Proposal to Make Sleep a Revolutionary Act

[neil]

Make Sleep a Revolutionary Act!!!

Saturday evening, Oct 22, the police came into the Occupy Santa Rosa area, found a man sleeping, woke him, ran his I.D. through their data base, questioned him, and wrote him a citation for sleeping. I understand this is the second citation for sleeping since the S.R. Occupation began. We saw with our own eyes what this ordinance and its enforcement means to people who may have no where else to be or sleep. Many of us were deeply impacted by this. [After I left that night, 6 more people were cited for sleeping in vehicles.]

Also, many of the over-night occupiers are now suffering from lack of sleep as we have struggled to stay awake, or have taken to waking each other up repeatedly through the long night to avoid being cited ourselves and having our things confiscated.

If someone has money, they can sleep in their home or in their choice of accommodations, without fear of being harassed and arrested by armed men during the night. Practically-speaking, this law does not apply to them, but rather to the poor, the homeless, people who may have a home but cannot stay in it for some reason, people who cannot afford to stay somewhere else, or people who just want to be outside, alone or with others. A good deal of racial profiling can be involved in “enforcement.”

Sleep is not a luxury. To deprive people of sleep is an assault on their physical and psychological being.

Up to now, OSR has tried hard to accommodate the demands of the local authorities that we not sleep at the occupation. We have removed sleeping bags and refrained from putting up tents and stringing tarps. With this self-limiting action on our part, they have so far “allowed” us to “stay.”

But to be honest, I think we may be suffering “death by a thousand paper cuts.” Our energy and health is waning. Beyond occupying the space itself, we have yet to make any major initiative which might renew our focus and energy, and expand support for and participation in the Occupation.

I propose that OSR engage in a campaign to assert the right and power of all people to sleep without fear of harassment and arrest. Instead of avoiding and disturbing our own sleep as an act of compliance, I propose we make sleep revolutionary and do it very publicly, with the support and participation of allies old and new.

The campaign might include:
1. direct and willful noncompliance with anti-sleeping laws
2. communication via social media, and alternative and mainstream media
3. invitation to people in our communities to sleep with us and to act as wakeful witnesses
4. organizing support networks for people who may be arrested
5. creative escalations of sleep, as necessary to prevail

I propose that we not take any final decision on this until it has been discussed for 2 full days, but that it be discussed at each GA, and also informally, between now and then.

Neil

[ubaru]

Dream bigger, Neil, dream bigger. There are far more important things to accomplish with this revolution than the right to sleep. Sleep at home and occupy by day, and voila, you'll have enough energy to focus on the massive changes we need to create. The camping is a huge diversion of energy into distractions from things that really matter, like creating and implementing a monetary system that works.

Set your sites higher,
Liz

Make Sleep a Revolutionary Act!!!

Saturday evening, Oct 22, the police came into the Occupy Santa Rosa area, found a man sleeping, woke him, ran his I.D. through their data base, questioned him, and wrote him a citation for sleeping. I understand this is the second citation for sleeping since the S.R. Occupation began. We saw with our own eyes what this ordinance and its enforcement means to people who may have no where else to be or sleep. Many of us were deeply impacted by this. [After I left that night, 6 more people were cited for sleeping in vehicles.]

Also, many of the over-night occupiers are now suffering from lack of sleep as we have struggled to stay awake, or have taken to waking each other up repeatedly through the long night to avoid being cited ourselves and having our things confiscated.

If someone has money, they can sleep in their home or in their choice of accommodations, without fear of being harassed and arrested by armed men during the night. Practically-speaking, this law does not apply to them, but rather to the poor, the homeless, people who may have a home but cannot stay in it for some reason, people who cannot afford to stay somewhere else, or people who just want to be outside, alone or with others. A good deal of racial profiling can be involved in “enforcement.”

Sleep is not a luxury. To deprive people of sleep is an assault on their physical and psychological being.

Up to now, OSR has tried hard to accommodate the demands of the local authorities that we not sleep at the occupation. We have removed sleeping bags and refrained from putting up tents and stringing tarps. With this self-limiting action on our part, they have so far “allowed” us to “stay.”

But to be honest, I think we may be suffering “death by a thousand paper cuts.” Our energy and health is waning. Beyond occupying the space itself, we have yet to make any major initiative which might renew our focus and energy, and expand support for and participation in the Occupation.

