Occupy D.C.'s Last Stand

Occupy DC demonstrators erect a huge blue tarp labeled 'Tent of Dreams' over the McPherson Statue, in defiance of a U.S. Park Police order to enforce no camping rules after noon today.

Tonight there might be arrests. There might even be violence. But this afternoon in the epicenter of the K Street lobbying corridor, a symbol of what so many Americans believe is wrong with Washington, Occupy DC at McPherson Square made a defiant last stand in a joyous celebration of one of the last remaining encampments inspired by last October's original Occupy Wall Street protests at Zuccotti Park in New York City.

Yesterday the U.S. Park Police, who have authority over the park, warned demonstrators of a noon deadline today when they would begin enforcing a no camping ban. At about 11:45 a.m., in front of a swarm of media and hundreds of curious onlookers, some of the protestors climbed the statue of Major General James Birdseye McPherson and hung a big blue tarp called “Tent of Dreams.” Then the Occupiers entered the tarp and began chanting and singing and listening to music.

While many downtown office workers looked down from the roofs of their buildings in anticipation of seeing a showdown, it never materialized as the noon deadline passed. There were only a scattering of uniformed police officers manning the corners of the park. So the afternoon instead turned into somewhat of a final hurrah for a phase of a movement that has inspired so many people around the world.

Even for those who dismiss the Occupy movement with harsh words aimed at the lack of organization and singular message, or even criticizing the “aging hippies” and “entitled white kids” that are involved, as many Tea Party trolls angrily comment on news websites, they cannot deny the power that Occupy has had. Income inequality has become a part of the national consciousness and populist rage aimed at money in politics is now being discussed by the mainstream media and politicians. Even President Obama's State of the Union recently took a page from the Occupy movement by addressing the growing gap between the wealthiest 1% and the majority of Americans and calling for economic fairness.

Tomorrow the tents may be gone and the jails may be full, but Occupy has already won because they have put political and economic justice front and center. And until our economic and political systems start benefiting the 99% instead of just the 1%, then the Occupy message will continue to resonate regardless of whether or not people are physically occupying a public space.

Here is video of the "Tent of Dreams" tarp being hoisted over the McPherson Statue.



And here is video of the scene on Occupy DC's last day at McPherson Square.



Here are more pictures from an eventful day in downtown Washington.

Occupy Movement Targets Congress

(This story was originally posted on the website Winning Progressive.)

Thousands of demonstrators from across the country descended on the Capitol this past Tuesday to partake in the Occupy movement’s latest evolution – Occupy Congress. The protests took place on the day that lawmakers returned to Washington amid historically low approval ratings.

I hopped on the Metro after work and arrived at the Capitol South Station (the closest station to Congress) and was dismayed to see the station plastered with dirty energy ads from the American Petroleum Institute. The “I Vote 4 Energy” campaign is a cynically misleading attempt by the oil and gas industry to influence policymakers by falsely representing domestic fossil fuel production as a job creator and something a majority of Americans support. Click here for a detailed take down of API’s ad campaign from the website Political Correction. Contrary to Big Oil’s propaganda, a study conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication last November on public support for energy and climate policies revealed that 90% of Americans believe developing sources of clean energy should be a very high to medium priority for the president and Congress; and 69% of Americans oppose federal subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. So the oil and gas industry is right about voting for energy, they are just wrong about the type of energy. Americans want clean renewable energy, not dirty fossil fuels.

And a renewable energy policy is but one of many issues Congress has failed to address, which is why the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol was full of people protesting the undue influence big money lobbyists like the American Petroleum Institute have on congressional lawmakers. A rainy, dreary Washington winter day transformed into a clear, starry night as live folk music lifted the spirits of thousands of Occupiers gathered in the muddy grass in the shadow of the brightly lit Capitol dome.

Soon after I arrived the majority of protestors left for a march to the Supreme Court and White House (on Friday a group called Move to Amend marked the two year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision with rallies at courthouses across the country.)

I interviewed Vince from Durham, North Carolina, asking him why he came up to D.C. for Occupy Congress.

“I’m here to support what I think is going on here, which is a lot of inequality and injustice between the wealthy and the rest of the people. I have no problem with wealthy people, it’s just that the system is kind of skewed, so it makes it not only really bad for us but ultimately it’s going to be bad for them as well as it keeps going forward and forward. You’ve got to have customers to buy your stuff.”

Here are a few of my general observations about the Occupy movement so far. I’ve walked through the Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square encampments in Washington, D.C. and Zuccotti Park in New York City multiple times and now have experienced Occupy Congress.

* The Occupy movement has been criticized for remaining leaderless and issueless. But that is the most brilliant aspect of this movement and what has allowed it to remain relevant and constantly evolving. The Occupy movement cannot be pigeonholed into just another special interest group or coopted by a political party or corporation like the Tea Party was corrupted by the Koch brothers and the Republican Party. The fact that Occupy has not been absorbed into the Democratic Party and has refused to be defined by a narrow agenda is exactly what has kept it so vital. Its populist 99% slogan is all it really needs because everyone brings their own issues and points of view to the table.

