November 6, 2011

BELOW are nineteen things you might not know about our TAX THE 1% event that took place on October 29.

1. Postcards. If you filled out a mailing label at the event, you should by now have found in your mailbox a beautiful, oversized postcard. Eight hundred of these started landing in mailboxes around the Bay Area on Thursday (a new record turnaround time by at least 10 days), but others will take a bit longer. We had attendees from Finland, Germany, South Africa, Hawaii, and about a dozen other states too.

2. This was the first time I officially partnered with another group — The Other 98% (other98.com) — to put on an event. I consider the partnership a tremendous success.

3. The Other 98% was formed nearly two years ago (long before “99%” became the designated Occupy metric) with the motto: “Making Democracy work for the rest of us.” The co-founders are Andrew Boyd (founder of Billionaires for Bush — billionairesforbush.com ) and Andrew’s co-conspirator, John Sellers, and they have since created an entire portfolio of creative Other 98% events.

4. I met Andrew Boyd in 2004 through a most-improbable circumstance about which I imagine I’ll write more on some other day, and he and I have been comrades and long-distance friends ever since.

5. On September 11 of this year, on my way to the Codepink peace march on the Golden Gate Bridge, I called Andrew on my cell phone (he actually answered!) and told him I was eager to put on another beach event, soon, to set up yet another event a year from now (in the immediate run-up to the presidential election of 2012) — but I absolutely wasn’t going to do another one of these things by myself again ever. Any chance Andrew and the Other 98% would partner up with me? “I like it,” Andrew said. “Let me talk to John and get back to you. But I think John’s going to like it, too.”

6. Nine days later, by coincidence, John Sellers was in San Francisco. I drove John out to Ocean Beach so I could pitch the event over lunch at the Beach Chalet and so we could walk the site together. When John first climbed into my car I had no idea of his history — I had assumed he was probably just another silly little activist / organizer like me. When I asked what kind of organizing he’d done before he and Andrew started The Other 98%, John mentioned having founded the Ruckus Society! ( ruckus.org ) After we shook hands on the Oct 29 event, I went home and googled John and learned that he is widely considered the Key Force — the architect and the strategic mind — behind the famous shutdown of Seattle during the World Trade Organization conference of 1999. The big leagues. I stand quite humbled.

7. John and Andrew and I originally scheduled TAX THE 1% for Saturday, Nov 5, exactly one year and one day before the 2012 election. But a huge surfing contest was scheduled for Ocean Beach on Nov 5, and the Park Service said No Permit for us. So we moved the date up one week, to Oct 29, which turned out to be a Perfect Weather Day — 74 degrees, cloudless, no wind. November 5 was yesterday, a day of solid gray clouds and intermittent heavy rain in the Bay Area.

8. Neither John, Andrew, or myself had a clue that the Occupy Movement was going to erupt like this. I didn’t even HEAR about it until people had been sleeping on the streets of New York and San Francisco for ten days. My original idea for our message was “CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE.” Before the Occupy movement began, John and Andrew and I had agreed on the shorter “TAX THE RICH.” In the end we wound up shortening it again, to “TAX THE 1%.

9. The Other 98% was able to enlist Democrats.com, The Courage Campaign, and Credo Mobile in publicizing TAX THE 1% to their email lists — I never would have been able to accomplish that on my own. Credo Mobile’s email was particularly timely. Twenty-eight hours before our helicopter was due overhead, we had a slim 499 signups. Credo’s email hit inboxes around the Bay Area at about 8am Friday morning. By Friday evening there were 800 signups and, with the forecast of spectacular weather, I knew we were on our way to something worthy. Yeah Credo Mobile! ( credomobile.com ) Yeah Democrats.com! Yeah Courage Campaign! ( couragecampaign.org )

10. From having organized several previous beach events, I do recognize the names and mailing addresses on the Attendees List pretty darned well by now. My estimate is that at least 80% (and perhaps as many as 95%) of TAX THE 1% participants were first-timers. I also noted heavy turnout from the Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods near Ocean Beach. Not sure quite yet just what to make of either of those two details, but I do find them interesting.

11. I forgot to do a census at the event (I usually ask someone to walk around and count bodies), and I haven’t yet blown up a photo of the whole group, so I don’t know an exact number. But I’m confident we had at least 800 people. And I think that saying “We had 1,000 people,” is fair enough.

