Occupy Democracy – Pasadena has started off 2012 with some great activism in the Pasadena community. I wanted to document this with some links to video and news coverage we were able to get from our work. This coverage is important because we are trying to create awareness in our community about this issue – the corporate corruption of our political system is the fundamental problem we must solve in our time.
I’m really proud to be associated with such a fine leadership team. They’re fun. They’re focused. They are involved! Thanks to all of you who turned out on either day too! Your voices help lift other voices. We are changing the political dialogue in Pasadena, CA!
VIDEO:
From Friday January 20th
IMAGES
(click the each picture below to see more on Flickr):
For Maddie and I, it was especially powerful to be at All Saints Episcopal Church, our faith home, on the Sunday after these rallies and hear our Rector, Ed Bacon deliver a great sermon which included these words:
“Today I call on a Constitutional amendment to ensure that “Citizens United” is reversed and that corporate personhood is reversed. That is the wrong direction for our country and we need to take the exit ramp and turn around.”
Video excerpt below – and let the people say AMEN!
Wow! How wonderfully affirming!
One last thing to add to this post. This is the petition we are seeking to get 1000 signatures on before presenting it to our congressman, Adam Schiff.
This is what it was about on November 17th in Pasadena, CA. The citizens of this community (200 in all) rallied in support of the fire department. I’ll let the press release we provided to the media speak to why we were there:
Our action today is in support of our Pasadena firefighters who risk their own lives daily to protect the lives and property of us all, though they must operate out of fire stations which do not meet earthquake safety codes (7 of 8 stations), placing these brave men and women at serious risk. It is not possible that this situation represents either the wishes or priorities of Pasadena voters.
In what amounts to a financial rush to judgment, our elected leaders nationwide are ignoring our crumbling and inadequate infrastructure, and are sacrificing the safety and employment requirements of many of our most respected and productive 99%: teachers, police, healthcare workers and many others in order to promote austerity measures easily postponed until more stable times without incurring grievous consequences for either our nation or its citizens.
And to date these same leaders have deliberately chosen to protect the fortunes of the top 1% and to require that they sacrifice nothing.
Who we are:
We are a local community group that supports and embodies the 99% of our country—the teachers, nurses and healthcare workers, service and labor workers, vets, students, firefighters and police—who are struggling to stay in homes, make choices between medicine and rent and have had their dreams compromised by the vast inequalities at work in our society today.
The Occupy Movement has legs and a message that is very much alive: it’s time to occupy democracy. We believe that the only way our democracy can work again is if we participate.
This was a very special action this past Thursday. As a recurring civic engagement group we are starting to find our voice creatively and through the human microphone method of voice amplification. We were fortunate to have poetry and music as a part of this action! Very inspiring. I’d like to share with you the poem that we human mic’d that evening and presented to the station at the end:
” FIRE STATION 515″
from gloriana casey
They’ve battled flames through wilderness.
Rushed into burning homes,
Subdued King Pyro in his might,
but lack— safe living zones.
Our fire stations need repair,
this city has but eight.
Now one is closed–this one needs work,
to save from earthquake fate!
Our infrastructure—it implodes
in nation,—every where!
We occupy this firehouse here
to guarantee its care.
New infrastructure creates JOBS,
while earthquakes bring a crash!
We gather here in thankfulness
to men of fire and ash.
Oh Congress–there so far away,
we’ve infrastructure need.
For earthquakes don’t play politics—
our firemen shouldn’t bleed!
For funds, we’ll tax the super rich,
deny that earthquake might.
We need our firemen safe from harm!
IT’ S TIME to do what’s right!****
Thanks to Gloriana and also to Kate and her musical friends for these special additions to the evening! Here are links to more pictures. Can you find yourself in these shots? I see a lot of smiling people. Each one showing their individual passion in a different way. See for yourself!
We may yet get some more video links which I will be able to add to this post, but we are very fortunate that Mario Tovar continues to provide us his video expertise.
Here is another one by our fellow rallier, Susan. The editing job is really great!
