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| Seismologik Intelligence |
This weekend, I attended a politicalmarriage, divorce, and funeral. "Wewere a real family... albeit with a lot of incest..." explained PeterStaley at the funeral of Spencer Cox at the Cutting Room on Sunday afternoon.
The day before, Occupy converged downtown for a street action on the
anniversary of the Citizen's United Supreme Court ruling; Sunday we would
reflect on the life of a beloved AIDS activist.
Between the goodbye for Spencer Cox and the Occupy re birth, the whole
weekend felt like a family reunion.
Creative
Direct Action
After a year of our movements ebbing and
flowing, a group of veterans of Occupy
Wall Street started meeting a few weeks ago to get things started again.
As my friend Felix explained on Facebook
on January 3
"Sometimes
the world forces me to act up in certain manner in order to bring some color
into our lives… Creative Direct Action can and will change the world."
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| Foto by Weltenbummler Mag- Thanx! |
I chimed
in: "Felix, we need your festive brand of creative direct action." Over facebook we talked about the
possibilities of joy in the face of all this misery.
And we
were off. A prime motive for the action was art and freedom. Felix
has been a bit of a hero in Occupy lore for bring a queer defiance to his
activism, even when the NYPD has tried to slow him down. But there are only
so many times a movement wants to take a gut punch. Art has a way of disarming or proposing
questions, it is a way to fight back and show we are still free.
Felix Rivera-Pitre
Felix and
Billy started organizing meetings at 60 Wall Street.
Felix
explained the rationale:
"we
are just a group of artist fighting for freedom of speech and social justice
just like you. Every group has the autonomy to create their own actions, the
fact that there was another group that got started at the same time and we all
though in both groups that this is just a sign that we are all in the same
frame of mind and decide to work together so both groups join. We are not the
only Direct Action Group out there."
We hoped art would be as much of the
action as possible, art which could challenge systems of power busy imposing
systems of the normal where artists and activists and dreamers dwelled.
"You don't own our joy." Those are the words in my notebook from a
January 10th Times Up! meeting.
After the first direct action meeting,
we would call for actions all around Wall Street for the weekend of the
disastrous Citizens United decision. It
was going to be MLK weekend and a time for us to declare that if corporations
are people: we need a divorce.
Times Up! would organize a bike ride to
the action.
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Escape Ride from Citi Bank's Proposed
Forced Marriage to Bike Culture!
January 19th is the third anniversary of the Citizen United decision finding that corporations have the legal rights of people. And now Citi bank is trying to marry #bikenyc: Join Times Up! to remind the world that corporate sponsors do not make good partners and ride to escape this forced marriage with street theatrics and direct action:
Leaving
ABC No Rio at 1:30, we will run from the bike of corporate greed, staging
wedding processions and offering time to object at several Citi Bank
locations on our way to the city-wide action against Citizen's United at 4pm.
Wear wedding costumes, bring rice and kazoos!
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At our best, Times Up! has
brought energy and a spirit of rambunctious fun to OWS actions, organizing bike
block to take part in the movement's earliest actions. January 19th would be no different.
With Citizens United in mind, Times Up!
suggested that while there are benefits to Citigroup supporting a bike share
program in New York, there are limitations to corporate branding of biking in
the city. There are limits to corporations using cycles to greenwash their
message.
Some argued we were not picking our
target wisely. But as Keegan, one of the
prime organizers for the action noted, "for us, bicycling is about activism, for our community of
nyc and the environment worldwide. citibank does not get a pass on foreclosing
on our friends here in new york or funding tar sands in canada because they are
buying the cheapest advertising space in nyc that happens to be on bikes."
So we would take on Citibank and their
Citibikes, organizing prop making meetings to make props.
The day of the action, we all met at ABC
No Rio, ran through the
first of several of our skits on the proposed shotgun marriage between banks
and bikes, communities and corporations.
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| Pre action prop making. Photos by Barbara Ross |
More than a little rough around the
edges, we take pride in the adage that the performance is a rehearsal and the
rehearsal is the performance.
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| Photos from Gammablog |
In between the histrionics, Peter noticed a car parked in a bike lane. I walked over to check out the car with a man
inside on the phone talking, while looking at us.
"I guess they are paying attention
to the facebook invites" someone noted.
He followed us to the next Citibank,
finding another bike lane to park in.
And another in Chinatown, where he
watched as we performed the skit again, declaring we want a divorce from corporations,
autonomy from their gaze.
