Urgent Call for Help to Prevent Eviction of Cancer Sufferer in Canal Fulton; Meeting Recaps; Call for Articles; Upcoming Events and more in the Digest…
“Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful.” ~ Author Unknown
We have a great musical line up for the Occupy Cleveland Benefit Concert @ the Beachland Ballroom on Jan.14th Mark your calendars!
Everything from folk with Charlie Mosbrook , Kyle DeForrest, Evis & Stephen & Jonathan Blackshire , Comedic stylin’s with Robin, Nice Mic .. and ZACHY IRAQI to Psychedelic San Francisco with Grateful Dead Tribute with Dead Ahead to goth rock with Morticia’s Chair to foot stompin’ americanna with Katty Whomp-us to heavy metal prog rockers Rick Ray Band …guaranteed good time for all! Come meet & support the occupiers and put on your dancing’ shoes!; Ray Benich of Damnation of Adam Blessing is also joining in! $7 adv $10 day of show at the door
I’ve spent the last hour watching my dog push his bowl across the floor in an attempt to scrape and lick every last particle of dog chow out of it. He’s now staring at it determinedly and plunking one paw down on the inside rim (He is an 8 pound Maltese terror btw) thus flipping the empty plastic bowl off the floor and directly into his noggin. (too adorable!)
Next he huffs and gives the bowl the stank eye, then proceeds to repeat the entire process 3 or 4 more times! It is absolutely hilarious in a puppy shodenfrueden kind of way….
You’re probably thinking “What does this have to do with Occupy or the New Year?”.
Truthfully nothing, it’s just that I have been sitting at my computer desk gazing down admiringly and guffawing at my little puppy, not writing a blog post.
This presents a potential problem, I could try to throw together a post on the fly…but that’s not really my style.
BAM- the Universe steps in and provides a solution for the new year!
Form of: Guest Blogger Tim Russo! (please hold your applause until the end)
Tim wrote an inspiring piece about the New Year, the events and politics of years past, Occupy Cleveland, and the crossroads of all these. After reading it I knew I wanted to share it, and Tim was kind enough to let me “borrow” it
Occupy The Fucking New Year Already (you know who you are)
I used to try on New Year’s Eve. You know, spend a lot of money, dress up in finery, do the countdown in a room full of strangers also in finery. I could probably pinpoint when that stopped being fun if I tried, but that’d be too depressing. Maybe tonite I’ll try again, because 2011 doesn’t feel wasted for once.
Spend a lifetime professionally in Democratic Party politics, and you run into a lot of leftier than thou types. Being a campaign guy, a strategist technician paid to win elections, I would chastise their lack of pragmatism, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, always wore it as a badge of honor. Yeah, you might be right about the world, I’d say, but it doesn’t help win this seat, or that one. Leftier than thou exits in a huff…stage left, of course.
“There’s gonna be a revolution some day,” we’d always decide though, over a keg at a law school party, or the cabernet and camembert on the way up the ladder. Someday, people will wake up. Maybe it’ll happen this year. 1990. 1992. 1994. 1996. 1998.
Or 2000. Oh yeah, Bush v. Gore. That was a high water mark for New Year’s Eve armchair revolutionaries. Then came 2002, 2004, 2006. Dark years all. Then 2008. Was Barack Obama the revolution? Turns out no. Leftier than thou got the injection of the internet’s keyboard courage, and became louder. Then 2010.
2011, and here it is. That impending revolutionary awakening I’ve been hearing the self-appointed guardians of justice pray for since the day I was an intern on Dennis Kucinich’s 1988 congressional primary, the moment that was supposed to prove pragmatism wrong and idealists right. It has arrived. Yearned for over the sushi tray in the Heights, just the right Carole King dirge giving you those goosebumps, lighting that incense, misting up those eyes over Woodstock remembrances, snowflakes falling on your buddha statue in the garden while the organic tea steeps just long enough to be perfect, like you learned how to do that one summer backpacking in Britain or Nepal.
Their bluff has been called by kids in tents, in 3 months the long-awaited revolution went from nonexistence to everywhere, and they sit there slack-jawed, 2012 their last chance to ante up, and the excuses you hear are just comical. Where’s their message? Why are they in a tent? But they aren’t demanding policy? But…but….but….leftier than thou has been flummoxed, stammered to speechlessness. A mighty wind came and blew them right over onto their couch.