We were successful in expanding the impact of our action by getting members of the press to cover it. I’ve included both the article from the Pasadena Star News and the one from the Pasadena Sun below:
I’m going to sound like a bit of a broken record but fundamentally what each of us does when we lead or participate in these actions is empower and give a voice to those who feel they have neither. We are taking back our power and helping others to do so too. With every honk or friendly wave from passersby, we create the new possibility that another one finds their voice as well. We are restoring our sense of community in doing so. We make participating in our democracy (because that is the only way it will ever work for us) more real by what we each do! Thank you to everybody who is a part of this. We’ll see you at our next action!
I’ll end this post with a poem that I like to check in with from time to time. It fits with the above thoughts:
Our Deepest Fear…
is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
It was an inspiring day in Pasadena, CA this past Saturday, November 5th, 2011! I wasn’t able to be with our community’s demonstration to “Move Your Money” until the end. Fortunately, my wife Maddie was able to get things started off and wonderfully the 200 some Pasadena citizens were able to sustain a lively, positive and effective demonstration of people power. There were several videographers there to capture it. I’m going to post this shorter video first:
Another videographer, Mario took a longer video which he broke into three chunks:
Part I:
Part II:
Part III:
Watching these videos captures a really inspiring series of moments in that Saturday afternoon. People bravely speaking up in front of a lot of people. Their neighbors using the “human microphone” to amplify the message of the speaker. Individuals stepping up in front of everybody (maybe for the first time) to represent our message to close our ‘big bank’ accounts . . .by closing their own accounts that day. I watched the determination they showed in the face of authorities who wouldn’t let them into the bank (Wells Fargo) and the victorious look on their faces when they came out having successfully closed their account. I watched the creative way they expressed this as they retold their story to the crowd and I heard the crowd repeat back their words so all could hear. Wow. These are people alive with the sense that their voices matter.
That’s part of what this is about. Realizing that one’s voice matters. That one’s voice can be lifted up and heard. That we, neighbors and strangers alike, can help lift up that voice together more powerfully. Social justice is at the root of the message we were delivering – Move Your Money / Make Wall Street Pay – but restoring a sense of empowerment to our community’s individual voices might be the biggest success of these demonstrations. When people feel empowered they don’t stop being involved in their community and they start to realize that they can make a difference in other areas which their passion stirs them to.
Pictures are also a nice way to get a flavor for this day. Maddie took some pictures which we’ve posted here:
Maddie and I have learned this at All Saints Episcopal Church here in town. It is our Christian faith which grounds us and inspires us to do something (anything) to fight back against the many injustices in our time. We may not win these battles for justice now (though with some we do) but the “arc of the universe is long and bends towards justice”. We believe strongly, regardless of one’s faith or non-faith, we are all in this together. That’s something most major religions believe and certainly it’s something secular humanists believe in strongly too. It is ultimately what works to make a sustainable and happier society.
I’m glad that others across the nation joined in this National Bank Transfer Day. This is from an NBC News report:
We are all a part of changing this nation’s story. From a “me first” to a “we first” perspective. As Howard Dean, our political inspiration from back in 2003 said, “you have the power to take this country back.” We’re doing it here in Pasadena, CA!
Maddie and I hadn’t been involved in organizing political rallies from 2008 through 2010. A change of pace for us! Something has changed in this country though. Earlier this year we had begun to articulate it more fully. Inequality is the symptom. A political system rigged in favor of the power elite and wealthy is the source. We felt a growing sense of anger and frustration with this situation. We had felt this way before too . . .during the 8 long years of George W. Bush’s presidency.
In 2008, we thought things were going to change for the better. President Obama and a new Democratic Party majority was going to finally listen to us.
We were naive. We let up on our activism. Maybe we needed a break. Possibly we deserved one. Our activism from 2003 – 2008, while satisfying and instrumental in our personal growth, caused us to neglect other things in our life. These kind of things have a season apparently. It’s time for us to get back out there to help our neighbors in Pasadena make their voices be heard for social justice.
