april 7
monument national – 12 hours of conferences – broadcast on VOX
monday april 9th
classe made a call to social activists
trying to change the student movement to a national social movement
– take the opportunity of april 22nd
– a new tranquil revolution
april 11 discussion
Sunday 15th OccuTam-Tams – noon
– bring food
– bring large paper
– bring occupy banner(s)
– bring markers
– ask to bring snacks/tupperware
The following is based on a speech given on November 12, 2011, by Noel Ignaitev, a Professor of History at the Massachusetts College of Art and author of the book “How The Irish Became White”.
The United States, like every country in the world, is divided into masters and slaves. For a long time the problem here has been that many of the slaves think they are masters because they think they are white. By white, I am not referring to skin color, but to some people’s belief that they are represented in the society. They may not get everything they want, but at least they are heard.
The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.
Thomas Paine, First Principles of Government, 1795
Thomas Paine’s words, written 217 years ago, capture the core purpose of the Occupy movement.
The movement, at its heart, instructs us to honor one another and to ensure that government policy and our justice system reflect that ethic. It asks us to return to our founding principles.
Wealth, Power and Privilege:
Wherever people gather there will be unequal distributions of wealth, power and privilege. In terms of social policy, people either tend to side with those who already have these advantages, thus perpetuating the imbalance, or they wish to lessen the disparity.
There are many philosophical justifications for favoring the wealthy and powerful. The Gospel of Wealth, Social Darwinism, Manifest Destiny, God’s Will and “trickle-down economics” are but a few of the rationales. All of these philosophies assert the inherent superiority of those who are wealthy, powerful and privileged by appropriating God, Destiny, Darwinism or Capitalism in a profoundly self-serving manner.
These rationalizations are a sign of pathological narcissism, i.e., the overvaluing of oneself and the undervaluing of others springing from greed, insecurity, fear and the lust for power. This approach to life asserts, “I will take what I want, any way I can, and I don’t care about the consequences to others.” It represents the law of the jungle, not the law of a civil, democratic society.
This document–Elements of Power–has been created with the intention of service to the Occupy Movement. It is a vision of organization and cooperation in the encampments, as well as an idea of how we may uniquely mobilize, educate, and work inclusively with as many people as possible, on as many different levels as possible, towards the common vision of bringing deep change to our current world system and civilization.
The heart of this document is relationships: trust earned and built within groups, service to and for the Whole (community, ecosystems, world, etc. humans and nonhumans equally), cooperation over competition and honouring different levels of involvement while celebrating, supporting and encouraging one another throughout the work.
Hello world