Maybe they’ll come around. They know that couch isn’t secure. They didn’t sell out for a billion, they sold out for a whole lot less and they know it – that pointless non-profit gig, that consulting 1099 with no healthcare, the waitressing on your feet all night, the adjunct position at minimum wage, that laughably tiny line item in a grant with their name on it, and it can all vanish tomorrow, all of it, because the purchase of power by the 1% doesn’t care who the fuck you are if you just sit there and take it.
That’s why they’re in a tent you damn fool. And staying in it, from a warm autumn Into the freezing cold of a Cleveland winter, for your future, and your kids’ future, your grandkids, and it ain’t gonna get any more revolutionary in this country if you lived forever waiting for it. Leftier than thou was never any good at strategy or tactics, that’s always been their own proudly waved badge of honor, now suddenly instead of idealists condemning the tacticians & strategists, they’re strategic tacticians condemning….what exactly?
Last week I helped write a proposal for Occupy Cleveland to submit to Occupy Wall Street, and here’s part of the preamble, arrived at through the signature consensus process that governs the movement uniquely unlike any other movement in American history…
“OC’s purpose is to give voice, courage, and hope to the 99% through a sustained effort to expose and attack the illegitimacy and injustice of imposing on our democracy the purchase of political power in favor of the 1%. OC will deploy creative, bold, and dramatic actions to educate and persuade citizens to reject deference to authority and instead challenge and defy authority, encourage citizens to take responsibility for their communities, take to the streets, refuse to submit to or cooperate with illegitimate action by the 1%, and thereby inspire in the greater populace a new courage to resist…”
Looks like I’m the one who’s leftier than thou, aren’t I, and ya’ll still don’t know bupkus about strategy and tactics. Maybe in 2012, we’ll all meet again, if so, it’ll be on the street, where the change we’ve all claimed we wanted is to be had, and happening, right now. The revolution will be waiting for you whenever you get here, and the welcome will be very warm indeed.
Happy New Year.
A review of Occupy Cleveland’s October, 2011. Music is Sunshine (Adagio in D minor), the score of the 2007 film Sunshine.
Occupy Cleveland is brainstorming ideas for television ads. This is the first video I have seen from the group in the “info-based” category.
I think they are looking for volunteers with a background in advertising, web design, tv or radio, video editors etc. who can volunteer their time and skillset moving this project forward.
I’ll stop babbling now, and let the video speak for itself.
A chapter of the upcoming documentary, Occupy The Movie, an indy film aiming to be entirely funded by the 99%. Please support our crowd funding campaign at: http://www.indiegogo.com/OccupyTheMovie
5500 arrests of peaceful protesters in 90 days.
0 arrests of economic criminals in 3 years.
Who are you protecting?
Ladies and gentlemen, #Ohio is #Occupied! – OHIO FRAUDclosure: OCCUPY OHIO http://ow.ly/82C44
OCCUPY OHIO
Over 1,600 towns, cities, and communities’ across the United States are OCCUPYING
We at OHIO FRAUDclosure support this National Movement…as it provides the
OHIO HOMEOWNER - A VOICE – against the Wall Street FRAUDclosure machine.ASHTABULA COUNTY SHERIFF ALL SMILES exercising Holiday EVICTIONSheriff happily brushes past Christmas Lights (in his face) during “Set-Out” to curbFANNIE MAE adds another ”empty house” to their tax-payer owned portfolio!Lerner Sampson Rothfuss (LSR) adds another Predator Drone Foreclosure kill
Almost a dozen cops (including a paddy wagon) and an equal number of media outlets large and small descended upon an attempted eviction prevention action by 25 peaceful Occupy Youngstown & Occupy Cleveland members Thursday morning in Orwell, Ohio.
Fannie Mae plans to give a short reprieve to those in danger of being evicted over the holidays. Well …except those people scheduled TWO DAYS before the moratorium starts! Unfortunately for the CART family (Christine Cart, her Husband, and their two sons), theywere forcibly removed from their home of 40 years by the sheriff, and will have to find some type of
Christine Cart in Front of her Orwell Home
temporary shelter or accommodation with the temperatures in Orwell, Ohio (Ashtabula county) expected to dip below freezing.
“God help her if it snows” The Occupiers said…..(more here)
Please call the Sheriffs office to wish them happy Holidays
Ashtabula County Sheriff Department civil division: (440) 437-2187
non-emergency number: (440) 576-0055
and for Christmas Card mailings …to the Judge (who authorized eviction) please send to: Judge Ronald Vettel Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas 25 West Jefferson Street Jefferson, OH 44047