12. The line of people along the surfline at event’s end stretched for two-thirds of a mile. If we repeat that exercise in 2012, I hope to have it organized so that we are spread more evenly. When people are spaced about five feet apart, reaching out to hold each other’s hands, it makes for more impressive photos. Still, that part of the event was phenomenal (see item #19), and I can’t wait to do it again.

13. I am intending to reserve a date with the Park Service for early- or mid-October 2012. I’ll let you know asap. Consider yourself invited. If you registered for TAX THE 1%, consider yourself registered for next year’s event. (And if you want to add your name to the registration list now, go ahead – as of today it’s still open.)

14. I always think these things are going to be bigger than they turn out to be. But with the foundation we’ve now laid, well, I can’t even imagine how huge our turnout will be in 2012.

15. I always think our photos belong on the cover of Time or the front page of the New York Times, but they never seem to get quite that far. Still, they do travel. This morning I showed one of our postcards to a lawyer in my cab who had just arrived from Austin, Texas (in my cab, it’s “All Occupy, All the Time”). “Oh, I know about this,” he said immediately. “I saw this on. . . I think it was CNN.” Five years ago, CNN did indeed broadcast worldwide the aerial video footage from our first Beach Impeach event, but this fellow’s report was the first rumor of CNN involvement I’ve heard re TAX THE 1%. People tell me say they’ve seen coverage on all four major Bay Area tv networks, in the Huffington Post, The Bay Citizen, the Chronicle’s online edition, The Advocate, and many, many more. If I get a chance, I’ll compile a list of links to these sightings.

16. TAX THE 1% participants dropped a total of $2,620.32 into the Postcard Addresses buckets. Roughly $2.50 per person. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! (Pretty cheap entertainment, no? Pretty inexpensive media reach, too!)

17. I haven’t tallied all the bills and receipts yet, but I think they’re going to come in somewhere right around that same $2,600 figure. So far: Helicopter — $600. Postcards (from Inkworks, a union shop in Berkeley) — $595. Postage — $500 (44 cents per postcard). Flyers, faxes, hand outs — $100. Lumber, posterboard, supplies — $100. Miscellaneous — $200. . . Photographer – Free — thank you John Montgomery — great work!

18. In the last half-hour of today’s cab shift, I was driving out Market Street near Valencia Street when up ahead I saw a small car plastered with “Avalos For Mayor” posters. I SO badly want to see Supervisor John Avalos elected mayor on Tuesday. Our current Mayor, Ed Lee, sent riot police in to rough up the unarmed campers at the OccupySF site, which I believe shows a stunning misreading of the San Francisco citizenry, and a fatal lack of imagination. I overtook the Avalos For Mayor vehicle, beeped to get the driver’s attention, and gave him a thumbs up. As he turned toward me, I noticed Supervisor Avalos himself sitting in the front passenger seat. A few short weeks ago I had no idea what Avalos looked like, but now I’ve seen him intervening between the police and campers at the OccupySF site more than once, have seen him at Board of Supervisors meetings and at our TAX THE 1% event. Our windows were open, and I called out, “John!” Avalos turned, smiled, and called back, “Hi Brad!” The car’s driver (he was wearing shades and I didn’t recognize him) called to me, “Great work — I already got my postcard in the mail!” And then the traffic split us apart. Hey, if my endorsement matters at all, here it is: Avalos For Mayor! Please!

19. The very first person to arrive at Beach Impeach #1 (Jan 6, 2007) was a 13-year-old named Sam Rubin. Sam followed me around with his video camera that morning and produced a great seven-minute video. At TAX THE 1%, Sam (now 18 years old) followed me around again and just this evening sent a link to the resulting two-minute, fifty-second video. Whether you were there or not, I think you’re really going to love this. (I love it, but then there IS a lot of ME in it.) I think Sam really captured the spirit — not to mention the letter(s) — of the whole event: http://www.youtube.com/user/other98#p/a/u/1/IHeVlA4eeuc

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On Saturday, October 29th, over 1000 Americans laid their bodies down on a San Francisco beach to spell out “TAX THE 1%.” This protest was just the latest, and possibly most spectacular yet, in the wave of protests that have swept the nation since protesters occupied Wall Street, launching the “We are the 99%” movement.

