Occupy Everything

I don’t normally follow politics very closely because it frustrates me to witness the illogical insanity of it and be helpless to do anything about it. Lately I have been following it here in PEI and yes, it’s about to drive me into Ward 9. People say, “You CAN do something”. They tell me to vote. That just makes me shake my head and think, “Could there be anything more minimal than that”? Taking 20 minutes every few years to put an X on a ballot isn’t exactly what comes to mind when I see how dysfunctional our political system is and how much needs to be done. There has to be something more.

Groups like Occupy Wall Street make more sense to me. I saw this type of group in action when the Stop Plan B protesters organized themselves. They get things done. They don’t have any money or a leader and they don’t have an office and they dam well get things done, almost instantly. It’s amazing to watch.

Now there’s Occupy Sandy (Hurricane Sandy, that is), in New York City that’s out performing the Red Cross, and FEMA, and the police. They are providing REAL support. They have nothing more than a group of willing people and they’re able to gather up food, blankets, water, batteries, provide shelters, and generators, etc. And they do it almost instantly because they don’t have the red rape and bureaucracy to tend with. They don’t have the lawyers saying “Protect your ass or you’ll need me for more than just advise. I’ll have some forms drawn up for you in a week”.

They’re using social media to communicate to a large group of people who volunteer to help. Within minutes they have a website up where people can go for information. They have a facebook group and they twitter and they branch out and organize when needed. People being the helping souls that they were meant to be and loving it.

A week after Hurricane Sandy I had a look at the the Red Cross and FEMA websites. They have a form that you can fill out if you want to volunteer and another one to apply for assistance. There’s no information on shelters or where a person can go for food or provisions. Oh and they have pretty pictures of people helping the smiling injured. AGHGHHH! I can only imagine how useless the people in NYC find this. It must be very frustrating for them. Their website should be a hub of information, should it not? Thank goodness they have people like the Occupy Sandy group actually on the front lines.

And here in Canada, I’m sure it wouldn’t be any better. I just pray that we don’t actually need to depend on CCEP or the Red Cross if something like this should happen. Thank goodness for these small, altruistic groups who are constantly mocked and ridiculed. They know how to organize when the need arises. THEY are the font line workers. THEY are the ones I depend on to some day kick some government ass and make them do the jobs that our tax dollars pay them to do.

Maybe we need to occupy everything.

Tags: occupy, plan b, sandy