Not so much the holes, but what we see through them.
If anything, the message of Occupy: ‘it’s all wrong’.
Knowing and being able to share the idea that there is something wrong is a crucial part of the process, and remains a great function of the vocal and visible Occupy movement. But while there is a perception that the system’s working too well for the top 1%, ideas on whether the system is actually even serving them well (in the long run), never mind alternatives are rather sparse.
There is a perception that Occupy represents a generational malaise (following those of Gen-X, Y, Z…) of misplaced envy and need for the good life that culturally, we can’t seem to muster up for ourselves; the feeling that there just isn’t enough to go around, abounds. And it is true, there really isn’t enough (oil, money, resources, forethought, positive action, talent, creativity and acceptance of limits) to maintain the kind of lifestyle we have been guided into thinking is normal and desirable. It’s a world where even adults don’t recognize where real food and water come from, seeing these as taxable commodities and not human rights. What does it even mean to not have everything you want, when you want it.
The word sustainability still pops into the conversation, but less than it used to; people are shying away from not only that misused word but the idea behind it; who can think about that when you don’t have a job, or decent pay, or even food on the table? We’re culturally perplexed, looking for meaning in lives inundated with garbage (or so-to-be-garbage), making it a dangerous time that the opportunistic are ready to take advantage of. And like those clowns, no need to send them in; they’re already here.
With our elected government openly colluding with private corporations (i.e. privatizing energy, water, ferries, enabling big oil and gas, mining, etc. with citizen dollars) or simply succeeding in not setting up infrastructures to enable a diversified economy with viable alternatives, it’s time to try something totally new. That, or fall back and finish off the job: squeeze whatever we can from the decrepit frontier-town models based on resource extraction and related service industries serving up imported not-so-goods.
This fall-back ‘option’ we’re presented with (by the same corporations that gain from this world view) as the only viable options around. We need to get ‘back on track’ to economic recovery, they say. This, of course, is an economy that’s to work this way: Boom, bust, look at the pretty colours. While it’s not really a conspiracy or a mistake, it is environmental, and Occupy has poked a few holes into that perception.
But what do we see through these holes?
My next post (in time for Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative’s Social event) will cover how the cooperative model can offer some important mind-shifting solutions.
