Newsletter # 1 -- January 9 2024

The Permanent Occupy Movement

Edition:   1                                    

January 9, 2024

In this edition:

1. UNITE!!! Shine the Light

2. The Occupation Tote Board

3. Join In & Add Your Voice

These newsletters will be issued twice a month. They are designed to keep you up-to-date on our progress together and to outline events and challenges we face along the way.

Your comments are welcome. You can add your comments on the bottom of each newsletter. They will be read.

Share this newsletter with your friends, family and neighbors. Only by uniting together do we embrace our power.

We are in a class war. We know what the 1% is up to. It is time for us to come together and determine what we are going to do. Our first step is to get ourselves together. From there, we will work out every single next step - together.

UNITE!!!   Shine the Light

Today we announce the launch of our movement:  The Permanent Occupy Movement.

United people have all the power to change absolutely everything.  We are here for one purpose:  To unite us all so that we elevate our power.

This is your movement.  This movement takes all the power and places it into the hands of the people.  It has to start somewhere … and it is time to get it started.  This is a movement to feed what democracy requires to engage its power … which is a united people.  Each person adding their voice adds to our overall power. Together we are strong.  

We start now.  Those of us that see the light need to come together and shine our light.  We need to shine it so others can see it, join us and add their light to ours so our light shines brighter.  So more can see it and add their light to shine it even brighter so more can see it.  Together we grow our strength and power.

Bring your voice and move us forward.  Bring your light and add it to ours.   Let’s fire up our light and let it shine. Together.

What are we occupying?  We are occupying democracy.  We are embracing the power it gives us.

The system we have has been corrupted to the point of being broken down.  We are here to unite you with your neighbors to build a new system to elevate our lives, our communities, and our society.  Together, we will change absolutely everything.

What does permanent mean?  Just what it says.  We are here permanently.  This is not one of those movements that just puts people together and then shuts off.  It is permanent.  We will never again all be gathered together enticed by the promise of change only to be left scattered into the wind because a leader abandons ship or a reason to unite folds up its tent and disappears.  Permanent is a feature built right into the design.

There are two steps to changing everything.  Nothing happens without the energy of the people standing together united for change.  The steps to changing everything are fundamentally simple.

Step 1:  Unite the people for power.

Step 2:  Get out of their way, and let the people make every single decision to create the communities and society they want.

We are here to make Step 1 the reality.  Together, we will take every next step from there. Together we are united and have all the power necessary. Together we are rich with ideas, and diverse with talent and skills. Together we stand strong alongside our neighbors and each other. Together we can change absolutely everything.

Is this a movement that creates the new world we all want?  Is this a movement that delivers freedom and liberty to us all?  Is this a movement that infuses vibrancy into our communities?  Is this a movement that creates a society of equity, justice, compassion and fairness?   It can be.  That is up to you. Our mission is to unite the people for power and give the people the tools granted by democratic authority to wield that power. 

How are we going to do this?  By creating the venues for people to unite together, across the communities that we live in.  We believe locally-based is how it can work in the logistical sense. Our mission is to create the time and place for us all to come together.  We are here to help the people build the venue.  We are here to organize the party that delivers the powers of self-determination into the hands of the people in their communities. 

We had to find a place to start.  What is practical?  What is a format that everyone can understand and embrace?  The most logical format is Congressional House Districts.  There are 435 of them.  We are here to organize them all.

From those districts, the people have all the flexibility to tackle all political offices.  The flexibility to organize around Senate seats, the White House, state legislatures and local offices are all there.  Every elected office position (and even more so—access to every rule and law-making institution) is in our hands.  From dog catcher to President.  

We can occupy them all from this organizing base.  As such, our focus is on the 435 House districts.

How wild is this effort?  It’s totally wild.  We are here to organize 435 organizations to start and to let it roll into whatever direction the people want.

The Permanent Occupy Movement is not here to lead you.  The Permanent Occupy Movement is here to organize, facilitate and even to coach you and your neighbors into taking all the power that democracy gives you.  We are only here to bring you together.  It is up to you to take it from there.

All power flows up.  It flows from you.  The 1% Establishment repeatedly tells us that we are a democracy.  How many times have you heard them say:  “We have to save democracy”.  They tell us every day.  Well, let’s call their hand; let’s give them what they say they are giving us—yet never do.  Let’s take away their power and put it into our hands. After all, in a democracy, all the power flows to the people. That’s us!

While they tell us they have to save our democracy, they give all the power to Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, and an entitled elite.  They embrace lobbyists who have outnumbered politicians by over 4-to-1.   They have delivered a system so corrupt, that we face threats of nuclear catastrophe, a climate that will be uninhabitable, and communities that are left to wither and die without them even blinking an eye. 

The politicians are controlled by their un-elected party officials and the donor class.  The politicians grift themselves into wealth and power.  They rule by money instead of by the will of the people.  Their concept of democracy is a fraud.