Someone in the group noted he was not
planning to arrest anyone but wanted us not to block the entrance to the
bank. I walked up to him and asked if he could
possibly stop blocking the bike lanes, or park somewhere besides a bike lane
when tracking us. He shook his head,
explaining he could not. What about the law I asked. He said he did not care.
Weary of more arrests, the Times Up gang
rode to Wall Street to join the next faux wedding action.
We hoped the action would
challenge the sense that corporations can and should colonize our cities and
streets, our bikes, imagination, and even our democracy. After all, the damage of Citizens United is far
reaching. And this is why we were
fighting Citizens United all weekend long. The weekend
news was abuzz with stories about the social and economic damages of expanding
income inequality, propelled by corporate influence on the political system. They lobby against laws or policies which support a fair economy,
progressive taxation, earned income tax credits, public education and social
safety net provisions. As Oxfam notes in
a January 18th press briefing: The
cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all.
The
world must urgently set goals to tackle extreme inequality and extreme wealth
It is now widely
accepted that rapidly growing extreme wealth and inequality are harmful to
human progress, and that something needs to be done. Already this year, the
World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report rated inequality as one of the top
global risks of 2013
agree. Around the world, the Occupy protests demonstrated the increasing public
anger and feeling that inequality has gone too far.
In the last
decade, the focus has been exclusively on one half of the inequality equation -
ending extreme poverty. Inequality and the extreme wealth that contributes to
it were seen as either not relevant, or a prerequisite for the growth that
would also help the poorest, as the wealth created trickled down to the benefit
of everyone.
There has been
great progress in the fight against extreme poverty. Hundreds of millions of
people have seen their lives improve dramatically – an historically
unprecedented achievement of which the world should be proud.
But as we look to the next decade, and new development
goals we need to define progress, we must demonstrate that we are also tackling
inequality- and that means looking at not just the poorest but the richest.
Oxfam believes that reducing inequality is a key part of fighting poverty and
securing a sustainable future for all. In a world of finite resources, we
cannot end poverty unless we reduce inequality rapidly.
That is why we
are calling for a new global goal to end extreme wealth by 2025, and reverse
the rapid increase in inequality seen in the majority of countries in the last
twenty years, taking inequality back to 1990 levels.
Extreme
wealth and inequality are reaching levels never before seen and are getting
worse
Over the last
thirty years inequality has grown dramatically in many countries. In the US the
share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to
20%. For the top 0.01% it has quadrupled
to levels never seen before. At a global level, the top 1% (60 million people),
and particularly the even more select few in the top 0.01% (600,000 individuals
- there are around 1200 billionaires in the world), the last thirty years has
been an incredible feeding frenzy.
This is not confined to the US, or indeed to rich countries. In the UK
inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles
Dickens.
In China the top 10% now take home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality
levels are now similar to those in South Africa,
which are now the most unequal country on earth and significantly more unequal
than at the end of apartheid.
Even in many of the poorest countries, inequality has rapidly grown.
Globally the incomes of the top 1% have increased 60% in twenty years.
The growth in income for the 0.01% has been even greater.
Following the
financial crisis, the process has accelerated, with the top 1% further
increasing their share of income.
The luxury goods market has registered double digit growth every year since the
crisis hit.
Whether it is a sports car or a super-yacht, caviar or champagne, there has
never been a bigger demand for the most expensive luxuries.
The IMF has said
that inequality is dangerous and divisive and could lead to civil unrest.
Polling shows the public is increasingly concerned about growing inequality in
many countries, and by people across the political spectrum.
Extreme
wealth and inequality is economically inefficient
A growing chorus
of voices is pointing to the fact that whilst a certain level of inequality may
benefit growth by rewarding risk takers and innovation, the levels of
inequality now being seen are in fact economically damaging and inefficient.
They limit the overall amount of growth, and at the same time mean that growth
fails to benefit the majority. Consolidation of so much wealth and capital in
so few hands is inefficient because it depresses demand, a point made famous by
Henry Ford
and more recently billionaire Nick Hanauer in his much-discussed TED talk.
There quite simply is a limit to how many luxury yachts a person could want or
own. Wages in many countries have barely risen in real terms for many years,
with the majority of the gains being to capital instead.
If this money were instead more evenly
spread across the population then it would give more people more spending
power, which in turn would drive growth and drive down inequality.