You can view the press release and more photos here.

The event was a collaboration between local organizer Brad Newsham and The Other 98%, a net-roots powerhouse with over 120,000 facebook followers. For more information, please visit other98.com

The crowd was estimated at over 1000, including two San Francisco City Supervisors, John Avalos and Eric Mar.

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CONTACT:
Brad Newsham, 415-305-8294, newsham@mac.com
Chuck Collins, 617/308-4433, chuckcollins7@mac.com
Andrew Boyd, 347-228-7416, andrewontheroad@gmail.com

LATEST PROTEST IN OCCUPY WALL STREET WAVE

On Saturday over 1000 Americans laid their bodies down on a San Francisco beach to spell out “TAX THE 1%.” This protest was just the latest, and possibly most spectacular yet, in the wave of protests that have swept the nation since protesters occupied Wall Street, launching the “We are the 99%” movement.

(Photos courtesy: ©2011 John Montgomery) – Click to view in high resolution.

“I work hard every day,” said event organizer and Bay Area cab driver, Brad Newsham. “It isn’t right that I pay higher taxes than billionaires like Warren Buffet. And actually, Mr. Buffet agrees with me on this.” Recently the “Buffet Rule” has become a touchstone of Obama’s proposal to tax millionaires to fund his job program. Republicans in Congress have blocked both initiatives, but recent polls show that 73% of Americans (including 66% of Republicans, and 52% of Tea Partiers) support the Buffet Rule and want to raise taxes on millionaires. [1]

The “TAX THE 1%” human banner was scheduled almost exactly a year before Election Day 2012. This is no coincidence. “We’re putting Obama and all the Presidential candidates on notice,” said event co-organizer and Other 98% founder, Andrew Boyd. “The 99% of us have been hammered by this ecnonomy. It’s time for the 1% to pay their fair share.” Over the last 30 years incomes of the 99% of Americans have stagnated, while the 1% has seen their share of the national income more than double over the same period. [2]

“Everyone knows the game is rigged,” said Newsham. “One simple thing we can do right now to make things more fair is to tax the 1%. And we came down here to spell it out.”

“They say we’re not supposed to tax the rich because they’re the ‘job creators.’” said Boyd. “Well, where are the jobs? Instead of creating jobs, they took the money they got from the Bush tax cuts and put it into risky financial speculation that destroyed the economy.” Even with historically low tax rates for the 1%, job growth has declined. A recent CBS News poll showed that only 18% of Americans believe that cutting taxes on millionaires will spur job creation. [3]

The percentage of taxes paid by millionaires has steadily declined over the last 50 years.  In 1961, Americans earning over $1 million (adjusted for 2011 dollars) paid 43.1% of their incomes in taxes. Last year, millionaires paid 23.1% of their income in taxes. [4]

Newsham hired a helicopter and photographer to fly overhead and take pictures.

The event was a collaboration between Mr. Newsham and The Other 98%, a net-roots powerhouse with over 120,000 facebook followers. For more information, please visit other98.com

The crowd was estimated at over 1000, including two San Francisco City Supervisors.

[1] http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/poll-73-percent-support-the-buffett-rule-including-66-percent-of-republicans.php

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/us/politics/top-earners-doubled-share-of-nations-income-cbo-says.html?_r=3&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20114988-503544.html

[4] http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/unnecessary_austerity_unnecessary_government_shutdown

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My partners at The Other 98% and I “shook hands” on Saturday’s event on Sept 11, 2011, and we chose our date — Oct 29 — before any of us had an inkling that the whole Occupy movement was about to bust loose. We’ve been amazed, and very very heartened at the way things have transpired. And we think that all of us are going to make a nice little contribution to the river of Occupy energy that has surged around the world in the last few weeks. By this time Saturday afternoon, two days from now, we should have some incredible imagery and we will have had a wonderful day at the beach (weather prediction for Saturday in SF: clear, calm, 70 degrees).

WHAT A NIGHT!

Un-friggin’-believable. . .