The following are a series of articles that have come out in the local Pasadena press referencing our neighbors’ voices finally being heard. They too were frustrated and angry at the injustice of a political system that can’t get much done and fails to listen to them. We are glad to be a part of helping them be heard:
One other unexpected media outlet which picked up on the message we are voicing is Crown City News Weekly. They sat down and interviewed Maddie for 4 minutes this past Monday 10/24. Here’s the video of it:
Let’s keep this movement going here in Pasadena! Thanks to all those who have come to lend their voice this effort!
It’s worth watching. You might be surprised what the level of income inequality is here in the United States. I was surprised at how many people couldn’t pick the correct pie chart reflecting the current income distribution in the US. One woman was callous enough to pick the right one and say she prefers the income distribution being so unequal. Amazing!
Look how income inequality has gotten worse:
This is an image of where income inequality is worse in the United States:
It’s interesting to me that in the very places where income inequality is the worst, one can often find these same voters preferring Republican candidates. The injustice of such a disparity in income is compounded by the stupidity of people who will vote AGAINST their own best interests!
90 year old Rabbi Beerman spoke at All Saints Episcopal Church a couple of Sundays ago. Simply an amazing, poetic experience.
“The world is still waiting for men and women so rooted in their faith that they are free to imagine a different order for human beings and the nations they inhabit. Waiting for those who can be concious of their solidarity with the entire human race. And this is the liberating concsiousness that will bring us the understanding that we are all, all of us, yearning to matter. Yearning to be wanted and needed. We are all children of God or none of us is a child of God. And this sense of our larger self, as you are being taught as Christians and in this church in particular, can give us the sense of the sacred. A sense of the still unrealized holiness of all existence. From where if not from Muslims and Christians and Jews and from non-believers who believe also in the sacredness of every human being will come the call for peace and justice. Peace and justice that can never be the imposition or will upon another. Not by might and not by power and not by force and not by conquest can we transcend the dangerous destructive imagery of victory and defeat which has been our human heritage.”
I was just listening yesterday to this podcast off of NPR:
It’s a story on Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Complex speech – his farewell address to the nation. It is a well-chosen subject. The interview with David Eisenhower, his grandson as well as the one with Andrew Bacevich, a retired career officer in the U.S. Army, brought the speech to life for me. The implications of a society controlled by corporations and institutions devoted to war are a worthwhile focus on the 25th anniversary of there being a Martin Luther King holiday. Even more so because it was 50 years ago today that President Eisenhower gave his speech (transcript here)!
I was also watching Rachel Maddow tonight. She ran a story on this subject. It’s important viewing and reporting by her and Michael Isikoff. I wasn’t unaware of the problem but it still surprised me, especially in this political climate in which DC beltway insiders have decided that dealing with our country’s deficit is of paramount importance. It’s clear that Congress today is very much in the thrall of defense industry corporations and that disturbs me.
The confluence of President Eisenhower and Martin Luther King on this day in history really has me in a contemplative mood. I wonder who else is paying attention to this confluence? Thankfully Rachel Maddow and her viewers are today at least. After today though, who will be willing to do something about it?
I’m glad for the MLK holiday, one that focuses on the civil rights movement which he started and has led to a process which will rid this nation of the racial injustice someday. Martin Luther King’s rhetoric was soaring in its hope for a better America. It’s one of the reasons people usually reference his “I Have a Dream” speech.
What I’m pondering more though is his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, given on April 4th, 1967. I think many people forget that Martin Luther King was a revolutionary. It is probably one of the reasons he ultimately was assassinated. The movement he began in order to free black Americans from oppression was becoming something bigger. This speech made clear that Martin Luther King aimed to eliminate the three evils of poverty, racism and militarism.
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; [Audience:] (Yes) the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”
PART I
PART II
Martin Luther King and his movement represented a threat to racist institutions and people, no doubt, but it also represented a threat to the oppressive corporatist and militarist institutions within our country. Today, my thoughts are focused on the militarist institutions. The ones we are supposed to unquestioningly support.