I propose that OSR engage in a campaign to assert the right and power of all people to sleep without fear of harassment and arrest. Instead of avoiding and disturbing our own sleep as an act of compliance, I propose we make sleep revolutionary and do it very publicly, with the support and participation of allies old and new.

The campaign might include:
1. direct and willful noncompliance with anti-sleeping laws
2. communication via social media, and alternative and mainstream media
3. invitation to people in our communities to sleep with us and to act as wakeful witnesses
4. organizing support networks for people who may be arrested
5. creative escalations of sleep, as necessary to prevail

I propose that we not take any final decision on this until it has been discussed for 2 full days, but that it be discussed at each GA, and also informally, between now and then.

Neil

[zenekar]

Dream bigger, Neil, dream bigger. There are far more important things to accomplish with this revolution than the right to sleep. Sleep at home and occupy by day, and voila, you'll have enough energy to focus on the massive changes we need to create. The camping is a huge diversion of energy into distractions from things that really matter, like creating and implementing a monetary system that works.

Set your sites higher,
Liz

Easy to say "sleep at home" when you have a home to sleep at. Many of the tents at SR City Hall and in cities around the US, are the "homes" of those who don't have a real roof over their heads or a kitchen to cook food. They were in the streets before the Occupy movement and will remain there until we change the system to a compassionate one.

[CSummer]

I appreciate your sharing your views, Liz. Here's mine:

Sleep is a basic human need; money is not. Laws that deny anyone the right to meet a basic need in ways that harm no one else are inhumane. And more than anything else, we need a humane social order, which is one that supports the meeting of all basic human needs.

Monetary systems can also be a huge diversion of energy and a distraction from what is real and fundamental.

Peace,
Clint

Dream bigger, Neil, dream bigger. There are far more important things to accomplish with this revolution than the right to sleep. Sleep at home and occupy by day, and voila, you'll have enough energy to focus on the massive changes we need to create. The camping is a huge diversion of energy into distractions from things that really matter, like creating and implementing a monetary system that works.

Set your sites higher,
Liz

[ubaru]

Easy to say "sleep at home" when you have a home to sleep at. Many of the tents at SR City Hall and in cities around the US, are the "homes" of those who don't have a real roof over their heads or a kitchen to cook food. They were in the streets before the Occupy movement and will remain there until we change the system to a compassionate one.

I appreciate your sharing your views, Liz. Here's mine:

Sleep is a basic human need; money is not. Laws that deny anyone the right to meet a basic need in ways that harm no one else are inhumane. And more than anything else, we need a humane social order, which is one that supports the meeting of all basic human needs.

Monetary systems can also be a huge diversion of energy and a distraction from what is real and fundamental.

Peace,
Clint

As I was typing that, I was thinking about all the folks who don't have homes to go to. They are the symptoms of a monetary system created by the ruling elite. I'm working on the cause of the symptoms to create robust monetary systems such as community currency, widespread barter networks, and some other things I have bouncing around in my head, so that there are far fewer homeless people, because there are far more resources for everyone. And I agree, a law that makes sleeping anywhere so long as no harm is done would be good. But I'm hoping that we can create a society where homelessness doesn't exist. In my view, we have to unplug from the sick system in a major way and create our own healthy systems to replace them.

Liz

[CSummer]

Liz wrote, "But I'm hoping that we can create a society where homelessness doesn't exist. In my view, we have to unplug from the sick system in a major way and create our own healthy systems to replace them."

Yes, exactly! I don't think money, though - at least alternative forms of it - is what we really need. We need access to real resources: natural resources, tools, knowledge and each other so we can work together to build dwellings, food production and energy systems - as well as care for the ill or injured. Once we have access to these and are working together to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met, do we even need money? True, eventually it will come in handy - especially so we can trade for those things we can't easily produce ourselves and for "luxuries." And initially we may need money, which will have to be the "coin of the realm," in order to buy some of these basic resources, even the ones (such as land) that should be freely available to everyone.

I was amazed to read in another post these words in a proposed City of Sebastopol resolution:

"Whereas the City of Sebastopol wants an end to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the top one percent of the American people, an end to austerity measures that widen this gap, and an end to systems that further impoverish working people and harm the environment."

