Joseph the Fat Cat and the Occupy Movement
by Daphne CarpenterYou have to use a certain psychology with animals (in this case, our pets) when it comes to keeping them happy. They need to be in their natural state—to walk, to sit in the sun, to feel the earth on their bellies. When they’re in harmony with the natural environment, they are free. They climb, they dig, they rub around in the dirt and get their fur (or scales) all dirty. No longer constrained to their cage or to the house, or you dictating when and where they can eat, they instinctively know how to take care of themselves and their young.
How does this fit in?
I wrote a story about what I felt to be an inaccurate and/or biased corporate media press coverage of the Occupy Wall Street/LA Movement, but I got stuck without an intro. I just couldn’t devise a beginning (which I usually always write last anyway). Just now, though, things suddenly became so clear. Here’s how: my brother’s super fat and lovable diabetic cat, Joe, broke the rules today. He went outside with me—yes, outside—to where he usually spends hours gazing longingly towards from inside the glass back door.
So tired of hanging out in the stuffy ol’ house all day, obeying the rules that are not his truth, Joe took a stance today. He suddenly got up, and with a gusto of conviction, holding his head high, he followed me outside.
While in the yard, Joe didn’t try to act rowdy or try to run (like my well-meaning brother is afraid he’ll do). Joe didn’t have a diabetic freak-out, nor did a million fleas jump on him, no, not at all. This pleasurably-plump-fuzz-ball-of-joy just instinctively walked outside into the fresh air. After scratching his claws at a palm tree for several minutes, he took to bathing in the dewy grass and snapped his mouth in ecstasy at the gnats. There was nobody there to decide what was “best for him” or “just how things had to be.”
In simple terms, I can relate to Joe’s plight to want to play outside, to the Occupy Movement. But first, a little more background on Joe. He is really overweight and unhealthy, and is subdued by twice-daily injections of insulin to stabilize his illness. He’s “on a diet.”
The people who had him before my brother never let him go outside to play, although he badly wanted to, and deserved to. They just kept feeding and feeding him, so that he’d forget about his natural desires to want to go outside, and also just to feel liberated from irrational restraints and from rules that he inherently perceived to be unjust, through his own cat-reasoning.
Well, just like Joe, the people of the Occupy Movement have stepped outside and have taken a stand against injustice. They want the power back, not out of greed, but out of the inherent desire for their human and constitutional rights to be met—to live peacefully, to have jobs, to not feel helpless against police brutality and corporatocracy or against unjust laws that support the wealthy and exploit those with less money, etc.
Although the Occupy Wall Street Movement is said to have been in the works unofficially for the last 18 or so months (or theoretically, for decades), it says it was greatly inspired by this year’s Arab Spring—the Egyptian and Libyan Revolutions, as well as smaller ones in other places. You can bet that it was only a matter of time before the incitement mushroomed out into the rest world. After so many years of oppression by the hands of the 1 percent elite, the 99 percent have taken a stand. It’s an uprising, like the Bob Marley song and album.
On a chilly night at Occupy LA, a young woman handed me a flyer titled, “Welcome to the Liberation of the American Spirit.” It starts off, “We, as a sovereign people, recognize that our constitutional rights have been compromised, ratified and denied in order to effectively perpetuate constitutional heresies, both domestic and abroad.” It later goes on to say, “We the people have no recourse” but to “take direct action” to establish a system that is “truly representative of the American people.”
Although this isn’t an official Occupy Wall Street mission statement, those involved in the movement can attest to the fact that this is an overall sentiment of the people.
Ultimately, the corporate system does not respect the people, the earth, or the ecosystem. Did you know that as a result of the greedy exploitation of the earth’s resources through the perpetuation of consumer culture by the corporatocracy, we consume, in 12 months, the resources it takes the earth 16 months to regenerate? That is not sustainable. We’re headed for disaster.
“The economics being taught in most universities [today] represents a closed system that has no relations with any other system.” These are words from a chapter in an economics book I came across that was copied, and unfortunately, did not credit the author. It continued, “It is just a flow of goods and services through the market…that has no relation to the environment, and ignores physical impacts and consequences of economic activity.”
This is a concern for protestors. Through the direct democratic process, the Occupy Movement came together, and, according to the group’s Principles of Solidarity statement, those involved are “autonomous beings, engaged in non-violent civil disobedience and building solidarity based on mutual respect, acceptance and love.”
The corporate media would like to portray the activity in the movement as only a circus. Yeah, you do get those hippied-out, drum banging, smoking-weed-all-day individuals who some Occupy organizers refer to as “non-contributors,” but what can you say or do? Those guys are everywhere. I saw a sign on someone’s tent the other day that read, “If you’re just HERE TO PARTY, you’re in the wrong place. THIS IS A PROTEST.”
