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Podcast    H2'ed 11/30/11

Sarah Van Gelder-- Author/editor of First Book on the Occupy Movement

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Broadcast 11/30/2011 at 4:48 PM EST (5 Listens, 4 Downloads, 466 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

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VERY Rough Interview Notes
yesmagazine.org
Goal in producing this book
Decided to do it quite early on. There was a lot of confusion in the media about what are these people doing? Why are they camping out? Why no demands?

Two audiences---
people on the outside with all those questions-- to see if they could feel a part of the 99%... discuss issues of inequality, how the system is rigged for the 1%.
People already involved in the movement-- to provide additional resources.

Young people at Zuccotti park were very curious about economic issues and questions. "We play by the rules. What went wrong? How did we, the 99% end up with so little power when the 1% can get what they want from congress.

Bottom up-- so decentralized, so fiercely independent and democratic. Decisions are made in General Assemblies, from Spanish Indignados-- radical inclusivity-- everyone has a say. Homeless are part of the conversation. This may be the first time middle class persons had a real conversation with people living on the street.

No leaders, people involved in working groups.
Decisions made by consensus or close to consensus. Blocking is used if people feel very strongly against something moving forward.

Horizontal Democracy
Marina Sitrin wrote a book called Horizontalism-- her write up comes out of Argentina-- about 10 years ago, in Argentina, banks closed, people walked away from their factories-- and workers turned them into worker cooperatives.
Her influence in the early stages of Occupy Wall Street was very strong.

Occupy Movement Post Eviction
in some cases people are coming back to the occupy sites and not using them as places to sleep but still using them as places to gather. Some still have them going, like Washington DC and Olympia Washington.

Seen creative, interesting activism in smaller groups, choosing smaller targets-- a group goes into a Brooklyn foreclosure hearing and just start singing, pleading with the judge not to evict the woman in question.  They were arrested but the foreclosure was delayed.

People are taking various forms of direct action that may or not include tents.

Tents have become a very interesting and potent form of protest, but there are many actions that don't involve tents.

Where this will go
Student movement. The younger generation are facing huge burdens and challenges. Told they need the education to succeed, playing by the rules, but not finding jobs when they graduate.

States are so broke because they can't collect taxes from the 1% anymore.

Further discussion on how to go about doing non-violent direct action.
Interfaith group and grandmothers for peace were among those arrested last night at Occupy LA. We'll see people prepared to be arrested, prepared to withstand pepper spray and beatings.

This is the moment to do it. We can't afford to let t his moment go.

How the Occupy movement changes everything.
Changing the political debate by naming the issue of our time.
A lot of people were experiencing humiliation and shame, like they had feeled. The OWS has turned that around, making it clear that it is not your fault. Our social contract is broken. We need a movement to redistribute resources to everyday people.

The practice of deep democracy, of actually being in a physical space, in a park or a public building and saying we are the 99% and saying we are making the decisions, is an experience that young people will never forget.

Diversity-- there is an extraordinary coming together of people from different walks of life-- unemployed professionals, kids just out of college, different races--
That inclusivity-- you're all welcome and part of this movement.

What needs to change
what does it mean to poor and wealthy-- the massive inequality.
How can we get a tax system that is fair
How can we create jobs in a way that can still sustain our planet.

We do have the power
How do we change society
corporate personhood.
How people's movements have gotten important work done.

We woke up and realized that none of our leaders are going to solve our problems.
It's time to act for ourselves.
People were expecting Obama to make the changes happen.
Obama election WAS a social movement, but once Obama was elected, all the names were handed over to the Democratic party, which was a top-down system.

It's not giving short lists of demands-- it's taking the time to say there are deep problems that have to be addressed.

We're not asking for power. We're taking it.

Rob: I've had a number of moments where I've watched something happen at an occupy locale and thought "That's really dumb." only to continue watching and conclude that their way is actually better.

It's so important that this next generation does not have an attitude that something can't be done.

The human mike-- advantages--  repeating another person's words,
I f you're repeating something that you didn't think you agreed with, it's almost like trying out the idea as you repeat it. It's giving you an opportunity to embody an idea before you reject it out of hand.

Ways the Occupy Movement changes the way people
twinkling fingers-- wiggle fingers up for approval, down for disagreement
Because there are no official leaders, no hierarchy-- that gives every person involved not only a say but a sense of their self-worth. ".   You're as much a success of the movement as everyone else. Stepping into that level of responsibility, engagement, involvement with the issues... that's an enormous challenge and a growth opportunity and how our whole society can evolve. So much of our politics is so passive.... you basically feel that you have so little power.  


Louis Moreno Cabalut and Marina Sitrin wrote article about the future of the movement.
Our next step beyond occupy wall street is not to have our new society beyond these small encampments, next step is to occupy the world.

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Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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