Chicago, IL–“What are you doing for New Year’s?” The question, posed by friends and family members this past week, seemed innocent enough. When I cheerfully answered, “Protesting the prison industrial complex,” however, most people were taken aback.

My sister-in-law tried to convince me that a prison protest on New Year’s Eve would accomplish nothing beyond annoying the guards. A friend said I should take the day off of political activism and do something fun. My parents have given up making sense of my extracurricular activities altogether.

But to me, a prison noise demonstration was the only place I wanted to be. I have been very active in supporting political prisoners this past year, primarily the NATO 5 and Jeremy Hammond. Through my interactions with them and the system that has taken them hostage, I have come to recognize how many lives are ruined when we lock people in cages. I no longer trust the “justice” system to determine guilt or innocence, and I know that the prisons have done far more harm to individuals and our society as a whole than can ever be justified.

The first noise demonstration began mid-afternoon at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago, a federal prison. Like many protest actions I have attended, there was a festive spirit to the gathering. Many protesters wore brightly colored masks and used a variety of New Year’s party noisemakers to add to the general ruckus. The plaza was still cordoned off with yellow CRIME SCENE tape from a recent prison break, in which two bank robbers successfully wove a rope out of bed sheets and lowered themselves down 15 stories. One of the men remains at large. We asked people to bring their old bed sheets and knotted them into a rope of our own right there in the plaza. It was a symbol of liberation for all who are incarcerated as well as an embarrassing reminder of the facility’s recent security breach.

We chanted and sang, shouted and danced. A few people swung the bed sheets like a jump rope. We marched around the building, followed closely by Chicago Police Department and Department of Homeland Security vehicles. The building goes straight up and has only the narrowest of windows, but we were soon able to see prisoners waving at us from every floor. Some turned their lights off and on repeatedly to get our attention. We cheered. The guards just stood their ground and glared at us.

The first noise demo ended at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building. A woman spoke about travesty of workplace raids, as well as whole families rounded up in home raids, all resulting in record numbers of deportations. These immigration detention centers are like a shadow prison system – “detention” is not considered “incarceration” and a different set of rules apply to the undocumented.

The plan was to circle the perimeter of the jail, which is close to a 2-mile walk. (Cook County is not only one of the most notorious jails in the country, but also the largest, and houses 10,000 inmates at any given time.) But first we veered off course and crossed the street to stop by Division 11, the newest section of the jail, built outside of the main compound. The other divisions are set back behind rolls of razor wire or overlap with other buildings, blocking our view of the windows. But Division 11 has windows facing directly onto an open plaza, and we were able to easily see and be seen by those inside.

The reaction of the inmates to our presence was incredible. We saw rows of silhouettes waving, clapping, dancing, jumping with joy. They banged on the windows and flickered their lights at us. One inmate took off his uniform shirt and swung it around his head. It was the most electric, uplifting feeling imaginable. The band played louder, we danced and clapped and made some noise. We ignored the guards yelling at us and the lights flashing atop squad cars and gave it everything we had. When we finally turned back to circle the main compound, a young woman stopped banging on a pot lid long enough to exchange a high five and irrepressible grin with me.

The jubilant spirit did not last long. Within a few minutes, we were having a tense confrontation with our law enforcement escorts, which result in a violent and entirely unnecessary arrest. The protester would later be charged with felony aggravated battery, but the only violence I saw that night was perpetrated by officers of the law on unarmed, peaceful activists.

Still, we made a complete circuit around the jail. On the last leg of the journey we spent some time blocking a side street with the bed sheet rope snaked between us, dancing and singing. It was a glorious moment, in no way diminished by the police officers watching us dubiously from every direction.

As a society, we try to hide our problems, to lock them away instead of working proactively on solutions. When our problems inevitably worsen and multiply we lock those away, too – and find a way to make the whole system profitable for well-connected individuals and corporations. We do everything possible to make prisoners –– most of whom are serving time for non-violent offenses, most of whom have dark skin –– invisible.