The problem - as I see it - is that these disempowering and destructive systems are what most of us depend on to meet our needs (and provide our distractions). Because of this, we continue to give power to those systems. So I'm amazed to read a city council member stating we want to end those systems - pretty revolutionary! I think we better get replacements for those systems up and running, though, before we dismantle the existing ones.

And tonight at her workshop for activists, Starhawk said that even within collectives and consensus-based groups, certain individuals end up in leadership roles - meaning they wield more power within the group - by taking on certain key responsibilities. This is what I've thought for a long time is a fundamental principle we need to learn: that if we want power, we need to take responsibility - especially for the meeting of our basic needs. When we give up that responsibility to others we don't know, we give them excessive power, which leads to corruption and abuse of power. We lose control over how those needs are met and how those methods impact others humans and the natural environment.

So if I may rephrase what you wrote, Liz: We need to create our own healthy systems so we are able to unplug from the sick systems in a major way. Unfortunately or not, we may need those sick (and in my view, incurable) systems for a while longer until we've developed humane, just and ecologically sustainable ways to meet our needs. Meanwhile, we have no real choice right now but to be here, as we are. Let's build a new vision while realizing that the more here (present) we can be, the better we can negotiate the terrain on our way to where we want to be.

Clint

As I was typing that, I was thinking about all the folks who don't have homes to go to. They are the symptoms of a monetary system created by the ruling elite. I'm working on the cause of the symptoms to create robust monetary systems such as community currency, widespread barter networks, and some other things I have bouncing around in my head, so that there are far fewer homeless people, because there are far more resources for everyone. And I agree, a law that makes sleeping anywhere so long as no harm is done would be good. But I'm hoping that we can create a society where homelessness doesn't exist. In my view, we have to unplug from the sick system in a major way and create our own healthy systems to replace them.

Liz

[hearthstone]

Home: The Very "Leverage Point". ¹
online: https://www.modelearth.org/leverage.html

The most obvious place where a meaningful intervention would start a profound change for better in the whole world is the basic unit of any community--a home. It is at home where we grow up and learn the basics of living as humans; it is where we should go to get well, to rest and to recuperate; it is at home where we get ready, time after time, to interact with the world "outside". However, the "home" of today is very different from what it ideally ought to be.

A "home" today, on the whole, is an indicator of our social system's dysfunctionality ^note2. Consider this: It is obvious to everyone that humans need to rest, to sleep, to take care of their basic needs to be able to function well within the society. To take care of all these essential needs should, of course, be done at home. Yet it is commonly accepted as a good thing when prices of homes go up and thus homes become less available. Logically, rationally this does not make any sense!

As a result of this the society, as a whole, suffers. A "home", as we know it today, is frequently a source of discomfort, anxieties, a source of existential stress, and this results in a plethora of societal ills that plague the whole society.

People who don't have a proper home are more likely to suffer from lack of rest, sleep, from financial worries (about finding a good home, about having to pay the rent, mortgages, taxes...); They, due to this stress, are more likely to engage in criminal activities, they are more likely to become physically and mentally affected, and generally the unavailability of a really good home to most members of the society creates stress that ultimately permeates all parts of the society.

The obvious solution to this conundrum would be to ensure that instead of a home to be an expensive privilege, to have a home, no matter how humble a home, should become a thing necessary for people to have in order to be able to function well in the society. In short--instead of a source of stress, a home should become a source of comfort, a place to where one goes to become well.

The most expedient way to make sure that a home becomes a secure and a sustainable foundation of the society would be to change only one thing: the right to sleep, to rest, and to be able to take a basic care of one's basic necessities would have to be introduced into the constitution as an inalienable right; No more, and no less.

To constitutionalize all the basic things that are necessary for a satisfactory quality of life as basic rights would alone ensure an organic unfolding of all necessary adjustments in the social fabric. An unfolding into a profound and lasting relief that would be felt all across the globe.

People need land to live on, to have their homes on. The surface of Earth is a valuable and also a limited resource. A resource that is too valuable to let any irrational, fickle commercial interests to be in charge of. Land is precious, it has to be managed intelligently--all kinds of life, not only humans, need it for living; An unnecessary stress, felt by all directly and indirectly, is caused by the gross mismanagement of land that is currently in existence--a stress that we hardly can allow to exist, especially in times of ecological and social crises that we are faced with these days.

A good stress-free home (one's castle indeed!) should be the basis of any truly civilized society, regardless whether the times are good or bad. At home is where culture is being continuously re-created. If there, at home, is any lack what-so-ever, it will affect the whole of the civilization unfavorably.

