Here is how yesterday could have gone…..
Reporter: Why are you here today standing on this corner with several dozen other Occupy demonstrators?
MAH: I’m not really sure. Demonstrating is not my thing.
A peace activist once asked Mother Teresa “Why don’t you show up at our anti-war demonstrations?” Mother Teresa replied, “When you hold a Pro-peace demonstration, I will be there.”
Rather than spending my time protesting, I’d rather spend that time in a private space thinking about the issue (often identified as an injustice by protestors), digging deeper in search of its “root cause. ” I prefer to spent my time envisioning what it might take to change human behavior to affect systemic change. My passion is the challenge of acknowledging human tendencies, and devising a change that is long lasting and returns us to peacefulness. I use the term peacefulness not to mean the absence of differences/diversity/conflict, but the respect for diversity and the implementation of nonviolent constructive management of conflict.
A peaceful world tolerates differences and promotes creative alternatives – as long as these alternatives are consistent with a sustainable way of living – e.g. finding a new way to burn fossil energy might be creative; however if the new idea is not sustainable, it would not be promoted in a peaceful world.
Reporter: So why are you out here?
MAH: I came to support my partner who is much more sensitive to the distress of others than I am. She senses that there are many people currently in “a world of hurt” who are now speaking out – yet no one seems to be listening. She believes it is her moral obligation to be out here with this group and to help amplify the voice of the people – the 99%. I’m here to help her help them help us.
Reporter: How would you summarize the “Cause” of this Occupy movement?
MAH: The diversity of people moved to come out and express their discontent with the status quo represents the complexity of the “Cause” of this movement. If there is a way to describe the typical person involved in this movement it might be: They are conscious human beings who are in some form of distress – enough distress to speak out and ask for some help,
enough distress to tell the rest of us to wake up and acknowledge all of these
injustices, and to do something about it.
In talking with these people, you find that their distress may range from the physical to the emotional to the spiritual. It ranges from being personally hungry and/or homeless, to the lack of meaningful employment (i.e. a meaningful role in society where they feel they are contributing something of value and receiving a fair compensation), to a concern for their lack of wellness and inability to receive health care. Their distress extends to the emotional concern for their children and their children’s future, to the general economic and political oppression they sense around them, to the emerging awareness that the profit motive alone when unconstrained has been, is, and always will be amoral and does not alone create a moral just country in right relationship with the world. Their distress includes issues that are so complex I can’t understand them. They are the 99%. They are us. Most of us.
So the “Cause” of the Occupy movement is just as difficult to put into a sound byte as a description of the people involved. The Cause has become
the voice of the many injustices we are experiencing today – in this country
and around the world. As you can see by the messages on the ragged pieces of cardboard, unprofessional posters, and makeshift banners, the issues are diverse. If one message stands out, it might be that of “corruption” of Wall Street, of Corporations, of the Health industry, of Government and Politics – basically a discontent with how we humans relate to and treat one another – the 99% are telling us they are being abused by others and they are angry enough to voice their outrage.
Reporter: So do you think anything meaningful will come from this Occupy movement?
MAH: We can hope. And we can help. If nothing more, we can open our hearts and minds to the fact these people on the street corners, in the parks, in the commons are real people with real issues. If we don’t understand, we can respectfully ask them, “What’s your problem?” Giving them the bird as you drive by and shouting “GET A JOB!” or finding a “legal” remedy to evict them from the commons and then arresting them is a perfect example of the disrespect that is the root cause of their distress.
If the people of Occupy force us to become more conscious of our self-destructive behaviors so we can then change the way we relate to one another and become a more just, a more peaceful world, then something meaningful will have come from Occupy – seems that may have already happened to me personally. Normally I sit quietly at home.
But I was there, holding my pitiful homemade sign with a picture of David Korten’s book, “Agenda for a New Economy: Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed and How to Replace It.”
That’s how yesterday could have gone…. But no Reporter asked.
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