Report from an occupier who attended one of the "99% Spring" trainings

[Zorra]

11. Yep. 99% Spring is an assemblage of organizations, movements, etc, that Occupy has co-opted

and is trying to prod them into some sort of direct action that will lead to further significant change.

Some of them, Greenpeace and Code Pink for example, have serious street cred. Others are groups that have been sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya, for months or years. Most unions have some serious work to do in order to re-establish cred as movers and shakers for the 99%. People have been paying their dues to unions and unions have been sitting on the sideline while Occupy does much of their job for them.

Occupy has essentially created the conglomerate known as 99% Spring, and we are influencing them to begin to center on the main problem, the 1%. Hopefully, we will spur them on further, into constructive and fruitful direct action.

As of now, I am waiting to see if 99% Spring will just be a forum for people to attend school, and learn a few more verses of Kumbaya, or if they are going to actually put it on the line, like Occupy has, with coordinated direct action that will create the tension necessary to bring about serious change.

"There are lessons in this world that can't be taught. They must be lived to be understood."
(Stick, paraphrasing Ralph Waldo Emerson)

MLK got it. This was written in the Birmingham jail:

"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/

Being always suspicious of the power and wealth of the 1%, until I see 99% Spring walk the walk, preferably alongside us, I will consider the 99% Spring movement an activist cub scout camp, complete with scoutmasters, that has possibly been brought into existence by the 1% in an attempt to create a dead end street as well as move focus away from Occupy, and subsequently neutralize Occupy, erroneously believing that this is a possibility.

I really don't like being this cynical, but I've been a Democrat all my life. I'm sure lots of y'all know what this means.

Just my opinions, I don't speak for anyone but myself.

☮ccupy


Hey there Fire Walk!!!