Someone inadvertently spilled an entire mail list into an email addressed to me as “undisclosed recipient”. The original communication was to the entire Occupy Mellon action contact list for the Occupy Pittsburgh Day of Solidarity and Action against BNY Mellon. The following content is the letter I composed and sent out in several batches, in order to accommodate a reluctant server: The “Subject” line for my message was “occupying” the semantics of “Occupy”.
Dear Mellon Bank action centers,
This is a friendly intrusion, with no malicious intent. I live in Ukiah, California.
Please check this message during some free moments, just print it out and check its questions at some free moment – it does not immediately concern practical planning for the major upcoming action but I feel it has relevance for all of us as individuals going forward, while the scope of the Occupy movement expands exponentially.
Just some thoughts for introspection, not action 🙂
The entire movement is in danger of descending into the realm of human “meme”, that quasi symbolic place that is more defined by its viral nature, its “vertical and horizontal” spread, than its clear definition. And that will be despite on the ground successes or failures that would seem to be energizing our own historical momentum.
Not that “definition” is possible in a linear sense, any more than would be the mythos of Michael Jackson, for example. Regarding “clarity”, it is true that the ideological components of our activist movement itself have been discussed in many venues. Rather, what is being suggested here, however sketchily, are some “obvious” semantic considerations towards adding dimensional depth to the “meme” we “occupy” (not necessarily meant as irony).
Is “occupy”, in any situation, going to “displace” a previous “occupant”? Or is “occupy” an activity in the moment, invading and transforming the inertial force of “what has gone before”? The former is political, the latter is, as suggested, transformational. Seems easy and obvious enough! Who is this guy (your correspondent), anyhow?
But, in a next step, have we occupied our own minds, displacing the swarming cultural “memes” that condition our every experience? Have we transformed the dominant “motivators” of our daily lives, so that we can claim the entitlements of our birth? Do we, in fact, own the language we speak, the words we choose? Or has the momentum of the “obvious” swept us all along?
If these questions can be experienced as liberators, then we shall have plumbed the depths of our own “99%”, and thrown off the shackles, the limitations, of that 1% forebrain “social media” self that keeps us enthralled to the culture we swim in. The culture of  the Abrahamic religions  {not to exclude all the others), the styles and gestures and very postures of our daily life, the identities (national, racial, sexual, etc.).
The “culture”? You can define it from the freedom of your own liberated mind, whenever that occurs if it hasn’t. But throw it off we must! I will cease and desist at this point. I have imposed on your busy lives by taking advantage of someone’s software glitch, where an “undisclosed recipient list” spilled out all over my received email. I am, however, not repentant, but happy to have had this “opportunistic” opportunity to introduce some deviant thinking, or alternative thinking, or “creative” thinking (your choice) to all of you among the undisclosed-recipients.
Ah, and now, I hit the irrevocable send button!
aitengri 