Noise demos such as these, in solidarity with others held on New Year’s Eve across the globe, refuse to buy in to that mentality. We stand up and say: They have hidden you away, but we see you. They have told us to forget, but we remember you. They have demanded that jail be miserable and dehumanizing –– but we brought you a marching band.

In a call from Cook County Jail on the morning of December 31st, one of the NATO 5 explained to me: “It’s hard to be in here this time of year. Even if you aren’t big on celebrating the holidays, other people are feeling it. Everybody is missing someone.”

I feel good about how we spent New Year’s Eve. It was exciting to see prisoners expressing joy, which they get to do so rarely. It was cathartic to unleash my own pent up frustration at the jail’s unforgiving walls in the form of a primal, wordless scream. Most of all, it was inspiring to see so many others committed to supporting prisoners in 2013 and beyond.

This is what solidarity looks like.

-Rachel Allshiny-

Photos courtesy of Lee Klawans and Chicago Indymedia.

I went for a year and dropped out. Not really sure why now, but I got a job painting tiles with a small family business. I stayed in that job for almost 8 years. I was happy until I realized it wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t making enough money to pay the student loan, so I deferred. Maybe I paid on it for a year or so.

After a few more dead end jobs I decided to return to school and finish my degree in art. I had found my love, ceramics. Science and art, awesome! I graduated with honors in 1998. But by then manufacturing jobs, especially anything having to do with ceramics, had been shipped to Korea, Vietnam and China. All the businesses in town that made anything with clay was out of business. The only jobs in ceramics were teaching jobs at community art centers, community colleges and universities. I know everyone who has those jobs and they will die in those jobs, they know how lucky they are.

I was, however, able to get a studio tech job in one of those places. Part time with the city. It even had benefits. After a few years I again, felt like it was going no where. I wasn’t making enough money to pay the student loan and was feeling like I needed to do something drastic. I was also finding the summers in Arizona unbearable. Maybe mistake number 2.

So, I moved to Portland, the opposite of Arizona and went to engineering school, the opposite of my bent. That’s the ticket, I thought. Even with a 2 year degree I could find a better paying job than I had in Arizona. I was going to remake myself.

I hated it, I was miserable. I felt like the people in my classes didn’t understand me. They were so linear and didn’t get my jokes and snickered at me because I asked so many questions. As Barbie said, “math is hard”. My grades were fine, a mixed bag of A’s, B’s and C’s. But, I was not able to find enough financial support to get through without getting a job, and I needed all of my spare time to study. I could do math but it didn’t come easy to me.

So, I dropped out and got a job as a courier. My student loans were probably up to $30,000 or more by this time. The courier job wasn’t even paying enough to pay the interest so, I kept deferring and forbearing. Plus, Portland was not a cheap city to live in like Phoenix was. And I stress the WAS.

I moved back to Phoenix where I had friends and connections. I thought I could get a job at the one and only ceramic supply store in town. Hell, I have a degree in ceramics and I had been shopping there for years and knew most of their products. I asked for $12/hr and was offered $10/hr. This was 2004. Phoenix wasn’t so cheap anymore because of the housing bubble plus, there was that nagging student loan. They wouldn’t budge.

I ended up getting a job with a faux finish painter. She paid me well as an independent contractor but the work wasn’t steady. I still was not able to pay anything on the student loan. When the housing bubble burst in 2008 there was not enough work to keep me employed and I was competing with other faux finish painters for work. I again, had to remake myself. I could see that anything in the arts was not viable anymore.

Somehow, I got into organic farming. “Hey, there you go”, I said to myself. People always need to eat and “green” is up and coming. Seemed like a good direction. I got a job with a small organic farm and became farm manager. I did everything except the tractor work and the computer work. EVERYTHING. I wasn’t getting paid much but it was a bare minimum and I was learning how to farm! And I was able to buy my house at a smokin’ deal because of the burst housing bubble. I was happier than I’d ever been. I was being creative and doing good things for the Earth and people. I loved it even though it was hard work out in the heat.