FINIS

Notes.
Note 1
"leverage point"--a term probably most popularized by Donella Meadows - Leverage_Points.pdf (link checked on Oct. 9, 2011)
Back to text

Note 2:
Dictionary.com:
dysfunction
- noun
2. any malfunctioning part or element: the dysfunctions of the country's economy.
3. Sociology. a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern that undermines the stability of a social system.
<https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dysfunction>

Thank you, Hearthstone - www.ModelEarth.Org .

[phloem]

The concept of "home" is one I've struggled with my entire life, as I am currently in search of my 25th domicile, a place to sleep, prepare food, and manage the rest of my life. Having a home should absolutely be an inalienable, irrevocable right in any society, human or otherwise.

Yet the consumptive and inequitable excesses of capitalism preclude the securing of a home for many people and other creatures, and for the vast majority of humans, "homes" are inadequate, inhumane, and unjust. The process of finding home is heart-rending, demoralizing, humbling, and often humiliating, and keeping one not much better, whether one is an owner or a renter or a "squatter" (a term I loathe -- used here for lack of a more accurate term of people denied the fabricated legal standing as property owners -- one that should more accurately attire the corporate gluttons and leaches who trespass against my earthly home).

I agree that a home for each person should be a right, but that is unlikely to happen in a culture consumed with consuming for the profits of a few, or otherwise to sustain imperialistic aspirations, or to bloat military budgets with weapons to use or delude the masses with a very false sense of security. Providing everyone a home would achieve a level of security no government department, no capitalist theorizing, and no military spending ever will. The current (and long-developing) trend towards fascism is essentially further undermining security by denying people rights, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- the foundation of which, for many, is the home.

The sociopathy of capitalism and its denial of security and homes can be extended to its treatment of the earth and its environment, upon which all life depends. Ultimately, a functioning, richly diverse planetary ecology is the home -- ecos -- we all need. The wasting of plants, animals, microorganisms, and physical features of the earth for material profit and consumption is, at its core, criminally insane. Capitalism as practiced by corporations and implemented through governmental policies is, at its core, a crime against the planet and a crime against humanity. The financial profits made through material extraction and delivered through consumptive markets are, at their core, immoral. When the government and its hired thugs arrest, detain, imprison, and kill people for protesting environmental destruction, and for the relatively sane acts of "property destruction," those forces collude to undermine security and deny people and the earth basic, inalienable rights. Note that the "property crime" charge is never applied to mining, timber, grape-growing (not all, but a lot of it), oil-extracting, or the endless list of other crimes against the planet that provide profit for the few at the expense of the many.

To me, the only revolution worth pursuing is one that will demand that our fundamental home is accorded greater respect and love and nurturing than material property, and one that will deny the rights of the few to pillage and rape our planet. Until then, corporations and their proxies and minions in government, which exists to do the bidding of corporations, will continue to deny homes and other rights that are intrinsically human. While one might think of the "social contract" myth as evidence the government can and will provide for human needs, the provision of government services is a ruse and a lie, used to deceive citizens when people rise to resist the excesses and inequities of capitalistic culture. These gestures (unions, welfare, health care, social security, etc.) serve to delude, placate, and assuage the masses -- they promote the continuation of a system that systematically destroys the essential, archetypical relationships between people and our home, the earth, and among one another.

While some will undoubtedly will argue that government can provide essential services to people, to me that must include the right to clean, potable water from every stream and rivulet, the right to have a home regardless of a "material" income, the right to grow and eat the food we need (not what corporations and government choose for us), the right to consult with practitioners and specialists in order to maintain our health, and myriad other basic inalienable rights of human beings. These rights must extend organically to our entire planetary environment, because we have no other home, and that home is indelibly part of ourselves and our culture, regardless of what the ad-men, politicians, and digital hucksters would have you believe.

Alas, I don't see government, as we know it, in a capitalistic paradigm, ever achieving the true needs of people, other creatures, and our home here on Earth. Apparently, we must do this for ourselves. That will mean creating our own means of governance through a process free from the crippling insanity of corporations, shedding the legal entitlements provided those who would deny us home.

