I saw Occupy online three days after they occupied Zuccotti
Park, and my first thought was, “Wait a second, there are a bunch of people
occupying a public space?” I was like, “Well, this has got to be important because
the mainstream media is not reporting on it. That’s crazy. Why aren’t they
repording on it?” Then, I thought, “Well, I’ve gotta help them.” I thought it
was such a badass move to go to the belly of the beast and just camp out. Also,
I thought the message was pretty clear. How much clearer can you get than "Occupy Wall Street"? I never understood why people would question the message. I’ve always had a
strong feeling of justice. I’ve been drawn to that. I went down a week after it
started because I battle with a chronic illness, and I couldn’t get it
together sooner than that. When I went down there, I didn’t know exactly where they were at the
beginning. I brought a blanket and all kinds of stuff. I was going around in
the district trying to figure it out. That day that I went, everything was
closed up because Obama was coming to New York. I was asking people, and nobody
knew. The street workers finally pointed me in the right direction.
I thought the energy in the park was incredible. At first,
it looked very chaotic, so I didn’t know where to drop off my donations. I
went to a group of people who looked more or less organized and asked if I
could drop off my stuff. They said, “That’s in the kitchen area. This is the
media center.” I was like, “Wait a second, there’s organization here?" These
people aren’t just hanging out. They're working really hard. The girl at the
kitchen area was very nice, and it seemed very routine for her. So my first
impression was chaos, and then I realized that it went a little deeper. I was
very disappointed that I couldn’t go camp out because of my illness. I mostly
watched what was going on online. Later, I became more involved with
media. I was involved with Public Access TV. Then, I hooked up with a whole
bunch of activists online and got involved with international crews. In a sense,
the illness was a gateway for my work on these different projects. We’re very
much in touch with uprising revolutions and uprisings from around the world. Once you go online
more, automatically things become more global. Because I couldn’t get out of bed, I was constantly online. That’s how I got connected to a lot of people. I’m
managing more and more pages. It keeps piling up.
It should have been important a long time ago. The 1% have became increasingly more greedy since the 80s. It's something that's always been going on. Capitalism, like imperialism, enslaves people from other countries and people of color. Now, they're coming after the white middle class as well. I think it’s important to connect with
people from other countries, other cultures. It's a very white middle class movement right now. Other people have been oppressed for a lot longer than the white middle class. It’s important to do this because I don’t believe
in inequality. I don’t think the world should be ruled by the elite. The elite
is becoming smaller and smaller and the rest is becoming bigger and bigger. People
are standing up all around the world against this system. I think the media is important because
people don’t know. They are very much brainwashed by the propaganda of the
corporate media and by conspiracy sites. Controlling
media is the gateway to controlling other people, so we need to have our own media.
There are many things wrong with the world. I think
everything that’s wrong with the world goes back to greed. All of are
grievances are connected to that one point. They enslave people. They enslave
animals. They enslave nature. They go for everything. It’s not enough to make the same
profit as last year. They have to make more profit because CEO's want their bonuses, and everything in this
system is towards that goal, no matter what the consequence are. Everything becomes
subordinate to that. That’s why we have nuclear stations, fracking, animal tortured, income inequality, sexism, racism. That's why they're stripping us of our rights. It’s all part of that. Occupy Wall Street was right on. That
name was right on. Although, I can understand why groups like Idle No More have a problem with the "Occupy" part, though.
We are all different, and we have to acknowledge the differences in people. We need equal rights and true democracy. Right now, we have representative democracy, and I don’t think that works. We need direct democracy because the government is not representing us. They represent corporations. I think we need to be a lot more radical than just taking money out of politics. We need a chance for a dignified life, which means that people can fully explore their life. People shouldn't have to work like a slaves in order to survive. A lot of people like what we are doing, but they don’t have the time to participate. Some people work 60-80 hours a week. When are they supposed to see their family? That is slavery in my opinion. You should be able to spend time with the people around you, spend time exploring your interests.
We are all different, and we have to acknowledge the differences in people. We need equal rights and true democracy. Right now, we have representative democracy, and I don’t think that works. We need direct democracy because the government is not representing us. They represent corporations. I think we need to be a lot more radical than just taking money out of politics. We need a chance for a dignified life, which means that people can fully explore their life. People shouldn't have to work like a slaves in order to survive. A lot of people like what we are doing, but they don’t have the time to participate. Some people work 60-80 hours a week. When are they supposed to see their family? That is slavery in my opinion. You should be able to spend time with the people around you, spend time exploring your interests.
I want less struggle. My illness changed my life. I found myself constantly worrying about the future, and I still do. The road that we’re on is wrong, and it’s just going to get worse. We have to do something. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to step on other people, or where other people have to step on me just to make it. That is just wrong. People are forced to compete with one
another in this society. If you take the need to compete away, I think
people will connect with each other on a much more honest level. There’s always this underlying goal of
what we can get out of any situation. It takes the true meaning of interaction
away. It’s survival. A lot of
people just take care about their immediate situation, and they don’t
want to know much about the rest of the world. That’s where racism comes in,
that whole construct, because people see others as a threat to their own little world. They don't see the bigger picture. At one point, it was the Christians those in power were after. Then, they went after the communists. Now, they're going after
the Muslims. There's a reason for that. You have to create "the other" for this
system to work.
I think it's important to spend more time with one another
and more time in nature. I think what Occupy did
was make a sincere attempt to collaborate and cooperate. We all bring
our baggage from society, so we still have problems to deal with. It’s not that easy to work
with each other, but people were really trying to work through their
differences and acknowledge one another and listen to what other people had been through, but all the privileged positions still play, and we need to acknowledge those and work through them. By privileged positions, I mean that we are not born equal, and therefore the concept of meritocracy is a myth. Some of us have more privileges in this society than others. The ones with the most privileges are white people and men. This means racism and sexism are institutionalized. These things, these backgrounds and positions still play in our activism. We bring our backgrounds to the table. I think in order for us to move forward with our movement, we have to acknowledge these privileges and then find solutions based on fairness and equal opportunity.
I think that will be a lot easier in a society where we have basic income because it will level the playfield a bit. Basic income is so important. Everyone should get their basic needs met no matter what. I think basic income is a right because people should be able to explore their art and develop their talents. I don’t want people to constantly worry about where their next meal is coming from. If we have a basic income, we will eliminate the notion of entitlement because everyone will be entitled. Everybody gets it. We will also be able to eliminate the constant struggle to survive. We will no longer have that. That stress will be gone. We won’t have to focus on it anymore. We won't be just surviving. Then, we can live.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
I think that will be a lot easier in a society where we have basic income because it will level the playfield a bit. Basic income is so important. Everyone should get their basic needs met no matter what. I think basic income is a right because people should be able to explore their art and develop their talents. I don’t want people to constantly worry about where their next meal is coming from. If we have a basic income, we will eliminate the notion of entitlement because everyone will be entitled. Everybody gets it. We will also be able to eliminate the constant struggle to survive. We will no longer have that. That stress will be gone. We won’t have to focus on it anymore. We won't be just surviving. Then, we can live.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/