Occupy Democracy – Pasadena joined the US Postal Workers at the Matthew “Mack” Robinson Post Office in Pasadena, on Tuesday 4-17-12 to protest the austerity efforts by the Post Master General Donohue and his Republican allies in Congress.  They are trying to privatize our country’s post office in steps such that the service becomes so degraded that it is finally eliminated.

Below is the article in the online magazine – Pasadena Now.

Additional pictures from this action can be found by clicking the picture below:

We all need to spend some time considering the immediate problem associated with attempts by congressional Republicans and their enablers, particularly Post Master General Patrick R. Donahoe and his executive team.  Both parties are attempting to shut down post office facilities and lay off postal workers to deal with a shortfall in the USPS that was artificially created.

Good, middle class jobs are at stake in our community.  Good service provided locally to everybody in our community is at stake.  Eliminating good jobs and degrading the service quality of the USPS is not the answer.  This is especially true because the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act is the source of this manufactured crisis:

Passed in 2006 during a lame duck session of Congress, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”

The Post Master General, in trying to deal with this manufactured crisis, is ignoring this fact.  The congressional Republicans are ignoring this fact to because it gives them leverage to do what they have always wanted to do: break the postal workers unions and privatize our postal service.

This is the bigger picture that our group doesn’t want to get lost in all of this.  Our US Postal Service has a rich tradition and history of bringing our cities and towns together as well as being a vital connecting point within each of our communities.  It is part of the public commons:

“the commons means everything that belongs to all of us, and the many ways we work together to use these assets to build a better society. This encompasses fresh air and clean water, public spaces and public services, the Internet and the airwaves, our legal system, scientific knowledge, biodiversity, language, artistic traditions, fashion styles, cuisines and much more. Taken together, it represents a vast inheritance bequeathed equally to every human—and one that, if used wisely, will provide for future generations.”

Standing up to congressional Republicans and Post Master General’s executive team is about preserving good jobs and good service from the post office.  It’s also about protecting our public commons and preserving our sense of community in a world that too often seems set against them.

If you want to read more about this issue, I recommend these links:

Principles for Postal Service Reform
Congress’s War on the Post Office
Answering the lies that privatization zealots and FedEx are peddling
Postal Reform: Myths vs. Facts

These are a couple of blog sites dedicated to this issue.  You can get some of the latest news and discussion from them:

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/
http://www.postalreporter.com/
http://www.apwu.org/index2.htm

You can also watch this video from Democracy Now :

In this rally we focused on the corruption going on within the legislative process.  Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called “model bills” reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. In ALEC’s own words, corporations have “a VOICE and a VOTE” on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.

In our last rally we focused on the corruption going on in our electoral process.  We had highlighted the “Citizens United” Supreme Court’s ruling 2 years ago which allowed unlimited corporate money into our election system. From these actions we had gotten a meeting with our congressman, Adam Schiff, who then agreed to consider our request for his support of a constitutional amendment to revoke corporate personhood and overturn “Citizens United”.

If you click the picture below, it will take you to more pictures from our action.

We are trying to help connect the dots in the Pasadena community.  Corporate corruption is a fundamental problem we will have to overcome if we are ever going to achieve the kind of social justice our “two cities” need.  While a primary source of this corruption is simply the many ways in which corporations and the wealthy are able to buy our elections, we should not forget these same 1 percenters also write OUR laws, unbeknownst to most of us.  Whether they are buying elections or buying our laws, one thing is very clear, we need the power to regulate corporations again.  It is why we feel so strongly that Congressman Schiff must be a leader in the effort for a constitutional amendment to revoke corporate personhood.

Your efforts to help ODP by showing up or taking a leadership role make a difference.  We’ve certainly gotten the attention of local political cartoonist with national reach – Ted Rall.

We also continue to get attention from the local press.  This is a story in the LA Times / Pasadena Sun:

ODP should be proud of the work our civic engagement group is doing to create a political climate in this community which is more informed about the problem of corporate corruption of our political system.  A political climate that will get Congressman Schiff to co-sponsor legislation to amend the US Constitution and revoke corporate personhood!

If you want to read more about this issue I recommend perusing this document on ALEC.  When you are done, be ready to join us at our next rally!

