Martin Luther King
OccupySanLuisObispo, a non-partisan organization, has been in existence for only eight weeks. It was founded by two community members with a vision of creating a network here to voice our concerns about the dire (unequal, unfair, and downright criminal) economic situation in our country and to support the efforts of the OccupyWallStreet movement. Since OccupyWallStreet began, the movement has circled the globe with offshoots in over 2000 cities worldwide. We also have an OccupyCalPoly and an OccupyCuesta, as well as emerging groups in our satellite cities.
Our first public event, with only hours notice, drew almost 100 enthusiastic sign-waving citizens on Santa Rosa Street. Since that early success we have had other gatherings with upwards of (or nearly) 500 participants cheering for economic and political reform throughout society. We always get overwhelming support from passers-by when we hold our signs in public.
Our main concerns revolve around the obscene amount of special interest money affecting our politics. The corporations and their lobbyists own Congress and affect (sometimes even writing) legislation and administrative rulings. We have no lobbyist! Since the Supreme Court handed down its infamous"Citizens United v. FEC" decision on January 21, 2010 affirming corporations as 'people' and allowing the secret political donations they love to make by calling that corruption 'free speech,' Americans everywhere are waking up to what we have been saying all along: large US and multi-national corporations, with their insatiable thirst for profits, dominate every aspect of our political and social life. They have crashed our economy, raped our environment, and taken ownership of our ballot boxes in an attempt to turn our democracy into a corporatocracy. We want a real voice in the machinations of our country. We have been drowned out by the 1% at the top of the economic pile.
Here is something no one seriously disputes: Today's big deficits were caused mainly by big tax cuts for the wealthy, two unpaid-for wars, a horrible recession caused by Wall Street greed, and an expensive prescription drug program rigged to favor pharmaceutical companies. Bernie Sanders, Senator, Vermont
An emerging nightmare is the crushing student loan debt burdening college graduates, many of whom can't even find a job! The current student loan portfolio is over 1 trillion dollars, and these loans are forever, immune even from bankruptcy proceedings. Tuition and cost of books soar (in fact, brand new raises of 9% have just been approved by the CSU trustees AND our own Cal Poly is contemplating student fee increases on top of that!) while college presidents make a fortune; massive new buildings are planned and built. Tuition has tripled in less than 10 years! Scholastics suffer in an era of expensive education. California, at least, used to take pride in low cost public higher education and consistently produced high quality graduates that benefited the state greatly. It's a mess now.
In 1981 there was a national effort to improve primary school nutrition. Reagan's department of agriculture declared catsup and relish as vegetables to suit the fast food industry. Just recently there was s similar effort to reduce child obesity by providing healthier food available to our young students. The fast food industry made sure the congressmen they own killed the bill, declaring frozen pizza a vegetable! It is well known that good school nutrition is crucial for mental and physical development-these events will pay us back in decreased health and lowered scholastic success, and more criminal effects in the future. Great work, corporate Congress, for poisoning our children!
For quite a few years many of our fellow citizens have had to choose between housing, food, and medicine due to declining incomes, outrageous health costs and insurance fraud, ineffective regulation of predatory industries, investor fraud, and diminished government assistance programs. How can this be in the richest and most powerful nation on earth in the year 2011? In this era of mega-mansions and gated communities for the elite few, others are forced out of their homes and sleeping in cars, if they are lucky enough to still own a car. How can this be?It has been like this for many years. Why is that? These questions demand answers.
And consider one of the most scandalous issues that has always, and continues, to plagued us: our industrial/military complex that profits from American deaths—and sometimes just foreign deaths (just!) and heartbreak. Some business interests in this and other sectors (such as the US company United Fruit with interests in Central America) have NOT ONLY benefited hugely from our wars but also, in some cases, have even created them for profit, often by beating the 'communist takeover' drum. At the beginning of WWII, President Roosevelt cautioned against profiting from the coming war while ordinary Americans were serving this nation overseas in a life or death struggle with fascism. As he left office the Republican president (and former General of all Allied Forces in Europe during WWII), Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the industrial/military complex and the many tentacles of power it wielded to our detriment. We've all heard of the $486 hammers, the $98 socks and so on that have been sold to the military in 'sweetheart deals' and no-bid contracts. We all pay for that, as well as all the fancy gadgets, travel, and other costs the military racks up.
It is more than a rumor that WE sank our USS Maine battleship in Manila Harbor in 1898 to create an incident to declare war on Spain in which we got Cuba and the Philippines as spoils of war. In 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin incident (a US ship was supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese gun boats) sparked the beginning of our involvement in Viet Nam; many feel that incident was fabricated to incite Congress to give the President instructions to engage in the area which led to a decade long period of grief and cost for most of us, with convenient huge profits for the war profiteers. Both these wars were good for business.
OccupySLO - First Day of Action, October 15, 2011 Photo by Jay Salter
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Around mid-October a few of our OccupySlo general assembly members decided to 'occupy' the SLO courthouse lawn area to further state their commitment to the movement and educate the public about our goals. Though the encampment has gone through many iterations with varying types of campers, it remains our 'public face.' But it soon became, essentially, a homeless and transient camp. Our rallies and marches are much more representative of our broad based membership. We have enjoyed tremendous restraint from the authorities (SLO city and county) even though some problems have arisen at the camp. Any presence there DOES NOT represent a protest against those entities. In fact, our governmental agencies have often suffered terribly under the economic crisis brought down on us by the greed and criminal behavior of Wall Street, big banks, and other entities (such as Moody's and Standard and Poor's rating agencies that help to sink our economy by their criminal conduct).
Find out about these worthy efforts to bring a semblance of democracy back to North America at OccupySLO.org and on Facebook. OccupyCalPoly and OccupyCuesta are also on Facebook. You are urged to check out Occupytogether.org, Unitedrepublic.org, and The 99 Guide.com.
Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many—they are few.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
For more info or to arrange a speaker for your group send an email to Pete Evans.
While in jail for demonstrating, Martin Luther King, Jr responded to a letter he received from a group of liberal clergy. They had criticized him for being too brash and confrontational. They urged him to 'wait,' that change would come. Among other things he commented on he defended his tactics by pointing out that he was not causing all the angst. Rather, he was healing it by forcing it into the public domain for scrutiny and cleansing.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"
Martin Luther King, Jr.