Last night was my proudest night in 17 years as an Oakland resident. In mid-afternoon yesterday it looked like we’d have another night of police/Occupier conflict. But Mayor Jean Quan called off the police, and around sunset about 2,000 Occupiers moved in and dismantled and neatly stacked the barriers the police had erected around the Occupy site. Then we filled the amphitheater situated directly in front of Oakland City Hall and held an orderly, civil, democratic, public discussion about whether or not to call a general strike. The loudest ovation of the night went to a speaker who, in spite of the previous night of police violence, called for this whole movement to remain non-violent. To simply view that gathering gave me goosebumps. To be part of it was an honor. Oakland!

Across the Bay at OccupySF: In mid-afternoon SF police distributed flyers to businesses around the Occupy SF site announcing that they’d be clearing the site starting about the time of the evening commute. Instead, the city rallied behind the Occupiers. Nancy Mancias of Codepink reports, “We were all ready to confront the police. We were all ready to be teargassed and beaten. We were all ready to go to jail.” Instead, FIVE of the eleven members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors came down and joined the camp. “We got word at 4:30am that the police called off the raid.”

2 SF SUPERVISORS JOINING US AT THE BEACH

This morning I watched the video of the Board of Supervisors addressing the crowd via the “open mic” system that has become the Occupy hallmark and found my eyes full of tears. ( See the video here: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/10/27/big-victory-occupysf-continued-unrest-occupy-oakland ). I fired off an email to all five supervisors thanking them for coming, and Supervisor Eric Mar fired one right back telling me that he would be joining all of us at the beach on Saturday. Supervisor John Avalos, the supervisor whose face I have seen mostly consistently around the OccupySF site since its inception, says he thinks he intends to be there also. Cool, huh?

NUMBERS: Pushing 500

We’re good. Invite everyone you know — the more the merrier, and the more impressive — but with the number of people we have registered, I’m confident we’ll create some world-class images. My nature is to be overly-optimistic, and while you truly just never know, this time I believe I have good at least two reasons to believe we can expect quite a few more than 500: one, so many of the folks from OccupySF say they’re not registered but they’re definitely coming (boy, have they ever earned a morning at the beach!); and two, our previous events’ signup mechanisms had a function for a registrant to specify a number of people accompanying her or him, and this time there is no such function, so maybe there are a lot of folks coming from that category? And let’s go for three reasons: Friday morning Credo (the best phone service in the business) is sending an announcement to its Bay Area members. And hey, I received an email telling me that Michael Moore is going to be in Oakland on Friday, and do you think he’d want to miss this?

IT OFFICIAL: “TAX THE 1%”

That’s the message we’ll be spelling out.

Come. Bring everyone. It’s gonna rock.

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Dear Everyone,

IN LATE 1977 I was 26 years old and living in a poorly-insulated log cabin (I’d helped build and insulate it myself), four miles down a rutted dirt road from a town of 300 North Idaho loggers.

It was my first attempted winter as a back-to-the-lander, and I held on until mid-January before fleeing south to Colorado. In the town of Greeley, I moved in with a friend, a graduate student at the University of Northern Colorado (she’s now my ex-wife).

Greeley was a working-class, agricultural town plunked down in the plains 30 miles east of the Rockies (tantalizingly visible in the distance). Aside from the university, Greeley’s most significant concern was a meat-packing plant which would give the air a rancid smell once spring arrived.

I FOUND A JOB selling newspaper ads for the weekly Weld County News, and one day I dropped in on the manager of a restaurant situated in the stubbled, snow-dusted fields five miles west of Greeley. A few years earlier some dreamer had constructed a modern-looking, circular building and opened a dinner theater; but that venture had quickly failed, and now someone else had bought the building and turned it into a fancy, up-scale restaurant — the Carousel.

The Carousel was in an odd, odd, odd, location, location, location: two hundred yards off a two-lane highway, surrounded by miles and miles of flat fields. The citizens of Greeley, passing by on their periodic drives to Denver or Fort Collins, would study the Carousel — all by itself, all lit up, or perhaps pitch dark and vaguely threatening — and they would scratch their heads.

The Carousel’s manager was a young guy named Eric, from LA as I recall, a little older than me. Eric lamented that Greeley’s populace had not yet warmed to “this space ship thing sitting out here all by itself,” and he bought a small weekly ad in the Weld County News.

