. Blocking shipping ports. Camping out on public property. Attempting to camp out on private property.
But what are they doing? What are they trying to accomplish through all of these disruptions?
Sorry honey, Daddy can't answer that question because even they can't answer that question.
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Father: "They're protesting."
Daughter: "What will that do?"
Father: "They're not trying to accomplish anything, they're just protesting."
Daughter: "Why?"
Stumped again!!
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Daughter: "What's this National General Assembly supposed to do?
Father:"They'll never accomplish anything either"
Daughter:"But Daddy I learned from history that the founding fathers finally Resolved to do something about the greedy asshole King and accomplished Independence? What's your fuckin' problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_Resolves
If I were not confronted with derision every time I try to ask about strategy or objectives then you might have a point. But this movement is comprised of people who work really hard at avoiding setting a strategy or selecting an objective. Nothing like the Suffolk Resolves will ever come from a group where significant number of the members oppose the idea of participating in government at all, who oppose the very idea of political objectives.
If you've got a bunch of people who can't even agree on whether or not to select an objective, much less what that objective should be, then you can pretty much bet on them never accomplishing any objective.
Thanks for the excellent reply because it shines some light on where the disconnect is. It seems to be coming from the heart of the NYCGA. They contradict themselves by issuing 'official' vision statements describing what OWS is and is not yet at the same time one of the claims is that OWS is a leaderless movement. Here's a test: tell someone that you heard there was going to be a big announcement from OWS tonight and ask them where they think it will come from. How many say OWS is leaderless so there can't be a big announcement, and how many say NYC? The NYCGA can deny their de-facto role all they want, it doesn't make it true.
This leaves one wondering why the 99% Declaration Working Group had their pages taken off the site, finally to be put back about 10 days ago, only to have renewed calls from the Movement Building WG to have the pages taken back down. I really wonder why there is such strong objection to the 99D's proposal for a NAtional General Assembly coming from the NYCGA. One explanation, and it isn't far-fetched, is that their are forces within that don't want OWS to accomplish any objective so that as the election approaches and all these people are "all dressed up with nowhere to go", they will become the Dem answer to the Tea Party.
The 99% Declaration have worked very hard to develop a strategy, the goal for now being the National General Assembly, with a Resolve of their own. The NGA is the two-party system's worst nightmare. It is something the 99% would probably like to see happen, 'OWS', the NYCGA, not so much.
OWS is in decline, The 99% is growing on people. Please have a look. Thx
http://www.the99declaration.org/
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Yes, that's what I said, when I said "they're not trying to accomplish anything, they're just protesting." You called me stupid and then explained that you're not trying to accomplish anything, you're just protesting, which is what I said. So not only are you not accomplishing anything, you're not exactly swaying my opinion with your compelling "you are stupid" message.
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You keep insisting that Occupy aims to accomplishing something other than protesting for the sake of protesting. Then you list a bunch of protest activities. "Spreading the word", "sharing views".. It's funny stuff because at least one of the two of us can see that the fundamental disconnect is that you think that "protesting" counts as an "accomplishment" but I don't. That's why at least one father's answer to his daughter's question, "what are they accomplishing", is: "Nothing, they're protesting."
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That was so funny, how you responded to me with a canned reply, apparently without even reading my message. It's funny because you're under the impression that you're accomplishing something by posting canned messages in response to people who are trying to have a conversation with you. I posted clearly enough that the activities that you consider to be "accomplishing something" are just protest activity, and I specifically named the first two things on the the list that you simply blindly pasted in response.
So you're not interested in accomplishing any kind of tangible objectives, and you consider 'sharing your views' on this web site to be an accomplishment. But I have to point out that you're failing at least in this example, by copying-and-pasting boilerplate responses without even reading what people say when they reply to you. How could you possibly consider that to be an "accomplishment"?
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