* Beyond the issues, the Occupy movement (and even the Tea Party movement before it was hijacked by right-wing businessmen and conservative Republicans) spawned from an underlying sense that something isn’t right in America. Poll after poll shows Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and there is deep distrust and resentment towards the political and economic establishment. The feeling that we have lost our way and that we need to get back to being great again is a prime motivator of this populist movement. The Occupy movement will last until the majority of Americans regain confidence in our political and economic systems.

* I’m still shocked that the Occupy movement has even taken place at all. I thought the economic crisis was not bad enough yet and that most Americans were too pacified by our crass commercial culture and media circus to get off our couches and take to the streets. I thought it would have to get to Great Depression levels with Hoovervilles again, which was the current trajectory we were on until Obama saved us from falling over the cliff. America is actually really lucky the Occupy movement is taking place right now and pushing leaders to take action so we not only avoid a Great Depression, but power out of this seemingly never-ending Great Recession and restore American Democracy and the American Dream for future generations.

When Metro Fails, Capital Bikeshare to the Rescue!

Credit: online.wsj.com

There was a time when Washington's subway system was the envy of the nation. So clean. So efficient. So modern. Well, thirty plus years of deferred and poor maintenance, mismanagement, safety lapses and lack of proper funding has turned Metro into a mess. The subway system of the most powerful city in the world has become an epic embarrassment and even a symbol of the nation's neglect towards its public transportation infrastructure. 

Yes, Metro is spending $5 billion on improving the system and making necessary safety repairs following National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations after the horrific 2009 Red Line collision that killed nine people and injured 80 others. But these projects have really inconvenienced riders with long delays due to single tracking and stations being shut down for repairs. Also, it is dispiriting for many riders to still see so many broken down escalators. Or there was the incident October of 2010 when during the Rally to Restore Sanity the L'Enfant Plaza escalator collapsed injuring several people. And even when the escalators are working they run dangerously slow and sometimes produce truly horrific sounds. 

The bottom line is sadly Metro is in a depressing state of dysfunction and it will take years, perhaps decades, for the system to be restored to its former glory. But thankfully there are other new and innovative ways to get around town as I discovered yesterday evening.

I was riding the Orange Line from Ballston to Metro Center for dinner and got stuck on a delayed train at the Clarendon Station due to a mechanical failure on a train at the Stadium Armory stop. After fifteen minutes of not moving on a packed rush hour train and no announcement to passengers on when we would start moving again, I decided to exit the train and the station and walk across the street to the new Capital Bikeshare station. The shiny red bikes were a sight for sore eyes. I was so glad bike sharing had expanded to Clarendon. I rented a bike, hopped on the saddle and was breezing along Wilson Boulevard while the Metro train was still stuck at the station. I rode through Rosslyn, across the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge into The District, past the White House and to Gallery Place-Chinatown where I dropped the bike off at a station. I was only around 15 minutes late to dinner thanks to Capital Bikeshare. 

Credit: wamu.org

So when Metro fails, and trust me it will let you down, know that Capital Bikeshare is always there as a backup. Plus you get exercise and it's just plain fun bicycling around town. The only problem is that the system doesn't provide helmets so unless you just happen to carry around a bike helmet on your Metro ride, be extra careful if you go bike sharing without a helmet!

'Turbine' Showcases Wind Farms of Missouri

Most movies about clean energy sources such as wind power are documentaries that put the technology front and center. That is one reason why NYC-based Last Ditch Pictures' 2011 feature film "Turbine" is so intriguing. Brother and sister Isaak and Eva James have directed a film that, despite its title, uses the booming wind industry of rural Missouri as mostly a cinematic backdrop and subplot for the larger erotic and dark drama unfolding between a couple who has relocated from New York City to Missouri so Nick (played by James) can pursue a career in wind energy. 

It is interesting the filmmakers chose Missouri as opposed to states with larger wind generating capacity such as Texas and Colorado. But a 2009 story on the New York Times' Green blog reveals that in the second quarter of that year Missouri's wind power capacity increased 90%. The American Wind Energy Association provides an online fact sheet on Missouri that shows that all the wind projects are clustered in three counties in the northwestern part of the state but that there are wind energy manufacturing facilities spread out across the Show Me State. 

"Turbine" recently nabbed the Spirits Independents Award at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival.

'Cars 2' Revs Up Alternative Fuels Message

On the Virgin America plane ride from San Francisco to Washington Dulles yesterday I had the pleasure of watching Pixar's computer-animated action film sequel "Cars 2." I knew there was some "controversy" stirred up by some conservative blog about director John Lasseter taking on Big Oil by making the fossil fuel industry the bad guy and clean alternative fuels and electric vehicles as the heroes. Apparently to the conservative blogger, "Cars 2" is another example of left-wing Hollywood propaganda meant to indoctrinate oil-loving American children into becoming Prius-loving hippies, or something like that.

So a movie that advocates conserving the planet for future generations by ending our addiction to fossil fuels and embracing alternative energy is attacked by a conservative? Isn't a conservative supposed to conserve? As in conserving the environment and conserving fuel. Aren't the real radicals Big Oil and their political allies who are radically altering the climate with unknown consequences by keeping us chained to carbon-based modes of transportation?

"Cars 2" is a movie with an inspiring environmental and clean energy message and I recommend it to liberals, conservatives and everyone in between. Kudos to Pixar and Lasseter for taking a stand against Big Oil.