With a view from the inside, Vanguard reporter Christof Putzel didn't just report on Occupy - he embedded himself in the movement and actually moved into the park with his own tent to document what was happening as it was happening.
Living and working in the camp, sleeping in his own tent, Christof showed what the original Occupy Wall Street encampment was really like, and exactly why people were more than willing to stop their lives, what they had left of them, and dedicate themselves to this movement.
Another excerpt, why Main Street Supports Occupy.
Occupy moves to direct action after their eviction from Zuccotti.
There's been a lot said about Occupy since it began. But unless you've been willing to sit for hours upon hours watching the live stream it's fairly difficult to compress the magnitude of what's been going on.
In my visit to the Occupy LA camp before they were evicted I saw what Christof saw. Hundreds of people willing to come together for a common purpose and common goal. Willing to share and cooperate. At the same time there were vast disagreements, tensions, endless debates, hour and hours of general assemblies where almost nothing seemed to get done or to be decided - but everyone - Everyone had a chance to be heard and had a chance to make their case, fairly, openly, democratically.
There's a reason why our Constitutional Framers didn't try to adopt a system of direct democracy. Because this is what it looks like. It's messy. It cumbersome. It's inefficient. At the same time our Representative Republic has more than a few operational problems of it's own, specifically in how it has grown more and more to serve the whims of the monied and powerful few, over the dire, desperate needs of the in-affluent many.
It's not really so much about pitting people against each other. It's not about demonization of the 1%. It's about Corruption. There are many 1%ers who wholeheartedly support Occupy, from Michael Moore to Russel Simmons. But many of them actually are self-made men. They made their own money, it didn't come from a trust fund, the way that Donald Trump or Mitt Romney got their money. They know, still know, what it's like to not have enough cash to even buy a McD's Happy Meal. They know that 80-90% of all new businesses fail. That success is far more rare and precious than those who started on the 3rd Base and think they hit a triple would have the rest of us believe.
I haven't been posting here as often as usual because I've been in a mad dash to put together my own new venture, which is a Free Online Shopping Cart System designed to help those who been hit hard by this economic downturn begin to start their own companies and sell their own products so they can get back on their feet again. I may be Official Launching before Christmas.
It's about how those people who don't appreciate what WORK and MAKING THINGS truly is about, or how it should be valued, have been slowly hollowing this country out, excavating it's natural and human resources like a strip-mine or mountain top removal operation, while dumping piles and piles of money on to one side of the scales of power and government to facilitate that extraction.
Occupy is an attempt, merely an attempt, to correct that imbalance and slowly, to halt the financial rape of the nation and gradually bring the power of this country back into the hands of it's people, rather than it's inhuman and inhumane corporate entities.
If you have any resistant friends or families who still don't get what Occupy is about - they need to see this episode of Vanguard. It was first broadcast last week, and will be occasionally rebroadcast over the next few weeks.
After that the episode should be appearing on the Vanguard Hulu Channel.
Vyan