Occupy Union Square, June 1, 2012
Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I had heard about it before it was even starting in
September, and I immediately knew that this was going to be interesting. During 9/11, I was working
in Hawaii as a teacher, but after 9/11, I left there and went to France just to
get a different perspective of what was going on. I’ve been looking for a
revolution for about ten years. When I heard about Occupy Wall Street, I was
like, “Okay, people are ready to do something together in a unified way.” It
was a very natural fit.
There have been a lot of shifts in the way that everything
has been operating with the whole privatization movement and
corporations having control of things that were normally held in common. It’s
become very dire because a lot of things are at stake. The future of humanity
is at stake. If you look at nuclear power and the effects of radiation, the
birth defects that radiation causes affects many generations down the line.
With the privatization of prisons and the trending to want to get more prisons
to feed the system that economically depressed communities are beginning to
rely on as their income, civilization is at stake.
I noticed with the marches and the different things that
were happening that there was a lot of chanting going on. I’ve been a teacher
for a lot of years, and I saw how music was slowly being squeezed out of the
system. I realized, “Oh wow, we’ve lost our ability to sing and play music together." I had this idea of Guitarmy, where people would be playing songs, and we could
be learning to share songs. For seven months, I went up to Boston and different
occupations. I was trying to promote the idea. I want to see a world where
children are happy and singing, where they are cared for and have all of their
needs met. I think Occupy is extremely important for that because we have a lot
of like-minded people from so many different backgrounds. It’s absolutely
amazing. It’s astounding that we’re able to work together harmoniously. What’s
being created, there’s life and creativity and growth. Together, everybody is
doing their part and being led by their heart.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/