Penny Red: Dear Occupy Wall Street

[cal04]

Dear Occupy Wall Street,
Friday, 14 October 2011
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/10/dear-occupy-wall-street.html

(snip)
Right now, I know that things are tense. I know that you're waiting for the word on whether or not you will be evicted from Liberty Plaza tomorrow, from the beautiful occupation you've built right in the the belly of the beast of global corporate power. I know that you are worried that there will be police violence, or another mass arrest. I know this because right now, I'm reading news reports about what you're doing from across the globe, and talking to people sitting in the square, even though I'm thousands of miles away. You see? The whole world is watching. You did that. Whatever happens tomorrow, the whole world will be watching the New York authorities try to clean the people of America off the sidewalks of Wall Street.

You knew this was coming. After realising that pepper spraying a few peaceful protesters wouldn't make you go away, they've been trying to evict you for weeks, and the pretext that Bloomberg and the NYPD have finally found is that Occupy Wall Street is 'unsanitary' - full of rubbish, attracting rodents. Anyone who has been to the Plaza and seen the water filtration system you've built and watched volunteers from across the city sweeping the sidewalks and handing round the antiseptic gel knows what nonsense that is.

We know what they really mean when they say 'Liberty Plaza is full of rubbish.' The trash they want to sweep out of their nice clean financial districts are the ordinary people of your country - the 99%. They are tired of seeing you on their way to work in the mornings, cluttering up the pavements with your uncomfortable little placards about grinding unemployment, a broken healthcare system and a feral business sector holding the party system to ransom. They are tired of seeing old women asking for medical attention, little children asking for education, young adults asking for work. They want those people tidied away. The question is: are you going to let them tidy you away?

You knew, deep down, that this was coming. If the occupation of Wall Street was ever going to succeed as it was meant to, there were always going to be crackdowns. And of course it's scary. It's always scary when you take a stand in the face of power, because power tends to fight back when it is threatened, and you have certainly become a threat. You are a threat because you are clever, and angry, and peaceful, and you refuse to stop asking difficult questions, and you refuse to go away. Hundreds of you have already been arrested. There is every chance that more of you will be arrested tomorrow, simply for daring to dream of a different future, simply for demanding the individual and collective human dignities that most Americans consider theirs by right. When the NYPD refused to let you march through Wall Street a week ago, you chanted, hundreds of you with one voice: "who are you protecting?" It is a question you must keep asking until you receive an answer you can bear to accept.

more at link

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

1. If you really do want change to come about, this is your chance

to step up make it happen.
I'm not talking about bitching online about our problems.
We need to seize the moment.
Organize locally and link up nationally.
Were doing it in our little town of 1200 persons.
Our occupy event is Oct. 15
Use tactics that bring others into agreement with you, this makes them participants and shows the support we share with each other.
An example would be a sign that reads, HONK IF YOU SUPPORT ?, or, HONK FOR NO CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY.
Lets get off our collective asses and do this now.
This is the time we have been waiting for.
We might not get another.