Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I started to go to Occupy because a lot of my friends were involved. I belong to the Church of Stop
Shopping Gospel Choir, and there are a lot of activists in the choir. Many of them were involved in
Occupy from the beginning. One member helped write the Declaration of the Occupation. Others were
leading actions. There were many people in the choir doing different things,
and of course Billy Talen immediately saw it as an opportunity to talk about
public space. We always talk about public space anyway as part of our beliefs - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble. We even
have a rendition of the first amendment that we do as a gospel song that I sang
many times down at Zuccotti. It was just such a cool experience seeing something that
we had, for years, wanted and talked about and wished for - a coming
together of various groups in public space to protest the government, to
protest Wall Street, to protest the corporations. It was really exciting
to see it come to life in a real way with hundreds and thousands of people
participating.
The first time I went down to the park was more as an observer. I knew I was going to get involved, and I knew I was going to be singing there,
but I just wanted to go and check it out and walk around first. As I went more and more and started to participate, I had incredible experiences.Once, when I was hanging out at the park, there was this incredible illustrator, Eric Drooker, who was projecting some
of his covers from the New York Times and his Occupy art that he was making. Then, Reverend Billy
Showed up, and we were having this huge discussion around a table. People
from labor movements, environmentalists and vegan activists were all coming
together. I think that was what I really liked most
about it. I think, so often, we’re separate. The animal rights activists do their own thing. Then, there are the anti-consumerist and the labor people, the immigrant rights people, and each group is vying for time and money and almost competing with each other, and I think that’s
one of the reasons that the progressive movement is so weak, because we see
ourselves as separate and fighting our own causes. To come together and to finally agree on something and to focus our attention on
corporate greed and Wall Street and what has impacted all of us was a very,
very exciting conversation to be having.
The Declaration of the Occupation is something that I don’t
think many people know about. Some people
who had worked on it were kind of perturbed that we had a declaration of
grievances and a request for what the group wanted that was approved by the
general assembly, and the press and so many people were saying, “Oh, they can’t
agree on anything.” “They don’t have any stance.” “They’re not actually saying
anything." "They’re just hanging out.” That whole argument seemed totally
ridiculous to me considering the Declaration. You could read it online. It’s really
beautifully written and very specific in its grievances. It lists them out
thoroughly, almost too thoroughly, perhaps. Maybe that’s why. Maybe people didn’t
read it because it’s too long, and that’s why they were willing to say, “Oh,
there’s no solidarity because I don’t really feel like I have ten minutes to
read this document.” We thought it would be great to turn it into a song. It
was really Reverend Billy’s idea to turn the whole declaration into a
song. It ended up being a seventeen minute piece of music, which we recorded,
and it’s available on our website. I’m really proud of it. The goal on
my part as a composer was to make that document more popular because I think
that it was so well written, and it spoke to everybody and also was agreed upon
by the group.
The beginning of it says, “As
we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we
must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write, so that all people who
feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your
allies, as one people united.” That right there is just beautiful. We have to unite under our grievances against corporations
and the complete takeover of greed and consumerism and capitalism. We are united in that. The corporations are actually a group of people, so we have to be able to talk about how that group of people
is behaving in a reprehensible way. They are not looking out for the greater good, and that's a big problem in our society. That text to me was really powerful, and it was really easy for me
to write music to. We actually did a mic check in the music, which is also like
a gospel thing. The mic check is similar to what is used in gospel music, where you repeat back what you heard. It’s call and response. It’s cool that it fit with what we do musically and
the fact that Occupy has that beautiful system of communication that
developed because the police did not allow a sound system.
The beginning of it says, “As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write, so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies, as one people united.” That right there is just beautiful. We have to unite under our grievances against corporations and the complete takeover of greed and consumerism and capitalism. We are united in that. The corporations are actually a group of people, so we have to be able to talk about how that group of people is behaving in a reprehensible way. They are not looking out for the greater good, and that's a big problem in our society. That text to me was really powerful, and it was really easy for me to write music to. We actually did a mic check in the music, which is also like a gospel thing. The mic check is similar to what is used in gospel music, where you repeat back what you heard. It’s "call and response". It’s cool that it fit with what we do musically and the fact that it was Occupy has that beautiful system of communication that developed because the police did not allow a sound system.