But, I lost that job this past October, 2012 because the owner had mismanaged the money. We knew he was a screw up but since he didn’t interfere with us we figured we could work around him and build the business ourselves. Since then I have worked for 2 other small organic farms, briefly, and I found both of them to be highly exploitive. Terrible work conditions. I was not willing to sacrifice my body and health at this age for very little money.

And still, that nagging student loan looms and grows. Last time I checked it was over $60,000. That was a few years ago. As of yet, I haven’t had the experiences some others have had of garnished wages or anything like that. I try to keep up on deferring and forbearing. That’s how I was able to get this house, is because I have kept up with that. But I worry that I will lose my lovely house or something worse. I can’t imagine losing my house. It has given me a semblance of stability.

My mother is getting old and will need help very soon. I’m still unemployed. I have a weird work history and it’s difficult to find a job here in Arizona that pays a decent wage (right to work for less, you know). Going back to school is not an option. I just got an email from a grocery store where I applied for a cashiers job and they told me I was “unqualified”. Really? I have a fucking degree and lots of work experience. Couldn’t they have said over qualified? If there is a job that is unskilled out there it is cashier. They don’t even have to count back change anymore.

I am talented, smart and skilled and I have somehow fallen through the cracks. Reading others stories, I don’t feel so alone. How is it that so many useful people have become useless and desperate? I see so many short sighted and stupid people doing so much better than me. I don’t understand.

-KPea-

I have had to go non union since then, but private sector work here in the small towns of New England is sketchy for rank and file tradesmen.  I was on UI for a year or so and otherwise have been able to piece together a couple years worth of work at about 1/3 the pay and no benefits:  it’s all 1099 now, which is technically illegal, and can be likened to a migrant labor mentality: seasonal and serving the extremely rich who, with their huge, relatively uninhabited estates, occupy most the land in a feudalistic way.

Anyway, regarding the debt.  Well, since the decline, I have basically been living paycheck to paycheck for subsistence only, have been homeless a bit and using food pantries here and there.  When work is happening I can get by okay at this level, with pretty much zero “discretionary” money available:  raw survival.

I didn’t file my taxes over some of those years because I knew I didn’t have the cash to pay the government and basically have been in a mode of resistance about it.  Plus, I have some CC and other basic bill type stuff that I basically blew off as well, for lack of funds and need to eat and such.

A couple months ago I was driving home and got randomly scanned by a cop and, long story short, turns out my license had been suspended for “back taxes owed to the state”–unbelievable.  Well, that is, as I’m sure you all can understand, a direct attack on my survival–no car–and, combined with work being cut back to next to nothing, has pretty much shot me out of the water.  Borderline homeless again and some days without eating much.

It takes some up front cash to initiate some sort of deal with the state–to get the process going, lawyer, probably–and, well, I haven’t had that.

I haven’t believed in the “system” for some years and that’s part of my problem I guess, as there is certainly the unavoidable shame and sense of isolation, powerlessness, and for me, a tendency toward some fairly serious depression.

I’m near 53 and am of the harsh realization that perhaps my life is destroyed for the duration.  Maybe it’s the fact that I recognize the system as a farce, that things are therefore not necessarily my fault in the end, and that keeps my head afloat, but at the same time hunger is very real.

This “Strike Debt” thing, well, sounds good–have no idea how and if it is working.  I get tired of listened to the talking heads giving their analyses of the situation.  Most of them seem to be making a living at that.  I am old enough to see that most movements haven’t done much to change anything.

-Bourne-

New York, NY–I ran like a fleeting shadow up a dark New York City street. All about me was the occupation.  Not the “take a plane to NY and lounge around Zuccotti Park for the afternoon on the One Year Anniversary of OWS” crowd.  This was the night-time Birthday March to Times Square on the night of September 16^th, 2012–a hardcore crowd.  It was unlike any other occupation experience that I’ve ever had.  What is the occupation?  Who are you people?  Tonight those questions would be answered to me in a more profound way.  We’re the glue that holds American society together.  The playful spirits who appear, not with violence nor its threat, but with a vision of how the world could be—and act on it.  But all around us on this march were dozens and dozens of NYPD cops on foot, in cars, in vans, on motorcycles, etc., to keep, in a sense, Queen Hippolyta’s order.  But as Bottom’s head was transformed into an ass—magic was soon to be squeezed into the cops’ and the world’s eyes.

