Why Occupy?

The image above has been making the rounds on facebook and twitter this weekend, and it doesn't pair well with this Guardian story from Naomi Wolf (who also recently wrote about getting arrested at an occupy protest): The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence.

There's no conspiracy here, because -- amazingly -- the looting of our nation's wealth is all happening in plain sight. Hopefully, more people are starting to play attention.

The Occupy Project

Hey, kids.  There's a thought. After you're done Occupying Wall Street, you don't have to just walk away. You can stay engaged and stop supporting the corporations that perpetuate this cruel, messy economy.

Of course, that's is easier said than done, and in some cases, the best we can do is work our way up and down a spectrum that runs from pure evil to pure good. It's simple enough to stop buying shampoo, but where do you go for a mortgage when you want to buy a house and don't happen to have $171,900 in your pocket*?

Back in the early 90s, I was standing in line at a Phish show, and some flower child came long with a basket full of Burt's Bees lip balm (the ones that came in that neat little metal tin), giving them away to anyone who wanted one. It was awesome lip balm and from a company that was all about doing good things in the world. Sign me up! I'll use this stuff forever!

Except, whoa. Fast forward a bit. It was nice while it lasted, but then the company was sold to Clorox in 2007, and now is part of corporate, polluting, don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about-the-world America. Where's a body to turn for lip moisturizer?

Well, if you're in Chattanooga, your first stop should be 423balm, which is locally sourced and produced by Cece, a person you can talk to, and whose ultimate goal as not to enrich her stockholders or become a millionaire (really! I've met her!), but rather to make the world a better place and to use local products while connecting local consumers with local producers.

But if you're not in Chattanooga, you might want to find your local producer. And the best place to start in that endeavor is at your local farmers market.

Go. You'll be surprised at the selection and if you don't see the particular thing you're looking for, ask around a bit -- talk to the farmers and the other patrons. A lot of the people at farmers markets are really committed to buying local, so chances are whatever it is you're after -- anything from garlic to soap to corn meal to furniture -- someone else has found a source nearby.

But what about when you can't buy local? How do you know who has a white hat and who is sporting a black one? That's what this project will be about, and it's very much at the start-up stage. Please feel free to contribute links and suggestions and I will keeping adding to the page as more information comes in.

The page will be up some time this week. If you know of any resources for finding the sustainable producers for any kinds of products, let me know!

(click here for a larger version of this Calvin & Hobbes strip)

*The banks may all be evil, but have you checked with your local credit union?

Occupy Your Pantry!

This is just the beginning of a post that I suspect I'll be adding to through the week. The Occupation is a fascinating phenomenon, and its lack of a clear, central points or goal is, I think, one of its best virtues. It exists, like a white screen, ready for our every projection. And now that the media is finally taking the movement seriously, a lot is being said, and much projection is being done.

In this post, I'm concerning myself only with food. It's one of my favorite things, we need a steady supply of it to keep us moving, and it is quite political in many ways -- we have policies ranging from farm subsidies to government cheese. Food can be an armament, even (Emmie wrote her departmental honors thesis in History on that very thing: food as a weapon in the Cold War).

And that is exactly where some of the Occupation discussion has headed: food and revolution. On one hand, it fuels the activities of everyone participating in the protests, and on another, our approach to it often fans the flames of discord.

So here is the beginning of a collection of links about the current discussion of food, often in the context of the Occupation protests. I'll start off with how all those people up in New York’s Zuccotti Park are staying fed...

Watch Your Mouth: The Protest Food of Occupy Wall Street

Today, Wall Street protesters grapple with their own food issues. On We Are the 99 Percent—a Tumblr that sprang from the in-person occupation—Americans detail their struggles to survive on food stamps and stave off hunger. “Half the month I can’t afford food,” one protester writes. One 8th grade girl says that at her family dinner table, she’s quietly “stopped eating a lot so there’s more food for everyone else.” Wall Street protesters have been criticized for lacking focus, but big banks actually played a significant role in our nation’s food crisis

In the short term, disenfranchised Americans can line their stomachs at Liberty Park. “Liberty Park is a generous, peaceful, wonderful place where people will take care of your needs,” says Allison Burtch, an info desk volunteer (who has also covered the protests here at GOOD). “We have so much food.” A food station offers fruit, vegetables, pizzas, cookies, pies, and energy bars. A team of dedicated volunteers serves vegan and vegetarian meals. Food trucks sell  falafel, pad Thai, and tacos to paying customers throughout the day.

Occupy Wall Street: What’s food got to do with it?

At the cafeteria-style “kitchen” in Zuccotti Square (the OWS base camp), plates of donated food are doled out by a rotating cast of volunteers, including trained chefs (the overwhelming quantity of donated food has organizers scrambling to donate to local shelters, ensuring nothing is wasted.)  Operating on 100% food donations means the kitchen team has to improvise based on what’s at hand, and prepare any hot meals at apartments or kitchen space in the neighborhood. However improvised, the kitchen supports the values of the activists: food scraps go into a compost bin, and dishwater passes through a filter to be reused.

And good, clean, and fair food IS a value of the activists. But what does it have to do with Wall Street? Food justice writer and activist Jan Poppendeick  says the connection is corporate control of agriculture. The statistics are staggering (90% of the corn market is dominated by 3 companies, for example) and the resulting degradation of human health and the environment endangers our health, and the future health of our food supply. Reclaiming control of the food system from corporate entities is one of the written tenets of the OWS declaration: “[corporations] have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.” Another tenet speaks to animal cruelty inflicted by the common industrial practice of confining animals into tight quarters with abhorrent conditions.

Foodies, Get Thee to Occupy Wall Street

Our national food policy is both in desperate need of reform and utterly trapped under the heel of industry influence. So, as Occupy Wall Street evolves, food policy should be on the plate. Here are four reasons why...

(update) If You Eat, You Better Occupy Wall Street

In 2011, an estimated 94 percent of soybeans, 88 percent of corn, 90 percent of cotton, 93 percent of canola and 95 percent of sugar beets produced in the U.S. contain GMOs. And since most items in the grocery store include common ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oils made from corn, soybeans, cottonseed and canola, with 8 out of every 10 bites of processed food, Americans are consuming genetically engineered foods without knowing it.

And a final update: Food movement: Occupy Wall Street and Big Food: October 29 (an excellent wrapup from Marion Nestle, who was my very first good guru!)

I hope they stay indefinitely, and that their numbers increase......

Update (oct7): Krugman comments and a timeline from The Week.

OccupyWallSt.org

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.