What I DO still see a lot of though is opinionating. And personal irresponsibility. And confusion. Last fall a former Ann Arborite – writing for the National Review – said that  “an Occupy Ann Arbor is like a special ballet company, set aside for thin people.” Nothing could really be farther from the truth; this town is so conservative that the real problem has been getting enough people present to actually occupy anything in a noticeable fashion. And when they do get together in any notable numbers – amongst the self-identified Occupy groups in the area, there is a strange mix of factionalism and solidarity – there will often be a strange result. They will suddenly realize once again that they agree on a bunch of things, but then get mired in debate about what to do and how to do it. This perplexed me for months, and then I finally came to understand a few things.

Before I go on, I have to clarify that I think the movement in general has a long tail, and that I’ve met some of the most amazing people I’ll probably ever meet in my life by participating. People I feel comfortable saying that I love. And as someone who has been expressing my frustration about things like banksterism, agency capture, and fiat currency since 2008, I am thankful to have discovered that I am not alone. Provided occupiers can remember to stay focused on paradigm-shifting innovation, the movement could truly change the world. Some really amazing hearts, minds and souls are driving things. But having said that, I can confidently say that I’ve also seen some of the worst of human character in action too.

Although I have participated in activism in the form of NGO’s and charitable work before, it had never occurred to me that a “career” activist may possess certain other traits to accompany their sense of social justice, altruism, or sacrifice. The most frustrating to me is also one of the most subtle. There’s a good chance that if one has the mindset to decide that a lot of things are wrong with the world, they will carry this worldview into everything they do, never being happy with the process or results of the groups they work with, and always leaving meetings with a chip on their shoulder. And especially in the groups in this town, that attitude will rarely get challenged for what it is. Why? Because as I often joke, it’s ironic that the elephant is the mascot of the GOP, because intellectual liberals often have the biggest elephants in the room, thanks to their affected sense of respect, and paralyzing political correctness. Other traits that are natural components of a career activist’s “save the world” mentality bear a strange resemblance to religious fundamentalism, i.e.: self-righteousness, paranoia, intellectual arrogance, hypersensitivity, hero complexes, and the tendency to be a victim of what I call the “Look, a bunny! Syndrome”, i.e., getting distracted by every tiny wrong in the world and trying to fix them, and therefore never getting anything done.

And the larger movement? It is often confusing even to participants. Although it’s amazing that a leaderless movement with no official platform has exploded globally to include millions of people, this same lack of structure is a setup for some ironic outcomes, and a perplexing public image. Although major media sources like the Wall Street Journal recently reported  that the Occupy Movement is planning a July 4 “caucus”, Occupy Wall Street’s PR Working Group immediately made emphatic statements  that OWS doesn’t endorse the event, and essentially said that the 99 percent Declaration Working Group was not a legitimate “Occupy” group. The irony here is glaring; what they’re essentially saying is that “there is no organization. Unless our organization says so“. Which is an especially ironic statement, in light of the fact that OWS applied for a trademark  for the name last fall. It’s evident that OWS can’t stop people from starting pretty much anything they like, and slapping the “Occupy” label on it, including an Occupy SuperPAC.

The Atlantic asked in a recent piece What if Occupy Created a Movement so Big it Couldn’t Control it?  Well, I think “they” already did. The word “occupy” is so easily adapted to different contexts that it’s impossible to control its propagation. This was partly calculated, and partly accident. Although Adbusters is often credited with “creating” the movement, their call to “Occupy Wall Street” was just one of many such calls to action, many of which have had zero impact. Remember the Carnivalesque Rebellion? I didn’t think so. Buy Nothing Day? Maybe, but that never seemed to have an impact on retail sales. Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn may have hit the mark with the branding this time, but he was well aware of the Arab Spring and the pre-OWS Bloombergville, and merely managed to “nail the brand” of something that was about to explode anyway. And will continue exploding.

Because you know what? The world IS kind of screwed up, and most of the problems are caused by a centuries-old economic paradigm that – although it keeps a precious few powerful and self-satisfied – is doomed. Their wealth and power relies entirely on a social contract with the rest of us, and they know it. And they have broken that contract. And regardless of how you break down the percentages, there are a LOT more of “us” than “them”.

Think the “Occupy Movement” is a joke? We’ll see you in June! Unless US gas prices hit five bucks even sooner than expected. Those who have hesitated to get seriously involved so far are probably sensible; life in the states is actually pretty easy, frankly. But things might feel a little different if those who are already just “tightening up” suddenly find they can’t keep up with their cable and mobile bills AND eat.

TV and pizza. It’s the new Bread & Circuses!

