Addressing the frustrations with the movement. Laying out some ideas for a long term strategy. Occupy Yourself!!! It is time to personalize the Occupation. Bring it home with personal action. Change the world by changing your life and what you can put your hands on. Things will never return to how they were. The past is passed. Enlightenment is not found at any extreme. We need to build off what works and...

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OCCUPY YOURSELF!!!

The personalization of the Occupy Movement

By: Nate Whitaker

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, --

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, --

To the last syllable of recorded time; --

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools --             

The way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle! --

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, --

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, --

And then is heard no more.

It is a tale.

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, --

Signifying nothing."

Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19--28

I've been reading around the "interwebs" lately; that the #Occupy movement is losing steam. People are frustrated at the lack of direction and claim there is a movement within "the movement". I can't say that I agree that they are losing momentum, but I do see how people could be frustrated. I look to the faces of the people in this "protest" as it expands from "Occupy Wall Street" to "Occupy Everywhere" and I can't help but want to shout"

Occupy Yourself!!!

Before we proceed, allow me to clarify " I support the occupy movement 100%.  I think that it is the most dynamic and important expression of humanity we've got going on right now. I look around at the world and there are so many reasons for people to be pissed off right now.  So many people have lost so much; all they have left is their voice. If all you have is your voice then you need to get out and scream at the top of your lungs. As long as our voice is clear and we speak the truth, someone will listen. I firmly believe that this is merely a continuation of the civil rights movement.  If we look back in time, the civil rights movement, started as a movement to grant equality to people who had been disenfranchised due to race and matured to a movement to grant equality to people who have been disenfranchised by poverty. Poverty has been at the core of every major civil rights issue since the beginning of time.  If all you can do is create a spectacle and get people's attention; then go for it.

Make some noise!!!

Break some sh*t!!!

Stop the machine!!!

Trust me, I want to make some noise and break sh*t too. However that just isn't a practical plan of action for me right now.   My guess is that it isn't a working idea for you either. But it sure as hell sounded cool. Maybe later"

All in all, this is just theatre; political theatre of the highest accord choreographed and performed, en masse, on demand. To garner the attention of a society that has turned its gaze away from the uglier and usually less entertaining side of life.  All of this sound and fury has to come to something.

How did we get into this mess? What do we do to fix it? As a child I spent a lot of time with my grandmother who was born in rural Tennessee in 1918 and grew up during the great depression.   She filled my head full of stories of the great depression. She would go on and on about what they had to do to survive. But she expressed to me how surviving wasn't enough. She expressed to me that they had to find their own way to thrive and be happy. Their little town got through together by creating a community and taking care of each other.  When the New Deal was announced, people were more than ready to go to work helping each other out.  When I asked her what caused the depression, she gave me a simple answer. Something that rings true to this day.

"Too many people went for easy money. So many regular folks thought they could get rich by investing, that many got swindled for their money.   In the end.  The people at the bottom, who had the most to lose. Lost the most. While those at the top, actually made money."

Kind of an eerie reflection of the last 20 years or so.  If she were alive today she would say,

"We made it through then. We'll make it through now."

People just need to understand that sometimes it is going to hurt before it gets better. We can't keep chasing the easy money. Good ideas and hard work will get us out of this mess. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here; some ideas have worked in the past and could easily work again. One of my favorites tossed around at #Occupy events are the repeal of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and re-instatement of the Glass-Steagall Act.

The Glass-Steagall Act included safeguards for both banks and people and it was repealed to give commercial banks the ability to take on more risks and "in theory", make more money. In retrospect, just like in the 1930's consumer banks lost money by taking on more risk. Probably, a good idea to put those rules back. It's not that I don't trust banks. I don't trust the people who work for banks. People are people. People are greedy, People lie, people steal.

Hence banking laws!!!!

The idea that a bank can do whatever they want with the money we in trust them with seems to violate the"trust" on which the relationship was based in the first place.   Ironically many banks have the word "trust" in their names.  In 1999 theGlass-Steagall Act was repealed by congress. One of my favorite quotes from back then has to be this one:

"I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010"

 Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota.

*Insert fart noise.

This single act of Congress granted commercial banks privileges to become investment and insurance companies. It also allowed insurance companies to get into investment and commercial banking. Corporations that had no prior business experience in these areas of finance were allowed to use their customer's money that they were entrusted with to "diversify" by speculating in other financial industries.

The stated intent was to increase competition which would supposedly improve customer service and reduce fees.  In reality... More competition caused increases in fees and decreases in customer service.  This really messed up everything from retirement funds to health insurance and encouraged more companies to neglect customers and focus on servicing their shareholders.  This single act set the stage for the current meltdown of the financial industry. It didn't cause it.  It was caused by good old fashion greed, people taking advantage of these law changes.  When this act was passed, the flip switches were taken off of our economic reactor and the result was a Chernobyl style meltdown.  Now everyone is dealing with thefallout; swaths of abandoned homes and businesses sitting being scavenged until the fallout clears and life returns to "normal",

If we want to keep using this economic system called capitalism, a system  where economic value is based on trust and stability of markets, we must have sufficient regulation to moderate risk.

Investments are not seen as sound when there is too much risk. It is ironic, the proponents of deregulation claimed that high-risk, top heavy economic growth will trickle its way down to the bottom of the economy.   The economic benefits did exactly that, trickle down. Just  trickle. Just enough to keep most of us preoccupied and hopeful.  However, now that it has all broken down, those who took the most risk, saw the greatest financial boon and were  shielded from the losses associated with those risks. Now those losses, that trickled down have become a torrent.

Beyond a political fix to the economic reactor, we need to look at what we, as non-corporate "persons" can do to fix this.   We have the ability to take the power out of the hands, of those who screwed this up so bad. We the People need to be smart. We the People need to be tough. We the People need to be patient. This will take time.

Vote with your feet, leave your big bank and use a local credit union. I did a lot of work for a few large commercial banks in the "90s. I made my money in IT back then preparing for the dreaded Y2K. What I learned was that the whole banking industry was a mess. When the deregulation passed in '99 I decided I would keep my money out of the hands of commercial banks. One mortgage trader said to me"We need to get on this and make money off it before it blows up in everyone's face."  Since then, I have kept my money in credit unions whenever possible. Don't just go out and pick any credit union, do your research. Ask their customers what they think. Some act just like the commercial banks. Be a smarter more aware consumer. It's your money. Remember that. Another idea that has been recycled by the #Occupy movement has been to buy local and use small businesses. Give your money to small and local businesses. This isn't always possible, especially for those of us with limited funds. I often find myself trading services for goods or other services. Find out what you can do and work out an exchange. Do what you can to take the economy out of the hands of the intoxicated sociopaths that haven't been doing a good job of running it for you. If you don't feel like you have a good enough idea, look around. There are thousands of people with good ideas. Not everyone can implement their ideas alone. Offer to help, be part of something bigger.

I tell you this again.

Occupy Yourself!!!

It is time to personalize the Occupation.

Bring it home with personal action.

Change the world by changing your life and what you can put your hands on.

Things will never return to how they were. The past is passed.  Enlightenment is not found at any extreme.  We need to build off what works and try something new where the old ways don't work anymore. In a world where change is the only constant. We cannot afford to be a society that runs from change.

To be continued"

Authors Website: http://www.omniaveteranova.com

Authors Bio:
Omnia Vetera Nova is a progressive online blog site. Featuring independent news, investigative reporting and commentary. Published by Nate Whitaker and Michael Leporati. Editors and Contributing Writers Amy Cavanaugh, Kristian Gore, Travis Dominguez