A week after the ad started running I dropped in on Eric, who told me that two of his waiters had suddenly quit. I mentioned that I had waited tables in college — and suddenly I had a second job, waiting tables at the Carousel three nights a week.

I liked waiting tables, I liked Eric, I liked the rest of the staff, too. Brian, the chef, was a tall, beefy fellow with a tall, bleached-white, chef’s toque which always made me think of “The Cat in the Hat.” A friendly waiter named Grant turned out to be the first Scientologist I ever met.

The newspaper ad may have helped a little (customers often said they’d noted the Carousel from the highway and then seen the ad) but it didn’t help much. Business remained impressively slow. One night we had exactly one party, a chatty party of two, and after I’d served their filet mignon I sat down at their table and ate my own dinner with them. Brian came out of the kitchen wearing his Dr. Suess hat, carrying a plate with his dinner, and joined us. Eric bought a round of drinks. The two customers bought a dessert cake for the entire house. Out in the cornfields on the edge of town. . .

FRIDAY WAS ALWAYS our busiest night — we might serve thirty dinners, but more often we did not. On particularly slow nights we took to sitting on sacks of potatoes in the over-stocked, walk-in cooler, drinking beers and telling stories. Brian, the chef, told one — I’ll never forget it — about the incredible hypnotist he was seeing who, said Brian, “puts me in a stance.”

Really, I said — he puts you in a stance?

“No kidding. He has this way of talking, and the next thing you know he’s got you in a stance!”

BY THE TIME MAY ROLLED AROUND, Eric was desperate. I suggested a larger ad for Mothers Day. Everyone in Greeley had noticed the Carousel by now. Maybe they were intimidated — waiters in red vests, wine sold by the bottle! — and maybe they considered it too pricey. But for Mom, well, maybe they’d come out special for Mom. And if we could get them in the door once, they just might get into the habit…

Eric decided to run a half-page ad and to offer an incredible price — a Mother’s Day brunch, with champagne, for…was it just twelve bucks?

I worked nights, but Eric asked me to come in for the occasion. He’d had several advance reservations and was confident we’d serve at least fifty people — we might even hit one hundred. He said I didn’t need to show up for prep but could come in around noon, just as he’d be opening the doors. If it was slow, he’d send me home.

I WATCHED MY GIRLFRIEND jog in a Mothers Day 5k that morning, ate some breakfast, and started driving west. Half a mile from the Carousel I hit bumper to bumper traffic on the two-lane highway. Some sort of commotion up ahead. A quarter-mile from the restaurant, cars were parked on both sides of the road. I maneuvered around back to one of the staff parking spots. Inside, Eric was a crazy man, a white guy with the reddest face I’ve ever seen. Six hundred people were waiting for Mothers Day Brunch at the Carousel Restaurant. . .

REGARDING OCTOBER 29:  As I turn in on Saturday night, 390 people have signed up (and thank you very much). This afternoon I learned that early next week the Courage Campaign is going to send out an email regarding our human banner event. 10,000 people might show up. Hey, you never know… Really. You don’t.

G’night.­

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I’VE BEEN UPSET ALL DAY.

Yesterday the folks camping in front of the Federal Reserve Building (101 Market Street, San Francisco) moved about 200 yards down the street to a little green area next to Justin Herman Plaza. They moved because they were getting hassled by the police and the Department of Public Works, and because the space in front of the Federal Reserve was getting cramped.

Last night the police were sent in, in force. Riot gear. The whole stupid deal. They tore down tarps — tarps! — and they threw away the food from the camp kitchen. They beat up a bunch of the folks I’ve gotten to know from my having gone down there almost every day for the past 16-17 days. I saw their faces on the disturbing video posted (right now, Monday night) at the OccupySF.com website. It’s about five minutes long. It shocked me. These people are very decent folks, and their cause is also all of our cause. They are doing their best to keep the areas they occupy neat, orderly. They have teams of people who have divided up tasks, including legal, communications, cleanup, kitchen, etc. You’d be moved if you were to hang out with them (especially if you then saw them getting beaten up by riot police).

Tomorrow there is a regularly scheduled meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It starts at 2 pm. There is a period for public comment (the starting time for public comment is unpredictable, at the discretion the president of the Board). I am going to be there, and I hope I get a chance to speak. You could come, too. Members of the public are usually given two or three minutes to talk on whatever subject they want.

