I'm on trial this week, and likely to take the stand today to testify about my October 25th arrest in the park. I've been reflecting a lot about my choice to stay in the park that night, and my reasons for joining the Occupy movement last year. Below are some of my thoughts:
First the obvious, I don’t believe the freedom of speech has
a curfew, and our freedom to assemble applies at 12pm and 12am.
Both of these rights clearly trump a fairly recent Atlanta
municipal code targeted at keeping the growing number of our cities homeless
out of sight.
To be clear, the reason I joined the Occupy Movement was not
too simply invoke my constitutional rights.
It is the unprecedented, historic wealth inequity that
brought me and thousands into the movement.
Never has there been a stronger need to dramatize the injustice
of our false economic crisis, never has there been so few who control and own
so much and the symptoms are clear; from the explosion in the homeless
population, lack of good jobs, plummeting wages for regular people while CEO
compensation is at an all-time high, schools defunded, and more Georgians
locked up than ever.
Occupy presented an opportunity to highlight, in a very
visible way, our cities, our countries economic injustice which sees 1% of the
population controlling an overwhelming amount of our resources.
I was called to the park because I believe we are not in a
crisis of economic resource, but rather a crisis of economic priority. We are
not broke, there is no fiscal cliff, it’s a moral one. There’s plenty to go
around.
I was in the park because I believe we need a shift, a
revolution of values. The sparks of the Occupy movement were very intentionally
put out by heavy handed police tactics, infiltration of the movement on every level,
targeted arrests and surveillance of individuals seen as leaders, and the
eviction of our freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
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