Poet Christian Wiman on Love, Faith, and Cancer from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

It’s Saturday afternoon and it’s quiet.  Not the quiet of the pre-dawn hours.  Instead the quiet of the occasional hammering next door as our neighbor has their roof repaired.  Muted yet somehow reassuring, that occasional and unpredictable sound to me is.  Almost like the bell one might hear at a serene Buddhist temple.  In the contrast between sound and no sound, it reminds me that now is peaceful and life has indeed slowed down for me.

I shared, with my wife  30 minutes ago, this segment of poet Chris Wiman being interviewed on Bill Moyers.  His story is a beautiful one.  Very moving for many reasons.  I liked it so much that I posted this as I shared it on Facebook:

I just watched this. I love poetry. I love the spirit. I want to write again as this man did…when he fell in love. I really appreciate this man’s sense of humility – knowing that the artistic part of him comes and it goes . . .almost as if he is a vessel of the gods or God’s creativeness. Knowing that his faith comes and goes. But continuing to express himself. Continuing to love life on earth concretely. Continuing to love others and appreciate their love back. What a beautiful expression of a human being is this man Chris Wiman!

Maddie is by side on this bed, sick with the flu, in the quiet of my typing.  Both of our cats are with us too.  Guinness (the boy), resting between my legs.  Guinevere (the sweet and ever hungry one) resting at Maddie’s feet.  Their only movements are their expanding and contracting bodies as they breathe.

It  really feels so quiet now.  A gift for me.  Who is always driven to do.  To complete.  To make order in the seeming disorder all around me.  I can finally think now.

I can think about what is important.  I can see through my thoughts, rather than my eyes, what matters.  I can meditate on Chris Wiman’s thoughts.  So grounded in the present and in the earth.  He described how poetry is so often described as a means of approaching the edges of this existence to something beyond.  Chris feels differently about his poetry.  It brings him closer to the earth and what is real for him now.  To hear him read his latest poem – 7:00 minute mark -  (as yet untitled) – I felt that meaning.

“That first line says it all, ‘love’s last urgency is earth.’ I think there is a notion that when you are sick or when you are dying, you want to get beyond.  You want an experience that takes you beyond the earth.  You want some sense of an afterlife.

My experience has been just the opposite.  When you feel threatened, what in fact you want is the earth.  You want concreteness.   That’s what rescues you.  . . . I love poetry because it gives me the concrete.  It gives me the concrete experience and it helps me understand my experience.”

Guinevere stirred long enough to lick her paws and roll more comfortably on her side.  Maddie is finally asleep.  I hear the rake of a gardener down the street.  It’s so quiet. Now.

I see sunlight outside my bedroom window.  The reflection in a mirror still unhung,  of a pile of clothes still not put away.  I feel the impulses to get up but I ignore them.  It’s so quiet.  Now.

It is the season of Lent.  Now.  Another chance to reevaluate my life even as I appreciate it and the blessings that have been a part of it.  I see a man like Chris Wiman and I dare to hope to be like him.  There is such a yearning in me to find creative expression that is publicly validated and helps people see life differently.  I feel that.

I feel that when I watch others play their music.  I watched a guitarist outside of a Starbucks this past week.  He was lost in his music and moved in it so effortlessly.  I heard the music in Chris Wiman’s poetry as he read multiple times from his work.  Every syllable and consonant’s crispness carried meaning and beauty.  The cadence carried me closer to life’s real rhythm and away from impulses to do laundry or vacuum or pick up.  I feel that.

I’m watching my courageous, strong wife start the season of Lent by giving notice on a job that provided so much materially but ran so counter to who she is.  And I wonder.  How is God calling me to also change this year?  I wonder.   What new things will she make room for in her life?  Now.  How will I also make room for something new?  Now.

I will write more.  I will explore the quiet.  I will feel the season of Lent.  Now.

We presented Congressman Schiff with a petition signed by 750 citizens and a strong request to co-sign House Joint Resolution 90 to move toward amending the constitution and repealing the nefarious Citizen’s United decision.  This is the petition :

We also presented him with a letter from the Rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

February 13, 2012

The Honorable Adam Schiff,
Member of Congress

Dear Adam,

I am always grateful for your leadership and your willingness to engage those you represent on matters of great import.  In that spirit I write you today about another issue.

