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Occupy Independence

Posted in Life

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Tomorrow all day is Occupy Austin’s Occupy Your Capitol event (aka #OccupyJ4). We will spend all day learning, sharing, and creating a list of our demands in the form of a new Declaration of Independence. Occupiers from around Texas and many different organizations will come together to forge stronger connections, exercise our free speech rights, and even prepare for next year’s session of the Texas Legislature. This action will be in solidarity with the National Gathering that is ongoing in Philadelphia.

The culture of the USA is one that values a kind of shallow independence. It’s an independence based on commerce, weighed by your ability to buy a home, work a high paying job and afford a gas-guzzling 4 wheel drive vehicle so you can pollute your way to some remote vista you saw in a commercial. What we need instead is to teach others to be whole people, able to think, speak and act for themselves. Independent people also know their limits, and value interdependence too — the many places we grow stronger together.

Tomorrow’s events begin at 9am at the Texas State Capitol. My group the Occuqueers will be part of a 11:30 teach-in inside the building itself called Take Your Capitol. We will be reviewing past direct action and considering possibilities for next year. I will also lead a special session of the Conscious Relationships discussion on the topic of independence & dependence in our relationships.

The days events will be liveblogged here on Approximately 8,000 Words but follow me on Twitter (along with the #OccupyJ4 hashtag) for the most complete coverage.

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