Link in case it doesn't play: http://youtu.be/...
Watched this film Friday night with some my fellow Occupy Portlanders. The film says it all and hopefully will correct some misimpressions or distortions regarding the beginnings of the movement and the real spirit of it.
It lives on. We are just getting started.
SOME NOTES ON THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FILM I'VE WRITTEN DOWN 3 DAYS LATER:
- Occupy Wall Street (and the other camps) were 'show-and-tell' demonstrations of micro-democracy in which the homeless were sheltered, respected and fed, and in which resources were shared, conserved and recycled. Parks and public spaces belong to the people and are the appropriate places for such demonstrations.
- Occupy uses a horizontal dynamic (not hierarchy). Go to someone who knows. There is no one 'in charge.' We are all leaders when we take initiative to work cooperatively with others.
- Empathy guides power. Conflict is resolved through communication and mediation, not power plays. The golden rule.
- More for you means more for me when love is at work.
- Human nature is evolving and we are choosing which way it goes consciously, as well as experiencing the effects of our environment.
- We have a limited time in which to Love the Earth, to fall in love with life again, to limit loss of many species and to change how we live on the planet.
As you watch the film you will probably notice things I've left out. The film footage of the starlings is something that brings together the whole feeling of it all.
Mon Aug 19, 2013 at 3:43 PM PT: http://occupylove.org/ is the official website for the film and is promoting screenings in which no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Downloads are available for $10 with some discount for those who cannot afford this. http://occupylove.org/...
Mon Aug 19, 2013 at 3:57 PM PT: Occupy Love was initially funded through 2 separate crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter in Dec 2010 and on Indiegogo in Feb 2012
- See more at: http://occupylove.org/...
Mon Aug 19, 2013 at 4:14 PM PT: http://www.youtube.com/...
"What happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites - polar opposites - so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.
It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love.
Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."