At the head of our column was Puck.  That’s not his real name, of course, but still apropos.  His delight in playing pranks on these foolish mortals no less than the enchanting sprite.  We took off from Zuccotti Park on a trek to Times Square—many, many blocks away—to be there when the figurative ball would drop on our one-year-old world.  Night time, long urban march, lines of riot cops, the press nowhere in sight—this is where things get violent quickly.  But you wouldn’t know it from observing Puck.  It was as if, literally, he was from a different world.  He’d wander this way, that way, ahead of the group, behind the group, but he was leading us.  Not like the NYPD Commander leading his troops a few feet away.  It wasn’t just that the local occupiers would defer to him at key points—an undercover cop could pick up on that—if they could get this close to us.

No, this was different.  We weren’t being sucked up a river like in Apocalypse Now.  We were being compelled forward, by an unseen energy as if from the shadows, much like what compelled us all to show up in the tents last year.  A sense that the order of the world was against the common man and something must be done to change how the people around us see the world.  What would Puck squeeze into their eyes?  We were about to find out.  We were hippies and trouble-makers to many of the cops on this march.  Would we make asses of them?  We are America.  Just as the Tea Party is also, but we’re very proud of our inclusiveness.  The Tea Party panders to peoples’ dark side, their fears, intolerance, selfishness, etc.  Preaching loudly to their flocks, but then shying away when the mainstream media arrives.  At the end, in the glow of Times Square, celebrating the fact that we’re still going strong, even the cops seemed uncomfortable, out of place.

The march came to a pause by Macy’s.  “We have to keep moving!”  It was Puck’s voice.  Suddenly, very much in this world.  Our “escort” of motorcycle cops slowed also, sheepishly staring at us from their bikes.  BEEP, CRACKLE, WAIL.  The strangest sounds will pop out of some of these police vehicles.  Occupation marches are like snakes.  They coil and contract.  Punkish girls with red, white and blue spiked hair, teens with backpacks pockmarked with political and social buttons, glistening young eyes above bandit-strewn bandanas.  But NY is very different from LA.  Where are the U-Streamers?  I could swear that I’m one of the only people taking photos while the group’s moving—still and video.  The group “coiled” forward.  A chant began: “We are unstoppable!  Another world is possible!”  Over and over, echoing throughout the Manhattan canyons.  And then–and then–there it was.  Glowing in the distance.  Times Square.  The pace of the march picked up.  The cycles dropped off and lines of cops on foot would take over.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  Puck would be here, then there, then disappear.  Closer.  Wow!  Talk about lights.  Story after story of commercial ads packed with models up into the dark sky.  It was then that the real symbolism of this march became clear to me.  Yes, be where the ball drops at our midnight, but also be at the center of the over-commercialization of American society.  We flooded into the center of the square as if from another world, and we are, aren’t we?  We speak the truth when your normal world of TV channels and news rags seem morally empty.

A cake appeared, as if by magic.  Occupiers delighted in taking a bite, though there were no forks.  The police formed rings around us.  We ignored them.  Our eyes were on the figurative ball in the sky Puck had brought us here to imagine.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Puck sat down.  Others joined him.  5, 4, 3, 2, and then Puck spoke.  It wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard from an occupier before.  Why we were still here after a year…  What we’d accomplished…  But in my mind’s eye I heard: Why the potion had worked that we’d all squeezed into society’s eyes.  How people stopped focusing on distractions such as whether or not to raise the debt-ceiling limit, but on the reality of the plight of our very real fellow Americans whom we care about deeply—who have been deceived by the serpent’s tongue of the ultra-rich.  After Puck’s speech, the crowd dissipated and even the cops fell away—as if the occupation had been a dream.  Puck from NYC, Nowhere Man from Hollywood, all of us “meddling fairies” vanished back into the semi-darkness of Manhattan like shadows who’d overstayed their welcome in the mortal world of driven, but dishonest men.  But all of us, Puck included, had one phrase on our minds.  “We’ll be back.”  We are the pressure in society to make amends.