The top 100 billionaires added $240 billion to their wealth in 2012- enough to
end world poverty four times over.
As a result growth in more equal countries is much more effective at reducing
poverty. Oxfam research has shown that because it is so unequal, in South
Africa even with sustained economic growth a million more people will be pushed
into poverty by 2020 unless action is taken.
Extreme
Wealth and Inequality is Politically Corrosive
If, in the words
of the old adage ‘money equals power’ then more unequal societies represent a
threat to meaningful democracy. This power can be exercised legally, with
hundreds of millions spent each year in many countries on lobbying politicians,
or illegitimately with money used to corrupt the political process and purchase
democratic decision making. Joseph Stiglitz
has pointed out the way in which financial liberalisation led to huge power
for the financial industry, which in turn has led to further liberalisation. In
the UK the governing Conservative party receives over half its donations from
the financial services industry.
Capture of politics by elites is also very prevalent in developing countries,
leading to policies that benefit the richest few and not the poor majority,
even in democracies.
Extreme
Wealth and Inequality is Socially Divisive
Extreme
Wealth and Inequality is Environmentally Destructive
Extreme
Wealth and Inequality is un ethical
Extreme
wealth and inequality is not inevitable
After the Great Depression in the
US in the 1930s, huge steps were taken to tackle inequality and vested
interests. President Roosevelt said that the ‘political equality we once had
won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality’.
These steps were echoed in Europe after World War Two, leading to three decades
of increasing prosperity and reduced inequality. Similarly the growth of the
Asian tiger economies like Korea was achieved whilst reducing inequality and
meant the benefits were widely spread across their societies.
More recently, countries like Brazil,
once a poster child for extreme inequality, have managed to buck the global
trend and prosper whilst reducing inequality.
The policies required to reduce
inequality are also well known. Decent work for decent wages has had a huge
impact. The rise in the power of capital over labour has been identified by
Paul Krugman
among many others as a key cause of the recent crisis and one that means that assets are not being used productively, in turn
reducing demand.
.
Free public services are crucial
to levelling the playing field. In countries like Sweden, knowing that if you
get sick or that you will receive good treatment regardless of your income, is
one of the greatest achievements and the greatest equalisers of the modern
world. Knowing that if you lose your job, or fall on hard times, there is a
safety net to help you and your family, is also key to tackling inequality.
Similarly, access to good quality education for all is a huge weapon against
inequality.
Finally, regulation and taxation
play a critical role in reining in extreme wealth and inequality. Limits to
bonuses, or to how much people can earn as a multiple of the earnings of the
lowest paid, limits to interest rates, limits to capital accumulation are all
only recently-abandoned policy instruments that can be revived. Progressive
taxation that redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor is essential, but
currently the opposite is the case – taxation is increasingly regressive and
the poor pay higher effective tax rates than the rich, a point recently
highlighted by Warren Buffet among others, who has called for greater taxes on
the rich.
Cracking down on tax avoidance and tax evasion goes hand in hand with more
progressive taxation. Closing tax havens and ending the global race to the
bottom on taxation, for example with a globally agreed minimum rate of
corporation tax would make a huge difference It is estimated
that up to a quarter of all global wealth – as much as $32 trillion - is held
offshore.
If these assets were taxed according to capital gains taxes in different
countries, they could yield at least $189 billion in additional tax revenues.
End
extreme wealth and inequality
Whatever the
combination of policies pursued, the first step is for the world to recognise
this as the goal. There are many steps that can be taken to reverse inequality.
The benefits are huge, for the poorest – but also for the richest. We cannot
afford to have a world of extreme wealth and extreme inequality. We cannot
afford to have a world where inequality continues to grow in the majority of
countries. In a world of increasingly scarce resources, reducing inequality is
more important than ever. It needs to be reduced and quickly.
An end to
extreme wealth by 2025. Reversing increasing extreme inequality and aim to
return inequality to 1990 levels.
Walking down to 60 Wall Street, I
greeted the gang, Jack, Felix, Monica, Joe, and everyone else.
Everyone was getting ready for the faux
wedding.
Occupy Wall Street would like to invite you
to the joining in
(un-)holy matrimony of a real human being to a non-human corporate “person” to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Citizen's United, granting corporations equal rights as living things. So why not ask for their hand in marriage?
at 3:30 pm on Saturday,
January 19, 2013
Please arrive at 60 Wall St, where the wedding
party will then proceed to the steps of Federal
Hall for the ceremony.
