Photo: Stacy Lanyon
At the very beginning, I felt that it was just a sense of
duty. Right when the graphic came out and it was going to be in New York, it
was just a sense of, “Oh god, here’s another thing happening. Well, I’m a
direct action person, and this is my town, so I’ll go. We’ll do this thing, and
then it will be over.” The thing that drew me in was actually a sense of, “This
is going to be a terrible shit show.” The night before, I had
been running a direct action training with a fellow activist, and it wasn’t
that big, so we were both like, “Whatever. We’ll see what’s going to happen.” That
night of the first general assembly in Liberty Square, we found each other in
the crowd and looked at each other again and were like, “Okay, this is kind of happening. Well, see you around.” I thought it was cool, but I wasn’t
excited yet, and I wasn’t in love yet. Over the course of the next week I came
about once a day for the general assemblies.
The reason I started staying and getting more invested was because at a certain point when I would get out of the train and start walking toward the park, I would start to run towards the park because I was so excited to get there. At a certain point after you would get out of the train and start walking down, you could hear the drums, and it was like a present that was going to be waiting for you. It was this tiny, tiny encapsulated promise of the world we always thought that we could have but couldn’t quite build it in our city in such a public and transgressive way. It felt like all of these people in their suits were walking around, but they were walking around in the context of out heartbeat. Our heartbeat was the thing that everyone else had to exist within for a while, and that was so cool. When you go down to the canyon, there are these huge glass buildings, and everyone is in a suit, and there’s something so overwhelming about the suits and about the sunless canyon. That’s the context, and all of the sudden, the context was ours, and everyone else had to exist within it. This context was not just new or transgressive, but it was this really loving context.
I remember this so well. I walked into the park. I got there early because I was about to do a non-violent direct action training, and it was pretty early on. None of the tents had gone up. The kitchen was just people holding stuff on the ledge. I got in, and I was getting my papers ready, and someone walked up to me holding a tray of coffee and said, “Hey, good morning. Do you want some coffee?” Then, someone else came up to me and handed me a bagel. Then, I wandered over to where the library was just starting to grow, and there was a woman there with her son. He was running around with these rice cakes. She was tending to the library. Her son was watching what was happening, and he came over and offered me a rice cake. That was such a moment for me. There are so many things that could be different if we would just make it that way. We have these assumptions about kids being like, “No! It’s my rice cake. I’m not sharing,” That is such a learned thing.
It was just lovely to see that he saw people offering me stuff, and he decided to sit down and offer me a rice cake. So I was sitting there with this kid, this very young child in my lap. We were sharing his rice cake, and I was balancing my coffee. It was the first day of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, and someone opened a box and handed me a paper. I was sitting in this park with our heartbeat going on, with this coffee I didn’t buy, this child I didn’t know in my lap, reading our newspaper, about us, written by us, and I was like, “This is the new world. This is it! I live here right now. It’s not the fantasy world of my dreams. I actually live here right now.” That was a moment of pure happiness, but it also made me think, “Okay, so if this is it, then I have to also take responsibility for participating in it in a real way, loving it and giving it whatever I can, all of my life energy.” I think that was the moment. It had been coming on for a long time, but that was the moment that I was like, “Alright, this is what I’m going to do now. I’m not just going to have this as my lovely new world that I interact with sometimes. This is actually something that I’m going to commit to.”
The reason I started staying and getting more invested was because at a certain point when I would get out of the train and start walking toward the park, I would start to run towards the park because I was so excited to get there. At a certain point after you would get out of the train and start walking down, you could hear the drums, and it was like a present that was going to be waiting for you. It was this tiny, tiny encapsulated promise of the world we always thought that we could have but couldn’t quite build it in our city in such a public and transgressive way. It felt like all of these people in their suits were walking around, but they were walking around in the context of out heartbeat. Our heartbeat was the thing that everyone else had to exist within for a while, and that was so cool. When you go down to the canyon, there are these huge glass buildings, and everyone is in a suit, and there’s something so overwhelming about the suits and about the sunless canyon. That’s the context, and all of the sudden, the context was ours, and everyone else had to exist within it. This context was not just new or transgressive, but it was this really loving context.
