jakit

The Sleeping Giant

Message to the powers-that-be:

You do not want to mess with Oakland.

I don't mean this in the gangster-rap, we're hard, hyphy kind of way. I simply mean that you better take us seriously.

No one criticizes Oakland more than me. We're a city that constantly under-achieves. Any chance we get, we shoot ourselves in the foot. It's always about potential, never achievement.

Nevertheless, there is still an enormous amount of potential here. Potential to rebel.

Oakland is the home of the Black Panthers. This is the town where the Hells Angels became the famous outlaw biker gang. The Raiders are the bad-boys of professional football, constantly penalized by the NFL but refusing to change their ways.

Our neighbor, Berkeley, is where the freedom of speech movement began. We basically create only three styles of music; punk, metal and hardcore rap. We invented a new language based upon slang.

Clint Eastwood is one of our native sons. Our favorite athlete is famous for stealing things.

Basically, we love rebels.

What this all means is that every kid raised in Oakland is taught from a very early age to challenge authority. This attitude pervades every aspect of our culture. It is in our blood to stand-up and fight the power. It is both a curse and a blessing, but it is there.

Just as Los Angeles is consumed with the entertainment industry, New York is a city where you can go rags-to-riches, Portland thinks green, Boston is Irish, Salt Lake City is Mormon, Philadelphia is rude (c'mon, they booed Santa Claus) and Dallas makes everything bigger, Oakland is a city of rebellion.

If there is any place in America where the occupy protests will transcend to the next level, it is most assuredly the sunny side of the Bay.

Not all Oaklanders will agree with the protestors. But when they see the heavy-hand of the police cracking down, certain genes in their DNA will be activated. They will be called to duty and they will hit the streets.

The sleeping giant will have woken.

Not All of Us Want to Be Rich

I take offense at the barage of insults being hurled in Herman Cain's direction. It's high-time such prejudice was erased from our society. I, for one, would be proud to see the first President to come from the pizza community.

Except that I think Mr. Cain is rather dense.

His statement that the Wall Street protestors should blame themselves if they're not rich is, for lack of a better term, retarded.

First of all, the Occupy Wall Street people aren't protesting because they're not rich. They're protesting because they believe that too many people don't have access to the basic necessities. They blame this on a failure of democracy.

Second, they're not protesting because they want hand-outs. They're protesting because they merely want the opportunity to provide for themselves and, unfortunatley, the Capitalist system isn't the free-market fair-competition that it's advertised as.

Lastly, and most importantly, not everyone even wants to be rich.

Many people find that the excess labor required in pursuing extreme wealth is not worth the sacrifice in lifestyle, such as the loss of time spent with family or friends.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
- Socrates

Other people might choose not to go for the big money because they feel that most of the work that brings one riches, such as working on Wall Street, is not the type of work that contributes beneficially to society. They would rather do something more righteous, but less profitable, like teaching or nursing.

A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
 - Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha)

Still, other folks might feel that being rich is inherently immoral, no matter how one comes about their wealth. They feel that to have too much while others have too little is morally wrong. These people believe that we should all live simply so that others may simply live.

What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.
 - Jesus Christ

Unfortunately, when a rich person assumes that everyone else wants to be wealthy like them, they see themselves as the winners of a universal competition. This justifies, in their eyes, both their monopolizing of common resources and their undue political influence.

Again, however, this is all predicated on the incorrect assumption that everyone wants to be rich.

Considering that the people who wilfully choose to reject conspicuous consumption also, by definition, are the ones most likely to exhibit the four Cardinal Virtues, such as temperance and justice, it is sad that they are not also the ones who preside over our society.

Instead, our political leaders are those who believe, like Herman Cain, that great wealth makes great people.

We Are the Other 53%

What was it that triggered the Wall Street Protests?

Was it the bailout of the banks?

Many people point to that event as the one grievance that all the protestors share, but I don't think it is what actually sent folks out into the streets. After all, the bailout happened over three years ago. Why would it take so long?

I believe that, instead, the actual trigger of the protests was the failure of the Obama presidency.