Let’s quickly review democracy and its power.  It is the foundation for our movement.  This is our platform (in its entirety).  

It is the definition of democracy.  Anyone that disputes it is left to argue with the dictionary.  The 1% can tell us they are here to give us (and save) democracy all they want.  We are here to call them out!   Give them exactly that.  Give us exactly that:  Democracy.

We are here to deliver democracy into every House district by creating the venues that democracy needs to fire up its power.  We call them Town Halls.  

We are here to organize each and every district.  Each district will hold regular Town Hall meetings twice a month on the first and third Tuesday evening of each and every month.  Permanently.  

The locations of Town Hall meetings will rotate around districts so everyone has equal opportunity to attend them.  They will be promoted with bi-monthly newsletters, published on-line that reflect their upcoming agenda, and follow-up minutes of the previous meeting.  They will be circulated to local media outlets to keep them informed of what you and your neighbors in your community want.  Copies will be delivered to your local politicians (until you replace them) to inform them of what you want and expect from them.

We are here to help you grow your Town Halls so that your entire community participates—at minimum, to elevate the awareness to everyone so that they realize they have a choice above and beyond what the Establishment offers them.  You will be offering them a good choice; while the alternative choices only offer them despair, division, hate, and misery.  You will offer them vibrant communities; while the alternative choices only let our communities erode and decay.

We are here to amplify the voice of the people, so that the power of democracy elevates into the change you and your neighbors want.  

We are here to create the tools that support your creation of these Town Halls in your district, and to help them function for democratic power.  We will build a technology platform that expands the reach of your Town Hall meetings with online tools that allow you to add agenda items, expand participation across your district, to discuss and debate each issue, and ultimately to decide on the outcome of each issue through voting in-person or remotely. It is the power of direct participatory democracy - and we are organizing to put it directly into your hands.

These Town Halls will each have an agenda of issues and topics that your community deems important.  Everyone will have a voice in setting the agenda and speaking to every issue on it.  Those who have specific ideas, those groups who are organized around issues, will all have a voice.  Nobody will get any endorsements, but they will be granted a platform to present their ideas and to make their case for those ideas.

Decisions on each and every issue are made through discussion, debate, weighing the options, and—ultimately—through voting.  On every single issue.  The majority defines the decision and we all agree to accept the majority decisions made.  Selecting delegates to represent you in political offices, are chosen together from the best candidates among yourselves.

There are no political parties standing between you and your decisions.  There are no issues or platform items shoved down your throats.  The crazy clown show election cycle events become meaningless and pointless.  You make community decisions on everything with your neighbors.  That is what democratic power gives you. You are firing up that power.

Everyone gets a voice.  Everyone gets one equal vote on the outcome.  Everyone participates in the direction their community takes.

There is a bonus. As your Town Hall grows in levels of participation and awareness, you will not only be growing your democratic power, you will find your own community springing into life.  Grocery shopping trips will take longer to get done as you run into more and more of your neighbors and discussions start to happen.  Your community will spring into life.  That is a wonderful bonus.

Existing politicians, their political parties, and their media outlets all tell you—over and over and over again—that you have a democracy and that they are there to save your democracy.  It is time to call out their bullshit and show them what democracy is.  They asked for it … we will give it to them.

We will give them so much democracy that they will find out that in a true democracy, the people rule—and they don’t.

We are here to organize a party for democracy.  Not a political party; but a party party.  A party to embrace our power.   A party of community.  You are invited.  All your neighbors are invited.  Everyone is invited.  (Except the 1% … they want your power for themselves.  They have proven themselves to be void of community interests.  They made that choice.  They are excluded).

Let’s party.

The Occupation Tote Board

The dynamics of political power call for you to engage your power.  Your individual power adds to our community power. We need you.  We need me.  We need us.  And —together— we can change absolutely everything.  The power is ours.  The Permanent Occupy Movement is about each one of us picking up our power and combining it into the force of democratic authority.  That authority is ours. And we are taking it!

As of January 9, 2024 

The numbers sound daunting.   But they aren’t.  In a short span millions joined in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Millions joined in the Black Lives Matter Movement.  Millions joined in the Bernie 2016 campaign; and again millions joined in the Bernie 2020 campaign.

While each of these movements came to an end, they put us all together.  We are all still here.  Let’s get together one more time.  In the millions.  And let’s change absolutely everything.

Join In & Add Your Voice

Register your voice.  Join your neighbors and start building the community we all want together.  Take the first step right now - it only takes a minute.  And let’s go build the communities we have all imagined that they can be.  Only by uniting together do we get the power to do it.  Let’s unite and embrace the freedom and liberty that the power of self-determination gives us.

Join us by taking two simple steps.  Complete the simple form on our website at the99occupy.org .  Keep up-to-date with the newsletters by subscribing to this substack account.

Democracy requires that people unite for it to give us its power.  It’s sitting at our feet, waiting for us to pick it up.  Let’s pick it up.  And let’s use it to change absolutely everything.  Together is how we get it done.