Hi, Occupiers,
I've spent a lot of time and energy within Occupy Bellingham, and I detect a palpable and lingering sense of defeatism at the moment.
There will be none of that.
Time for a little perspective.
Not that long ago, the TEA Party was the center of political attention. Remember?
There was a time when members of the TEA Party were carrying loaded firearms to Presidential events.
No, seriously... here's a picture...
What did Congress do? What did the Administration do?
Nothing. The government did jack squat.
The Occupy Movement is the new hotness now (the TEA Party is old and busted) and even though there has been nothing even remotely close to a brandishing of firearms on the part of Occupiers during Occupy events, there is now legislation moving through Congress to curtail the actions of people protesting the government.
So, who is scarier to the government? The TEA Party? or the Occupy Movement?
The TEA Party got a bunch of buffoons elected to office and the actions of said buffoons are still blowing up in everyone's face. Nationally, the TEA Party may still be a darling of the mainstream media (*cough*FoxNews*cough*), but general public opinion of the Old and Busted TEA Party has plummeted and shows no signs of improving.
Nonetheless, The TEA Party still thinks it is relevant. Just visit the local TEA Party website. HERE. Do you see any crisis of confidence? I don't.
See, the TEA Party has an excess of confidence... even though they have no plausible reason to be so confident. They are not going to let a little thing like... (how shall I put this?)... political reality... get in the way of their self perception.
They continue to see themselves as agents of change, even long after evidence has emerged that they are a massive sock puppet with the Koch brothers shoving a fist up their ass and working them like Kermit the Astro-turf Frog.
They still look in the political mirror and see new hotness. But, they were old and busted from day damn one.
Locally, the TEA Party stormed the County Council on many occasions. One such occasion sticks conspicuously in my memory.
The County Council Chamber was full of TEA Party Patriots and their ilk and they were loud and angry. There were dozens of them, if not more than one hundred of them. I don't remember specifically what the issue was that had the TEA Party Patriots riled up, it was their conduct I remember most.
The Chair of the Council (Seth Fleetwood at that time) after a round of booing from the Tea Party Patriots asked for order to be restored and said something like "these actions can have a chilling effect on people trying to speak before the Council."
From the group of TEA Party Patriots, one individual shouted, "We are here to have a chilling effect on YOU."
The meeting was not put into recess. The Council members didn't vacate the room and call in Sheriff's Deputies. The Chair at that time didn't even use his gavel.
The local government did nothing.
This crap was happening all over the country. TEA Party Patriots were showing up and disrupting public meetings from sea to shining sea not too long ago.
Some years later (just a few weeks ago), a group of Occupiers, perhaps two dozen in all, performed a Mic Check during a County Council meeting.
What did the local government do then?
It went to Def Con Three.
"Someone call 911," said the Chair after gaveling the meeting into recess.
That Chair is Kathy Kershner. Ms. Kershner is a bonefide TEA Party Patriot, and was voted into office when the TEA Party's popularity was near its high water mark, in 2009.
After law enforcement officials were called on the scene to protect the Council from the middle-aged women and iPad wielding seniors and wheelchair bound girls (yeah, one of the participants in the Mic Check was a girl in a wheelchair... however, she does have a nose ring and some tattoos, so there's that), order was restored and the meeting somehow continued.
But that's not all. After the Mic Check, the County Council changed the Whatcom County Code.
I'm going to repeat that, for emphasis.
The County Council changed the Whatcom County Code after the Mic Check.
So, who scares local government? The TEA Party or the Occupy Movement?
Think about it.
Who stopped trains from moving through Bellingham on January 12th for six hours? The Bellingham TEA Party or Occupy Bellingham?
The Occupy movement in general, and Occupy Bellingham in specific, scare the bejeezus out of the powers that be in a way that the TEA Party only could in its wildest masturbatory fantasies.
Occupy? You are the T. Rex from Jurassic Park.
The TEA Party? It's just the Gallimimus that ate Newman.
The earth trembles at your collective feet, Occupiers. You cause impact tremors in the water cups of the 1%.
The TEA Party... they do the bidding of the 1% and don't even know it.
