OSD Resignation

It deeply saddens me to do this, but I am resigning my Occupation of San Diego.

I do not feel welcomed. Instead I feel pushed and demanded upon, obligated to a group that is not representative of my goals, aspirations, hopes, dreams for the future, and furthermore, not representative of the 99% so many of us are professing to represent.

Before I continue I want to make it clear that “my” goals and hopes for this movement were as follows;

1) Occupy, simply to be involved in the future of our country,

2) Positive publicity, growth, and pressure,

3) Pressure to accomplish;

a. Acknowledgement of grievances by the general public, our government, and the 1%,

b. Discussion with all 99% to form articulate, hierarchical, and specific grievances,

c. Discussion with 100% to work on solutions to said grievances,

d. Change.

After watching the march on the first day, participating on the second, camping on the third day, sorting out my thoughts of the suicide on the fourth, and being disregarded on the fifth and sixth, I am resigning on the seventh day of this occupation.

Upon arrival I set up my tent next to the Education Station, and as nobody else was operating our “library” I spoke with those who assumed I was in charge of the books. I love books, or more to the point, the ideas good books can bring to the collective consciousness. The Education Station wasn’t about giving/loaning books, it was about sharing ideas. And it was alive and beautiful until we bureaucratized it by requiring informal “library cards”, then it was just cumbersome. This is only an example of a wider, systemic problem within the group as the power of “we” is selfishly manipulated to each individuals ends. I believe this is the main attractor of the movement not having a solid direction or central leadership… Everyone wants to give it direction (their direction) and harness its power. The ironic thing is that as soon as that leadership becomes powerful, it becomes corrupt, and we all come back to “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. I was not participating so to create another government. This isn’t about me, it isn’t about you, and when we speak of it being about “us” it should be recognized that means all of us; ultimately all 100%.

I

I donated books (GOOD books, Alinsky, Steinbeck, Orwell, TaoDeChing, etc.), games, food, art supplies, money, time, effort, ideas, and myself in person. I donated as an economic capitalist, a political anarchist (especially in this movement), and a social socialist… I shared what I had with the group in order to benefit the movement as a whole. In exchange I received demands, sometimes in the form of requests, but more often than not in passive/aggressive splinter group pressure to participate in pointless discussions which I had no inclination toward, committees whom mocked our political system, and corrective actions that I had no responsibility for. I determine my own level of involvement; I sat and spoke (and listened) with other occupiers and passer-bys for the first few days just to determine what that level would be. Again, I must resign my occupation, if not interminably, at least indefinitely.