See Also: Reflections Since September 17th

On the 23rd birthday of Bradley Manning, the one year anniversary of Mohammad Bouazizi’s self immolation, and the three month anniversary of the OWS movement, I have some very serious things to say. As i need to hurry down to Canal street I’ll make this quick.

We never made demands as a movement because we assumed the moral upper hand. We had a goal of working together to restore dignity to life on earth, beginning with the restoration and revision of our constitution and ending with the overhaul of governments.

The National Defense Authorization Act will be passed by Wednesday if we don’t do something, NOW. This act brands all independent thought as acts of terrorism and defies the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th amendments to the constitution.

Trinity Church has been a major ally of ours. Granted, they are the third largest land owners in the City, but they have been supportive us since the start. They offered us meeting spaces, food, and bathrooms. They have offered us greater courtesy and respect than the state over the past three months. They are not the enemy.

I feel since our loss of Liberty Square we have been trapped in a meta-discussion on how we see the movement, and ourselves in the movement. The proper dialogue to have would be how we see the struggle, and how we see a way out. We do not need space, we need action. Concentrated, prioritized action. This movement exists because one man could not take it anymore. The humiliation, the dehumanization, all these things we as Americans can taste but not smell; meaning we feel the effects of the system but they are not festering beneath our noses. There are Egyptians dying in their own streets, Bahraini Doctors in secret prisons, and helpless Afghan refugees wondering if after 30 years they’re ever going to get to settle down, as I type.

There was an emblematic day in the NYC movement I want to recant briefly. It was day 4, and white, privileged Americans got their first whiff of fascism. The police woke us up at 7 am after we had stayed up to 4 am putting up tarps, preparing for the incoming rain. As we deliberate what to do, the police enter in mass, violently arrest three of our people and take the tarp off our media equipment exposing it to the rain.

For a population that had never experienced “not getting their way,” this was devastating. It was, for me, the most poignant day of Occupy Wall Street if only because the Occupiers had to face themselves for the first time that day. So while my amazing Occupy family broke down because that time, the world was not watching, I waited for a quieter moment to cry out of recognition of all the work that needed to be done. Having seen and experienced some serious injustice in my life, this was the best they could have done to us that day. That day will be remembered as our first “civil disobedience,” and I feel the whole world would have laughed if they were watching.

The return to dignity this planet needs is multidimensional and has many facets. I could record words here that will offend, misconstrue, and confuse the truth in this movement, as I think it already has. But I will not be silent on the subject of our privilege as a movement. If the question isn’t asked, no one will answer, and I desire nothing more than to hear others. Meanwhile others, mostly male bodied individuals, desire nothing more than to talk and to lead and that’s not what this movement needs. It needs compassion, humility and direction. We need not be thieves, we need but to ask. We are given everything that we need if we just believe that this world can be healed.

If we steal this land today, we have learned nothing from the sacrifice of Bouazizi.

[EDIT] Just look at this footage sister Micha, a vetted activist for Muslim rights, suggested I find. On December 16th SCAF took unwarranted and inexcusable actions against the Occupy Cabinet protesters in Egypt. We showed no solidarity today, when in reality we fight to end this:

So let us take this winter to build paths to restoring human dignity, beginning with the exposure of the capabilities and origins behind the NDAA, and not how it De-legitimizes our Government. From there we build radical local decision making structures, which operate in a federated manner with each other, all agreeing to uphold human rights as the noblest of laws. Then we can confess to our brothers and sisters abroad how our Government has done them wrong, ally ourselves with members of other nation states, and inform the powers that be that if you declare war on one of us, you declare it on all of us. That is the foundation to usher in a global evolution.

Are you ready?

Peace Love & Providence