I’ll let Shakespeare’s Puck (a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow) have the last word:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding, but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck,
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long:
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Occupy!

-Nowhere Man-

I’ve been laid off for over six months and have not been able to find work anywhere; I literally can’t even get a call back from Wal-Mart or Best Buy.  I’ve exhausted my UI benefits and just received a 14 week extension and that’s only if Congress approves the funding by Dec. 31.

I’ve done everything I can to cut expenses.  I gave up my new car for a 15 year-old car with more than 200k miles and a lot more problems, reduced my cell phone plan to the cheapest available, moved into a studio apartment that offers week-to-week rent, been rolling my own cigarettes and getting many food from food pantries.

I’m so depressed and Sallie Mae is relentless.  They won’t stop calling and, despite what they say, they’re completely unwilling to work with me at all.

My debt is preventing me from so many things I want to do in my life, and my girlfriend of two years won’t marry me because of my student loan debt and I don’t blame her.  I’m 27 and I’m worse off now than when I was 17 and that is not hyperbole.  At least at 17 I was working and had no debt.  The right-wing Oligarchs or Plutocrats (six one, half dozen the other in this country anymore) who keep spouting off about low marriage rates among young people and the high marriage failure rate need to re-examine the leading causes of both these phenomenon: IT’S DEBT!

Next time I hear someone say something cliché like “tighten your belt strap,” “pull on your boots,” or “just get a job,” I’m going to kick their teeth in.

Things just keep compounding, pun definitely intended–if you catch my drift.  I can’t cut any more from my budget between rent, gas, and the groceries I need to purchase because they aren’t at the food pantry and I have no money.

So, I’ve lost my job, and instead of flexibility or compassion the vulture capitalists line up at my door trying to get as much out of me is possible before the next one can push through.

I’m at my end.  My student loan is crushing.  It is literally stripping my life away. I can’t get ahead because of it and it is preventing me from ever achieving any sort of economic security.

-Andrew Breen-

My family and I climbed the hill, where at the top there were 20 protesters with signs in solidarity with the workers. My mom left after asking a few people and determining that there were no workers there. Instead, my dad and I stayed up there, and looking around one could see people of all colors and creeds. I took a sign they had and stood there on the corner as I held the flimsy sign blowing in the wind. I felt such solidarity standing there with others, on that corner. People were sitting up on a white-painted wall, as others stood by the curb side, while cars honked in support of workers. Then, after about an hour, I and my dad left, saying we’d return.

After a series of delays and such, we came back about two hours later. But the other protesters were gone. We engaged in what one would call vigilante activism. We protested on the corner, as I sat up on the wall with a sign that said “HONK IN SUPPORT OF WAL-MART WORKERS” while my dad had a sign that said “WAL-MART=ALWAYS LOW WAGES,” a sign I had made earlier but used again. I ended up taking the major role, sitting on the wall as people honked for workers (probably about 100 honks), and my dad yelled out at cars. It was exhilarating no doubt, sitting on that white-painted wall, thanking people for honking in support of workers. It was a two-man show, but that was okay because we were standing for the workers. This action seemed to follow these thoughts in my head, of Charlie Chaplin leading a march in Modern Times, and when I walked around before with a sign against Israel’s war of aggression in Gaza. Then it all ended. My mom came in a car, calling from the parking lot below. Then she came to the hill where we were, my dad and I taped up a sign that said to honk for Wal-Mart workers, and it was over. But I knew this time wouldn’t be the last time I would stand for justice in the world.

-Burkley Hermann-

Last year on N17, we planned a direct action on Wall Street. I was part of the shrub block.

