When first hearing of Occupy Los Angeles, it occurred to me that the decades long Revolution that began in the 1960’s with Dr. King, Bob Dylan, The Last Poets, the '60's and The Summer of Love, with Jim Morrison who shouted “WAKE UP!!!”, including the many students of Jackson and Kent State, Berkley. Later, Rage Against The Machine and countless others since then until nowis this same Revolution, it hit me that, this is it. The Revolution has come to a head, Revolution is no longer a performance poet’s buzzword... but it’s become the reality we've all been waiting for, for a very long time.

With a new pride and sudden wonderment I asked myself, why now? At the hands of this generation of humankind, why us? I realized that we are all part of the evolution of The Movement with all of  it’s universal components, including it’s martyrs such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Abraham, JFK, Tupac, also it’s weapons, namely the Internet with it’s artillery social media, and I should not here exclude the sub-formations of decentralized organizations such as Youtube, Wikipedia and others like these, all born of the Internet.  And us, the generation blessed to soar across it... this fact, to each of us is overwhelming and absolutely awesome. And I know that each of us does realize that the day we were born, we were chosen to be here, right now, standing together in this point in time for Mankind.  Including also, in the history of man against the machine we find ourselves at a storybook or feature film reality.

We are in a Global Revolution, all of us, alive during this surely pivotal and defining time of life on planet Earth. 

Knowing the time is finally come, I went down to City Hall alone, just like everyone else with the calling, embarrassed to admit it was the first time I’d ever hopped on the subway, I packed my camera, water and a few bucks and took part in Day One, the launch of Occupy Los Angeles and have been here everyday since.

It was difficult to join a committee, I was a little shy of course, but reminding myself always that self-consciousness is ego based and I committed to continue at the least, in just being there. I have seen and maybe felt what others do still, the sentiment that the people involved in the committees are exclusive and cliquish. But, always giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, I “tabled “ the thoughts every day.  And I still came, because I was born to fight the Good Fight, I am a poet and an Angeleno and I have no choice but to take part in whatever capacity I am given the opportunity to.  

I knew that teams are created for both long term and short-term interaction. I also knew that the various teams that will have formed together interdependently and cooperatively to meet the needs of the Movement by accomplishing certain purposes and goals that, as in every formation of a team, there will always be an initial shift in team members and a redefining of purposes and goals as new aspects of the Movement become realized by each. 

Furthermore, as each team member realizes new aspects individually, more ideas are hatched and discussed, implemented or negated. This process develops as naturally as, for example, a duckling born with down feathers that will soon sprout new permanent feathers, the ones that will enable him to lift from his nest and take that first glorious flight onward and upward.

The purpose for creating teams is to provide a framework that will increase the ability of all occupiers to participate in planning, problem solving and decision making to better serve The Movement.

Finally, I realized that, within the formula to launch the Revolution, there had to be a catalyst, the catalyst beyond the despair, and the catalyst had to be a person or persons wherein the delicacy of failure or success in the formations of a leaderless organization lies in the hands of. I thought,  should the catalysts of the movement be operating in a shadow with self-serving ideals, the movement is doomed from onset. I realized this characteristic may not exist given the social, economical and environmental causes of The Movement, those being, well, starvation for one, you get it.

Should it be that we all agree The Movement benefits in it’s attempt to be a working decentralized organization, then in that same commitment,  I hereby insist we must strive to become as morally and righteously conscientious as the people that inspired us in the first place, the living beings that formulated the launch of this movement for us, whoever they are in reality or in our own individual myths of who they may be.  No doubt they walk the high road in the interest of the greater good for all. No doubt they were born to fight The Good Fight of these times not as leaders, but instead as powerful “catalysts”,  just as we were born to take part, the proof of that is that we are here, alive today. Pretty simple. And, to what capacity will each of us toil, and in what roles, we will all soon discover if we haven’t yet.

So, comrades if I may, in an attempt to quell the grievances and complaints of the growing pains within this movement let’s try first, to understand the make-up of these wonderful people I’m referring to as “The Catalysts”.  Firstly, each of them has an apparent and genuine interest in others, as well as have a genuine desire to lend a helping hand to everyone they meet, without exclusivity. They have adhered to the consensus system that Occupy has embraced quite strictly, in order to help people help themselves by listening and understanding, rather than giving advice. Embracing their apparent emotional intelligence, we must all learn to trust in others and in the decentralized network. Let’s each one of us strive to be an inspiration to all in The Movement and release the constraints of ego, allowing each of us to succeed in developing a tolerance for ambiguity. In other words, we should trust in the the lifeforce of the movement, it surely exists, and to place trust in it's power that is really beyond us, is what we must do.

Let’s try to not interfere with, or try to control the behavior of the contributing members of the gathered and forming decentralized organization. If we continue to engage in judgmental observation and opinion we prolong our success, confuse our purposes and push further away our goals.

If instead we adopt a positive reaction to all things unclear, be hopeful toward all suggestion, seek our teachers that are of course born to the Movement and foster group analyzed ideas, also, remain patient with those slow to grasp theory; or those that can’t foresee certain cause and effect. I believe that it’s possible with these and more positivity overall that we certainly can win this war. If we continue to divide the given army, with negativity and scrutiny, we may fail. And failure, ooh…I think the consequences will be bad, very bad.

These are perilous yet exhilarating times! Those of us that are born Indigo (metaphorically and truly) are risking it all in the good fight. We have to. We must keep on keepin’ on. The current quality of life has backed us into this fighter's corner and it's up to us to ensure that our future generations live in a peaceful and sustainable world.  Finally.

And while those among us continue to bicker,  we actually have a real, lurking, calculating and slick ass opponent. The enemy is using one of the most powerful tactics they have aced, and that is targeting with bad press to ensure less support for us. They are capitalizing on our inability to reach consensus more quickly and worse,  fighting amongst ourselves.

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Poet A. Razor who just recently moved to Oakland sent me an article about the lack of organization of Occupy Oakland and I answered him with, “Los Angeles is not far behind Oakland in the case of bad impressions. There are a percentage of younger occupiers that think OLA is burning man. It’s not good. Oakland needs to hang in there though. Individually, each #occupy has to experience the "life of it's own" indigenous to itself. The growing pains are expected in a self-governing "leaderless" congregate. Shit, Razor. Personally, I think we need a couple more poets (the real kind) to cut to the chaste and act as interpreters to the under-educated as well as to the "over" educated. In time, all willing, we will finally win the lives we deserve to live. If you're involved with #OO, tell them it's the same all over the nation, this long in coming movement, it has a life of it's own and things will come together.

Tell them to practice kindness toward one another, this is important so as not to discourage and cause mutiny. Tell them to remain positive above all else, and to trust. There’s a war going on, and there is a delicate acceptance of the troops that have signed on. There are the indigos, the veterans, the hippies, the students, the homeless, the scrutinizers, the agent provocateurs, and the egotists. In the end, I believe it will eventually transform from the bad news bears into 300 against the mighty Persian army.

Manifest destiny, always believe and chant slogans of Solidarity, Peace, Love and Sustainability. And especially remind all that, “United We Stand Divided We Fall”.  it’s an old slogan of Solidarity. We mustn't fail to reach agreements, we cannot afford the distractions of bitterness.

And remember, we were chosen to be here, each one of us is important right now, standing together in this point in time for Mankind."