Obama was elected with a clear mandate. He achieved a landslide victory and the people who voted for him expected him to do certain things. Among these were:

• End the Iraq War
• Close Guantanamo
• Use government money to build a new infrastructure
• Create universal healthcare
• Regulate the power of Wall Street

He advocated each one of these ideas in his election campaign. It could not be clearer that this is what the public wanted when they elected him.

Yet, when he attempted, for instance, to create a universal health care system, there was an enormous uproar. Certain loud voices argued that universal health care was not what the public wanted and that Obama, therefore, was going against democracy.

These voices didn't just come from the 1%. They were only able to gain influence with support from the masses. In the end, these voices, however irrational, won out. For whatever reason, Obama caved-in to them.

Now the public feels that the democratic system has failed. They elected a President to do specific things and he has not done them.

When democracy fails, people take to the streets. Nearly hopeless, they feel that protesting is the only way that their voices can be heard.

A riot is the language of the unheard.
 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Wall Street protestors do not represent the 99%, as they so often claim, because many of the 99% are willing to support the corporate and financial interests that have gained an unfair influence over our government. It is better to see the protestors as representing the 53%.

That's the percentage of people who voted for Obama.

Handwork

Something that most of us are missing in our modern existence:

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

#occupygolfcourses

One complaint that I often hear about the Wall Street protestors is that they don’t have a specific message; there is no unifying theme or demand.

The theme, though, is right there in the name; occupy. They're occupying space.

Specifically, the space that they're occupying is an urban park in downtown Manhattan. The point is that it's space that does not belong to them but, they feel, it should belong to them. The space is metaphorical, of course. They don't really feel that this ugly park should be theirs. They feel that Wall Street, or, more importantly, the power that Wall Street possesses, should be theirs. Should be ours.

Which is absolutely true. We're a democracy, after all.

Contrary to the way the occupation is portrayed by the corporate media, this is not an attempt at Socialism or Communism or Marxism. This is an attempt to end corruption. The inevitable corruption that happens when too much power is concentrated in the hands of too few people.

Power, however, is inexorably attached to wealth. He who has the wealth has the power. So, in order to fix the problem, there will need to be a solution that keeps too much wealth from accruing in the hands of too few people.

Those that will argue against such measures will insist that the people who have wealth have gained it through their own hard work, creativity and contribution to society.

If only.

That someone should reap the rewards of their labor is a moral truism. But those rewards should be limited to the actual output of their labor or, at least, an equitable trade. Where things go awry is when one acquires not the products of labor, but the means to produce the labor in the first place.

Let's remember just exactly what wealth consists of. It is not merely the money that businessmen gain from their work. According to Wikipedia, wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. Since material possessions must be made out of natural resources, it is safe to say that all wealth comes from resources and resources are finite.

So, he who controls the resources controls the wealth and, therefore, holds the power.

You see, my friends, you begin to ask the questions, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?
 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The land is here for everyone. Not for everyone to share, like a national park, but for everyone to use; to own a piece of. Yet very few people today actually own the land that they live on.

Therefore, it is time that the people started taking back their common property. It is time that the people started taking back the nation's natural resources.

To occupy an ugly urban park, though symbolically strong, is weak in practical terms. The best move would be to occupy usable land. And the best usable land to occupy first are the golf courses.

It would be both symbolic and practical.

The protestors who occupy these golf courses should not simply sit around and bang drums on the fairway, they should actually use the land. Bring some sheep and cows and graze them. Grow some vegetables. Plant a fruit tree.

There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war... This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
 - Benjamin Franklin

These country clubs take up important centrally-located real estate. And for what? So a few rich men can play a game?

When the price of food is on the rise, when it's harder for Americans to feed their families, when the food put out by agribusiness makes people sick, when transportation of the food damages the environment, when people are out of not only work, but meaningful work, then what better use for this land than to allow people to produce their own food.

After all, how can you pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don't have any boots?

No handouts. No charity. No Socialism.

Just returning to the people their God-given right to take care of themselves.

The Beginning...

Message for Protestors on Wall St.