Please dress in formal wedding attire either in corporate gear and suits for the Corporation side or as a human being on the Human side. Bring signs that match accordingly- protesting the union or encouraging/ branding it with corp. logos.
The Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir will preside. Reception to follow with cake and merriment.
to the joining in
(un-)holy matrimony of a real human being to a non-human corporate “person” to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Citizen's United, granting corporations equal rights as living things. So why not ask for their hand in marriage?
at 3:30 pm on Saturday,
January 19, 2013
Please arrive at 60 Wall St, where the wedding
party will then proceed to the steps of Federal
Hall for the ceremony.
Please dress in formal wedding attire either in corporate gear and suits for the Corporation side or as a human being on the Human side. Bring signs that match accordingly- protesting the union or encouraging/ branding it with corp. logos.
The Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir will preside. Reception to follow with cake and merriment.
While the small action seemed slightly
silly, the subtext of the action was Citizens United and the movement to amend
it:
We the People, Not We the Corporations
We, the People of the United States of America,
reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United and
other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish
that money is not speech, and that human beings, not
corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and
wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule.
We Move to Amend.
". . . corporations have no consciences, no
beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and
facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood'
often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of
“We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
~Supreme Court Justice Stevens, January 2010
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| show her you care. by jf rose |
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| Top Photo of and below photo by Erik R. McGregor |
My old buddy Bill
Talen was there. Between arrests and
street actions over fourteen years, we've worked on any
number of campaigns, including an effort to keep Union Square a public
space for the people, not a private shopping and dining destination. The First Amendment had been our elixir on
that campaign. Talen was arrested for
reciting it there, wining and pushing back.
And now the courts were started to agree with us. Public spaces cannot simply be
consumed by the private, even if these are Bloomberg's friends. Activism does from time to time work.
Talen would be
officiating in the faux marriage between Monica and a corporation, leading the freaky procession, dressed as his character
Reverend Billy.
Organizers
had gotten a permit so they could stage the action on the steps of federal
hall. But as usual, the police were using the permit to control the scene. And it was driving my friend Jenny Heinz
crazy. Heinz is one of my heroes from the Granny's Peace
Brigade, who I had gotten arrested with a decade prior. She started activism in the civil rights
movement four decades prior, only really finding a voice with the consensus
process of the global justice and anti war movements. When the war started in 2003, Heinz and
company enlisted to fight so their grandchildren would not have to. All these years later, she still does not
take any shit from police or anyone else. My friend Bob Kohler used to say he thought
activists needed to stay angry to stay involved.
Jenny reminds me this is still possible.
Jenny reminds me this is still possible.
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| On Federal Hall by Stacy Lanyon |
But we can also find theatrical ways of
saying what we plan to say.
"Do we have any objections to this
marriage?" asked Talen
"YES!!!!!!!!!!!" screamed
everyone.
"Well, there are no objections,"
explained Talen proceeding with the vows.
"Do you take this
corporation?" he asked Hunken.
Monica started to speak up.
The crowd was riled up, screaming along.
"I believe" someone mic
checked.
"I believe" replied the crowd.
"I believe that we can win" we
started chant, over and over departing from the square up to Zuccotti.
Saying good bye, I rode home as the sun
set over the Brooklyn Bridge. A dynamic splash of colours across the sky.
Back to the family, dinner, a fire and quiet night. Like the night before I could not rally for the Spencer Cox party that night. The intricate mix between friends and family, between public and private lives and spaces is never simple. Still many revelled in what had been accomplished with the first OWS street action in a while.
Back to the family, dinner, a fire and quiet night. Like the night before I could not rally for the Spencer Cox party that night. The intricate mix between friends and family, between public and private lives and spaces is never simple. Still many revelled in what had been accomplished with the first OWS street action in a while.
Kim Fraczek
Everything was amazing yesterday! We worked so hard with SO MANY GROUPS
and created an amazing action. Quickly coordinated a new plan when the NYPD
disrupted us with their illegal barriers, kept positive, kept active and got a
very important message out. This is just the beginning of what 2013 is going to
look like. We are unstoppable.
Felix explained that artful activism,
such as this, was more appealing than activist martyrdom, at least for him. All
year Felix had been in and out of court.