Home: The Very "Leverage Point". ¹
online: https://www.modelearth.org/leverage.html

The most obvious place where a meaningful intervention would start a profound change for better in the whole world is the basic unit of any community--a home. It is at home where we grow up and learn the basics of living as humans; it is where we should go to get well, to rest and to recuperate; it is at home where we get ready, time after time, to interact with the world "outside". However, the "home" of today is very different from what it ideally ought to be.

A "home" today, on the whole, is an indicator of our social system's dysfunctionality ^note2. Consider this: It is obvious to everyone that humans need to rest, to sleep, to take care of their basic needs to be able to function well within the society. To take care of all these essential needs should, of course, be done at home. Yet it is commonly accepted as a good thing when prices of homes go up and thus homes become less available. Logically, rationally this does not make any sense!

As a result of this the society, as a whole, suffers. A "home", as we know it today, is frequently a source of discomfort, anxieties, a source of existential stress, and this results in a plethora of societal ills that plague the whole society.

People who don't have a proper home are more likely to suffer from lack of rest, sleep, from financial worries (about finding a good home, about having to pay the rent, mortgages, taxes...); They, due to this stress, are more likely to engage in criminal activities, they are more likely to become physically and mentally affected, and generally the unavailability of a really good home to most members of the society creates stress that ultimately permeates all parts of the society.

The obvious solution to this conundrum would be to ensure that instead of a home to be an expensive privilege, to have a home, no matter how humble a home, should become a thing necessary for people to have in order to be able to function well in the society. In short--instead of a source of stress, a home should become a source of comfort, a place to where one goes to become well.

The most expedient way to make sure that a home becomes a secure and a sustainable foundation of the society would be to change only one thing: the right to sleep, to rest, and to be able to take a basic care of one's basic necessities would have to be introduced into the constitution as an inalienable right; No more, and no less.

To constitutionalize all the basic things that are necessary for a satisfactory quality of life as basic rights would alone ensure an organic unfolding of all necessary adjustments in the social fabric. An unfolding into a profound and lasting relief that would be felt all across the globe.

People need land to live on, to have their homes on. The surface of Earth is a valuable and also a limited resource. A resource that is too valuable to let any irrational, fickle commercial interests to be in charge of. Land is precious, it has to be managed intelligently--all kinds of life, not only humans, need it for living; An unnecessary stress, felt by all directly and indirectly, is caused by the gross mismanagement of land that is currently in existence--a stress that we hardly can allow to exist, especially in times of ecological and social crises that we are faced with these days.

A good stress-free home (one's castle indeed!) should be the basis of any truly civilized society, regardless whether the times are good or bad. At home is where culture is being continuously re-created. If there, at home, is any lack what-so-ever, it will affect the whole of the civilization unfavorably.

FINIS

Notes.
Note 1
"leverage point"--a term probably most popularized by Donella Meadows - Leverage_Points.pdf (link checked on Oct. 9, 2011)
Back to text

Note 2:
Dictionary.com:
dysfunction
- noun
2. any malfunctioning part or element: the dysfunctions of the country's economy.
3. Sociology. a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern that undermines the stability of a social system.
<https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dysfunction>

Thank you, Hearthstone - www.ModelEarth.Org .

[nicofrog]

As I was typing that, I was thinking about all the folks who don't have homes to go to. They are the symptoms of a monetary system created by the ruling elite. I'm working on the cause of the symptoms to create robust monetary systems such as community currency, widespread barter networks, and some other things I have bouncing around in my head, so that there are far fewer homeless people, because there are far more resources for everyone. And I agree, a law that makes sleeping anywhere so long as no harm is done would be good. But I'm hoping that we can create a society where homelessness doesn't exist. In my view, we have to unplug from the sick system in a major way and create our own healthy systems to replace them.

Liz

I am a perveyor of crazy Ideas,bear with me,those who can ,sleep at "Home" or in your hidden place under a bridge then come down and those who risk arrest SLEEP IN PUBLIC OFFICES huge sleep ins. Work on the computers at night in sypathetic homes,then sleep all day at the parks,police stations and court houses...
I have done this before in countries where it is against the law to sleep(I am Homeless by choice,not a victim in it) in a world where 1/3 of the peole live all year on what we make in a week,we need to learn to demonstrate resiliancy.. Each finds their own niche ,mine has been to Compost for 35 years,others do not have a car,,etc etc... wheeee can do it playfully even! Nico
(Homes are an Illusion,Chaos is the norm)