Sharing Circle - Winding Down

Love this idea, Tricia!

Once upon a time in Philadelphia, a great gathering of dissidents was planned. There were no permits, no hierarchy and no place to sleep. This gathering would be after No NATO protests in Chicago where activists and Livestreamers were chased arrested and put behind bars.

All this came to my attention in May 2012. I jumped on the Occupy National Gathering Encampment atrategy group. I arranged for the peaceful protesters to attempt to camp behing the Second Bank to prove there is no freedom of assembly. A great battle ensued. We used Operation OM to neutralize the violence brought by police and then consensed to stay at a Quaker Meetinghouse Parking lot. It was five days of Peace Love and Democracy.

In 2013, Chris Wahmhoff (The Whammer) proposed Kalamazoo for the second National Gathering. A terrible oil spill had ruined the Kalamazoo River and more pipelines were being imposed on many regions. This gathering wanted to honor and learn from the indigenous community. We called it decolonize the 99%. In our ignorance we made mistakes and then made them worse. The gathering went on and happened at the Peace Center in a local college. Marches, actions, teach-ins and more! There was 4 days of Peace Love and Democracy.

After the Kzoo gatgering I kept up the twitter and Facebook pages and stayed in contact with William Underbaggage of Indigenous Nations Network. He spent the rest of 2013 talking up another gathering in California and Occupy Sacramento agreed to take on the challenge.

The anti-racism issue had not been resolved from last year and marred the beginning stages. An anti-racism workshop was planned for the day before. Months of phone calls and emails and messages later, the Sacramento Capitol of California was "Occupied" with people from all over the country and even the world who came together for four days of Peace Love and Democracy. Many connections were made and lessons learned.

I don't know if I'll be involved next year's planning but feel we've set a precedent and created a yearly event that will bring together people as equals - to love and live and learn together and speak up for the 99%

It's been real - real hard and real long and real thankless, but I learned so much and met such excellent people, I am a better person for it.

God bless each and every one of you and may we meet again (yearly).

Peace, Love and Cheers!!
Tricia

It was difficult for me as well. So much so, that I had to leave, disillusioned and sad. I am actually just now able to describe my feelings...somewhat. i brought the food for a day and dropped it at the Trinity Church. I still hope that it was received, as I never really had confirmation. Sacramento is of course the State Capitol, I know, but I was still in culture shock over the fact that either you worked for the system, and had a name badge, or you didn't. If you didn't, you were pretty much bedraggled and beaten. I commend those that help in any way they can (I can name several that helped us on our road trip) but it made my heart break that there is so much disparage. The police wouldn't even pick up their horse's shit in the area Occupy was attempting to be peaceful in! The cops were the usual a-holes, and I was not prepared to be so much in the face of the machine. I scrambled back to my safe home in the woods, conflicted with my own ability to wield white privilege when necessary, and almost ready to write my paper for the university. This is the final chapter. It goes something like: "The Dark Tourism of the Occupy Movement," as I belong to those that feel strongly about the cause, but just can't q

quite participate to the fullest extent, as the "Man" presence was just too scary. I left some leaflets as well, and hope to continue to uphold from the rear, those that fight in the front, and help educate the bystanders that don't understand. Peace out my friends.

And yes, the spirit in Philly was quite different, but the spirit in Seattle was also different, as was the spirit in Sacramento...I can honestly say, all of you...all of those that continue the fight for freedom, need to be rewarded in some way...you deserve what you are fighting for, I am not sure that I deserve it as much, because I could not continue the fight. I had to weasel out. Hopefully, as I said before, I can write and spread the news. Thank you for allowing me into your circle, whomever reads this!

Toad, do not feel bad; each of us have our own experience, background, perceptions; we did miss you, sorry that you were so distressed. Sending hugs and love; glad to have met you briefly, yes, we got the lentils, they were delicious! We need the back-up off-site support, too, always; that role may suit you better. Of course you deserve the freedom that we all do; grr—don’t even suggest otherwise! I hope to hear/meet you again along the way to a better world.

I see that we can move forward. Whatever internal problems we have can be solved. And we had to call out these problems! So much serendipity happened, revealing problems, and also bringing people like Katherine from Australia, and David Williams who brought the Peace Poll, and others who will help us end war in the future.

Few people would say there are no historical or scientific trends affecting us. Those trends point to our ability to live in peace. So here's what I think happened.

The generations born before the 1940s, went to war and their children continued the war. Some born by the 40s inherited the opposite idea, to end war. Certainly European history has a lot to do with how and why this happened. Those born during or after the 1940s, inherited a radically different heritage, which all the wars and especially the 2nd World War, influenced. Our "determination to end war" became the motivation of the 60s-70s. The still warring Christian Patriarchs in the USA thought their self-worth was being threatened. Their reaction prompted more push for social and international change, so Occupy continued the anti-war push, but until this last Gathering in Sacramento, (at least for myself) there was little comprehension of how we could organize nationally, so as to move forward. NatGat 2014 manifested that comprehension, and now we can use Loomio, lO and email lists, to continue the war-ending work.

August 27 is both White Buffalo Day and the day of the Pact of Paris, so antiwar is really timely right now. Here are links for both; not sure what to do in relation to these.
http://www.whitebuffaloday.com/
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Pact+of+Paris