I agree with so much written here. Inasmuch as I think it's important for the queer community to examine its own internalized homophobia and isms on a regular basis, it's important for this any movement to analyze the ways in which we've stopped challenging and believing and have gone back to accepting the status quo because it is, after all, what we know so why not learn to love the bomb.
The protests will continue, whether we protest the protests, or not, and as long as inequality continues and in fact thrives. And whether or not we deflect and redirect the fight internally or we actually direct our energies toward change - well that's all up to us.
This is the threat to our lives. We all face it. We all operate in our society in relation to a system. Now is the system going to eat you up and relieve you of your humanity or are you going to be able to use the system to human purposes?
Joseph Campbell
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Tick
I can barely fathom that people who witnessed the vicious and unprovoked attacks by para-military police forces across the country perpetrated on non-violent groups of citizens exercising their right to protest would have those kind of expectations of the police. But even those who can still manage that kind of faith could certainly understand that others, especially those others on the front lines of this protest movement, might have a different expectation.
It seems to me that the Occupy movement has made a major difference in how many people, those directly involved, those on the periphery, and even those who only had limited and slanted exposure through the corporate owned media, understand many issues that affect the poor, the working class and the middle class. People understand things much differently than they did before Occupy Wall Street. You can’t change something until you first understand what needs changing. The movement has given people the words to articulate what they knew in their hearts. They knew something is radically wrong. There is a much better understanding of what exactly that is thanks to the movement.
It would seem to me that this would be a perfect opportunity to open dialogue with students about the Occupy movement and the reasons why so many people feel the need to protest policies perpetrated on them by a corporate controlled government. It would be a great time to begin to educate them regarding some truly frightening things that are happening. Things that will affect their chances to have the life they might wish for themselves. Conversations about the cost of public university education for residents as well as the chances for enrollment might be beneficial. Perhaps a look at interesting educational choices that are being made in places such as Tucson Az and the long term effects of this type of censorship. Maybe even examining the very real possibility of public education going the way of the prison and foster care systems and becoming privatized and what that will mean for students and their futures. All valid and useful conversations for kids to engage in and infinitely more frightening than any Occupy protest I would imagine.
I don’t think the idea of the Occupy Movement is to terrorize children of any color. I think they are in downtown Oakland rather than affluent neighborhoods terrorizing white kids because terrorizing kids is not the focus of the movement. I don’t think I’m even capable of having this conversation…
While I was trying to respond to this last paragraph about the Occupy movement terrorizing children it came to me that I am really wasting my time here. I had missed something quite important. I had failed to realize that this thread had morphed into a place for people who do not support the Occupy movement, or who have issues with the direction the movement is taking or not taking as the case may be. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and should be able to have a place to discuss them with like-minded people. Since I am not like-minded I will now bow out of this thread.
|