The Thanksgiving Treatise

To all fellow people of our country and to all those throughout the global community who advance the struggle of economic justice for all,

Last Thursday the people of our country gave thanks to the ignition of the global revolution towards the securing of economic justice for all. For too long the wealth of our planet has been squandered by the few, but the tide towards the concentration of wealth and power has crested, and on Thursday all of the people who love liberty & justice give thanks that this corner has been turned. Once again there is hope for the greatest shared dream of humanity, that one day we will all live together peacefully in a world where innovation and the content of a person’s character, not the violence of coercion & corruption, determine the trajectory of a persons life. Today the corrupt all over the world quake with fear, knowing in their hearts that their power is waning as the people are awakened to the new dasein. From Tunisia, to the squares of Cairo, to the cradle of democracy itself Athens, to the Plaza of the Sun, to the streets of New York, to South America, to South Africa, to India, to even the Jasmine’s of China, and the Green’s of Iran; the people have drawn their first breath of the new global consciousness. We are coming. Expect us.

Having struggled on the streets with people all over our nation to treat humanity, whether ourselves or another, as an end-in-itself and never as a means towards an end, and having endured the indignities of a culture obsessed with reducing all people to objects & commodities; as brute instruments to be exploited for profit; I give thanks that we have breathed the first breath of the new way. Those who desire power are unfit to lead and soon the meek will take back the earth not by force, but through compassion & courage and for this I give thanks. The days are numbered for the corrupt power hungry war profiteers, who clamor for violence, slaughter many, & exploit all; and for this I give thanks. Our shared journey on the path towards the new mode of being, where enough is better than more, where we recognize that we are only that which we give to others and all that we take will turn bitter in our mouths & poison our hearts; when the people’s shared dream of a better world materializes and the good of all living things are reflected in our individual actions; has just begun and it is a long & perilous path, but I give thanks that we have taken another step down this path.

Occupy your Authenticity

The path forward requires all of the people to participate. The battle for the future takes place within all of our hearts; and it is each person’s decision on whether to live in a community that is cruel, unjust & ruled by violence, where one must take in order to have; or to live in a community where they concern themselves only with helping others. The beauty of this second community is that one who serves only others has millions of people to lean on when the tables have turned, and they now find themselves in need of assistance. It is not a cabal which has instituted this current tyranny; but it is the frailty of our own hearts and our proclivity towards entertaining our base desires & fears, accumulating objects in an attempt to gain security and objectifying our brethren; that has allowed economic injustice to grow. It is time for the people to transform their hearts & minds, to be brave & generous, to be fearless & angerless; and to stand together in defiance against those who push us from our parks, committing violence against us everyday by poisoning our environment & more importantly our hearts. It is time for the people to turn the other cheek, and react with sympathy to the incessant fear & greed that has driven so many to shamefully exploit their fellow man, and offer them a hand out of the spiritual hell in which they now reside. Its time for the people to be the change they hope to see.

We must re-examine our relationship to work, and realize that a person’s work is not only that which they receive compensation for, but that which they have a calling for. Inside of all of us is a purpose and a meaning; something that we were born to accomplish, and we need all of the people to perform the work through which they express their authenticity. Those living today have been tasked with the re-imagining of our communities and the common dreams which bind us together, in order to secure the people’s survival in the midst of a quickly changing climate. We must acknowledge that inside of all of us are pieces of the truth. Unless all of these truths are uncovered and the misconceptions of ignorance are dispelled, we will not build the society that provides justice for all. It is imperative that we transform our society into one that supports the aspirational aspects of the human experience, that views each person’s pursuit of their authenticity as a gift to the community, and that strives to allow them to get the most out of their lives. We must create a society that believes that all people are expressions of the universal, and that strives to ensure that no one is left behind. We call on all the people to Occupy their Authenticity.

Occupy the Election

In the next year a farcical election will be conducted. A stage crafted illusion of choice, through which those who pay for the theater will attempt to engineer the people’s consent for a puppet which they have chosen. The corporate puppeteers pull the strings of both of the major candidates, and both parties represent the interests of the global corporate oligarchy by decreasing regulatory protections against the exploitation of the people. It occurs on both sides of the aisle and it is important to remember that it was Clinton who got rid of Glass-Steagall in 1999 as well as consolidated the media outlets into corporate ownership in 1996. Obama has allowed for a $16 Trillion secret bailout of the Investment Banking Industry through the Quantitative Easing policy of the Federal Reserve in addition to the well known $700 Billion dollar bailout enacted by Bush but carried out by Obama. The people must not believe the Oligarch’s lies that the puppets they present us with in their theatrical election are actually a choice and tell them in one unified voice what must be done. What must be done is to Reform the Electoral process that takes corporate influence out of politics in the hopes of restoring legitimacy to our government. This is not the only step that must be taken in the re-imagining of our world but it is the biggest one yet.

The people must approach all of the candidates in a unified voice and repeat these five questions over and over again until it is clear to the candidates what legislation they must pass on the first day of their term.

1. Are you for publicly funding elections?
2. Are you for equal air time for all candidates who can secure enough signatures to be on the ballot?
3. Are you for a limit of two terms for all elected officials?
4. Are you for issue based caucusing and ready to abolish the two party caucus system?
5. Are you for all electoral advertising to be fact based and ready to ban negative fear mongering attack ads?

