Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I was watching the debt deal, and that entire thing really got to me. It really annoyed me, so
I was thinking that there has to be some public action in the country. I wasn’t
thinking Republican/Democrat at the time. I was thinking that some action has to
be taken, and I might have sided at the time with democrats, but at the same
time, something just needed to happen. I saw the thing in Tahrir Square, and my
thinking was, “That’s really cool.” I remember one of my friends sending a
video of them on the bridge, and they were all getting hosed down, and they were just bowing and praying, and my friend said, “The price you pay for freedom.”
At the time, I didn’t really think much about how things are in this country. I
heard about them putting tents up in Wall Street, and I thought, “I have to see
this. They are putting tents on Wall Street?” Not that I wanted to stay there,
just the novelty of seeing tents on Wall Street sounded hysterical, so I went
down there, and I just thought the vibe was cool. It was interesting, and
they were talking about topics that you would talk about with family and
friends but never in a public forum with people you’ve never met before, and
that was different, and I was like, “I’ll stay here for a
bit longer,” and I stayed.
Community organizing is the most important thing. Occupy is
cool. It’s just the catalyst
to create the community organizing. I like it. I’m not leaving it for a second.
That’s why Occupy is important. It’s a catalyst for change, and it’s a name in
common lingo. Community organization is the most important thing. The political
system doesn’t really stand for the people that much anymore, in my eyes. However, I don’t think it’s broken. It’s just
not being utilized, and what’s been happening for the past however many
years, the way elections generally work are you see someone going around on TV
saying, “I’m the best candidate in the world. I’m going to do this. I’m going to cure AIDS. I’m going to end third world poverty,”
whatever. Then they say, “Vote for me.” “Okay, I’ll vote for you. Don’t screw
up.” That’s essentially what happens, and then everybody forgets the election entirely.
Community organizing is important because you get people to come together to talk about the issues that are affecting them, how to affect those solutions, and then you can gets those groups together to have spectacles and marches, and then you go to the candidates and pressure them. If you put pressure on things, politicians will start listening to public support. They will. They want to get elected in the end. Whether its money or public support, they want to get re-elected. There are certain other things that I might have illusions of what they wouldn’t do to us, but at the same time, I’m willing to believe that there are rights that are respected, and we won’t be repressed like we see in some other countries. There are some rights that will be respected. There will be a public outcry against that. Therefore, community organizing is important because it gets that public support together to build positive change.
Community organizing is important because you get people to come together to talk about the issues that are affecting them, how to affect those solutions, and then you can gets those groups together to have spectacles and marches, and then you go to the candidates and pressure them. If you put pressure on things, politicians will start listening to public support. They will. They want to get elected in the end. Whether its money or public support, they want to get re-elected. There are certain other things that I might have illusions of what they wouldn’t do to us, but at the same time, I’m willing to believe that there are rights that are respected, and we won’t be repressed like we see in some other countries. There are some rights that will be respected. There will be a public outcry against that. Therefore, community organizing is important because it gets that public support together to build positive change.
I want a world where there is significant, positive, social, political, economic change. I’m a liberal. I’m progressive,
so what I want is universal health care, public involvement in a political
system, income equality. I want a panel of politicians, an open, transparent
political system. I want to end the foreign wars. I want people to be internet savy
and know how to use it to their advantage to go up against corrupt
decisions, and I want people to have more say in the government that they are living
in.
What I want in the end is not something I will ever see in my lifetime. I’m sure of that. What I want in the end is a society where all concepts of money and wealth and greed are irradicated completely because my feeling is that those are the issues which cause class, race and other divides because the people who have money propogate a certain image, and when they have that image put off, other people believe it saying, “oh, you’re not like me,” and you get people fighting, and they don’t realize that they’re getting scammed out of all their money, which happens over the course of how many decades, slowly. Once that happens, we have to fight back to get everything back. In the end, I wish there weren’t any money involved. We all would just work together to create something better for the common goal. Also, I really hope this movement can help save the environment. Yeah, a system where all concepts of money and wealth are irradicated, and we work toward common good, and people work not towards acquisition but towards productivity and knowing that they are contributing something valuable and productive toward society and its growth.
Matt runs an OWS livestream. You can view his footage at www.Ustream.tv/stopmotionsolo or follow his updates on Twitter at @stopmotionsolo.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
What I want in the end is not something I will ever see in my lifetime. I’m sure of that. What I want in the end is a society where all concepts of money and wealth and greed are irradicated completely because my feeling is that those are the issues which cause class, race and other divides because the people who have money propogate a certain image, and when they have that image put off, other people believe it saying, “oh, you’re not like me,” and you get people fighting, and they don’t realize that they’re getting scammed out of all their money, which happens over the course of how many decades, slowly. Once that happens, we have to fight back to get everything back. In the end, I wish there weren’t any money involved. We all would just work together to create something better for the common goal. Also, I really hope this movement can help save the environment. Yeah, a system where all concepts of money and wealth are irradicated, and we work toward common good, and people work not towards acquisition but towards productivity and knowing that they are contributing something valuable and productive toward society and its growth.
Matt runs an OWS livestream. You can view his footage at www.Ustream.tv/stopmotionsolo or follow his updates on Twitter at @stopmotionsolo.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/