I remember this so well. I walked into the park. I got there early because I was about to do a non-violent direct action training, and it was pretty early on. None of the tents had gone up. The kitchen was just people holding stuff on the ledge. I got in, and I was getting my papers ready, and someone walked up to me holding a tray of coffee and said, “Hey, good morning. Do you want some coffee?” Then, someone else came up to me and handed me a bagel. Then, I wandered over to where the library was just starting to grow, and there was a woman there with her son. He was running around with these rice cakes. She was tending to the library. Her son was watching what was happening, and he came over and offered me a rice cake. That was such a moment for me. There are so many things that could be different if we would just make it that way. We have these assumptions about kids being like, “No! It’s my rice cake. I’m not sharing,” That is such a learned thing.
It was just lovely to see that he saw people offering me stuff, and he decided to sit down and offer me a rice cake. So I was sitting there with this kid, this very young child in my lap. We were sharing his rice cake, and I was balancing my coffee. It was the first day of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, and someone opened a box and handed me a paper. I was sitting in this park with our heartbeat going on, with this coffee I didn’t buy, this child I didn’t know in my lap, reading our newspaper, about us, written by us, and I was like, “This is the new world. This is it! I live here right now. It’s not the fantasy world of my dreams. I actually live here right now.” That was a moment of pure happiness, but it also made me think, “Okay, so if this is it, then I have to also take responsibility for participating in it in a real way, loving it and giving it whatever I can, all of my life energy.” I think that was the moment. It had been coming on for a long time, but that was the moment that I was like, “Alright, this is what I’m going to do now. I’m not just going to have this as my lovely new world that I interact with sometimes. This is actually something that I’m going to commit to.”
The park changed so completely so quickly. At first, it was
so haphazard. I remember the early general assemblies when it was very, very
small and on the side of the park, before it moved to the front. It was during the time when
we’d have two general assemblies a day. I remember someone would come up and be like, “So,
we need cardboard to sleep on. I propose I’m going to start the go collect
cardboard working group. Who wants to come with me?” Then, a few people in the
crowd would be like, “Yeah, I’ll do that.” Then, it happened. That was such an incredible thing to see. It was so informal but
also happening so organically, and it was a small enough group that you could see who was doing
what and when and why, and you could easily decide who you wanted to work with. I just remember it being very fly by the seat of
your pants, and I wasn’t there then all the time, just a couple
times a day. It seemed so haphazard, but also so hopeful and generous. I just remember it feeling very, very generous.
You’d come in and people were really excited that there were more people there. Then, when more people started coming, I loved it. It felt like the mecca of thinking that things could be a different way and then acting on it to make it so. That was very powerful. I remember when the park rose and when it got so full that working groups didn’t meet in the park anymore. We knew a little bit about what was happening in our sphere, but not as much beyond that because just keeping in touch with everyone else took all day long once we overwhelmed our own boundaries and spilled out. That was good and necessary, but it also started to feel more disjointed, and I remember the park being this super concentrated boiled down essence of beauty, and then becoming so super concentrated that it was hard to navigate through, and I was on crutches at the time, crutches with a cast, and I literally couldn’t walk through the park because it was so full. People would bump into me, and it would hurt. There was a certain point at which I didn’t go into the park anymore. I just existed around it or at the red cube or at Charlotte’s Place. It was hard to even interact with it physically anymore when it became so dense.