The beginning of it says, “As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write, so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies, as one people united.” That right there is just beautiful. We have to unite under our grievances against corporations and the complete takeover of greed and consumerism and capitalism. We are united in that. The corporations are actually a group of people, so we have to be able to talk about how that group of people is behaving in a reprehensible way. They are not looking out for the greater good, and that's a big problem in our society. That text to me was really powerful, and it was really easy for me to write music to. We actually did a mic check in the music, which is also like a gospel thing. The mic check is similar to what is used in gospel music, where you repeat back what you heard. It’s "call and response". It’s cool that it fit with what we do musically and the fact that it was Occupy has that beautiful system of communication that developed because the police did not allow a sound system.
I’m still involved with the Reverend Billy choir. I’ve been
with them for a decade, and we continue to keep our attention on banks and the
environmental movement. I hope the next step for Occupy is to use all of
the power and communication skills that we have developed to do things like
Occupy Sandy. That was so amazing that they were able to gather collectively and support a group of people in need. I
thought it was just incredible, and you see how the skills that were developed
at Occupy, especially around communication and meetings and taking actions as a collective, without one person having all the power, really helped make that successful. I wonder what we are going to do with that power and those skills going forward. My activism is still primarily with Reverend Billy, but I think
that we all changed a lot because of Occupy. It brought our group closer
together and made us more radical.
I really do believe that art in activism is much more than just some cry in the void. Bertolt Brecht said, “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” I see Occupy as an extension of a lot of activism that has been going on in New York City and a convergence of the activism. It’s this creative outpouring of ideas and community building and relationship building and political discourse.
I really do believe that art in activism is much more than just some cry in the void. Bertolt Brecht said, “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” I see Occupy as an extension of a lot of activism that has been going on in New York City and a convergence of the activism. It’s this creative outpouring of ideas and community building and relationship building and political discourse.
We are in an incredible
moment in history where the decisions that we make as a society are going to
lead to a transformation one way or another as far as our existence and the
sustainability of our society. One path is destruction and global warming and
violence and the deaths of millions of people due to climate change and the
economic upheaval that’s going to cause food shortages, wars, tornadoes and just havoc. We’re going to have to deal with it one way or the
other. We’re either going to be forced by nature to deal with it, with a lot of
us dying, or we are going to have the foresight and the consciousness to
understand that we can prevent it. Some people even doubt that we can prevent
it at this point, but I think it's important that people are looking towards the
future and creating a better world together, exercising their rights as free
citizens. All of that is incredibly important for our survival. It always has
been in a way, but now it’s at a whole other epic level because of climate change.
I love this planet. I love my community. I love the United States. I love New York City. I don’t want to see it fall apart and go to hell, and it’s crumbling. The groups that I work with give me more hope, and they make me feel like I’m a part of something important, and that I do matter. I may be just one small person, but when I’m with these groups of people, we impact the world. I’ve seen it happen. I worked on the movie Gasland, and I saw that movie completely impact the policies around gas drilling and create a whole activist movement and shift the behavior. At this point, it’s saved the water in New York State, at least for a while. I hope it will continue to do that.
I hope it will bring about a world where we recognize that it works best when you take care of other people, when you live in a system that focuses on generosity and how to best contribute to society rather than what one can get from it. Things work really, really beautifully that way, and there is less violence, less antagonism, less conflict. In the communities that I’m involved, especially with Reverend Billy, we practice a gift economy together. We give resources, whether it be bringing clothes to the rehearsal to give away or feeding someone in the group. I want to see a world with integrity, where people follow the rules that we collectively agree on. We already have a lot of great rules and laws. Unfortunately, corporations and the people that call themselves the corporation are exempt from all of that. We’re seeing that more and more with those that did all kinds of illegal activity to cause the recent recession and the crash, having no jail time, no punishment at all. Even when they are caught doing something illegal, they still are not punished. That’s a scary world, and that has no integrity.
I love this planet. I love my community. I love the United States. I love New York City. I don’t want to see it fall apart and go to hell, and it’s crumbling. The groups that I work with give me more hope, and they make me feel like I’m a part of something important, and that I do matter. I may be just one small person, but when I’m with these groups of people, we impact the world. I’ve seen it happen. I worked on the movie Gasland, and I saw that movie completely impact the policies around gas drilling and create a whole activist movement and shift the behavior. At this point, it’s saved the water in New York State, at least for a while. I hope it will continue to do that.