We were part of the Liberty park which we had been kicked out of, finding our way into the streets throughout the city. “Kick us out the parks, we’ll take the streets,” we chanted throughout the rally. “Hey Bloomberg, Beware! Now Liberty Park is everywhere.”

Times Up! held a planning for this year’s N17 action at ABC No Rio. If earth eviction was the theme Times Up! would highlight a few of the other evictions which happen every day, especially in New York. Life here involves a constant process of navigating between spaces where we organize and build community, and the ongoing displacements, when we are forced to flee from spaces where we have slept and connected, which are just part of life in this neoliberal city. So, Times Up! organized an earth evictions ride in which we would revisit a few of these sites on the way to the N17 action beginning at the New York public library.

Riding over the action I stumbled upon police parked in bike lanes, as they texted and chatted. That these spaces represent opportunities for safety for riders seems to mean very little to them. The police are more than comfortable occupying community spaces, rendering them functionality useless. It is a phenomena taking place all over Brooklyn and New York.

The earth eviction ride met at ABC No Rio, a squatted arts building on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan which has eluded eviction, though its been under constant threat. Riding up Avenue B, we passed East 7th St site of Esperanza Community Garden, a place where people shared space, a coffee, warm moments by a bon-fire during its eviction defense and subsequent bulldozing by the city in 2000.

Trees outside the Lower East Side Ecology Center were still suffering after branches has been ripped from them during the storm. Up Avenue B, we rode past Kate’s joint, a veggie dive which provided food for the encampment at Esperanza back in the day, before it finally shut its doors, a victim of high rights and changing times. Further up B we rode past Charas, a community center, and Chico Mendez, a garden. Both were spaces where Lower East Siders converged, battered about ideas, and exchanged resources before their subsequent evictions by the Giuliani administration. Spaces where we meet for cross class contact are always a threat to the powers that be. Over and over again, the neo-cons of the world dismantle “the institutions that promote communication between classes, and disguising [their] fears of cross-class contact as “family values.” Unless we overcome our fears and claim our “community of contact,” it is a picture that will be replayed in cities across America.” Spaces where we connect are always facing evictions. These evictions take multiple forms.

Today, it seems like the earth is evicting us. At least this is how it feels riding past the dislocated neighborhoods, ravaged by Sandy. Our ride continued past the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Spaces, whose basement was flooded by the storm. The museum’s opening was supposed to take place last weekend, but it is being pushed up to December 8th.

And of course, a year ago this week, we were evicted from Zuccotti Park, by the NYPD.

All these evictions zoomed through my head riding up to the NY Public Library for the N17 Earth Eviction Defense. Arriving at the NY Public Library, a mob of college students and members of Occupy the Pipeline were there to connect the dots between environmental struggles. Moving down the now sanitized 42nd street we staged a street theater performance outside of the JP Morgan Chase “to prevent the 1% from foreclosing on the planet,” noted the Tar Sands Blockade. “The Earth Eviction Defense is occurring ahead of UN climate talks in Doha this November. As the Kyoto Protocol expires this year, what happens at this gathering will have a long lasting impact on the future of the earth.”

A central piece of this activism has recently involved the mutual aid networks expanding from those evicted from Zuccotti Park to the relief stations organized via Occupy Sandy in Staten Island and the Rockaways. My group, Times Up! has been organizing Fossil Fuel Disaster Relief Bike Rides to carry food and supplies from 520 Clinton Avenue to the Rockaways. In the days after the storm, cycling increased citywide, as cycling came to be seen as a solution to a myriad of problems. As the group’s press release explains:

Time’s Up Delivers Foods, Blankets, Bike-Powered Charging Stations, and Mobile Bike Repair to Neighborhood Devastated by Sandy.