I had few nervous breakdown during court this last year cuz I was not
able to get out of NYC cuz court. The NLG had to arrange enough time for me to
do The International AIDS Conferences. I just clear all my cases and if people
is counting on me to do this and voicing the same concern that I have realizing
that we can do much better outside jail play the game by the rules so we have
more leverage when they fucked up (like yesterday for example). This is true
diversity of tactics we are thinking outside the box with art and caring for
the people who support us and cuz this Revolution should be different than any
other Revolution. Yesterday was a success and it was just the beginning.
Activism of the present moment overlaps
with historic efforts through these struggles.
 Timothy Lunceford |
Saying
Goodbye Again and Again
In recent weeks, AIDS activists across the country have taken a few minutes pause
to reflect on the well lived, frustratingly complicated life of AIDS activist
Spencer Cox, who died in December. Sunday was his funeral. Apologies to anyone I misquote.
Riding
over I greeted Kevin by the Gandhi statues on the West corner of Union Square,
where was leading the Times Up! Peace
Ride. I was nervous going. These can be big moments, but old scores
still linger, sometimes making even showing up difficult. Inside I saw friends from worlds of ACT UP, James
Wagner and Barry, Charles King, and Mark Harrington.
King
and Harrington talked about Spencer. He
had his meds, explained Harrington. He
probably thought he could stop taking them and get through it.
Over the last few weeks I've written about
the lines between grief, pain and sanity.
Hamlet entertained the idea of insanity in his soliloquies. Some suggest this is how he coped. He explored his crazy, talking it through. Yet, can we really maintain our sanity by
exploring insanity, lettings its extremes dance off the perimeters of the mind?
Maybe this is what crystal is all
about? We need to be allowed to be
crazy, to step off for a second. But
what happens if we act instead of contemplating acting? What happens if we stop
taking our meds? What if we can't come
back after we've floated out to sea? HIV
has always shown us how unforgiving our bodies are.
Looking up, there was a screen with Liza, someone quite acquainted with the
periphery of her own edges of sanity, singing "Cabaret." She was
hero to so many.
"Its a great video montage," I
mentioned to Jay, looking up at the scenes of Liz Taylor, Bette and so on Ron
Goldberg had put together. The montage reminded me of what it must have been
like to be at Vito Russo film nights at the GAA
firehouse in the early 1970's. Vito's
funeral was the stuff of lore for ACT UP members. Douglas Crimp wrote a seminal essay on the event
and Kramer's question: "Who killed Vito Russo?'' Two decades later, Kramer would confess he's
grown weary of these eulogies, during his kind hearted eulogy for Cox. And we were still passing on that
collective memory and culture.
"If there was ever a question that
Spencer wanted to be the center of everything, this is it," Ron Goldberg
greeted everyone.
"I'm Ron Goldberg. Welcome to ACT
UP. Old habits die hard."
I sat with Karen Ramspacher,
my buddy from the Church Ladies and New Alternatives for LGBT Youth. She had
worked with Cox in her early ACT UP days.
It was good to sit there chatting with her.
"This is the song that was running through my head all night while seeing so many ACT UP friends, thinking of those who were missing and looking at pictures of Spencer. Just the way you look tonight in my heart..."she later posted on facebook.
"Lets not sit around and wait for
the government. Let do it for ourselves," Cox was remembered saying in
eulogy after eulogy, from friends, his brother, his supporters.
So many were so funny. Carly Summerstein
talked about his last days, reminding everyone he was happy until the very end
and hoped to leave the hospital. "He
wasn't too religious, but I am," she explained quoting Matthew 15:11.
"What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out
of their mouth, that is what defiles." She paused, screaming "King
James baby!" The room roared in
laughter. "Take it to the bank."
Nick Cox, Spencer's brother, followed recounting
stories of his Spencer figuring a way to win a prize by getting the low score in
an Easter egg hunt, "gaming the system at the age of two." It was one ridiculously irreverent story
after another.
"Do you believe in god," he
was asked on the admissions interview to a prestigious prep school.
"No, but its totally OK if you
do," he responded putting his hand on the arm on the priest."
"How can the dead be dead be truly
gone when they still live in the hearts of the souls left behind," he
quoted Carson McCullers. "I know
Spencer hated sentimentality so I wanted to get him one more time."
The room roared with laughter.
"Its amazing how funny his brother
was," I told Karen, who reminded me he was probably not the only theater fan in the family.
Its not easy to deliver a eulogy without
breaking.
And then his mother spoke.