Sorry for the downbeat mood.

There is an upbeat picture of me posted at the blog I’ve started with these posts. Some of you on this list don’t actually know what I look like. So see if you can guess which of the two guys in the photo is me. See it here:

Good night.

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He snorted and, with much scorn in his voice, said, “I wonder what they think they’re doing?”

I said something about the 99% and the 1%.

He: “Well, I think I’m one of the one percent.”

Me, with perhaps some scorn in my own voice: “Do you have five million dollars?”

He: “I do.”

Me: “Do you have ten?”

He: “No.”

Me: “Do you own any politicians?”

He: “No.”

Me: “I’d say you’re not in the one percent.”

He: “Well, you may be right about that.”

It went on . . .

BUT THIS BRINGS UP A GOOD POINT: Who ARE the one percent?

In the past two weeks, even the mainstream press has been reporting some startling statistics about America’s wealthiest one percent. (I’m writing off the top of my head, and my numbers may be just a tiny bit off, but not much. Still, don’t take my word, check them out for yourself):

– America’s wealthiest one percent owns 40% of the country’s total wealth. (The bottom 80% owns just 7% — no typo — I double-checked this figure.)

– America’s wealthiest one percent owns 51% of all of the country’s stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. (The bottom 50% owns just one-half of one percent.)

– America’s wealthiest one percent takes in 24% of all the income generated each year.

– Between 1923 and 1929, the concentration of wealth at the top of the country’s economic ladder was at the highest point in US history. Then came the Crash and the Depression. For decades afterward, the middle class was dealt into the game at a more reasonable level. As recently as 1976, America’s wealthiest one percent took in only 9% of the country’s income (again, the current figure is 24%). Time Magazine, hardly an outfit full of liberal kooks, says that the concentration of wealth has again reached 1929 levels. This sucker is so broken . . .

“TAX THE RICH!” — Wrong message?

I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from people who think TAX THE RICH is either the wrong or not the optimal message to spell out on the beach. I tell them this:

“I’ve been shopping this around for about ten months. Lots of people have offered different ideas about what we should spell out. My own personal favorite was CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE, but there are so many problems with that one: it’s way too long; it’s a bit of a head-scratcher; and no visceral reaction for the reader. Every time I’d try it on people, they’d say, “How about TAX THE RICH!” A lot of people favored “END THE FED!” Again, too indirect. When I ran that one, and so many others, by people, they often said, “How about TAX THE RICH!” It went on and on like that . . .

Many people I know, including many who have come to my previous events, are worried that taxing the rich will somehow mean them personally. They say, “How about TAX THE SUPER-RICH! Or the MEGA-RICH.”

I say, “First, don’t flatter yourself. You and I have probably never, or just briefly, been in the presence of any of the one percent. Second, SUPER or MEGA requires another seven or eight hundred registrants. Also, we don’t have the whole beach to work with this time. Preparations for an upcoming surfing competition are using half of Ocean Beach, and we’ve had to move north to make way.”

So what’s my point here? I and my partners at The Other 98% (they named their venture more than a year ago) have to choose a message that’s short enough to fit the beach (700 feet is hardly short), can be understood in a blink, and is still punchy enough to get people to come out. TAX THE RICH is the best we’ve heard so far. Lately, people have been suggesting TAX WALL ST and we’re considering that, and others.

The truth is, this can be tweaked right up until the last minute, but it’s all going to be somewhere in this ballpark. The primary need now is for registrants. We need 2,000. Right now we’ve got 272. Plus 11 more who are un-registered. (If you are bringing people who have not registered, please send me an email to tell me their number, and I’ll keep a running tally.) So, 282 total.

The post Cab Story / About the Message “TAX THE RICH” / 283 signups appeared first on Dump Citizens United.

One thing I have noticed: this stunningly diverse movement has no “center” — no common means of communication, no physical meeting place, no common voice, not even a recognized common calendar. This diffuse quality gives the movement widespread strength, perhaps, but I think the lack of a center presents definite drawbacks.