The weekends of Nov 10th & Nov 18th Times Up! organized Fossil Fuel Disaster Relief bike rides to deliver food, blankets and other much-needed supplies, over 10 bike-powered charging stations, and mobile bike repair units to neighborhoods in the Rockaways devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

Using human power & their fleet of bike-trailers, cargo-bikes & baskets they picked up heavy loads of supplies from Occupy Sandy’s main distribution center at 520 Clinton Street in Brooklyn and cycled them over to the Drop-off center in the Rockaways run by Rockaway Taco & Veggie Island at 183 96th Street.

From there the volunteers distributed individual packages to home-ridden families in hard to reach areas, helped with clean-up, demolition and construction, and provided free bike repair and bicycle-generated power – sustainable solutions to the devastation caused by climate changed from the burning of fossil fuels.

The Time’s Up! energy bikes, used to generate bike power for OWS last year, will stay in the Rockaways to be used by the community as an alternative to the gas generators currently being used to charge devices operating only at 1% capacity and pollute the air we breath.

These rides highlight the need for relief not only from the immediate disaster, but also the root-cause of this disaster and others – the burning of fossil fuels.

Throughout the week, Keegan (a fellow Times Up! member) and I had talked about the similarities between Shakespeare’s Tempest and the efforts of Occupy Sandy. New York really was hit by a tempest. Yet, in response, we have started creating a new world based on care, mutual aid, and innovation. At Judson on Sunday, Michael Ellick suggested that such a world requires a framework for radical forgiveness of not only debts but of sins and personal flaws. It imagines creating a new form of ethics, something new of our social relations. It also requires care.

Arriving at the Times Up! space Peter Shapiro and Keegan greeted me. I said hello, introducing myself to a few of the other riders. One man worrying about his knees before the ride, when Peter chimed in that he needed not worry about he knees or feel like he needs to rush. Afterall, “even a crotchety guy” like him “could find this ride to be transformative” after he took part the previous week. The Rockaways are full of lovely oxygen, great air we can all enjoy. Air that will revitalize us, he explained. Throughout the trip from 99 S. to 520 Clinton Ave, we all talked, enjoyed the air, and the convivial social relations.

When we got there, we all enjoyed the mutual aid signs seem all over the church. Mutual aid is a different set expectations; it asks us all to share, to be fully human. It helps highlight who we are and can be. And most of all it is direct action.

Gandhi implored his followers to spin their own fabric in defiance of British colonial rule. In doing so, he suggested they could create their own power. Energy emanated from spinning their own clothes. “The spinning wheel represents to me the hope of the masses,” stated Gandhi. The same thing happens people powered energy, Times Up cycling events and energy bikes, recharging people’s phones, while sharing our lives with others. Through these rides, we divest ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels, while sharing what we have with others. The joyous rides, in which we pull trailers of supplies from 520 Clinton to Veggie Island, are our form of mutual aid.

“I just really enjoy it,” explained one of the riders. “You can’t say I am not getting something out of this.”

With these expanding mutual aid networks in mind, Alexandre Carvalho , of the Occupy Revolutionary Games Working Group, sent a post on “The #MutualAid network and the aftermath of #OccupySandy” to the September 17th list serve on November 19th.

I really see the advent of #OccupySandy as the beautiful religare to Occupy’s spirit of Zuccotti Park. a relational atmosphere that was missing from the scene in a while and is the cornerstone of what we do – a deep respect and solidarity with human beings in suffering, first and foremost. Meaningful movements have Lost Paradises, certain lost times, which serve as ethical compass for political dispositions. the park is our Paradise Lost. that eerie smooth human atmosphere that is at the core of what makes us human. The parks and streets and communities of the world are our roving Paradises – this time, Paradises that can be found and built together.

Aristotle once wrote that #poiesis is to “learn by making”. the new #Mutual Aid network of OWS should stay even after the destruction of the hurricane is over and done: there will always be natural disasters, and human-caused disasters to struggle side-by-side against, such as poverty, oppression, violence, environmental degradation, labor exploitation, injustice.