You’d come in and people were really excited that there were more people there. Then, when more people started coming, I loved it. It felt like the mecca of thinking that things could be a different way and then acting on it to make it so. That was very powerful. I remember when the park rose and when it got so full that working groups didn’t meet in the park anymore. We knew a little bit about what was happening in our sphere, but not as much beyond that because just keeping in touch with everyone else took all day long once we overwhelmed our own boundaries and spilled out. That was good and necessary, but it also started to feel more disjointed, and I remember the park being this super concentrated boiled down essence of beauty, and then becoming so super concentrated that it was hard to navigate through, and I was on crutches at the time, crutches with a cast, and I literally couldn’t walk through the park because it was so full. People would bump into me, and it would hurt. There was a certain point at which I didn’t go into the park anymore. I just existed around it or at the red cube or at Charlotte’s Place. It was hard to even interact with it physically anymore when it became so dense.
I was a mostly unemployed activist for a long time before
Occupy. I used to feel so disconnected from other activists. It just felt like everyone was doing their own thing. Now, I see all of these people doing different
things, but I still feel like we are part of the same group. We have
just infiltrated a million different groups, but I do still feel like
we’re all part of the same thing because we have that shared experience. If Occupy hadn’t happened, there is no way the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts we called Occupy Sandy would have happened. You would see pieces of the
network that had totally disintegrated or people that you thought had moved away
or had moved away rise back out of the ether, and because you knew each other from that space,
even just tangentially, even if you knew them because you fought with them in
that space, you were like, “We’re actually family. We go way back, so we can do
this together.” There was really something about that that I feel was really
powerful.
What made it real was that enough people believed in it all at the same time, and for long enough that everyone else who didn’t believe in it at first, and I’m totally raising my hand for this one, were like, “Oh, if this many people believe in it and are actively working to make it happen and are convincing those other people that it’s real and that this is the time, well then maybe it’s the time, and so now I should pile on." I feel like there was something about believing it so much and doing everything in your power to make it true that was the magic potion of it. I remember once, with absolutely no cynicism whatsoever, someone said, “If we just keep doing this, the revolution will happen here in six months.” It was that kind of totally insane seriousness about it that made it important. If you say that this is the center of the world and you mean it, people will believe you, and then they will come. Even though it was so hard sometimes and people were griping about each other or the police or whatever, there was an incredible sincerity in action that what we were doing mattered and that we were going to make a difference. I think that is missing from most of the work that happens on the left most of the time.
I don't think that feeling is there anymore. Even if people sincerely want to change, even if people are working on things that they want to succeed, there is not the belief that what you are doing is 100% critical and is going to happen right now. There’s the sense that if you go home or take the day off or are on Facebook for an hour, it’s not going to make a difference. That livability and sustainability is really important, but I think there was just something about that time in the park. A lot of people were like, “Actually, the revolution is happening right now, and we're riding the hair of it. We could fall into it or we could lose it. It turns on a dime, so you can’t go home and you can’t sleep. You have to be here. It’s the center of the universe, but it’s also the spark of the universe. This is the thing that’s going to explode or implode, and we just don’t know what’s going to happen." I think that's so important because we’ve learned that that insane confidence and urgency might be something that you need in order to make movements happen.
What made it real was that enough people believed in it all at the same time, and for long enough that everyone else who didn’t believe in it at first, and I’m totally raising my hand for this one, were like, “Oh, if this many people believe in it and are actively working to make it happen and are convincing those other people that it’s real and that this is the time, well then maybe it’s the time, and so now I should pile on." I feel like there was something about believing it so much and doing everything in your power to make it true that was the magic potion of it. I remember once, with absolutely no cynicism whatsoever, someone said, “If we just keep doing this, the revolution will happen here in six months.” It was that kind of totally insane seriousness about it that made it important. If you say that this is the center of the world and you mean it, people will believe you, and then they will come. Even though it was so hard sometimes and people were griping about each other or the police or whatever, there was an incredible sincerity in action that what we were doing mattered and that we were going to make a difference. I think that is missing from most of the work that happens on the left most of the time.