But the earth only trembles when you act as a group, Occupiers. As individuals, you will change nothing. And in your case, you seem to be a T. Rex with a self-esteem problem of some kind. You are like a T. Rex who is so fixated on its tiny little arms that it doesn't realize how powerful its teeth and jaws are.
"Oh, I'm just a helpless T. Rex," you say to yourselves, "look and how puny and useless these arms are... how can I change the world with such puny... oh, look a train... CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP... hmm, that was tasty... but anyway... I mean... how am I supposed to get anything done when my arms are so small and weak and... oh, look, the County Council... gosh, they are being a bunch of dumb asses... I'll get their attention... ROAAAAAARRRRRR... hmm, wonder what they are running from? Certainly not me and my puny little arms..."
...and you get the idea.
And this is where I do a metaphor segue.
This is not a sprint. It is a marathon. You need to pace yourselves.
[Note: Earlier I was comparing you to a T. Rex. Now I am comparing you to a marathon runner. Just so we are clear. If you want to, you can still see yourselves as having puny little arms. If it makes you feel better, that is.]
Marathon runners use a term called hitting the wall. That term is something of an understatement. There is a point in a marathon where a runner slams against his, or her, own personal physical and psychological limits. The wall waits for all marathon runners, regardless of how many marathons that particular runner may have run. This is just one reason why it is widely understood that the act of finishing a marathon at all is a victory in and of itself.
The TEA Party formed in response to a black guy becoming President. Members of the TEA Party will tell you that they are all about the deficit and the Constitution and blah.. blah... blah. Watch them go right back to sleep as soon as President Obama is out of office. Just like they were sleeping right before he got into office. They are not marathon runners. In fact, they are not even runners. They are just... the 1%'s bitch.
The Occupy Movement came into being in response to profound, peculiar, and fundamental imbalances in regards to economics, politics, and human rights.
Whether or not the Occupy Movement in its current form survives long enough to see these imbalances corrected, the reason for the Occupy movement's existence is because we as people are aware of these problems and we are not going back to sleep.
So, go ahead and try and go back to your lives and try and pretend that you can deal with those problems on your own. Because that was working like gangbusters, wasn't it?
You can give up on the Occupy movement because you think you are hitting the wall and you are just unable to continue.
But this isn't the wall. This isn't even close.
The wall is about 20 miles into a marathon. Don't take my word for it. This is Bellingham. You know some runners. Just ask one.
The Occupy movement is barely into mile number... I'm going to go with... one... of this marathon.
We are in no danger of hitting the wall just yet.
What we are experiencing now is the loss of Beginner's Mind. Which is an entirely different metaphor.
[Note: you are no longer being compared to a marathon runner. Nor are we switching back to the T. Rex metaphor. Just roll with it for now because I'm going to lay some serious Zen Buddhism on your ass. That's right, buckle up and put you tray tables in their upright position. And if you still want to cling to the puny arms thing, knock yourself out.]
Beginner's Mind, also referred to by Zen Buddhist as Shoshin, is summed up as follows by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
Beginner's Mind is a state that you have probably experienced at least once in your life, particularly with something for which you had some great affinity. Something that you took to like a duck to water. Music, perhaps, or sports.
You could do no wrong in the beginning. There was no learning curve. You just succeeded at something in the beginning without apparent effort.
That's Beginner's Mind. You don't know what the limits are, so you just see the possibilities.
Then you find out where the limits are the way all beginners do... by making mistakes.
Then, you lose Beginner's Mind, because you are no longer a beginner.
Zen Buddhists study diligently for years to reclaim Beginner's Mind and to reconnect with the possibilities and transcend the limitations.
If it was easy to return to Beginner's Mind, Zen Buddhists wouldn't study for years on how to achieve it.
I will break this to you as gingerly as I can.
In 2011, most of you in the Occupy movement were beginners.
And you had a collective form of Beginner's Mind. I was there, and I saw it. Occupy Bellingham could do no wrong. Finding consensus was easy and fun. And then an owl out of a Harry Potter movie landed on a tent ten feet away from a General Assembly in progress and it was as if the group couldn't be stopped.
