This stuff is still serious business, but we gotta have some fun, too.
On another note, I want to thank SparkAction for their continued interest in my work. They publish my pieces on a regular basis, and today they featured an article I wrote about cyber slurs. A special thanks to Henry Giroux and Mike Hais for weighing in as experts for that piece.
All right folks, I'm headed to Austin tomorrow. They had an amazing turnout today, so I am anxious to get down there.
I am delighted that things went well for the October 2011 crew in D.C., too. I know Barbara Ehrenreich visited the protest to show her support for this mesmerizing movement. And she got me in touch with a great activist, so I picked up a new pal. In addition, I interviewed one of the organizers for October 2011 (AEM is listed as a supporting organization for their efforts), and I look forward to sharing that talk with the rest of you.
I am meeting amazing people, and that makes me feel like this struggle is worth it. We're coming together as a community, and not just on the Internet, but in the streets. Those of you who are part of the 99%, you are amazing. Never forget it.
Stay tuned for updates.
I started on a lighter note and will end on one: here's something funny for y'all.
Related Links
"Occupy Austin takes over City Hall," Jackie Vega and Reagan Hackleman, KXAN.com (Oct 6th, 2011)
"Police: 1,200 people at occupy, no arrests," Patrick George, The Statesman.com (Oct. 6, 2011)
"Heading to Austin and Raising More Funds," AEM (Oct. 6, 2011)
"[UPDATED] Latest: Cops Beating Protesters at Occupy Wall Street Protest," AEM (Oct. 5, 2011)
"Please Donate - Let Me Represent You," AEM (Oct. 4, 2011)
"The origins of Occupy Wall Street explained," Justin Elliott, Salon (Oct. 4, 2011)
"Gregory Warner at NPR's Marketplace Discusses Occupy Wall Street And Student Loan Debt," AEM (Oct. 3, 2011)
"Occupy Wall Street, the Obama Campaign, and Everybody Else on the Hill." AEM (Oct. 3, 2011)
"Occupy Wall Street Movement Gets Support of Cornel West, Russell Simmons, Lupe Fiasco," The Loop21.com (September 30, 2011)
"'Occupy Wall Street' Becomes Nationwide Movement," The Loop21.com (Sept. 27, 2011)
"Occupy Wall Street - Tweet About Student Loan Debt And Medical Debt," AEM (Sept. 25, 2011)
"Dustin Slaughter's Picture: 'In Debt? You're Not Alone,'" AEM (Sept. 19, 2011)
"Occupy Wall Street - Begins Tomorrow, Sept. 17th," AEM (Sept. 16, 2011)
6 comments:
More evidence that the OWS movement (no direct relation to my moniker's initials) is and ought to be a "big tent" transcending both left and right wing ideologies:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/conservatives-support-protests.html
Partial quote via that blog:
"You know what the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is?
It is all the things that were in the original Tea Party, but were steadily ignored as the TP became a Republican booster club.
The Tea Party is a contradiction. They want a balanced budget, but they also want the US military to intervene everywhere …. Individual rights are important too, but don’t push it too far. After all, republicans came up with today’s policies.
There are a few nuts in the OWS crowd, but from what I hear “Occupy Wall Street” is about bringing the fraudsters to justice. Its about changing the banker/government dynamic that runs this country. It’s about free markets. It’s about ending endless debt. It’s about stopping the wars. It’s about the rule of law. It’s about the libertarian soul of America."
Again, perhaps paradoxically (or not?) I'm a RIGHT WING native-born (seventh-generation) American whose earliest American ancestors lived through and fought in the American Civil War in the time of America's Bard, Walt Whitman.
And so, in light of the above, and for whatever this might be worth to any of Cryn's friends in today's OWS movement, the American people in today's OWS movement remind me of THIS stanza (15) of Whitman's "Song of Myself" (published 1855):
Due to space restrictions I'll have to break it up into three parts:
The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving
dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are
ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and
looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's
bed-room;)
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the
manuscript;
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by
the bar-room stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,
the gate-keeper marks who pass,
The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do
not know him;) (cont'd...)
Whitman's "Song of Myself" cont'd:
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their
rifles, some sit on logs,
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels
his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them
from his saddle,
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their
partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the
musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and
bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut
eyes bent sideways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for
the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it
off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne
her first child,
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the
factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead
flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering
with blue and gold,
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his
desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
...oh well, just go and read the rest of "Song of Myself" in print or online. All Americans ought to know Walt Whitman as their national Bard.
But in my opinion, America's second Bard ought to be Amiri Baracka, the poet Laureate of New Jersey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUEu-pG1HWw
More in the same spirit, dedicated to the OWS movement, by Walt Whitman. Here's his poem "The Centenarian's Story", about a 100+ year old Revolutionary War veteran Whitman met in 1861.
Some especially poigant verses relevant to OWS:
"I saw him (General Washington) at the river-side,
Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;
My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass’d over;
And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for the last time.
Every one else seem’d fill’d with gloom; Many no doubt thought of capitulation.
But when my General pass’d me,
As he stood in his boat, and look’d toward the coming sun,
I saw something different from capitulation."
Entire poem here: http://www.bartleby.com/142/116.html
Walt Whitman also wrote a poem about having sex in the woods.
It was called: "Leaves up your ass"
Only kidding. And One Who Survided, my good friend and council, knows I'm just kidding :)
Actually, the Walt Whitman homestead/museum where WW grew up is just a 15 minute drive from me
here on Long Island or "Paumanok"
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