I don't think that feeling is there anymore. Even if people sincerely want to change, even if people are working on things that they want to succeed, there is not the belief that what you are doing is 100% critical and is going to happen right now. There’s the sense that if you go home or take the day off or are on Facebook for an hour, it’s not going to make a difference. That livability and sustainability is really important, but I think there was just something about that time in the park. A lot of people were like, “Actually, the revolution is happening right now, and we're riding the hair of it. We could fall into it or we could lose it. It turns on a dime, so you can’t go home and you can’t sleep. You have to be here. It’s the center of the universe, but it’s also the spark of the universe. This is the thing that’s going to explode or implode, and we just don’t know what’s going to happen." I think that's so important because we’ve learned that that insane confidence and urgency might be something that you need in order to make movements happen.
I think that one of the things that was really wonderful to learn from Occupy was that it’s not just a few people who feel that the world is fucked up and that there is this constant level of urgency. Everyone knows that. Everyone feels that way, and everyone can bring their own experience to bear on that. People do feel urgently about it. It’s just that people don’t usually feel like there is space and opportunity to connect around that, and they don't feel that their ideas for making it different will actually amount to something. Through what we accomplished during the occupation and what we continue to accomplish, a lot of people were able to see that our efforts really do amount to something.
The occupation doesn’t exist anymore as an occupation, but I think that having space together and occupying space together in tense ways where we’re working together was so critical for building the interpersonal trust networks that we are going to rely on forever, and it’s so important for the times that we are not occupying. I think it’s important to build those centers of the universes and those meccas so that more and more people can have those experiences. We can’t rely on the occupation that happened as the occupation and then just move on and never do anything like that again because not everyone was there, and not everyone who wanted to be there was there. There are still people who want to be in those networks and have that experience. We need those spaces that are the manifestation of the different world. We need those spaces of super hot intensity, of creativity and of creation.
Occupy was so important because it laid the ground work for what we are going to work together for. Being in that space with people together gave us bonds that are actually so much stronger than most things that I’ve experienced before in such a short amount of time. We were in battle together. We were family together. We were warriors together, and we were so close to each other all the time. There’s something that happens in that space. Even if I didn’t ever know your name, and I only saw you from across the park, if I saw your face and I knew you were there with me in this thing, it meant that I trusted you in a way that’s very, very real and is very important for the future. I think the thing that I learned is that we don’t need it all of the time. We don’t need it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We need it enough of the time that we’re building bonds of trust that will hold us when we’re in our smaller spaces and maintain a network that will come back together when there is a need for it, which has the kind of alignment it takes to get the things done that we need to get done, especially when there’s an urgency around it, whether we create it or whether it’s created for us.
The occupation doesn’t exist anymore as an occupation, but I think that having space together and occupying space together in tense ways where we’re working together was so critical for building the interpersonal trust networks that we are going to rely on forever, and it’s so important for the times that we are not occupying. I think it’s important to build those centers of the universes and those meccas so that more and more people can have those experiences. We can’t rely on the occupation that happened as the occupation and then just move on and never do anything like that again because not everyone was there, and not everyone who wanted to be there was there. There are still people who want to be in those networks and have that experience. We need those spaces that are the manifestation of the different world. We need those spaces of super hot intensity, of creativity and of creation.
Occupy was so important because it laid the ground work for what we are going to work together for. Being in that space with people together gave us bonds that are actually so much stronger than most things that I’ve experienced before in such a short amount of time. We were in battle together. We were family together. We were warriors together, and we were so close to each other all the time. There’s something that happens in that space. Even if I didn’t ever know your name, and I only saw you from across the park, if I saw your face and I knew you were there with me in this thing, it meant that I trusted you in a way that’s very, very real and is very important for the future. I think the thing that I learned is that we don’t need it all of the time. We don’t need it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We need it enough of the time that we’re building bonds of trust that will hold us when we’re in our smaller spaces and maintain a network that will come back together when there is a need for it, which has the kind of alignment it takes to get the things done that we need to get done, especially when there’s an urgency around it, whether we create it or whether it’s created for us.