These silent daily disasters also need a hurricane of mutual aid. a grassroots #MutualAid arm, delivering direct [mutual aid] action from the people, by the people, to the people. seems to be the rebirth of OWS, from a political and ethical standpoint: always inviting and invited, respectful of differences, listening first and talking last, non-controlling or mass maneuvering, and above all making love the highest play.

if we are to have dogmas – and maybe we all need to believe in something… maybe the only one really worthwhile all along was love.”
Making his argument, Alexandre looked to the absurdist spirit of the Dada movement to suggest:
“MADA this,
MADA that
NADA this
DADA that!

Mutual Aid as Direct Action is a meme that wants to fly.”

Much of this spirit powered our ride down Bergen across Brooklyn on Flatbush to the Rockaways. “It was a wonderful ride,” noted my friend JC as we crossed the bridge to Jacob Riis, where piles of rubbage fill what was once a putt putt golf course. “That’s so telling of our culture,” mused JC. A peddi cab driver, he had taken part in our puppy pedal parade earlier in the spring. The rambunctious ride was enjoyed by kids, animal lovers and cyclists. “Love seemed to emanate from that ride,” he mused.

With piles of wreckage to the right and water to the left, we rode along the waterline down to Veggie Island at 96th Street. “The sea looks like it wants to run over the wall and up the street,” Keegan noted looking at the water lunging up to the sea wall. Rising sea levels are transforming the way we understand cities. And none of this phenomena is new. Cities such as Venice, Italy have been coping with rising sea levels for years now. New York’s waterfront has always been permeable. Battery Part was once a landfill from the World Trade Center. One day, the wreckage may be covered by sea once again.

“The earth does not have opinions. It just does what it does,” noted Peter, overlooking the piles or rubble.

“It looks like a third world country,” noted my friend Stephen, who lead the ride, as we arrived in Veggie Island. Piles of trash lined the streets, houses condemned, couches in the middle of the streets – scenes of Sandy along the waterfront. It was all so reminiscent of Katrina.

I dropped material off, turned around and rode back up Flatbush home, past Brooklyn’s neighborhoods, along the Botanical Garden, where yellow leaves line the sidewalk, once mighty trees coping without broken-off branches, open skies where there were once trees. Down Union Street my ride took me through Park Slope, across the Gowanus Canal, home and back to school to teach. It’s a good tired finishing a ride like this, a good tired of nearly forty miles connecting my life with larger movements of people, hopes, aspirations, tragedies, pleasures and anguish of a world far bigger than myself.

Hey Walmart! Respect the Workers! from Occupy Riverwest on Vimeo.

These words now echo in my mind as I sit in the freezing darkness of the Rockaways, after less than a week of relief work with the communities here that were devastated by superstorm Sandy.

I’m sitting in the dark under the light of a tiny flashlight writing from the second floor of my beloved friend Heather’s house. I hear the buzzing of an infinite line of ambulances brought from all over the country by FEMA as they burn precious gas outside waiting in line to evacuate seniors from a nursing home in preparation for a new storm coming our way tomorrow.

I still remember all the work we put into fixing up this house when my friend decided to move out here last summer. I took the long train ride out here a couple of times to help her rip off carpeting, tweeze out staples from the floor, stop by the beach for a quick swim and then back to painting walls and building a library. So much work went into making this house a home.

Today I walked in surrounded by total darkness, to find myself in an emptied out living room. Around the corner, a hub of kindness and solidarity has been built in the last few days as Occupy Sandy Relief set up shop in order to put words into action and show what mutual aid really looks like.

It almost sounds unnecessary to recount the myriad encounters of the last few days, and the stories that accompany the flood of strangers that have become brothers and sisters in this enormous effort. I don’t want to fetishize their need or glorify our instinctive desire to lend a hand.

I just came out here to help my friend clean her house after the strong winds and high waters battered it, my friends from Occupy just happened to be around the corner.

Perhaps it’s just that the personal is political. Always. Blah, blah, blah.

I could hardly care less who my overlords are by tomorrow.

All I know is, there’s a storm coming tomorrow, and I need to make sure everyone is safe and warm.

-Sofia Gallisa Muriente-