With the October 29 human banner event, which I’m planning in partnership with the veteran organizers at The Other 98% (the plan is for 2,000 people to use their bodies to spell out “TAX THE RICH!” in lettering 100 feet tall and 10 feet wide and stretching 700 feet down Ocean Beach in San Francisco — more details and a signup button at humanbannersf.com), I am trying to provide a place for a gathering of the tribe. At similar past events, it has proven to be deliciously reaffirming to have a chance to at least SEE each other, to have some fun while issuing a joint statement, and to observe that we are not all lone wolves. We are all in this together.

I envision Oct 29 not as a one-off, but as a stepping stone, or a petri dish from which greater things will sprout. I intend this event to seamlessly set up a similar gathering next October, in the weeks before the presidential election. And from there, an every-year gathering, from which to deliver a message from San Francisco to the world. The rest of the world really does note what the Bay Area thinks and does.

Further, I envision a community-wide online calendar, a progressive coffeehouse, a progressive newspaper. . . so many things. But, while these are all perhaps grandiose future possibilities, which may or may not transpire down the road, for now I’m concentrating on this one step directly ahead, the Oct 29 event.

To that end, I have partnered with the battle-hardened pros Andrew Boyd and John Sellers of The Other 98% (more about them in a future post). I feel like a minor leaguer getting a late-season call-up to the majors. With these guys and their connections, and with you, I think we can definitely make October 29 a day that the whole world sees and hears about — 2,000 people spelling out “TAX THE RICH!” in San Francisco should reverberate far and wide. All we need now is YOU and 1,999 others to register by Oct 22, and to show up on October 29. (As of Oct 13, we have 127 signed up.)

Won’t you please join us? Details at humanbannersf.com, (page still under construction, but signup function is working).

OCCUPY

I’ve been making daily visits to OccupySF (going strong at 101 Market Street, at Main) or the newly created Occupy Oakland site — yesterday afternoon I counted 50 tents on the lawn in front of Oakland City Hall. Going strong. All support appreciated.

Onward.

The post A Vision appeared first on Dump Citizens United.

I just walked in the door from spending an hour-plus at the Occupy SF encampment in front of the Federal Reserve Building in downtown San Francisco. It’s raining here today, not hard, sometimes just a drizzle. Tarps were strung in the overhead trees, keeping some of the encampment dry. There were 50-75 people in attendance. I wore a sport coat and dress pants and dress shoes and a white shirt and blue tie, to try to give some varied texture to the scene.

I stood in the line of about 25 sign-holders along the curb and held as high as possible my sign (one side says, “We are the 99%,” the other side says, “Police, too, are part of the 99%.”) In the hour I was there, not thirty seconds passed without a car, bus, taxi, or streetcar blasting encouragement.

The three women nearest me introduced themselves as grandmothers from Berkeley, and said they’d been waiting for this movement for decades now.

A woman named Penny, somewhere in my age range, came over and worked her way in among us: “I thought I’d join my age group,” she laughed. Her story, which she said she’d shared with Channel 7 a few minutes earlier: “Fifteen years ago my husband and I bought a ranch up in Tehama County. He’s a heavy equipment operator. I’m a teacher with a Masters degree. We put three kids through college. Now neither of us has been able to find any work in three years. and we just. . . We just lost the ranch. I bought a bus ticket down here. I had to be here. I’m staying with one of my kids who lives here in town.”



The chatter around camp was about the media (Channel 2 was leaving just as I arrived) continually asking, What’s this about? What do you people want? One of the grandmothers said, “It’s so big. . . Everything is connected to everything else.” Penny said she told Channel 7, “There is no one-liner for this thing.” I told her I think that may wind up being this thing’s one-liner. While we were talking, Channel 7 was interviewing one of the long-haired campers. After he’d had a microphone in his face for ten solid minutes, a guy behind me muttered, “If they use anything he says, it’ll be the six seconds that makes him look the stupidest.”

I’m sure it was because I was dressed so fancy, that several people approached me and asked if I knew how this thing is organized? What’s going on? Is there a calendar? I said I have come here just about every day for the past ten days, but it’s the young people who sleep here each night who are the key, the heart and soul of this thing. And if you ask them, they’ll say they’re just taking it day to day, trying to hold the space, and waiting for the cavalry, the rest of the 99%, to do what’s in their hearts, and fill in behind.

[Last night, in my own Oakland neighborhood, a black woman who sells Street Sheet newspapers, told me, “I seen you with your sign the other day. That’s good. Even Obama’s talking about it now. Once you white people get angry, something’ll happen.”]