The People must ask these 5 questions at all of the candidates campaign appearances. They must ask these 5 questions again in all of the candidates fund raising dinners. They must ask these 5 questions in their debates and the people must ask these 5 questions in the streets. They must educate all of the people in the streets, to let them know that the emperors have no clothes, and that we can now see through their lies & manipulations. The people must continue to ask these 5 questions again and again, until it becomes clear that if a candidate say’s no to these five questions they will be unelectable and that the people will challenge the legitimacy of their government. We must make the question of restoring the legitimacy of government by removing the influence of corporate bribery from our elections THE ISSUE of this election, and let every candidate know that the 5 questions represent the terms of the people’s first demand. If they fail to comply with the 5 requirements for Electoral Reform outlined in the 5 questions, the people will destabilize the legitimacy of their government by refusing to vote, by disrupting their rally’s, speeches & conventions, and protesting at their polling places.

The Professional Political class is a cheap date and is selling out the people for $6 Billion Dollars in campaign financing which is only .00035% of the combined $16 Trillion and $700 Trillion Bailout given to just the Financial Industry since 2008. $6 Billion Dollars is only .004% of the over $1,282,587,000,000 spent on wars since 2001. Publicly Funding our Elections would be a miniscule amount compared to the costs that the people have incurred from crony capitalism and we can not afford not to.

The only people who are fit to exercise the power of the people are those who don’t desire power, and we have created a Professional Political Class of career politicians whose only concern is how to get elected to their next term. Elected office should call to those as a solemn duty to serve their fellow citizens, those who see a problem that they would like to solve, and those who will devote themselves tirelessly to solving that problem once they are elected; not to those who admire power and just desire to wield it. If an elected official cannot get the legislation passed to fix the problem that they desire to solve, they should not be re-elected after their second term. If they can provide meaningful change, then maybe they should run for higher office. Term Limits will break up the Professional Political Class and breed a new generation of civil servants who can re-imagine the relationship of the government to the people, and implement the will of the people to improve the public good.

Caucusing in a two party system intentionally polarizes the people, based on illusory wedge issues, creating a political culture based on fear and obstructionism that simplifies the people’s arguments. It is time to toss this model to the dustbin of history and institute a caucus system based on issues, that will allow our representatives to reflect the nuanced manner of the people’s discussion about the issues that face our country, and reject the notion that the issues that affect our country are simply black & white, summarizable in two options.

Candidates should be factually debating the issues, not engaging in stagecraft and the polarizing vilification of the other candidate’s character & positions. Elections should be informative to the people and allow for the nuanced difference between candidates positions to be explored. It is only in this type of election that people may truly have a choice based on the facts and not on the illusion.

If we ask these five questions and demand these five reforms we will not have solved all of our problems, but we will have loosened the grip of those who promote economic injustice within our country. It will be the first step in the long struggle to secure economic justice for all living beings, but I call on all the people to Occupy the Election.

Occupy the Problems

Although Occupying the Election will shine a light on the illegitimacy of our current government and attempt to restore this legitimacy, this is not the only step to be taken in the upcoming year, nor the most important. The government and the corporate oligarchs have turned their backs on the people, offering no solutions to the multitude of problems facing our people but just more of the same policies aimed at helping them to consolidate their wealth & power. It is time for the people to organize themselves to test the solutions to the problems that they now face, to be inventive & ready to try out new solutions and spread the movement to every corner of our communities. The fabric of our communities must be rewoven into a community based on shared concerns, where no member of the community is left behind, where all members take responsibility for their community, and where we focus on how to solve the problems through local assemblies. No community on this planet has been left unharmed by the disastrous policies of neo-liberal globalism, and it is up to each community to find the solutions that will work for the issues in their communities. It is only by attacking these problems in every community and in every nation of this world, that the way forward will become apparent and the greatest shared dream of humanity will be achieved.

In each community the people should focus on the specific problems that are devastating the people in their community, and organize a people’s assembly to create a plan on how to bring relief to those who are suffering. The people should work together in each community to implement these plans, to means test the solutions that are devised, and to create a society based on the principles of shared responsibility & shared sacrifice, where no one in the community is left behind and everyone is the responsibility of all. This is an inclusive movement, a movement designed to empower all towards working for the public good, and it is only through collective action that the society dictated in the greatest shared dream of humanity will materialize.

By attacking the problems that face our communities, focusing on the solutions to these problems that actually work, and providing relief to those who have been oppressed; we will shine a light on the problems that are facing our society, threaten the legitimacy of a government that has turned it’s back on the people, and help to materialize the society we wish to live in. We will also unify the people by reweaving the societal fabric that binds us all together, so that they may be ready for the final battle against the forces of evil that pander to our most ignoble impulses. I call on all the people to Occupy the Problems.

Occupy with Art

We are at a transformative moment in the movement in our country towards economic justice for all. We have occupied public spaces to begin the process of petitioning our government to redress the people’s grievances, to let the powers that be know that business as usual has ceased to exist and that we are ready to begin the process of re-imagining our communities, our cities, our societies and our economy. In many cities we have been pushed from our camps, but the violence of the oligarchs has only strengthened our resolve. As a tactic the employment of occupations as a form of political speech to let the oligarchs know that we are here and we will no longer be silent has been successful. However there are many tactics in the toolbox of the struggle for economic justice, and it would be folly to wed ourselves so closely to just one of them. It is time to reinvent the Occupations and take pride in their existence. It is time to beautify these spaces, clean them up and improve upon them, to make it so that all members of our communities will feel safe entering them. We need to express our authentic message through posters, art installations, poetry, rhetoric, and music. We need to reinvent our spaces in order to make them cultural hubs, and invite all the people of our communities to come and express their authenticity by making a sign, speaking at a soap box, reading poetry or participating in the theater of the oppressed.

We must allow this authentic message to spill into the streets, to be posted on lamp-posts and sung from the street corners. We must let everyone know in our communities that we have arrived and that we are here for them, not for ourselves. This is the moment for the artist in the movement to transform our suffering into strength. I call on all the people to Occupy with Art, and for this I give thanks.

~Gary Roland, Person
@NYCCAMP