David DeGraw, author of “The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America,” wrote, “When you go to Liberty Park, into the heart of the occupation, you will see a very diverse group of people with opinions across the entire political spectrum. It’s the very essence of a ground-up, grassroots decentralized movement.” Through DeGraw’s commentary and writings on the abuses of Wall Street, he “helped launch the 99% movement eighteen months ago.” He says that as he understands it, “The Occupy Wall Street 99% Movement is a decentralized, non-violent rebellion against economic tyranny.”
It may seem radical to some that thousands and thousands of people are camped out with little resources and facilities at their disposal. Well, where else should they gather? At the Ritz? Of course not—they have a better strategy. They’re camped out at the very front door of the corporate elite. They’ve made noise and have gotten attention. They’ve risen up against greed and corruption on all levels.
And just who is it that’s heated?
The regular folk—laborers, teachers, welders, factory workers, farmers, civil servants, homeowners, students, people laid off in these mass-lay-off times, sweat shop workers. And these people ask, “Trillions spent on wars, what the f***?!”
It’s through the exploitation of those who work at the bottom of the monetary pyramid—through their blood, sweat, and tears—that corporations have thrived and elite officials have been able to gift themselves exorbitant salaries and bonuses.
Critics of the movement tend to avoid responding to the occupiers’ demands and focus on things such as “the lawn” at city hall, or the kitchen area not being “up-to-code” with Health Department regulations. Note to the Health Department—this isn’t a restaurant, it’s people eating in the park, hoards of protestors willing to fight, non-violently, for justice and equality.
Outside groups and supporters are the ones donating large quantities of things like steaming hot rice, bean soups, bread, and pizzas. (Heck, even a soup kitchen from Skid Row has been at Occupy LA, feeding people and inviting them to their hood.) If the Health Department is so concerned for public health, why don’t they donate food for the people—food that’s prepared to their standards? Good food and health (department) go hand-in-hand, am I wrong?
Other critiques I’ve heard about the Occupy Movement is that the sites are dirty, messy, and trashy. At the LA site, there are actual committees that deal with waste and recycling. And don’t forget, it’s a conscious movement and most people clean up after themselves and after others. But sure, people in general are messy—just look at our trash-laden sidewalks.
There’s also the issue about the porta-potties. (The existing ones at Occupy LA have, to my understanding, been paid for by donation.) And c’mon, City of Los Angeles Sanitation Department, in your quest to help keep things clean and sanitary ‘for the people,’ why not provide the extra toilets that you demand? (Recently the Occupy LA site was under heat from the Sanitation Department, which frequents the premises. The Movement needed more toilets, ones that are maintained twice a day, not just once. The situation was taken care of.)
What else is being criticized?
In regards to the occupiers, David N. Bossie, an outspoken ultra-right-wing Republican whose group, Citizens United Foundation, committed to promoting “free economics and a belief in God and Judeo-Christian values,” wrote, “The Occupy Wall Street movement is filled with a bunch of trust-fund babies, college students skipping class, ex-hippies, and anarchists.” He goes on to say, “Not knowing why they are there or what they stand for seems to be one hallmark of the Occupy Wall Street’s adherents.”
What, as if you can’t read the signs, Mr. Bossie?
“Another common theme is disrupting the daily lives of average Americans with their childish antics,” he continued. (Wall Street is now the “average American.”)
Why is it that when critics fail to respond to or comment on the demands of the people, they like to try to shift the focus by passing moral judgments? I think it’s ignorant to try to reduce what David DeGraw referred to as a “non-violent rebellion against economic tyranny,” to just a bunch of “ex-hippies and anarchists.”
Try if you will, but you can’t cover up the fact that what’s happening here is occurring on a massive planetary scale, and know that it won’t stop.
“Those of us who helped to initiate the Occupation Movement here in LA have said from the beginning that we are in this for the long haul,” said Kwazi Nkrumah, an African American civil rights activist in his address to the Occupy LA General Assembly on a Saturday night. “Our protests and our organizing will not end until the conditions that brought us together have been resolved.”
Tyrants be warned—there’s power in numbers and the people are fed up.
“It is time to bounce every single corrupt, unaccountable politician right out of office. It is time for the voice of the people to be heard. In all of this, in every step of the way, the Occupation Movement is founded on principles of social justice, and must always, everywhere, commit itself to fighting for those who have been most severely hit by the abuses of corporate power,” Nkrumah continued, reading from the affinity group Occupy the Hood’s mission statement.
Anyway, back to Joe the cat. I really love that guy. And even though my brother got really mad at me and said that I was “disrespecting and disregarding his wishes,” I’d let him out again. He was so happy today, and now that he got his taste of freedom, he pushes harder at the back door.
Daphne can be reached at daph.occupylamedia@gmail.com and at www.paintzflwrs.blogspot.com.
