World Changing Ideas: Occupy goes into debt

This week, our friends at Occupy Wall Street launched another paradigm changer to run in parallel with their amazing ongoing efforts to help the worst affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Consistent with their ideals of mutual aid rather than charity, Occupy Wall Street has just launched a Rolling Jubilee. 

What's a Rolling Jubilee? It is the next phase in a growing collective resistance movement against the debt system. (If you want to know what the "debt system" is, then you really need to read this amazing book by David Graeber [1], which will change the way that you view the world.)

From the Website:

A bailout of the people by the people

Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.

What Occupy is doing is pretty much the same as many good capitalists do - They are raising money and using it to buy other people's debt.

The only difference is that instead of sending in the heavies to collect on the debt like good capitalists are supposed to do, they simply erase it. 

Gone... Just like that...

Their slogan is simply beautiful - “You are not a loan, you are not alone”

World Changing Ideas: (The) Faces of the 99%

I know that I promised a break from Occupy commentary, but a friend just sent me some good news and I had to quickly share it...

By now, we've all seen the WE ARE THE 99 PERCENT Tumblr site that presents the personal stories of people who work hard, but who struggle due to circumstances beyond their control.

wearethe99percent.tumblr.com is an example
 of an independent Occupy signal amplifier

Perhaps you've also seen the WE ARE THE 53% response...?

This image is one of the most evocative that I've seen on either site.
It has unsurprisingly inspired some thoughtful responses.

It is important to our humanity that we have an opportunity to share our own story, and to hear the stories of other real people, so I'm happy to report that there is a new wave starting.

In fact, there appear to be two new waves starting independently. Go check out "Faces of the 99%" and "The Faces of the 99%" (Will the real "Faces of the 99%" please stand up! :-)

TEDxBrussels 2011 Commentary

I've been caught up in Occupy commentary for a while and although Occupy is the most interesting and important thing happening in Sustainable Human Flourishing today, I have 20 posts in draft and dozens more flying around in my head. Many, such as this one, are starting to lose the moment so please bear with me while I try refocus slightly and hammer them out.

This post is a synopsis of the TEDxBrussels event that I attended last week, brutally cut to only those talks obviously and directly relevant to Sustainable Human Flourishing. Occupiers please stick around though - TED is billed as "Riveting Talks by Remarkable People" talking about "Ideas Worth Spreading", "Free to the World" - It might as well be an OWS GA, only without the People's Mic, so there are plenty of important Occupy ideas here ;-)

World Changing Ideas: How the Occupy Movement Will Win

"How can they possibly beat such a powerful and entrenched system?!?"

Most people rightly observe that the Occupy movement has a huge a task ahead, but again, everyone I know who is actively following Occupy is energised by the challenge. In this post, I will explore some more unique aspects of Occupy that are helping it to succeed.

My last post references a piece by Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic. Although it is nerdy in the extreme, it is one of the most insightful pieces of Occupy commentary that I've seen to date so I encourage you to read the whole thing.

As a sometimes computer nerd, I adore Alexis's REST API analogy. It really helped to drive home an idea that has been nagging at me for a while.

Occupy Wall Street is not a movement. It is a meta-movement.

For my non-computer nerd friends who were completely lost by the article or by that last comment, I apologise. Put simply, this nerd-speak means that what the mainstream media tries to portray as a weakness is actually Occupy's greatest strength!

Yes, everything you hear is true. Occupy Wall Street is not a protest about anything specific.

Occupy Wall Street is a model for a protest.

World Changing Ideas: The Occupy Media Strategy

"How can they possibly achieve anything when they look like such a bunch of losers?!?"

Most people rightly observe how easy it is for the mainstream media to make the Occupiers look like some Burning Man hangover.

The whole world understands this. Yet, strangely, everyone I know who is actively following Occupy seems energised by the challenge.

They are energised because they understand that it is the mainstream media's job to make Occupy look like a bunch of losers. And yes, it sure is easy. Just focus on some dreadlocked, pierced types having a drum-in and cherry pick some tales of dirt and depravation. Hey presto! The perfect story to ensure that the 99% feel nothing in common with those unwashed, unemployed, deadbeats who are only camping out for the free food.

So, how can the Occupy Movement respond to such transparent misrepresentation?

The Big Issues: How to get the real story?

On Thursday night, I participated in the Occupy Wall Street November 17 Mass Non-Violent Direct Action. This SHF GreenRant is my attempt to capture and share my amazing personal experience.

No, I didn't fly to New York and get arrested, but with tens of thousands of others all around the world, I most certainly did participate.

On Thursday night, live on my computer, I watched as tens of thousands of happy, excited people peacefully reclaimed the streets of New York.

I watched live as buildings, parks, bridges, and at times seemingly entire neighbourhoods were reclaimed and occupied by peaceful, happy, singing crowds.

I watched live as the NYPD behaved (mostly) honourably and (mostly) with integrity. There were moments when some almost seemed to help protesters.

I watched live as retired police captain Ray Lewis allowed himself to be arrested in support of the protests. I heard the cheers and chants of thousands of people in support of his brave personal sacrifice.

I watched and held my breath as I witnessed troublemakers (often allegedly plain-clothes police) attempt to incite the excited crowds to do something stupid...

Two reasons to celebrate #NOKXL and #OWS

I'm back after a quick family staycation where I was largely offline. Did you miss me?

It is rare these days to have something to celebrate in the domain of Sustainable Human Flourishing, but this week, there have been two significant breakthroughs.

The first was the success of the NOKXL campaign to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. As you can see in this inspirational victory video, after the most extensive environmental activism campaign in recent history, President Obama finally sent this awful project packing.

Here's a more light-hearted interview with one of the heroes behind that success, Bill McKibben

Occupy Brussels - Photos and Videos

Today was such a gorgeous day for a street party with a few thousand of my closest friends. 

Please share and circulate (and say nice things about the protests) - I'm putting them in the public domain. Let me know if you want more context on any of the pics. I still haven't had time to add much commentary.

Before anyone asks me why was I protesting, you can see my response to that question here

First, check out this video to give a sense of the awesome vibe throughout the day, then read on to see some more pics

Is there a fractal nature to human failings?

I started to write a reply to CT's very interesting response to my last post, but realised that I had started rambling about sustainable human flourishing again. So I promoted my response to a post where I could unravel the thread a bit more easily. This is the result...

Edit: Before I go any further, some friends complained that I lost them with this post... I suspect that the word "fractal" started their eyes glazing over before they even started, so I'll try set that straight. What is a fractal? Well, to help get the picture (pun intended) here is one of the most famous and beautiful fractals, thanks to the mathematical legend Benoît Mandelbrot (who died late last year - a terrible loss)

The Mandelbrot Set: Click to see zoom sequence (Wikipedia)

Now that sure is beautiful, but why did CT write about human nature being fractal?

"What do we want?""How the heck are we supposed to know?""When do we want it?""Now!!!"

I am sick of hearing otherwise reasonable people making unreasonable demands of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. I can't count the number of times that I've heard...

"... they will never make a difference if they only protest against something! Why don't they just tell us exactly what it is that they are protesting for?"