Every twenty or thirty years or so, like the hatch of locusts, or the coming of some other natural phenomenon in the ecosystem of the planet, there are waves of reform and of transcendent hope.
~Terence McKenna 2011 saw a surge of novelty as people around the globe converged and tried to change the world by practicing new forms of organization. Early on, a repressive regime was toppled. As the rest of what became known as the Arab Spring unfolded, uprisings were followed by violent suppression and protracted conflict. But people living within less domestically harsh regimes also chafed under the bureaucratic status quo. Here, our relative freedom does have definite benefits - including opportunities to explore ways to further expand our freedom, well-being, and social harmony. We saw entrenched bureaucratic games leaving people behind and gumming up the gears of the clock of progress. Many questioned whether it was good enough to be able to say that our political-economic system was better, relative to harsh and rigid monarchies, etc. -- a pretty low bar! Visions of a new world beyond the bureaucracy, a world shaped crucially by mutual aid and horizontal organization, took hold and were put into practice in dozens of city centers. Portland, Oregon's occupation was one of the largest. After the community was forcibly uprooted from the park blocks, as part of a coordinated wave of evictions, the immediate area remained a humanity hub. Many activities, organized and spontaneous, went on in the Occupy spirit. The ideals of mutual aid and horizontal organization kept guiding the ad-hoc, rag-tag, ever-transforming community. Resources were shared, change agents conspired and collaborated, and people both willingly and unwillingly existed outside of structures and strictures of the political-economic bureaucracies. A candlelight vigil at City Hall served as a spiritual focal point. Out by the curb, the occupation continued. 99 was one of a few who tended most diligently to this phase of the movement, defending the right to survive, and livestreaming and narrating the goings-on for several months. Now, in keeping with a diversity of tactics, he's launched a bid to repurpose the electoral process -- a linchpin of the bureaucratic juggernaut -- for transformative ends, for implementing the vision of a radically better, freer, more harmonious world. |
|