I mentioned Andrew Bacevich from the NPR podcast. He had actually just written an essay in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of The Atlantic Magazine. Its subject was the military industrial complex. It caught my attention about a week ago actually. It’s an amazing summation of the dynamic President Eisenhower faced regarding this and a warning of the problem as we we face it today.
“The national-security state continues to grow in size, scope, and influence. In Ike’s day, for example, the CIA dominated the field of intelligence. Today, experts refer casually to an “intelligence community,” consisting of some 17 agencies. The cumulative size and payroll of this apparatus grew by leaps and bounds in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Last July, TheWashington Post reported that it had “become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” Since that report appeared, U.S. officials have parted the veil of secrecy enough to reveal that intelligence spending exceeds $80 billion per year, substantially more than the budget of either the Department of State ($49 billion) or the Department of Homeland Security ($43 billion).
The spending spree extends well beyond intelligence. The Pentagon’s budget has more than doubled in the past decade, to some $700 billion per year. All told, the ostensible imperatives of national security thereby consume roughly half of all federal discretionary dollars. Even more astonishing, annual U.S. military outlays now approximate those of all other nations, friends as well as foes, combined.”
Why? What possible threat could exist to justify this horrible waste? Has any of this given us or the world peace? We are in two wars of our choosing now! As President Eisenhower put it in his presentation to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children….This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross.”
So what can we do against such powerful institutions and powerful people? According to Bacevich,
“Eisenhower then advanced a striking solution: ultimate responsibility for democracy’s defense, he insisted, necessarily rested with the people themselves. Rather than according Washington deference, American citizens needed to exercise strict oversight. Counting on the national-security state to police itself—on members of Congress to set aside parochial concerns, corporate chieftains to put patriotism above profit, and military leaders to hew to the ethic of their profession—wouldn’t do the trick. “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Maybe I can be a part of that today. Working to make public what most people ignore or unaware of. Educating, demonstrating, holding our congressman, Adam Schiff accountable. Maybe you’d like to help?
I just got back from church at All Saints Episcopal Church and was thinking about Martin Luther King Jr. and the multitude of important messages that come from his life. Our rector, Ed Bacon just preached it on Martin Luther King Sunday, an important part of our church calender!
What may have started out as a struggle to free black Americans became something transcendent. Our rector at All Saints posted a link a couple of weeks ago on one of Martin Luther King’s sermons - “Loving Your Enemies” delivered on November 17, 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama. That is sermon that has stayed with me. Lots to contemplate, particularly the loving your enemies part.
The Reading today was this:
I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.”
So somehow the “isness” of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must not do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
It’s easier to demonize the other as an enemy and seek to eliminate it isn’t it. Thinking in simple black and white terms makes us feel more in control in a world that seems out of control. It would be easy to do my own demonizing as a liberal actually. I could say that conservatives, or Republicans or “teabaggers” stand in the way of all that is good and right in the world. . . .and I would miss the point of the words above no less so than conservatives often seem to do, wouldn’t I.
It’s a bit of a struggle for me. I have asked this question again and again since being at All Saints – how does one “cross that divide” between liberal and conservative when we know that what the conservative does creates so much injustice and war in the world? Liberals are not perfect people. Seriously. There are things that a liberal might not get about life which are beautiful and come naturally to a conservative. We’re not all the same. And yet it seems that conservatives do so much damage politically in American society. They let themselves be taken over by ideologues who stand for ignorance, fear and hate.
How are we to oppose their damaging politics while sincerely and honestly loving them? We need to don’t we. Yet we still need to oppose their brand of America. There are systems bigger than both liberals and conservatives which are at work keeping us divided. We need to keep that in mind too. We have much in common with our fellow man. We shouldn’t forget that, even as we on the liberal side of the political equation seek to dismantle the systems of oppression in this country. Even as we seek to reveal the false idol of the free market, the false idol of a God defined “literally” by one book, the false idol of a military that can do no wrong, and the false idol of materialism/consumerism.
It’s not simple, the work we have ahead of us in 2011. I want to keep the truths of Martin Luther King’s words in the forefront of my mind and heart as I do my part to try and help make this world more like it is in heaven.