It was like radicalization camp. So many people experienced it as
church. I remember seeing these people watch general assemblies. I saw these older men who had flown in from Wisconsin, lower middle class men who had been
laid off from their jobs. They were crying watching the general assemblies, with a feeling of, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” What they were
responding to was the idea that they might have power in this space, that they
might be listened to, and that everyone would be listened to, but also there
was something about it being real. It wasn’t a show. It wasn’t a construct. It
didn’t feel like a construct. It felt so real that whose to say it wasn’t real? We convinced the police it was real. We convinced the mayor it was real. They
had to interact with it as though it was real because it became real. It was a
worldwide movement because we said it was enough times that everyone else believed
us and then became part of it. I think that was not done cynically. I think it
was done out of true belief in it and belief that it mattered, even if some of
the people that interacted with it were like, “This is flawed in so many different
ways.” There was still the necessity that they participate because it really,
really mattered in that moment.
I think that Hurricane Sandy was a different kind of urgency in that it was laying bear life and death situations. Everyone wants to help when you can see the suffering, when you can see this really quick change of experience from “I’m living my normal life" to "Oh my god, my home is gone.” We don’t respond as well to that in slow motion, like when the bank takes your home. I think that the thing that was really real about the Occupy Sandy thing was that people really, really generally do want to help each other. People really, really generally do want to take care of each other and want things to be better than they are, not just “I want to get you back to where you were” but “I want the world to be better. I want us to be better neighbors.” People just don’t often have a lot of opportunity to express that, and if you give people the smallest amount of space, they take it up and take advantage. I don’t mean that in a bad way. People will take advantage of that space because as humans we want to connect. We want to listen to people, and we want to be heard. We want the world to be better than it is, and I think that there are endless opportunities to tap into that, tap into the urgency of that, and I also think it’s a very, very difficult thing to plan and construct because it requires so much very, very open sincerity.
I think that Hurricane Sandy was a different kind of urgency in that it was laying bear life and death situations. Everyone wants to help when you can see the suffering, when you can see this really quick change of experience from “I’m living my normal life" to "Oh my god, my home is gone.” We don’t respond as well to that in slow motion, like when the bank takes your home. I think that the thing that was really real about the Occupy Sandy thing was that people really, really generally do want to help each other. People really, really generally do want to take care of each other and want things to be better than they are, not just “I want to get you back to where you were” but “I want the world to be better. I want us to be better neighbors.” People just don’t often have a lot of opportunity to express that, and if you give people the smallest amount of space, they take it up and take advantage. I don’t mean that in a bad way. People will take advantage of that space because as humans we want to connect. We want to listen to people, and we want to be heard. We want the world to be better than it is, and I think that there are endless opportunities to tap into that, tap into the urgency of that, and I also think it’s a very, very difficult thing to plan and construct because it requires so much very, very open sincerity.
Some of the adjectives that I would use to best describe
the park are the adjectives that I would use to describe the world that I would
want to see. When we were so connected, when we were hearing each other, when
we were listening to each other, when people were invited simply because they were
a person, we were living in that world. In the world that I want to see, there is no space for the corporate, economic and social
structures that we’ve built. Those thing are incompatible, so we have to take
those down. By taking it down, I’m not saying
it has to be in any particular way. We can do it in different ways. The systems that exist are incompatible
with justice for everybody, dignity for everybody and equality for everybody,
so we need to build new things that hold that space, while we tear down the
other.
I think that one of the reasons that occupy is really powerful is because it acknowledged that in a really, really real and really, really present way. We asked questions like, “What is the world supposed to be like?” “What does democracy look like in action?” “How are we supposed to treat each other?” We failed so many times, but we were vigilant in our intent of that. There are very, very good reasons why we cared about progressive stack. It’s just a tool, but it is an important tool for us because it speaks to not just the way that we want the world to be in the future, but the way that we are going to make the world right now because it matters enough to deal with now. I think that, again, we were deeply imperfect because we are deeply imperfect, but I think that it is very, very important that we were and are vigilant about a lot of those principles because if we don’t build them into the fabric of what we’re doing now, we don’t get them in the end.
