Getting out the vote

Would democracy work better if there were a quorum for elections – some % of those eligible to vote and/or some % of those registered to vote?

Or fine citizens for not voting, as some countries do.

Sloth

I watched a few minutes of a television series on the seven deadly sins, this one was on sloth. Originally, as well as the well known other six, there were sins of apathy and of sadness which were later combined into sloth. Sloth became the worst sin, fundamental to all the others, because of the laziness of allowing wrong to flourish by passively not intervening. What struck me so was that the original beliefs were that this behavior was deliberate, under the control of will, and that the behaviors would today be called depression. I better understand the attitude of some that one just needs to pull one's self up and bite the bullet and soldier on, and so forth.

Conspiracy

There's a persuasive DVD titled Federal Reserve that traces today's global inequity to careful planning. The connections run from Davos to Bohemian Grove, and include birth control, two salary families, credit cards. We got to now through grand strategy and deliberate manipulations by a few of the powerful.

 

I've been long interested in self-organizing theory, power laws, an inevitability of amassing and toppling. I think that is what got us to now.

Believing in a conspiracy of the powerful is more optimistic, accepts that individual responsibility won't be enough, suggests options of acceptance or overthrow.

Believing that self-organizing can be modulated by expanding human consciousness asks a lot of the evolving human mind.

Denial of personal mortality and the denial of planetary doom

The single-mindedness of human intervention in the global ecology - altering air, water, earth and life span with inadequate attention to the long term – seems parallel to the inattention to human mortality. Placing natural cycles of decay and change and growth in the background, while we continually build, improve, extend, grow … - my images are of block towers toppling over, trajectories speeding out of orbit, infrastructures decaying, systems imploding from their own weight.

75 River St Talking Points

2012 - Jubilee Year - 2012

2012 – Jubilee year - 2012

After each dramatic change in governance, new rulers clear the slate, forgive debt, impose new taxes. Today, instead of reining in corporations directly, we can forgive all personal debt by fiat, and let that comprehensive rebalancing lead to system changes and tax code revisions.

I see appeal in these ideas for fundamentalists and liberals and pragmatists and debtors. The Old Testament mandates a sabbath day every seven days, a sabbatical year every seven years, and a Jubilee, every seven seven years, when fields rest and slaves are freed, and indentured and other debt is rebalanced. Thomas Jefferson proposed canceling all debts every 19 years, and David Graeber in Debt's conclusion, suggests forgiveness now as a way out of the global mess we are in.

action is speech

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. It follows that for those without money, action must substitute and is speech.

Our country was founded by direct action – what our law now calls trespass and vandalism - dumping the East India company's tea into Boston's harbor.

Entering 75 River St was an action similar to donating money to a campaign, an attempt to put forth an idea, to educate and to win minds. How can that become a felony?

Do not disadvantage those without money, without power, those from whom action must become voice.

True, there's no excuse for damaging the property of another. Just as there's no excuse for damaging the commons. But we are not even slapping the wrists of big banks; instead we are bailing them out.

So it seems unbalanced to press criminal charges on those who chose an unsubtle way to bring these ideas to local attention.

Why do we feel the way we do about these occupiers? Some feel violated, some vindicated, some feel as if they are family, … Regardless, felony charges stray from a just result.

The eyes of many are on Santa Cruz.   We must let mercy shine.