And it was wonderful.
And it was never going to last.
Because only beginners have easy access to Beginner's Mind. That's kind of why it is called... Beginner's Mind.
Now, in 2012, you are not beginners.
And since you are no longer beginners, you no longer have easy access to Beginner's Mind.
I have seen many of you try and hit some sort of reset button in an unwitting effort to return to Beginner's Mind. But there is no easy or short road back to that place.
And I'd say three completely different metaphors is pushing some sort of limit so I will now wind this thing down.
The things that sent you to Occupy events in the first place have not been resolved just yet. And you will realize sooner or later that you are no longer able to just take the blue pill and get put back into The Matrix (yeah, another metaphor, cut me some slack. Jeez.)
We are going to have to deal with the problems we have seen and can't unsee. And it is going to kind of suck to address those problems. It is going to suck hard and it is going to suck long.
And then, you will be hitting the wall. Hard.
You haven't changed the world just yet.
And there are still things to do.
The game's not over, folks.
Get back in the game.
The soulless corporations never left the field.
They think they own it.
They need to be corrected.
Occupiers, King Kong ain't got nothin' on you.
And your puny little T. Rex arms.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourselves and start making a difference.
I expect to see you... many many more of you... at future General Assemblies and Workgroup meetings.
Don't make me do this again.
Sincerely,
Apexnerd (aka Shane)
(Link to Occupy Bellingham's website HERE.)
I've spent a lot of time and energy within Occupy Bellingham, and I detect a palpable and lingering sense of defeatism at the moment.
There will be none of that.
Time for a little perspective.
Not that long ago, the TEA Party was the center of political attention. Remember?
There was a time when members of the TEA Party were carrying loaded firearms to Presidential events.
No, seriously... here's a picture...
 |
| Nice bike... I see it hasn't been used much. |
What did Congress do? What did the Administration do?
Nothing. The government did jack squat.
The Occupy Movement is the new hotness now (the TEA Party is old and busted) and even though there has been nothing even remotely close to a brandishing of firearms on the part of Occupiers during Occupy events, there is now legislation moving through Congress to curtail the actions of people protesting the government.
So, who is scarier to the government? The TEA Party? or the Occupy Movement?
The TEA Party got a bunch of buffoons elected to office and the actions of said buffoons are still blowing up in everyone's face. Nationally, the TEA Party may still be a darling of the mainstream media (*cough*FoxNews*cough*), but general public opinion of the Old and Busted TEA Party has plummeted and shows no signs of improving.
Nonetheless, The TEA Party still thinks it is relevant. Just visit the local TEA Party website. HERE. Do you see any crisis of confidence? I don't.
See, the TEA Party has an excess of confidence... even though they have no plausible reason to be so confident. They are not going to let a little thing like... (how shall I put this?)... political reality... get in the way of their self perception.
 |
| Me? A racist? What gives you that idea? and what are these "dic-shee-un-aries" of which you speak? |
They continue to see themselves as agents of change, even long after evidence has emerged that they are a massive sock puppet with the Koch brothers shoving a fist up their ass and working them like Kermit the Astro-turf Frog.
They still look in the political mirror and see new hotness. But, they were old and busted from day damn one.
Locally, the TEA Party stormed the County Council on many occasions. One such occasion sticks conspicuously in my memory.
The County Council Chamber was full of TEA Party Patriots and their ilk and they were loud and angry. There were dozens of them, if not more than one hundred of them. I don't remember specifically what the issue was that had the TEA Party Patriots riled up, it was their conduct I remember most.
The Chair of the Council (Seth Fleetwood at that time) after a round of booing from the Tea Party Patriots asked for order to be restored and said something like "these actions can have a chilling effect on people trying to speak before the Council."
From the group of TEA Party Patriots, one individual shouted, "We are here to have a chilling effect on YOU."
The meeting was not put into recess. The Council members didn't vacate the room and call in Sheriff's Deputies. The Chair at that time didn't even use his gavel.
The local government did nothing.
This crap was happening all over the country. TEA Party Patriots were showing up and disrupting public meetings from sea to shining sea not too long ago.
