Occupy This

There is a revolution happening planet-wide - unfortunately the message is getting mangled. I was in Manhattan during the Occupy Wall Street rally on October 5th (have the flyer to prove it) and the message at that time seemed clear - enforce fair taxation on the uber-rich so "they pay their fair share" into to social good. I agree with the core of this argument, but there is a great deal that is being misrepresented by the protesters and misinterpreted by the media. Don't get me wrong, I am not trashing the movement as a whole, there is a real problem here, what I take exception to is misinformation and obfuscation of the truth.

Really, that is what it is all about - truth, fairness, social justice, and global responsibility. I get that. I wish the majority of "occupy" protesters did too. By the time Occupy Calgary happened a few of weeks ago, the message had been perverted into "I want my fair share" - That is different. That is Marxism - and it doesn't work. Here's a newsflash - the fact that you exist does not entitle you to jack shit. Get a job, prove your worth, help the planet by reducing your consumption, be generous with what you have even if all you have is time. Begging for attention and handouts while trashing shared public space is not doing the movement any favours. While there may be a very small percentage of these protesters who actually understand the under pinning of the movement, the vast majority show up because it is what everyone else is doing. Lemmings.

Don't even get me started on Occupy Edmonton. Really? Protesting big oil companies in a city that was founded and is still primarily funded by big oil companies? This is the epitome of the bastardization of the movement. The majority of the protesters are students that are there because their parent could afford to send them to university on money made in the oil industry. Astounding hypocrisy.

I find it particularly amusing that the "Occupy Wall Street" concept - specifically condemning big business for not sharing the wealth - was originally started by the CANADIAN activist movement "Adbusters" in an attempt to effect global social change - awesome idea. The thing is that it was supposed to be about effecting global social change and it was quickly twisted into an "us verses them" conflict. The 1% verses the 99%. The uber-rich verses the impoverished.

What seems to be getting lost is that it is about GLOBAL social change, not fixing the US economy. The 1% you hear referred to is specifically a number representing the US economy which is a capitalist economic experiment gone sadly out of control. On a global scale *I* am in the 1% and there is a very strong probability that 99% of the people reading this are too.

I agree with Occupy Wall Street protesters in the argument that the US government should enact changes to capture some of the top end wealth and have it distributed to productive social causes like funding universities or eliminating extreme poverty. In the same vein I agree with the Occupy Berkley protesters in the concept of reducing student debt to encourage economic growth. All the other "occupy" protests have gone sadly awry, and even those two are missing the important part of the equation that is personal social responsibility.

While the US government may not be collecting tax and forcing the uber-rich to pay into social programs, many of those in the upper echelon do so voluntarily - something that has been glaringly absent from this discussion. While Bill Gates may not be paying millions of dollars to the government tax coffers, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has generated over $26 billion (yes that was BILLION) in grants to effect social and economic change globally since its inception in 1994, seeded by their own personal income. While Mark Zuckerberg may not have been forced to pay millions in federal tax last year, he voluntarily donated $100 million to the most needy school district in the US - something the US government itself failed to do despite the fact that it is their responsibility to look after education. The reality is that the majority of these large corporations and individually wealthy people do in fact pay a great deal toward making direct and effective change where it is needed. Can the occupy protesters say the same?

Really now - answer the question. When was the last time you (occupy protester) spent a day on the volunteer side of a food bank operation or soup kitchen? Did you donate 10% of your earnings to help someone in a third world country last year? Did you help out in a local shelter to make sure the homeless in your neighbourhood had a warm bed to sleep in? Don't tell me you are too poor because it takes less then $20 per month to feed, clothe and provide an education for a child in impoverished Burkina Faso, Africa. It costs nothing to donate your time to a homeless shelter. While you are sipping your Starbucks triple shot, skinny, decaf latte and Tweeting your daily protest activities on your iPhone through your ATT or Rogers account, maybe you should think about who is *really* affecting social change.

If you want to occupy something, try occupying a new state of mind. Try thinking about the social responsibility revolution that was behind the original "occupy" protest. In the US it is mostly exemplified by a small percentage of individuals and corporations who have exempted themselves out of paying a fair portion of their income to taxation. On a global scale it is about governments that exploit the local population for cheap labor in return for poor living standards. Its about big global corporations moving jobs to locations that allow them to exploit cheap labor and dangerous work standards. It is also about populations who are unlucky enough to live in areas of the world that have been hit with decades of war, famine, drought and ongoing political stress. If you want to be part of the solution then do something to effect real social change globally.

I work 80 to 90 hours every week to maintain my place in the 1% (globally) and am not afraid or ashamed to say so. On the contrary, I am proud of the fact that my hard work had allowed me to build a nice home and help my son through University. I also use some of that to help a young girl and her family in Africa make ends meet so she can complete her education in a safe environment. The odd goat and cash for school books does not mean a lot in New York or Toronto, but in Burkina Faso, Africa, it is the difference between despair and a life of hope and success. On the other side of the planet, I use some of that hard earned money to help a dozen homeless people in Calgary with a hot meal and a place to sleep 3 or 4 times a year. So when I see dozens (or hundreds) of young people using the "Occupy" movement as an excuse to party, rebel, and generally be useless, I get a little miffed.

The Mayans had it absolutely right. This is a time of change, resurrection, new beginnings. This is not a time of doom and despair - unless you feed the fear monsters. There is definitely upheaval in the forecast - geological, astrophysical, and interpersonal. We are evolving as a species and we need to pay attention to the fact that we exist as one consolidated people of Earth. The time for political and economic separation is past, the future is all about moving forward as a planet of people not a collection of separated castes.

Change is good - embrace it, but understand what you are embracing. Making a political stand about economic fairness in the US… in Edmonton… is just missing the whole point. There *is* a need for social change and we *do* need to challenge our governments, but we need to challenge ourselves first. After all there really is no "them" there is only "us" because "we" are the government and "we" do have the power to change it, but only if we understand the change we are asking for and act on it by not supporting offensive companies and actively supporting those in need directly.

There will be massive political change in the next year in a global sense - of that I have no doubt. We have been stagnant as a race for too long. Europe is already feeling this and North America (the "new world") is not far behind. The "Occupy" movement and the social unrest in the Middle East is merely a symptom, not a cause. Leaders will fail, people will rise and geopolitical fallout will be extreme, but the resulting global society will be stronger for it for an eon. So are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?

Be awesome. Change the world.