My speech at OccupySF - The Empire Dies, The People Rise

The Empire Dies, The People Rise!
(Speech delivered by
Magick on the steps of SF City Hall on October 15th, the International Day of Protest for Occupy Everywhere!)

[See video of the speech here and the march here. ]

The media and the government ask us what do we want, what are our demands? What is our political platform? And we answer we do not have one issue or demand; we do not want to win over each other, one side against another.

What we offer is an invitation to the greatest experiment in the history of the world, a global experiment in true democracy. We are not waiting to be thrown a bone while the empire continues to lurch towards mass destruction.
The governments of the world have failed the people because they are not governments of the people.

We are practicing and learning consensus-based decision-making that arises out of protecting life itself.

No matter how you dress up the constitution it is a document whose bottom line is property ownership, created by invaders, white men, who did not recognize the rights of even the ones they claimed to love. Whose own women and children were enslaved. Who in fact owned slaves to reap their profits from the suffering of others. Who were complicit in the genocide of the indigenous people of this continent.

It doesn’t matter how many rights and freedoms we attempt to pile on top of that lie, the rich get richer and the people lose their homes, their jobs to outsourcing in other countries whose own corrupt governments allow corporations to exploit labor and the environment. Our schools are being privatized to manufacture automatons to serve the machine of capitalism. The very food we eat is poisoned for corporate profit.

We must go back to the beginning and undo the lie. The first occupation of this land was a cruel, death march across a beautiful free continent inhabited by people who knew they could not own the earth.

We are reclaiming the word occupation as we march for life and relinquish domination and ownership. We are occupying everywhere, even now in China and Iran in India and Africa in Bolivia the cry for freedom rings. We our swarming in the centers of our cities like bees a buzz with the desire from a new home and we are meeting each other, embracing each other in a joyous dance of liberation!

We need to be patient and kind to each other, we are wounded, we have been beaten down, our brothers and sisters suffer in for-profit jails. We have almost forgotten who we are, but it is not too late.

We can create communities together by imitating the way nature takes care of herself through permaculture practices that are being rebirthed everywhere. We will not own the land but establish agreements that incorporate the principle of safeguarding the earth for future generations.

Since 911our government has twisted our grief into fear and used a tragedy to tell us to hate the Arab nations as terrorists so the military industrial complex could declare war and steal their oil.

Now these very people are leading us in as glorious Arab Spring blossoming in the streets of Cairo and even losing their lives in revolts against the very dictators the US has propped up for decades.

Ecuador and Bolivia have led the way with constitutions that incorporate the rights of nature to have justice. That trees and rivers have standing.

All the solutions are bubbling to the surface, as the dominant paradigm of greed and propaganda falls, we will inaugurate health care for all that is based on the holistic principles of wellness not disease.

We will return to organic food, we will use the knowledge of those who see how to create zero waste. We will educate our children to bring forth their dreams and offer them the tools to make them real.
We will use all the forms of alternative energy like wind, and solar!
We will undam the rivers and daylight the creeks!
We will free all political prisoners and create rehabilitation centers for healing those who have lost their way and bring them back home.

This new wave of young people were only momentarily co-opted by the last election but now they know that one person cannot lead them like children to freedom. They are ready, capable and willing to take responsibility for creating and governing themselves. May we who have walked from the 60s to now offer our wisdom, our encouragement and our support. But do not tell them how it must be done.

All of us our working together and we are very serious about have a great time while we do it.

We will create art and music and beauty everywhere. One thing humans are really good at is a celebration.

We will dance in the reign of terror and we will not be afraid!
As the Empire Dies the People Rise!