Some years later (just a few weeks ago), a group of Occupiers, perhaps two dozen in all, performed a Mic Check during a County Council meeting.
What did the local government do then?
It went to Def Con Three.
"Someone call 911," said the Chair after gaveling the meeting into recess.
That Chair is Kathy Kershner. Ms. Kershner is a bonefide TEA Party Patriot, and was voted into office when the TEA Party's popularity was near its high water mark, in 2009.
After law enforcement officials were called on the scene to protect the Council from the middle-aged women and iPad wielding seniors and wheelchair bound girls (yeah, one of the participants in the Mic Check was a girl in a wheelchair... however, she does have a nose ring and some tattoos, so there's that), order was restored and the meeting somehow continued.
But that's not all. After the Mic Check, the County Council changed the Whatcom County Code.
I'm going to repeat that, for emphasis.
The County Council changed the Whatcom County Code after the Mic Check.
So, who scares local government? The TEA Party or the Occupy Movement?
Think about it.
Who stopped trains from moving through Bellingham on January 12th for six hours? The Bellingham TEA Party or Occupy Bellingham?
The Occupy movement in general, and Occupy Bellingham in specific, scare the bejeezus out of the powers that be in a way that the TEA Party only could in its wildest masturbatory fantasies.
Occupy? You are the T. Rex from Jurassic Park.
 |
| I know, you see yourselves as Jeff Goldblum... but you are actually the other one in the frame. |
The TEA Party? It's just the Gallimimus that ate Newman.
 |
| Let's see your long form birth certificate or I will totally hawk a big-ass loogie on you... |
The earth trembles at your collective feet, Occupiers. You cause impact tremors in the water cups of the 1%.
 |
| This cup of water cost more than you make in a whole year. And the cup is a special polymer made entirely from the tears of endangered species... |
The TEA Party... they do the bidding of the 1% and don't even know it.
But the earth only trembles when you act as a group, Occupiers. As individuals, you will change nothing. And in your case, you seem to be a T. Rex with a self-esteem problem of some kind. You are like a T. Rex who is so fixated on its tiny little arms that it doesn't realize how powerful its teeth and jaws are.
"Oh, I'm just a helpless T. Rex," you say to yourselves, "look and how puny and useless these arms are... how can I change the world with such puny... oh, look a train... CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP... hmm, that was tasty... but anyway... I mean... how am I supposed to get anything done when my arms are so small and weak and... oh, look, the County Council... gosh, they are being a bunch of dumb asses... I'll get their attention... ROAAAAAARRRRRR... hmm, wonder what they are running from? Certainly not me and my puny little arms..."
...and you get the idea.
 |
| You... in the truck... you're making fun of my tiny arms, aren't you? |
And this is where I do a metaphor segue.
This is not a sprint. It is a marathon. You need to pace yourselves.
[Note: Earlier I was comparing you to a T. Rex. Now I am comparing you to a marathon runner. Just so we are clear. If you want to, you can still see yourselves as having puny little arms. If it makes you feel better, that is.]
Marathon runners use a term called hitting the wall. That term is something of an understatement. There is a point in a marathon where a runner slams against his, or her, own personal physical and psychological limits. The wall waits for all marathon runners, regardless of how many marathons that particular runner may have run. This is just one reason why it is widely understood that the act of finishing a marathon at all is a victory in and of itself.
The TEA Party formed in response to a black guy becoming President. Members of the TEA Party will tell you that they are all about the deficit and the Constitution and blah.. blah... blah. Watch them go right back to sleep as soon as President Obama is out of office. Just like they were sleeping right before he got into office. They are not marathon runners. In fact, they are not even runners. They are just... the 1%'s bitch.
The Occupy Movement came into being in response to profound, peculiar, and fundamental imbalances in regards to economics, politics, and human rights.
Whether or not the Occupy Movement in its current form survives long enough to see these imbalances corrected, the reason for the Occupy movement's existence is because we as people are aware of these problems and we are not going back to sleep.
So, go ahead and try and go back to your lives and try and pretend that you can deal with those problems on your own. Because that was working like gangbusters, wasn't it?