January 21, 2012 marked the second anniversary of Citizens United v. F.E.C., where a narrow majority of the U.S. Supreme Court asserted that the Constitution prevents Congress from limiting the amount of money that can be spent influencing our elections.

The U.S. Constitution has served us very well, but when the Supreme Court says, for purposes of the First Amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company’s bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign advertising are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger.

In my sermon of January 22, 2012 at All Saints Church, Pasadena, I joined in the call for a Constitutional amendment to ensure that Citizens United is reversed and that the notion of corporate personhood cannot be constitutionally protected.

I would appreciate your doing everything in your power to support such a Constitutional amendment along with any other measures that would in the meantime counter the deleterious effects of Citizens United on our electoral process.

All my best,

Ed Bacon, Rector
All Saints Church
132 North Euclid Avenue
Pasadena, California  91101

We originally were to be given 15 minutes with Congressman Schiff but he was gracious enough to give us 30 minutes to make our case.  We came away very encouraged.  No, he didn’t give us a yes to our request to co-sponsor HJR 90 to amend the Constitution, but he did completely agree with our assessment of the state of democracy due to the “Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court of two years ago.  He said that as a matter of principle, in the 11 years he has been in the House, he has never supported a constitutional amendment.  He feels that an amendment to the Constitution should only be used as a last resort.  He acknowledged though, that this is a very unusual situation and he remains open to to our request.

Our response to this was to thank him for his time and indicate that we would continue to gather signatures and build awareness in the community on this and related issues of the corporate corruption of our political system – a system that is supposed to represent us, no corporations.  And we followed through as you can see here in pictures like these from our rally on the following day – Tuesday February 14th:

(Click the picture below to see more on Flickr)

And we continue to build awareness by our actions.  This story got picked up by both the Pasadena Star News and the Pasadena Weekly:

If you would like to get more informed about this issue, these are links to several organizations which are working for this constitutional amendment:

• Move to Amend
• United for the People
• The Occupied Amendment

You can see the impact on our political system of unregulated corporate money and money donated by super wealthy individuals.  Read up on this issue and see for yourself.  These are just two of many recent articles and opinion pieces out there on the subject.

How the Politics of the Super Rich Became American Politics

“As Ari Berman makes clear, it’s the wealthiest of the wealthy, the ones who bankroll the super PACs, who are essentially going to be doing most of the talking this election season.”

Money Throws Democracy Overboard

“These gargantuan super PAC contributions are not an end in themselves. They are the means to gain control of government – and the nation state — for a reason. The French writer and economist Frederic Bastiat said it plainly: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” That’s what the super PACs are bidding on. For the rest of us, the ship may already have sailed.”

Once you’ve read up on this subject, come join us!  Occupy Democracy – Pasadena is your local civic engagement group to get plugged into.  We welcome all levels of participation.  See you on a street corner near you!

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):

From Friday January 20th

From Saturday January 21st

PRESS:

January 19th

January 20th

January 21st

January 22nd

===========================

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!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157628034060543/

http://sgvtribune.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1364165&CategoryID=27239&ListSubAlbums=0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ridgewoman/sets/72157628039992965/

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.

- Marianne Williamson -

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:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157627939179937/

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:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is a national news article on National Bank Transfer Day:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45177084/ns/us_news-life/#.Trae3bKflYE

It’s great to see that 650,000 people had already moved their money out of big banks and into credit unions prior to this day!

http://www.cuna.org/newsnow/11/system110311-10.html

This is a a local (Los Angeles) news article and video on National Bank Transfer Day:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Flos_angeles&id=8420166

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!

Get the facts here:

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:

These are some links to images of the wonderful passion and activism our neighbors in Pasadena are bringing to this community!

April 18th, 2011 – Tax Day – Make the Banks Pay

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157626528764240/

October 7th, 2011 – Make Wall Street Pay

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157627718548895/

October 12th, 2011 – Make Wall Street Pay II

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157627757383381/

October 21st, 2011 – Make Wall Street Pay III

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39995061@N00/sets/72157627981163704/

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!

from me

and me

Love your son,

Patrick Ryan