I think that one of the reasons that occupy is really powerful is because it acknowledged that in a really, really real and really, really present way. We asked questions like, “What is the world supposed to be like?” “What does democracy look like in action?” “How are we supposed to treat each other?” We failed so many times, but we were vigilant in our intent of that. There are very, very good reasons why we cared about progressive stack. It’s just a tool, but it is an important tool for us because it speaks to not just the way that we want the world to be in the future, but the way that we are going to make the world right now because it matters enough to deal with now. I think that, again, we were deeply imperfect because we are deeply imperfect, but I think that it is very, very important that we were and are vigilant about a lot of those principles because if we don’t build them into the fabric of what we’re doing now, we don’t get them in the end.
I want the world to be fair
and just and equal, and that means that in the work that I do now, that’s the
model that we have to build. We have to tear down the structures that exist
that prevent it and undermine it. We have to build structures. If we care about
equality, we have to implement it now. If we care about justice, we have to implement
it now, and those are tools, and that’s process. I think that that’s where
we get tripped up a lot of the time, but it’s really important that we keep
working on it. This is social technology. It’s movement technology that we keep
developing, and I think Occupy was such a vibrant social justice movement because there were all of these
people experimenting with it and creating new ways or old ways with a twist or
trying it all different kinds of ways. I think we still have to work on it. We
still have to work on what the implementation looks like, but I’m really glad
that we are, and I don’t think that we’ve stopped trying. I don’t think that we’ve
found the end, and I don’t think we’ve given up.
When thinking of how people are being in the
new world, I think people are being free, and I don’t mean free as in, “I’m
free, and I’m going to take my top off now.” I mean free as in moksha, free as
in liberation. There will be the same value system for everybody, not just for individual tribes, not just for nation states. We will have the same wants and desires
for everybody, and we will have the same sense of responsibility. I think in a space
where our values that apply to ourselves apply to everybody, it is impossible
to privatize water. It is impossible to wage war. It is impossible to foreclose
on someone’s home. It is inconceivable and impossible that you would ever be
able to do that or anyone or any entity would ever be able to do that if that
is the context in which we exist.
I think that was a really important piece about the feeling of Occupy and almost what I was talking about at the very beginning. It wasn’t just that we were saying, “Shit’s fucked up and bullshit.” Everybody knows that. It wasn’t just that we were saying, “We are resisting, and we don’t like it, and we want to make a difference.” So many people say that all the time. We were shifting the context in which everything else was allowed to exist. Everyone talked about it in terms of, “Oh, we shifted the conversation.” That’s great, but the conversation, I feel, is more of a stand in for what was possible in the context of what existed and what was possible in the context of what we created. The context that existed was all about austerity. The context was about, “How is everyone going to have to tighten their belts and suffer through?” “How do we take advantage of people in the least painful way?” Then, all of the sudden, the context, the world in which we existed was about, “Wait a minute, the premise is wrong. Something is very wrong here. We need to talk about fairness. We need to talk about justice. We need to talk about the fact that the banks are getting away with murder.” It changed the air that everyone was breathing together, and I think that that’s a really, really important piece about what was different about the occupation as opposed to a campaign or as opposed to a clever action or even as opposed to an organization that does really good work and that speaks to a small group of people.
As far as the future, I feel like a closeted optimist. I feel like it’s not cool to be so excited about what’s going on right now because, in a lot of ways, it feels like there is less energy, but we’re sitting across from Free Cooper Union, and it’s a tough fight. It’s really frustrating, and the administration is continuing to screw them over, but this occupation here is happening. I haven’t been part of it at all, but I still feel extremely connected to it because I know the people and because I feel part of the same movement. I feel like that’s what we’ve become. We’ve become a constellation of groups that do things that are important. Maybe they connect when it makes sense. Maybe they don’t, but we are in it together. When we need to or are asked, we come together really intensely and burn really bright, and when we don’t, we don’t. I think that it’s hard because sometimes you want everyone to pile on and just work. I feel like these are the times that I like it because I feel like we’ve just become a society, rather than a group of activists.