You can give up on the Occupy movement because you think you are hitting the wall and you are just unable to continue.
But this isn't the wall. This isn't even close.
The wall is about 20 miles into a marathon. Don't take my word for it. This is Bellingham. You know some runners. Just ask one.
The Occupy movement is barely into mile number... I'm going to go with... one... of this marathon.
We are in no danger of hitting the wall just yet.
What we are experiencing now is the loss of Beginner's Mind. Which is an entirely different metaphor.
[Note: you are no longer being compared to a marathon runner. Nor are we switching back to the T. Rex metaphor. Just roll with it for now because I'm going to lay some serious Zen Buddhism on your ass. That's right, buckle up and put you tray tables in their upright position. And if you still want to cling to the puny arms thing, knock yourself out.]
Beginner's Mind, also referred to by Zen Buddhist as Shoshin, is summed up as follows by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
Beginner's Mind is a state that you have probably experienced at least once in your life, particularly with something for which you had some great affinity. Something that you took to like a duck to water. Music, perhaps, or sports.
You could do no wrong in the beginning. There was no learning curve. You just succeeded at something in the beginning without apparent effort.
That's Beginner's Mind. You don't know what the limits are, so you just see the possibilities.
Then you find out where the limits are the way all beginners do... by making mistakes.
Then, you lose Beginner's Mind, because you are no longer a beginner.
Zen Buddhists study diligently for years to reclaim Beginner's Mind and to reconnect with the possibilities and transcend the limitations.
If it was easy to return to Beginner's Mind, Zen Buddhists wouldn't study for years on how to achieve it.
I will break this to you as gingerly as I can.
In 2011, most of you in the Occupy movement were beginners.
And you had a collective form of Beginner's Mind. I was there, and I saw it. Occupy Bellingham could do no wrong. Finding consensus was easy and fun. And then an owl out of a Harry Potter movie landed on a tent ten feet away from a General Assembly in progress and it was as if the group couldn't be stopped.
 |
| Suck it, TEA Party. |
And it was wonderful.
And it was never going to last.
Because only beginners have easy access to Beginner's Mind. That's kind of why it is called... Beginner's Mind.
Now, in 2012, you are not beginners.
And since you are no longer beginners, you no longer have easy access to Beginner's Mind.
I have seen many of you try and hit some sort of reset button in an unwitting effort to return to Beginner's Mind. But there is no easy or short road back to that place.
And I'd say three completely different metaphors is pushing some sort of limit so I will now wind this thing down.
The things that sent you to Occupy events in the first place have not been resolved just yet. And you will realize sooner or later that you are no longer able to just take the blue pill and get put back into The Matrix (yeah, another metaphor, cut me some slack. Jeez.)
We are going to have to deal with the problems we have seen and can't unsee. And it is going to kind of suck to address those problems. It is going to suck hard and it is going to suck long.
And then, you will be hitting the wall. Hard.
You haven't changed the world just yet.
And there are still things to do.
The game's not over, folks.
Get back in the game.
The soulless corporations never left the field.
They think they own it.
They need to be corrected.
Occupiers, King Kong ain't got nothin' on you.
And your puny little T. Rex arms.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourselves and start making a difference.
I expect to see you... many many more of you... at future General Assemblies and Workgroup meetings.
Don't make me do this again.
Sincerely,
Apexnerd (aka Shane)
(Link to Occupy Bellingham's website HERE.)
Shane: I deeply object to your negative stereotype of marathon runners as people with proportionate T-Rex size arms. That is both shameful and offensive.
ReplyDeleteGood with the rest of it, though.
I deeply and sincerely apologize to the marathon running community if any of them were offended by this post. I do not now, nor have I ever, believed that marathon runners all have puny T-Rex size arms.
ReplyDeleteRoar. Om.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo what if you were right, and nobody but you knew it? It needs conviction, willpower, and perseverance. The people of B'ham are much like the armadillos of the place from whence I came. Not a bad thing, but not a political force to be reckoned with either. A little more time, a little more discomfort is the prescription for change. Sadly.
ReplyDeleteTea bangers can bite me
ReplyDelete