Occupy Davis

December 7, 2011

Dear friends,

I was asked by camp meeting participants to write to you. I have clearly used the word “we” a lot. I am the author of this letter, but these are things I was asked to write.

Occupy Davis will no longer be maintaining a continuous occupation of Central Park. Our tents and structures are coming down this morning. This does not mean that our movement is ending or that we will stop having actions, rather that our movement will now be proceeding in a new way. At Monday’s camp meeting it was decided that our goals can best be served by regrouping and refocusing on more targeted political actions. 24/7 occupation has been a valuable tactic for us so far, and an immensely successful strategy for the wider occupy movement, but now we intend to set aside continuous occupation for the time being, so that we can gather ourselves and strengthen our movement.

There will be a General Assembly tonight at Central Park and regular General Assemblies will continue. Your participation in General Assemblies and continued support are greatly appreciated. Please watch for announcements of future marches and other actions.

We would like to thank all of you for your participation, donations, and other forms of support. We have already achieved a lot together: we maintained a continuous occupation of Central Park for over seven weeks. We have also learned much about each other as well as the challenges we face and power we posses. We would like to emphasize that the wider occupy movement and our own local manifestation of it are only just beginning. The movement will continue to grow and become stronger. We look forward to working together in the future.

The emergency SMS list will now be used to announce major actions rather than emergencies. Please text @dtdavisoccupy to 23559 to be added to our SMS alert list for major actions.

–Skyler

Letter to the Davis Enterprise, 12/4/11

Your editorial of 11/17 opines that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has made its point and that the encampments themselves are now the issue. It then recommends the occupiers work for change by supporting candidates and voting. OK, but voting ain’t what it used to be.

Regardless of vote counts, elected officials will still be obligated to the special interests that fund their campaigns.

Voters can be manipulated by constant streams of ads, whether truthful or not, bought by the ultra rich. This was how private wealth turned North Carolina from blue to red as documented by Jean Mayer in the New Yorker, Oct. 10, 2011.

The revolving door between government and industry is largely beyond voter influence and even knowledge. It is evident reporter Ian Urbana took years to unravel how the natural gas industry worked its way on the EPA for the purpose of unregulated hydrofracking. His reports in the March NYT issues are worth reading.

True reformers are driven out of government. Recall the case of Elizabeth Warren. Additionally, Donald Berwick MD, the top Medicare official has resigned per the Washington Post and NYT (11/24). Like Warren in the financial world, Berwick was working to correct fundamental obstacles to equitable health care delivery. Both were opposed by the GOP while not effectively supported by the Democrats.

It is worth noting the health insurance and banking industries are the two largest campaign contributors in D.C. per Yves Smith, financial analyst interviewed on the Newshour 11/24. These industries like things the way they are.

Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor, is the most recent scholar to develop this theme in his 2011 book, “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress- and a Plan to Stop It.”

So while the message of the 99% has been heard, the profound corruption of government by money is still not recognized. Tinkering with votes is ineffective if the root problem is not challenged. If OWS can drive those last points home and the movement decides a constant, physical presence is necessary, then looking at unsightly tents is a trivial concern. Corruption is uglier still.

Mary M. Zhu, Davis

November 22, 2011

To members of the Davis City Council:
I am writing to you to express my support for the Occupy Davis movement, including the Central Park encampment, and to request your consideration of an action I believe the City Council should take in support of both Occupy Davis and the global Occupy movement. I have been a resident of Davis since 1987, and as such I am expressing these views from the perspective of someone who identifies Davis as my home, in addition to having strong feelings about the vital importance of the Occupy movement.
Although media coverage of the movement has been dominated by controversies over the physical occupation of public spaces and the violent responses of authorities to demonstrators, we must not lose sight of the dire state of the world that has made this movement necessary. Indeed, I believe that the global movement for democracy and economic justice, of which the Occupy movement is a part, is now the most promising, if not the only, indication that humanity may be capable of changing course in a period of history when our political and economic institutions have proven incapable of averting disaster.
The list of crises – from shrinking local and state budgets and services to our dysfunctional national political system to endless worldwide warfare and environmental devastation – is huge and mostly pretty obvious. But never – until now – have people all over the world been able to come together to reveal and confront the structures and forces behind all these crises and to begin to collaborate to create alternatives.
This is what the mainstream media totally miss: The Occupy movement is not only about protesting against injustices and the other planetary ills, it is primarily about people taking responsibility for revealing the causes of the problems, identifying what needs to change and, most importantly, learning to live the changes we want to realize in the world (to paraphrase Gandhi). And what we are learning is that at the heart of the needed changes is community.
At Occupy Davis, people who would not otherwise meet and talk with each other are having deep conversations about how to change our lives to be more meaningful and our society to be more inclusive and just. Every day new people from the Davis community turn up and join the conversations. We are learning how to discuss local and global issues in larger groups, how to facilitate and make decisions by consensus, how to identify and implement individual actions that collectively make a difference, such as moving our money out of parasitic national banks and into community banks and credit unions.
In short, Occupy Davis provides a vital service to the community. It is a much needed ongoing opportunity to engage with each other in an all-inclusive public venue at the heart of Davis. It is the place to have a single, continuous conversation to disentangle the web of confusion and misinformation that dominates political discourse, to educate ourselves about the causes of the crises, and to discover and enact sustainable alternatives. And note this fact: The community-service mission of Occupy Davis is no accident or after-thought. The dedicated and intelligent individuals who established Occupy Davis and now maintain it are very clear that they are here to reclaim their responsibilities as citizens of a democracy and residents of the earth, and to help enable the rest of us to do the same.
My request, then, is that the Davis City Council adopt a resolution to recognize the importance of this movement and to support and celebrate Occupy Davis. More specifically, I would like the Council to consider a resolution that recognizes:
The critical state of the world and the urgent need for a rebirth of responsible, popular democracy as the way to address the crises; and
Occupy Davis as the response of Davis citizens to address the crises by providing a venue to engage with each other collaboratively, and with the global Occupy movement, to discover and implement practical ways to build a society based on peace, justice and respect for the earth.
Thank you for your consideration.
Lorenzo Kristov