I hope it will bring about a world where we recognize that it works best when you take care of other people, when you live in a system that focuses on generosity and how to best contribute to society rather than what one can get from it. Things work really, really beautifully that way, and there is less violence, less antagonism, less conflict. In the communities that I’m involved, especially with Reverend Billy, we practice a gift economy together. We give resources, whether it be bringing clothes to the rehearsal to give away or feeding someone in the group. I want to see a world with integrity, where people follow the rules that we collectively agree on. We already have a lot of great rules and laws. Unfortunately, corporations and the people that call themselves the corporation are exempt from all of that. We’re seeing that more and more with those that did all kinds of illegal activity to cause the recent recession and the crash, having no jail time, no punishment at all. Even when they are caught doing something illegal, they still are not punished. That’s a scary world, and that has no integrity.
I think I would like to see a world where we put people first instead of money. I’m not saying that I’m anti-capitalist, but I probably am to tell the truth. I don’t know if I’ve studied capitalism enough to be able to call myself an anti-capitalist. I certainly believe that putting money above all else as a system of value is completely corrupting our brothers and sisters, and people with great empathy and compassion and talent are being corrupted into this system where you put money above all else. I’d like to see a world where that is not the case. I'd like to see a world with universal healthcare and education that’s incredible, where you feel the freedom to express yourself and be gay or of any background. We’ve been building up to that point in America in this incredible way. I’m thirty-three years old, and I’m one of the first generation of women in probably over a thousand years that grew up in a conversation of equality. I think that’s amazing. It’s just amazing to me that all of my friends, as diverse as they are, see themselves as equal to their bones. We were born with that. It’s not something we fought for. It’s something our parents fought for.
Now, we’re at a point where we're trying to figure out the weight of climate change and our future. We have all of this debt from college, and we see our political system failing us, and if our parents get sick, they go bankrupt, and we can’t do anything. It just feels weird. We’ve really been brought up on all of this equality and justice for all. We believe that shit. We really do. I think that Occupy is just one of the first of many things to come because our generation is really fed up with what’s going on. The truth is, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to pull ourselves away from our computers and televisions long enough to actually be in action. That’s the big challenge for us.
I want a world with justice and equality, where we preserve nature, where we have respect for animals and each other. I do believe that as an artist, it’s my job in many ways to create a utopia with my music and my films because we so often as a movement are complaining about what’s not working. We comment on Youtube, and we bitch about this and that. I think that that only gets us so far. What’s really more important are these questions that you’re asking, which is “what do we want?” “What are we creating?” I constantly ask myself that instead of what’s not working because I think the more you talk about what’s not working, the more you put your energy into that, the more corrupted it becomes. What is a modern day utopia? I don’t even know what it is, which is why I’m stumbling a little bit on what I want the world to look like. I’m still trying to figure that out.
I’m figuring it out first in my own life, with the people I work with. How do I have good communication with them? How do I treat people fairly? How do I create an economic system within my own community where we can live and do what we want to do rather than work these jobs that we hate and have lots of credit card debt and fear and anxiety about money. I don’t want that for my community either, so I’m looking at it first in my own life, and I think Occupy was a really nice extension of that. There’s the finance committee of Occupy. There’s the music committee. There’s the people making the food. These are all business in a way and networking that we were doing together to improve our capabilities as human beings and as workers and artists. I think Occupy was a little bit of a utopia for us, and it worked. It really did. We communicated with each other. It wasn’t easy, but it was really fun, and there was peace and compassion. We raised so much money, and put that money to good use, fed thousands of people and gave counseling and support and education. It was amazing. For all its flaws, I think it was a pretty good experience. It's the closest I’ve seen of a little utopia in action.
My hope is that our kids have the understanding and knowledge that we create our world at every moment and that nothing is static, with that awareness that you are just a set of molecules kind of moving through space, and you have the whole series of mechanisms and yet we have language and these ideals that have transferred down through generations. I would say you could call it consciousness in a word, to be conscious. I hope that we have a conscious generation that’s compassionate and courageous and explorative, and isn’t burdened by fear of death and violence and poverty. I worry about leaving a world where the next generation will be born into poverty and born into a world that’s falling apart. I was lucky enough not to be born into that. I was born with amazing opportunities, a great education and loving parents, with a new vision of society with equality that was tangible that people were really looking at and working on. My hope for the next generation is that maybe there won’t be as much pressure because I do feel that there’s this intense pressure on us that because we can achieve, we should. I hope the next generation gets to be whatever they want to be and that everybody is valued, be you quiet or loud, be you an artist or a business person, be you autistic or musical. Whatever you have to contribute is what you give to society.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
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