And I could hear quiet weeping behind
me.
"He was my gateway gay,"
explained high school friend Moxie Magnus.
Some quoted Tennessee Williams, others
Spencer himself, the divide between humour and melancholy continuing
"He was a funny guy," I
commented to Karen.
"That's why we are all here."
"There was always something fragile
to him" explained Laurie Garret.
"He was the Blanche DuBoius of the TAG gang."
One story after another of memories. "Don't ever apologize for who you
are," he told a college buddy just coming out.
Greg G remembered moral courage.
But he was also scared friends reported.
"Whenever he was at a party and someone would say they were living with
AIDS, he said he was dying of AIDS."
AIDS traumatized him, like many of his
generation.
The weeping behind me started again.
And the final two eulogies. John Voelcker
recalled going to get tested with Cox. "In 1990, Spencer and I went together to get tested for HIV. He tested positive. And he broke down. It was the first time I'd seen Spencer cry." But after going through the stages of grief and bargaining, and for him voguing, pranking
friends and playing games, and, arranging divergent funeral plans, given to
multiple family members. The defiant
grew humor more and more pronounced. He lost touch with Cox after the Medius institute failed to gain support. "He
stopped calling. I wish I'd known he was the case study for what he was framing
to study."
"Last Eulogy," Peter Staleystated, as if the last one standing. He recalled the ten or so activists formed a
group to handle the service almost immediately after Cox died.
"It was very early ACT UP. There were only a few small fights. We imaged this might be like the gym scene from
Carrie only I was the one who was cut in half.... But it still could... He
would have wanted it that way." Everyone roared in laughter.
Staley recalled the science based
activism of Treatment and Data, of Cox slamming the FDA and the federal
response as inadequate as they churned out their third azt spin-off. "It was a
wonder watching him awe the FDA." And
then to watch him pivoting toward a larger, more data driven process, in
support of health care for all. Eight million lives saved but what of his
relationship to crystal? "Are there
lessons we can learn?" asked Staley. "There are
thousands of us going through a similar stress." The debate between treatment activists and
harm reductionists must find some common ground. "All of us have unprocessed grief, from stigma from a community which turned away from us and said we were no longer its problem. That was his call to action and we should take it on."
Staley finished with a quote from "3275" in Last Watch of the
Night, by Paul Monette. "We
queers on Revelation hill, tucking our skirts about us so as not to touch our
Mormon neighbors, died of the greed of power, because we were expendable. If
you mean to visit any of us, it had better be to make you strong to fight that
power. Take your languor and easy tears somewhere else. Above all, don't pretty
us up. Tell yourself: None of this had to happen. And then go make it stop,
with whatever breath you have left. Grief is a sword, or it is nothing."
After the service I talked with the
woman behind me who had been crying. Her half
brother had been sick for years. And
they thought he was on his last legs
before protease inhibitors. Now he's
still at it. She credits Cox and company
for that. And we laughed a little.
It felt good to stare down that grief,
to move through out, and come out the other side.
Later I talked with Staley, thanking him
and noting I heard this theme all year long.
Walking outside I saw Jim Eigo. "It actually feels OK to think about
this stuff. That was an amazing
memorial." He said he agreed.
It felt good to know what people had
done for themselves I thought to myself on the ride home.
It is a pleasure seeing so many
activists in so many corners of the city grieving, celebrating, greeting,
building their own communities of resistance, through art, stories, and
memories and care. This is the best of
what activism can be.
These movements are all intersectional anyway. Peter Staley tweeted about feeling overwhelmed after the Sandy Hook shooting. "I'm wrecked. Best speech of Obama's career. "Are we prepared to say we are helpless in the face of such carnage?" It is why today we march for MLK, who was himself killed by a gun, calling for gun control. Last night my kids made signs for the march across the Brooklyn Bridge, where we'll we aspire to build a more caring, less violent world.
These movements are all intersectional anyway. Peter Staley tweeted about feeling overwhelmed after the Sandy Hook shooting. "I'm wrecked. Best speech of Obama's career. "Are we prepared to say we are helpless in the face of such carnage?" It is why today we march for MLK, who was himself killed by a gun, calling for gun control. Last night my kids made signs for the march across the Brooklyn Bridge, where we'll we aspire to build a more caring, less violent world.
Happy birthday MLK, Goodbye Spencer Coxs and Aaron Schwartz.
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| Seismologik Intelligence... aaron swartz |
