Apollo

United Against Pipelines: Forward on Climate, May 13, 2013

Photo: Stacy Lanyon

I knew they were planning an action in New York a month before it happened from conversations going on online. I was moving back to New York at the time. About the second week into it, I went down to the park to see what was going on, and for some reason I just stayed there. I think the main reason is that I saw the potential for hope and the potential for change. As I got involved with the Outreach Working Group, I started getting a lot more involved with the organizing aspect, which I had been doing before Occupy. I think the main thing that kept me here was the potential to make change. Basically, things are fucked up in the world, in the US and globally. This is the first time its had a major global impact. It’s bad enough for a country to affect its own economy, but when you have things that are so bad that it’s actually affecting the world in total, our global economy, our global environment to the point where we’re on the verge of extinction, to sit back and do nothing is just something I can’t do. More recently, I got involved with the Occupy Wall Street Environmental Solidarity Working Group. It’s something I’m very passionate about. 

In the park, people became aware that all of these issues are related. People didn’t understand why there were all of these different messages. There was actually just one message coming out, which is that it all leads to Wall Street. People would be there talking about what certain issues meant to them personally, but if you look at it, it always leads back to the banks and the corporate funded political system. You could address the issue of housing and homelessness and solve it, but it would only be a temporary fix, if you don’t address the overall issue that’s creating this, we're just going to end up right back where we started. That’s hard for a lot of people to relate to because they want a solution now. Some people aren’t able to look long term. 

I think this is one of the last opportunities that we have to make major change before whatever shit is about to happen actually hits the fan. The government thinks something is about to happen with the policies that they've been put into place. They know people are getting discontented with the social, economic and environmental problems going on in the world. They fear the Occupy Movement and other movements. They portray it as if Occupy is dead, but they know that it has a lot of impact and potential to stir people up again, and that’s what they’re the most fearful of. I think now is the time for us to do this. If we don’t do it, every single freedom that we have is going to be destroyed. Occupy has awakened peoples' minds, and there is a potential to make a change. It’s made people more aware. Some people criticize the founding fathers, but I always say that what the founding fathers originally put together were great ideas/ great concepts, but they figured everyone else was going to continue improving upon that. People in the United States got lazy. Now, it’s time for people to actually wake-up and make that change. I’m not leaving until it’s done, at least not until I know that there is some type of framework to make the change happen. 

There are a number of issues. One of the biggest is global climate change, which puts the future of the human race in danger. The wars that are happening shouldn’t be happening. They are not necessary. I want to live in a world where I can wake-up in the morning, take a walk and not have to worry about the world, not have to worry about the fact that someone is starving somewhere, not because there isn't food, but because they don’t have access to the food. We need to stop wasting so much food. No one should have to steal food or go into a dumpster for food because they are starving. The food shouldn’t be wasted in the first place. I don't want to worry that there are people out there that are going without the proper medical care. I want to see a world where you don’t have seniors walking down the street by themselves, where you have to look at their face and realize that they are alone. I’d like to see a lot more community, where we take care of our elders. War as a way of life needs to be ended. I think we need to do away with the current economic system and current currency. It’s not working. I don’t know what the alternative of that would be, but I think once we are able to accomplish those things that there will be a total human awakening, and I think that will be on a spiritual level. It will be an enlightenment of awareness. It’s going to happen, but everything takes time. 


Interview by Stacy Lanyon

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