My anarchist friends tell me that, "No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in." http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/the-campaign-for-co-operative-socialism-part-i/http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/the-campaign-for-co-operative-socialism-part-ii-2/http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/the-campaign-for-co-operative-socialism-part-iii/http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/the-campaign-for-co-operative-socialism-part-iv/http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/the-campaign-for-co-operative-socialism-part-v/http://www.facebook.com/OffGridPeople#!/pages/The-Shift/109438815833127
The Shift
"The challenge of our time is to reclaim our power from the elite. Let's face it, if we had our own local government, local currency, local food production and local energy production, we wouldn't need the elite, their corporations and their phony governments controlled by them. If we stopped working hard to run their systems and, instead, created our own systems, owned and controlled by us, we would be free from them and we would starve their corrupt systems to oblivion."............................................. ................................................................... ..................
http://theshifthub.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/occupy-movement-must-start-organizing-in-cafes-to-reclaim-the-commons/Occupy Movement Must Start Organizing in Cafes to Reclaim the Commons
Posted on November 1, 2011 by nguedes| Leave a comment
By Nelson Guedes
Photograph: Tibor Bognar/Corbis
As the occupations continue to grow across the country and around the globe, I wonder what the next step will be and I can't help to ask myself rather the occupiers realize how incredibly powerful they are. For countless years, we have been apart; we have been disconnected from each other. We have forgotten our collective inner power, the power of the People. I believe that if the Occupy Movement wants to succeed, we must find that power within us and manifest that power in our actions. In this article, I touch on the subject of that inner power and how to bring that out and manifest it in the physical plane.
From Demands to Empowerment
There's a reason the status quo wants the Occupy Movement to give them demands. They want us to have demands. Why? Because when we acknowledge that we have demands for them, we are giving away our power to them – we are acknowledging that they have the power and we have no say. When we have demands, we acknowledge that they own us and we must beg them for change. They want us to think that way, so that we don't discover our inner power. The truth is that WE have the power. The only reason the plutocrats are in power is because we have willfully given our power to them in exchange for convenience. This convenience can be found in the energy that powers our houses, the trucks that bring food to our supermarkets and, ultimately, the phony representatives that were supposed to be working for us. It is time to reject their convenience and reclaim our power.
Reclaiming Our Power
The challenge of our time is to reclaim our power from the elite. Let's face it, if we had our own local government, local currency, local food production and local energy production, we wouldn't need the elite, their corporations and their phony governments controlled by them. If we stopped working hard to run their systems and, instead, created our own systems, owned and controlled by us, we would be free from them and we would starve their corrupt systems to oblivion.
In order to achieve this goal of reclaiming our power, there are several requirements we must meet, many which I have already mentioned, but should be studied further in articles to come. For now, we must take one step forward towards our freedom and establish a permanent network that we can use to organize ourselves.
Back to the Traditional Way
In the old days, when the governments ceased to work for the People and instead worked in the interest of the elite, the People would meet in cafes to organize against their common foe. Likewise, we must go back to our roots and organize in our cafes. This time, we must go beyond the old days and, instead of working to bring down an old system, we must build a brand new one, owned and controlled by us.
There are a few reasons why we must start organizing in cafes. First of all, there are more cafes then there are parks and other open public spaces. Organizing in more spaces will increase our visibility and will allow us to connect with more people. Second, a permanent occupation is not required in cafes. We could collaborate with cafe owners to make a visible poster listing all our weekly meetings. Such a poster would be working on our behalf while we go back home and recharge. Third, as more people get exposed to the message, we can then expand on both the frequency of assemblies in cafes and our reach – the number of cafes we hold assemblies at. Fourth, cafes are easier spaces to organize at as they are not exposed to the weather and are unlikely to attract the attention of the police. Finally, organizing in cafes will helps us reshape our culture, refocusing our culture to our communities, our neighbors and community engagement for the sake of our community's health and the future of our children.
In conclusion, it is important to realize that Organizing in Cafes is no substitute for Occupying Public Spaces. Organizing in cafes is just a step forward, an addition to what we are already doing in our occupations. Furthermore, if we want to truly change the way our society works, we must be the change we want to see and transform our society with our actions. We must organize ourselves, creating permanent networks for organized action. By creating such networks, we establish the foundation necessary to create the alternative systems we need to reclaim our power from the elite.
Nelson Guedes spent much of his life researching the connections between several subjects, such as Philosophy, Psychology, Politics and Economics, in an effort to find the root causes of global problems and their solutions. The result is a complete, comprehensive and, yet, simple understanding of how the universe works and how we can collectively work together to maximize the benefits of our collective actions.
Further Reading:
- Coffee and revolution
