Activism

Occupying the Future, Starting at the Roots

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“In the first world, we have been fed a false sense of security that is imploding,” says Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, recounting her family’s experience with the militant experiment in collective governance and self-sufficiency. “On Earth Day, our families were a part of manifesting a collective vision for a better way forward—that the land be a community educational center. We have planted strawberries in the children’s garden and feed the chickens with snails that we collect from our own garden. My partner, a cook, brings us food regularly. We are making that vision real.”

Back to the Land for the Occupy Movement

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In the scant three weeks that Occupy the Farm persisted as a physical occupation, it expanded the tactics, objectives, and vision of the Occupy Movement; it restored the frontlines of a local struggle to get the University of California to respond to community needs rather than corporate interests; it took an issue that is generally only spoken of in the so-called ‘Third World’ – that of food sovereignty and territorial rights – and dropped it into the heart of the urban San Francisco Bay Area; and, it asserted, in the flesh, a demand that many progressives have spoken of in recent years, but few have had sufficient vision, understanding or bravery to manifest: Occupy the Farm was, and is, a bold, largely unprecedented act of reclaiming the Commons in the most immediate sense – taking land out of private speculation and putting it into community use.

A vision of America the possible

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The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.

Plutonomy and the precariat: On the history of the U.S. economy in decline

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The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory won’t come quickly — it could prove a significant moment in American history.

Ernest Callenbach, Last words to an America in decline

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This document was found on the computer of Ecotopia author Ernest Callenbach (1929-2012) after his death:

“As I survey my life, which is coming near its end, I want to set down a few thoughts that might be useful to those coming after. It will soon be time for me to give back to Gaia the nutrients that I have used during a long, busy, and happy life. I am not bitter or resentful at the approaching end; I have been one of the extraordinarily lucky ones. So it behooves me here to gather together some thoughts and attitudes that may prove useful in the dark times we are facing: a century or more of exceedingly difficult times.”

Democracy’s Arc

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It’s hard to think of any word more freely bandied about in contemporary political discourse than “democracy,” and harder still to think of one freighted with a heavier burden of wishful thinking, utopian fantasy, and entitlement. As industrial civilization staggers toward its end, however, today’s fashionable contempt for democracy as it actually exists may become a potent force driving societies in crisis toward far worse options.

Seascape with methane plumes

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In the wake of last week’s post, I’d meant to plunge straight into the next part of this sequence of posts and talk about the unraveling of American politics. Still, it’s worth remembering that the twilight of America’s global empire is merely an incident in the greater trajectory of the end of the industrial age, and part of that greater trajectory may just have come into sight over the last week.

Creating community: Lessons from Occupy

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Whether Occupy is able to deal effectively with the substantial external threats and internal obstacles is yet to be determined. It will depend partly on the capacity for self-reflection and compassionate listening, as well as the success of channeling anger and frustration into powerful, constructive action.

Many specific suggestions have come from psychologists and activists, such as those at the OccuPsy meeting last month in Oakland.

In small groups and small towns, opposition to Citizens United spreads

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The small group, or “affinity group,” has been a crucial part of many social movements, and people are increasingly realizing its relevance for today. 
“It can sometimes be hard to get a group of activists to pull away from a political or social agenda,” says Lore. “But I always promise people that if you take five or six sessions focused on getting to know each other, you won’t be sorry. You’ll become much more effective activists. And you’ll also have fun in the process.”

Occupy World Street – a global roadmap for radical economic and political reform: review

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This book by Ross Jackson, published in March 2012 by Green Books, asks a good question: what can we do about the fact that we live in an unacceptably unjust and hopelessly unsustainable world? We know there are many useful things that can be done at home or locally, and by corporations or governments. Lots of examples were suggested by contributors to Fleeing Vesuvius. The trouble is that not nearly enough individuals, local communities, corporations or governments do these things. To reverse current trends the system as a whole has to change. But how? It’s such a huge question that few, if any, other writers have tackled it head on, which is what this book does.