Before I left, I sat down in the drum and guitar circle, wearing my coat and tie, just as the group was starting up Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” which I first heard when I was 13. (“Once upon a time you dressed so fine, you threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?”) Between lines the guy next to me — he was 25-ish and had hair down to his shoulders — and I had a conversation. He started it: “How you doin’, brother?” (“scrounging your next me-aaalll!”) I thanked him for spending the nights here for those of us who are too old or (“you’re gonna have to get USED to it!”) too bought off to do it ourselves. He said, “Thanks for coming, we need the wisdom.” I said, “I’m not sure I’ve got any of that (“took from you everything he could stee-aall!”) but I’ve still got a body, and I (“HOW does it feel?”) can still come down here and hold up a sign once a day.”

In fact, it’s the thing I most look forward to when I wake up each day now.


THE COUNTER

And now, let’s see if the humanbannersf.com counter has moved from 112, where it was when I left to go in to the city three hours ago. (First, a note about the counter. I don’t have as much control over this counter as I’ve had with the counters on previous events. A couple of you have sent me emails saying that you are coming, and you’re bringing one or two or three more people, or a carload, but the others haven’t signed up. If that is your situation, please send me an email, and tell me how many unregistered people are coming with you. Thanks.) And now, let’s see: 114. Well, it is what it is. Still waiting for the cavalry.





The post “There is no one-liner for this thing…” appeared first on Dump Citizens United.

This morning I went down to the Federal Reserve Building on Market Street in San Francisco. At 9:30 there were probably 60 people there, some familiar faces, but mostly new ones. I stayed until about noon. The entire time I was there, I heard a constant stream of beeps and toots of encouragement from passing cars, buses, streetcars. All morning, passing pedestrians stopped to inquire about what was up.

A very pleasant, open-seeming, 35 year-old named Jackson approached me. He said was a San Francisco native (he had Asian looks, and a born-in-the-USA accent), owned a small business (with, I think he said, 50 employees), and things were going well for him. He asked me what we at the site wanted.

I said I thought it was probably a good question to ask, but a bad question for us to try to answer. (This week Jon Stewart said the mainstream media has only two settings regarding the Occupy movement: “Blackout” and “Circus.”) The instant “we” (the absolutely disparate group at the site) begin to say we want This, or we want That, or this is The Reason why we’re here, I think we’re sunk. The mainstream media will just firehouse us with everything they’ve got. And they’ve got a lot. That’s what I told Jackson.

I asked him this: “Given that we live on a planet with 7 billion people, given that 3.5 billion of us live in relative wealth, and given that 3.5 billion of us live on less than $2/day, where do YOU think we should start?”

Jackson thanked me for my time and moved along.

I MET HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS from Orinda, California; two moms who’d brought their teenage daughters into town from Marin County; a man who managed a series of small retail businesses in Petaluma; a man who came in from Hayward just for a look. Always, across the street from the Federal Reserve building, there was a line of 10-30 people aiming personal cameras at the encampment.

I met a 23-year old woman originally from Illinois, and more recently from Santa Cruz. She came to town last weekend for the music festival in Golden Gate Park and when she heard about OccupySF she just stayed. Last night was her fifth night camped out on Market Street. I told I’ve been thinking of camping out, but I haven’t yet. We both noted that the core of OccupySF is young people like her, but is augmented by a constantly rotating stream of older people like me, folks who spent last night at home in a bed.

This young woman said, “We need people like you — people who aren’t burnt out and hoarse from yelling slogans all day. People who’ve had a shower and regular food that helps them think a little more clearly. If you only stay an hour, or even just a few minutes, that’s cool. We need everyone.” I told her that the longer she and her young colleagues can hold out, the greater the chances that people like me will show up in greater numbers. She said, “We need numbers. Portland had 10,000 show up. Did you hear that? I thought San Francisco would be the place.”

By the time I left, around noon, I counted 175 people in the crowd. And just four police officers.

IF YOU ARE one of the 68 people who’ve signed up for the TAX THE RICH human banner on Oct 29, thank you. If you can share the signup site with others, please do: humanbannersf.com

The post OccupySF / 68 signups for Oct 29 appeared first on Dump Citizens United.