Take Back Our Government

Get lobby money and corporate influence out of the political process.

Repeal corporate personhood. Or start executing corporations for their crimes.

End “agency capture” and the revolving door practices of DC. Stop appointing former executives to regulate the industries that used to employ them.

Don’t just vote in “big” elections, get involved in the full process.

Put People To Work

Transform welfare handout programs into infrastructure-building work programs

Stop shipping jobs overseas to maximize profits. Cut CEO salaries instead.

Revamp The Prison System

America’s prison system is a racially-biased*, multibillion dollar industry that is probably better at training new criminals than anything else. If America wants to continue being the largest consumer of recreational drugs on the planet, maybe those drugs should be legalized and taxed.

Over 2 million Americans are in jail right now, and over 7 million are under correctional supervision. Over 50% are incarcerated for non-violent offenses, and 20% are incarcerated for drug offenses.

America in fact leads the world in incarceration, with Rwanda and Russia trailing in second and third. For comparison, the next western democracy on the list is the United Kingdom, with 1/5 America’s incarceration rate, sitting at 89th on the list worldwide. America has twice the incarceration rate of countries we might think of as oppressive, like Belarus, Ukraine, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

Put some white men in prison. The collateral economic damage caused by a dozen or so of the mostly white, mostly male criminals in the financial services sector easily dwarfs the economic repercussions of crimes committed by a million of the existing inmates in the correctional system, who probably cost us more as prisoners than as active criminals.

Feed Some People

Americans waste about 34 million tons tons of food each year. This is about 14-15 per cent of the food they purchase, amounting to $43 billion worth of discarded, but edible, food. We spend 1 billion dollars a year just to DISPOSE of this waste. Why are people dying of starvation in 2012?

Mind Your Own Business (Unless You’re Helping)

Abroad -

The heroic image of America saving the world in the 1940′s is 70 years old, and coming off a bit contrived these days.

Maybe we could rebuild America’s positive image abroad by only getting involved when asked.

Last time I checked, no-one was asking to be bombed, but plenty of people still wanted an iPad and a Hollywood film.

At Home-

Restore the civil liberties that have been stripped from citizens in the guise of protecting them.

Put an end to the “security theater” that has nearly destroyed the travel industry and makes travel a miserable personal experience.

Let the Patriot Act “sunset” as originally promised, and get AT&T out of our personal communications.

Stop Torturing People

Remember when we WEREN’T the bad guys?

Shoot For The Stars

One of the greatest eras in the history of mankind was largely driven by space exploration.

Magellan, Marco Polo, Columbus, and other brave explorers in history were in it for more than the money.

There’s a strange logical fallacy going on when it’s considered sensible to spend a trillion dollars on killing people, but frivolous to send explorers to learn more about the solar system we live in.

*About 7% of the general population is African American, but African Americans comprise almost half of the total prison population

I like to think of myself as a little more informed than the “average” citizen – whoever they are – yet I regularly find myself to be disturbingly naive (okay, just plain stupid) regarding how things really work in our government. It has bothered me for some time that our government seems to have been taken over by the finance industry, and that it operates in creepy collusion with a telecom monopoly, but until taking a closer look recently, I had no idea how active that revolving door in Washington really was. Considered “business as usual” by most Washington insiders, it even has a polite euphemism. Instead of calling it a corporate coup of our government, it’s called Agency Capture or Regulatory Capture. I believe in the old school Republican idea that government can be bad for business, but I can hardly accept the reverse, i.e.: that business is good for government. I think the recent banking catastrophes and USDA food safety failures speak for themselves; with the former you have the revolving banking industry/treasury department door, with the latter, the USDA/Monsanto door. I would be astounded if the current administration’s plans to make changes in revolving door policies were successful; the practice is simply far too pervasive. The amount of information on government agencies that are staffed with former corporate influence peddlers is overwhelming. Eisenhower warned of us the Military Industrial Complex back in 1961, and Monsanto has been a target of this scrutiny for some time; see lists like this one or this one. But these are just high-profile, extremely well-funded examples. This form of governing reaches across every industry, and at all levels of government. I’ve compiled a table of examples below, but for a really amazing resource, check out Open Secrets’ Revolving Door database. You can use it to do things like starting with a list of over 300 former public servants to track their connections, or look at revolving door employees by agency. The White House has nearly 500 on staff itself. In spite of the overwhelming number of federal employees that are infecting the way our government runs, there is a bright side. Rather than feeling paranoid and powerless against cold, inhuman, and faceless corporations, we COULD start targeting the actual people responsible with civic action. They only get away with it because we don’t pay attention. The tables and images below begin to give it all a face.