I think that was a really important piece about the feeling of Occupy and almost what I was talking about at the very beginning. It wasn’t just that we were saying, “Shit’s fucked up and bullshit.” Everybody knows that. It wasn’t just that we were saying, “We are resisting, and we don’t like it, and we want to make a difference.” So many people say that all the time. We were shifting the context in which everything else was allowed to exist. Everyone talked about it in terms of, “Oh, we shifted the conversation.” That’s great, but the conversation, I feel, is more of a stand in for what was possible in the context of what existed and what was possible in the context of what we created. The context that existed was all about austerity. The context was about, “How is everyone going to have to tighten their belts and suffer through?” “How do we take advantage of people in the least painful way?” Then, all of the sudden, the context, the world in which we existed was about, “Wait a minute, the premise is wrong. Something is very wrong here. We need to talk about fairness. We need to talk about justice. We need to talk about the fact that the banks are getting away with murder.” It changed the air that everyone was breathing together, and I think that that’s a really, really important piece about what was different about the occupation as opposed to a campaign or as opposed to a clever action or even as opposed to an organization that does really good work and that speaks to a small group of people.
As far as the future, I feel like a closeted optimist. I feel like it’s not cool to be so excited about what’s going on right now because, in a lot of ways, it feels like there is less energy, but we’re sitting across from Free Cooper Union, and it’s a tough fight. It’s really frustrating, and the administration is continuing to screw them over, but this occupation here is happening. I haven’t been part of it at all, but I still feel extremely connected to it because I know the people and because I feel part of the same movement. I feel like that’s what we’ve become. We’ve become a constellation of groups that do things that are important. Maybe they connect when it makes sense. Maybe they don’t, but we are in it together. When we need to or are asked, we come together really intensely and burn really bright, and when we don’t, we don’t. I think that it’s hard because sometimes you want everyone to pile on and just work. I feel like these are the times that I like it because I feel like we’ve just become a society, rather than a group of activists.
When we were hearing those folks coming around before and thought it might have been a march it reminded me about years and years ago when my fondest dream was to come across a direct action that I didn’t know was going to happen and didn’t know anyone involved in the planning of it because it sometimes felt like that community was just so small. It was just a really small group of activists doing activism all the time. The more that this kind of social justice work, this kind of resistance work, and this kind of building the new world work feels like just the way that society is, the more hope I have because that's a lot of the goal. The more all of this infiltrates and becomes society, than we’re no longer the groups that resist. We just are. I don’t want to resist all the time. I think that there will be a time when we are not going to have to resist giant corporations and corrupt governments and patriarchy and racism because a different way that people are being will have so infiltrated society. It will just be operating in a different way, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to be vigilant about respecting each other and taking care of each other. When having a social justice orientation as the way society is, if someone comes up and says, "I have a great idea. I think we should privatize water," there's just absolutely no space for that.
There was a social justice Passover Seder, and there was the conversation about why the Jews had to wonder 40 years in the desert because the people who had been slaves could not be in the new society. They already had so much internal oppression and slave mentality that it took a new generation who were not socialized in that context to make the different world. Obviously, there are all kinds of problems with that analogy. I think the reason why in that first week that kid made me so happy was because he was being socialized in a different context. He was being socialized to understand that the way that it is is that if you have something, you just offer it, with no expectation of reciprocation, and that you can trust the people you are around. That was his socialization. That is, for me, an ultimate goal for everybody, and not just some people, somewhere, where you can avoid it, where you can be off the grid. That has to be the dominant society.