OWS: A Beautiful Message From The Heart: "We Have NO Enemies"

[kpete]

Occupy Wall Street: No Demand is Big Enough

We are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies.

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a message from the heart...

Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for its lack of clear demands, but how do we issue demands, when what we really want is nothing less than the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible? No demand is big enough. We could make lists of demands for new public policies: tax the wealthy, raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, end the wars, regulate the banks. While we know these are positive steps, they aren't quite what motivated people to occupy Wall Street. What needs attention is something deeper: the power structures, ideologies, and institutions that prevented these steps from being taken years ago; indeed, that made these steps even necessary. Our leaders are beholden to impersonal forces, such as that of money, that compel them to do what no sane human being would choose. Disconnected from the actual effects of their policies, they live in a world of insincerity and pretense. It is time to bring a countervailing force to bear, and not just a force but a call. Our message is, "Stop pretending. You know what to do. Start doing it." Occupy Wall Street is about exposing the truth. We can trust its power. When a policeman pepper sprays helpless women, we don't beat him up and scare him into not doing it again; we show the world. Much worse than pepper spray is being perpetrated on our planet in service of money.Let us allow nothing happening on earth to be hidden.

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No one deserves to live in a world built upon the degradation of human beings, forests, waters, and the rest of our living planet. Speaking to our brethren on Wall Street, no one deserves to spend their lives playing with numbers while the world burns. Ultimately, we are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies. We want everyone to wake up to the beauty of what we can create.

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Occupy Wall Street should not be content with half-measures, even as it encourages and applauds the tiny hundredth-measures that might come first. It should not let such concessions sap the strength of the movement or seduce it into neglecting to foster its organizational network. Occupy Wall Street is the first manifestation in a long time of "people power" in America. For too long, democracy has, for most people, meant meaningless choices in a box. The Wall Street occupation is stepping out of the box.

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The truth is dwindling rain forests, spreading deserts, mass tree die-offs on every continent; looted pensions, groaning burdens of student debt, people working two or three dead end jobs; children eating dirt in Haiti, elders choosing between food and medicine... the list is endless, and we will make it no longer possible to hold it in disconnection from the money system. That is why we converge on Wall Street, and anywhere that finance holds sway. You have lulled us into complacency for long enough with illusions and false hopes. We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/152903/occupy_wall_street%3A_no_demand_is_big_enough?akid=7790.15156.LA84wN&rd=1&t=2
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2011/10/we-are-protesting-not-only-on-behalf-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AndYesIDoTakeItPersonally+%28And%2C+yes%2C+I+DO+take+it+personally%29





Only those who realize that there is something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him and that the latter always yields to it, can effectively be Satyagrahis. This force is to violence, and, therefore, to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. In politics, its use is based upon the immutable maxim, that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed.
—M.K Gandhi

[hfojvt]

1. I'd be willing to give them some of mine

What a goofy message.

Why don't we all just hold hands in a circle and sing Kumbaya?

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Why don't we? Wouldn't it be better than cops shooting veterans in the head?

[hfojvt]

11. that's kind of a toss up

At some point though, we are gonna have to let go of each other's hands, and make food, and houses, and clean the toilets, etc. It's just not quite a simple as "everybody needs to sing and be nice" and "nothing should be hidden".

[a simple pattern]

12. Sounds like you haven't been to your local occupation.

You should go.

Edit- never mind the first edit.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. I agree with a simple pattern. #Occupy is about solving problems SO we can have a beautiful world.

[TBF]

17. Sure - except for the little problem of capitalists robbing you blind as you sing ...

that is what we need to address and we're not going to do it by "gently persuading" them that they are off on the wrong path ... they are rewarded handsomely for their predatory behaviors and that's not going to change easily.

Singing, yoga, music - it's all great. But it's not how you fight class warfare unfortunately.

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. It's part, I'm not being absolute here. I know Change must occur as it must.

Believe me, I do.

[lunatica]

2. And I wiggle my fingers in agreement

[OneGrassRoot]

3. K&R n/t

[Better Believe It]

4. A nice message from the heart but not a very smart one from the brain.

[kpete]

5. —M.K Gandhi

Only those who realize that there is something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him and that the latter always yields to it, can effectively be Satyagrahis. This force is to violence, and, therefore, to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. In politics, its use is based upon the immutable maxim, that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed.

[Kaleko]

6. That is a unitive consciousness speaking.

A higher stage of awareness finds its public voice.

Crisis = Opportunity.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Good catch.

:hug:

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Peace!

[Kaleko]

10. Hey, your message (before the edit) prompted me to check out the author, Charles Eisenstein.

I'm glad I did. He's an extremely bright young man and flying at an altitude that gives a much more comprehensive overview than usual in lefty blogs.

For example:

The sense of self that I call Separation gives birth to a compulsion to control, related to the belief that there is no purpose to life except to survive, to maximize comfort and minimize risk. We see this in our medical system, our education system, our financial system, and in nations' foreign policy. Why oh why is "security" the highest priority? Obama said recently, "My top priority as President will be to keep Americans safe." I find that insulting. It implies that that is the will and top priority of the American people too. Even if it is true, it is still insulting. We humans are better than that. When is a candidate going to say, "My top priority will be to create a more beautiful world"?

It is impossible for politicians to make any meaningful changes when the operate from the same deep assumptions about self and world that have held sway for the last several millennia. The world we know today is the inevitable result of those assumptions. Real change will only result from a thorough revolution in the human sense of self; I call it a revolution in human beingness. I have made this point at length in AOH {The Ascent Of Humanity}. It is time for me to move on I think.

More at http://ascentofhumanity.blogspot.com/2008/08/current-events.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. I'm very woo-woo myself but don't tend to push it here in GD, so I edited the author's name and blog

due to context and the potential for getting off-topic. I think it's a beautiful post and I'll be checking out his blog.

:hi:

[Kaleko]

15. I hear ya.

Though I don't like to see visionary depth equated with woo woo. You know that Einstein called the findings of Quantum Physics "woo woo" and died without understanding them?

What is dismissed as "woo woo" by the old guard today might very well turn out to be the next generation's quantum leap.
And if humankind is in the middle of one of those leaps (which I think it is), we really need to talk about that among ourselves a.s.a.p. :)

[AntiFascist]

16. Obama should have spelled out...

exacty which citizens he was referring to. Americans forced into homelessness are far from safe.

[Desertrose]

18. Awesome! K&R!

"No one deserves to live in a world built upon the degradation of human beings, forests, waters, and the rest of our living planet. Speaking to our brethren on Wall Street, no one deserves to spend their lives playing with numbers while the world burns. Ultimately, we are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies. We want everyone to wake up to the beauty of what we can create."

[Marazinia]

20. Those are some good people

But they have enemies, whether they want to call them that or not, there are people, not forces, human beings, who would kill them and their families for just a little more profit. If they want to try to help and change those people, part of me understands that. But part of me thinks there's no way they're going to be able to.