According to TEDxGullLake: “In the Fall of 2011, the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park inspired activists around the country to set up their own encampments in solidarity. As in other cities, it wasn’t long before the Occupy camp in Madison, Wisconsin attracted waves of homeless people, drawn in by the camp’s resources. Clemente talks of the tensions and relationships to form during that period and how something unbelievable came of it.”
“Luca Clemente is a PhD candidate in endocrinology at the University of Wisconsin. While medical research is his specialty, social justice is his passion. “As people drop down a rung on the social ladder, ever increasing numbers fall off that last rung into homelessness,” he says. “If the Occupy Movement showed us anything, it’s that an equitable and sustainable world can only be created by direct action.” ‘
Enjoy this thought provoking talk.
From Tent City to Tiny House Village by Luca Clemente
For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”
And here a brief summery of TEDx programs: “TEDx is an international community that organizes TED-style events anywhere and everywhere — celebrating locally-driven ideas and elevating them to a global stage. TEDx events are produced independently of TED conferences, each event curates speakers on their own, but based on TED’s format and rules.”
I saw several reports this week on what the Occupy movement was up to and I was blown away by what is happening. Some days it does seem like there is hope for this planet.
I’ll get back to TEDTalks next week, but please enjoy these reports on how the 99% is solving some of our society’s debt problems.
You might also enjoy this article from the NY Times :
Usually on Thursdays I offer a TEDTalk video that I have found interesting. This week I’d like to share a moving piece on the Occupy movement. FierceLightFilms posted the follow about this video they put on YouTube:
“A taste of the upcoming feature documentary, Occupy Love. This is a community funded film. We are in the LAST WEEK of our crowd funding campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love Please check it out! We can’t do it without you…
“Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.” ~ Charles Eisenstein
*NAMED ONE OF TOP 10 MUST-WATCH OCCUPY WALL ST VIDEOS*
This short film was Directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com
Co-produced with Velcrow Ripper http://www.velcrowripper.com
Camera: Ian Mackenzie and Velcrow Ripper
Editing: Ian Mackenzie
Interview by: Velcrow Ripper
“This movement isn’t about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99% create a new 1%. That’s not what it’s about.
What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred world. A world that works for everybody. A world that is healing. A world of peace.
You can’t just say “We demand a world of peace. Demands have to be specific. Anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse. And that entire political discourse is already too small. And that’s why making explicit demands reduces the movement, and takes the heart out of it. So it’s a real paradox, and I think the movement understands that.
The system isn’t working for the 1% either. You know if you were a CEO, you would be making the same choices they do. The institutions have their own logic. Life is pretty bleak at the top too – and all the baubles of the rich are this phoney compensation for the loss of what’s really important. The loss of community, the loss of connection, the loss of intimacy. The loss of meaning.
Everybody wants to live a life of meaning. And today, we live in a money economy where we don’t really depend on the gifts of anybody. But we buy everything. Therefore we don’t really need anybody, because whoever grew my food, or made my clothes, or built by house, well if they die, or if I alienate them, or if they don’t like me, that’s okay because I can just pay someone else to do it.
And it’s really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is “we don’t need each other.” So people kind of get together and act nice, or maybe they consume together. But joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.
You have such gifts, that are important. Just as every species has an important gift to give to an ecosystem, and the extinction of any species hurts everybody. The same is true of each person, that you have a necessary and important gift to give.
And that for a long time our minds have told us that maybe we’re crazy, that maybe we’re imagining things, that’s its crazy to live according to what you want to give. But I think now, as more and more people wake up to the truth, that we’re here to give, and wake up to that desire, and wake up to the fact that other way isn’t working anyway – the more reinforcement we have from people around us that this isn’t crazy. This is makes sense. This is how to live.
And as we get that reinforcement, then our minds and our logic no longer have to fight against the logic of the heart which wants us to be of service. This shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal, 99% and the 1% and it’s awakening in different people in different ways.
I think love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings.
That’s love, love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution. There’s no one to fight. There’s no evil to fight. There’s no other in this revolution.
Everybody has a unique calling and it’s really time to listen to that. That’s what the future is going to be. It’s time to get ready for it, and contribute to it, and help make it happen.”
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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
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According to TEDxGullLake: “In the Fall of 2011, the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park inspired activists around the country to set up their own encampments in solidarity. As in other cities, it wasn’t long before the Occupy camp in Madison, Wisconsin attracted waves of homeless people, drawn in by the camp’s resources. Clemente talks of the tensions and relationships to form during that period and how something unbelievable came of it.”