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Health & Fitness

Occupy This: Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week

The Spare Changer Contributing Editor and Publisher of The Spare Changer reaches out to CalPirg sponsored Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week Events.

I believe the very first Poverty & Homeless Awareness Week was four years ago.

A reader of The Spare Changer contacted me and asked me to speak on the subject of poverty and nutrition at Central Park and on the second floor of the UC Davis Memorial Union. The week is sponsored by CalPirg.

They also wanted me to speak about The Spare Changer publication, a monthly newsletter/journal distributed by erst-while panhandlers, the homeless and often by UC Davis student activists. The distributors keep the donations offered beyond the cost of “The Spange.”

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Originally the publication was the voice of the homeless community, now it’s more a voice for it. The Spare Changer of Davis, now in its sixth year, continues to represent “employment for the unemployable” and functions as a conduit between the haves and the have-nots in Our Little City.

Believe me when I tell you that I have been no stranger to chronic homelessness, the root cause of which is overpopulation and resultant poverty in a world of social and economic inequality. Small wonder we are experiencing a revisit of the 1960s today.

It seems to me that the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement, this 'leaderless' decision by consensus has gone as far as it can go and still maintain its integrity. I say this because the movement has rapidly become widespread, and instead of a definitive call to action in terms of legislative changes, it has morphed into special interests gripes, such as homelessness, education fee hikes, 'police brutality' and debates as to whether violence is an acceptable, pragmatic technique to gain attention and raise support for the 99% to be heard.

From the beginning, I have advocated focus in the direction of the movement, which began on “Wall Street." It began with a banshee's wail of frustration and, eventually, contempt for Wall Street practices. That focus, in my view, is best centered on one practice: The marriage of banking & securities industries.

They need to be separated.

A little history: When banking was deregulated – Allen Greenspan himself went on record to say he made a mistake in presuming the banking industry knew how to regulate itself without so much 'government interference.

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The greed factor was not considered. Banks began to see gambling in the market (securities) as not only profitable, but necessary to compete. It became a vehicle for almost criminal (some say even treasonous) profits for the banks as well as mega-corporation CEOs and stockholders who owe no loyalty to our country.

Then came the Silicon Valley downsizing, the housing market collapse and the global debt crisis.

Remember: In the old days before deregulation, banks earned their money "the old fashion way.” They earned it.

Banks made loans; they made profit from the interest in the loans. They did not gamble so much in the market. Pension funds were later gambled with, and it is the primary reason your parents will not be retiring as planned, because the pension funds were bundled up and gambled with... and the gamble failed.

Today, investors are gambling that things are going to get worse. Yes, you can make money that way too, kind of like playing "Lo-ball' poker, where the shyttiest hand wins.

And, today, there is no limit to how much a candidate can spend on TV advertising. It is a fact that the more you advertise, the more people are exposed to your product and services and so the more you sell. This is independent of the product, or its “real” value.

This is how and why today’s GOP came to control a congress that will only allow the passage of legislation that will preserve the profitable environment of those who are able to get elected through massive money spending on advertising.

A bit simplistic? Only on the surface, but I digress...

This Occupy movement in general and our local one in Central Park--for as long as it is there--is symbolic of the frustration most of us feel today. Whether you are middle class or pitifully below middle class, you can see that your opportunity to rise above your present “place” in life is dwindling.  

But, and this is something I would like you young people to think about, hard: the “occupiers,” without leadership (by definition to date), now run the risk of confusing the symbol (the overnight activists) with the thing symbolized, which is the unfair practices of the banking industry and how those practices have and continue to make the rich richer, at the expense of the middle class.

The poor are "so down it looks like up.” In short, the local “encampments” and the others around the country, believe, no, are convinced, that their very “occupation” is, in itself, the movement.

It is not. 

It is the symbol of the movement and needs to be seen as such, not only by the mainstream, many of whom are in support, but cannot “camp” there, in part because they have mouths to feed, but by the occupiers themselves.

This is made difficult because of significant numbers of otherwise un-sheltered “homeless.”

Just this Monday morning, something VERY significant happened. It was policy and precedent setting:

In Oakland, at 5am, police and law enforcement from around the Bay Area, "...at a cost of 3 to 5 hundred thousand dollars," removed the occupiers as homeless campers from the plaza.

The announcement was made at 5 am, the arrests at 6 am (about 35) and the clean up and clean out by 7 am. Tuesday morning, they returned to some more arrests and the dismantling of tents of “occupiers” who have defied city ordinance.

The same is being repeated in New York, ground zero of the protest movement, even as I pen this.

This is a significant thing for the movement, and a “bad” development for the homeless. 

The City of Oakland's mayor has said that the park will re-open today at 7 pm. True “protesters” will be allowed to gather in unlimited numbers as is their right to assembly, but they will not be allowed to erect any shelter of any kind. Not a tent, not a sleeping bag, not a blanket.

This is a significant statement, because I predict, at least in Sacramento and likely right here in Davis, that this is precisely what will happen, in terms of policy, around the country.

It is the “golden mean.” It is the “sweet spot” of diplomacy, or the closest thing a governing body can do to protect the movement, the protesters, and the commerce, which is not what the movement is about, in terms of disrupting that commerce, particularly that of small businesses, who are not only part of that 99%; they are the backbone of our nation’s economic recovery.

This policy says to the Movement: We hear you!

So encourage on campus leadership and focus. A leaderless culture of dissent and protest -- up to now -- has served its purpose. The next step is to make legislative demands. I saw this process in the 60s when “end the war” was the focus, although there were a myriad of “special interest gripes” then, too.

My point, and this is what I want to drive home to you young leaders of tomorrow who wonder exactly what you are protesting and demanding: Make your demands, because only after you do will you really be heard. An end to the protest can be seen by those who need it.

Your adversary: the 1%.

By the way, if Davis does prohibit tents, falling in step with Oakland's protocol, the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter of Davis begins its fifth year of housing the homeless in their ultra-structures. 

Our homeless have somewhere besides the park to go.

The IRWS needs student volunteers: Food servers, transporters from intake to a Church or Synogoue that night, food preparers, sleeping bag and cot support. Just talking and “the sharing of normal life,” are appreciated, especially during this holiday season. The most serious need is for overnighters. There are UCD and DHS internships available as well. Online sign ups!

You can contact TSC at thesparechanger@hotmail.com or info@thesparechanger.net

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