Photo Essay: Jack of Occupy R Us

We have a few Jacks in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and this photo essay is about one of them– Jack the Occupy-R-Us Guy, aka Jack the Occupy-dot-com Guy, aka Jack the Coney Island Guy, aka Jack the T-Shirt guy, aka Jack the “Tear Down These Walls, America” Guy, aka Jack the Union Square Guy, among other names. Loud, brash and knowledgeable, Jack uses his protest skills to defend other protesters. As an example, in this photo essay, the police and Brookfield Security were harassing Occupiers about their Info Station. Jack came by, saw what was happening, and like a bulldog went after the NYPD and Brookfield Security. He diverted their attention, kept it, and left the police and security with nothing to do at the end but stand dumbfounded in the hot sun wondering why they bothered us in the first place.

Jack is a hard-ground warrior. Jack never surrenders. We love Jack!

A field trip to the North

Tags

activism, chicken night, hippies, living the solution, occupy, occupy bus tour, occupy farm, occupy farms, occupy wall street, peace village, woodstock

From the farm we took a field trip to peace village and chicken night. Peace village is a retreat center in the Catskill mountains in upstate Ny, here’s their link below

http://www.peace-village.org/

Chicken night is a potluck at the house of John and Astrid near Woodstock, they cook the chicken, you bring the rest.

So we started out early in the morning, well not that early, around 9am, but still early for us to be up and out. It was about an hour and a half two hours to peace village. We went their to volunteer for the day. We got there around 11AM or so and went right to work. Collette showed us what we needed to do and handed out our supplies, which consisted of a bucket, a shovel, a pair of gloves. We were going to be weeding.

Right from arriving I had a feeling of calm, like I was watching Mr. Rogers neighborhood as a kid. A peaceful feeling. Collette showed us the spots we would be weeding. The 3 rocks in front of the pond, then the peace park.

We all started weeding at the 3 rocks and the 3 of us talked. Collette came to check on us and we talked to her as well, asked her questions about the peace village and how she ended up there.

The peace village started in 1999, the place used to be a resort where people would come up for the weekend or vacation all year round, then it closed down and was empty for 5 years when the founders bought it at auction. They have retreats there every weekend, and its all by donation, they believed you should not have to pay for spirituality. They have envelopes and donation boxes in a few spots around the property and if you want to you can donate because they do need money to run things but there is no pressure to have to pay a certain amount.

All the people who live there and work there are volunteers and the people who live there have an intentional community, they all are working towards the same vision and goal and they all help with all the jobs that need to be done. We learned their community is celibate so each person can focus more on their personal spirituality and connection with God without having the distraction of lust. Every day they have meditation,

At 1pm we went to the dining room for lunch. Only the most spiritual, the yogis are allowed to cook. They want only the best energy being put into the food everyone is eating. The lunch was awesome and I was hungry. It was so nice to be able to volunteer but at the same time get taken care of so well in the way of good food and good vibes.

The afternoon we spent weeding peace park. Peace park is all rocks with rock paths and anyone can create anything out of the rocks they wanted, move things around add to. There were stacks of slate on the sides and you can take a piece and add it where you wish. We picked weeds then when we were done we added a path.

Before we left we walked the Labyrinth, which used to be a shooting range at the time it was a resort. They wanted to change the energy of that place so they put in a Labyrinth, then we walked to reflection pond.

Next we were on our way to Chicken night about an hour away from peace village. A hundred hippies from the 60’s crowed in the small colorful house and scattered all over the outside, music upstairs in the back building. People eating, dancing, playing, talking, the energy was great, the people were great and I thought how much we need them for helping to create a better world. They had created that world in their community of Woodstock, now we need their help for the rest of the world.

In one day I got to see 2 intentional communities. Both pieces of the solution we need for the rest of the world.

If you like what we are doing you can help us to keep it up by donating, we are powered by the people and no matter what the amount it helps

https://www.wepay.com/donations/occupy-bus-tour

Trinity Church & NYPD Attack Occupiers

I am posting this for Rain OWS. Rain wrote this on FaceBook, I edited it for the blog.

Our day at Occupy Wall street was eventful. We woke up to the cops clapping in our ears telling us to wake up right before they hosed us off the sidewalk. Trinity security assaulted one of our protesters. We went to Zuccotti  Park and we were told we were not allowed to have book bags or sleeping bags in the park.

Spent a good part of the day doing outreach at the Federal Hall steps and when we returned to Trinity we found two cops we recognize, out of uniform, harassing a female Occupier and tearing up signs. We asked them nicely to stop and they shoved an Occupier and dared us to do something. What could we do as a peaceful movement on police surveillance cameras as they threw the Peoples Library, Info and people’s personal stuff in the street?

We need the live-streamers. We need the support of the people to come and stand up with us. Remember we are physically occupying public space and bringing enlightenment to the rest of the 99%. So if you call yourself Occupy, join us before one of us ends up in jail over defending ourselves or someone gets hurt. Remember, I have a broken toe and foot yet I still occupy even though I have a place to live and an opportunity to go back to work. So come out if you support those doing physical protest.

Rain OWS

Stop the Surveillance

The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments). It is a protection for US citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. The U.S.A. government at all levels is guilty of flagrant and systemic violations of the 4th Amendment.

Text of the 4th Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Ka-Boom!

“Battery Banks can deliver very high levels of current that can vaporize metal, start fires and cause explosions.”– our 6000W Power Inverter owners manual

Well . . . we almost had a very bad explosion kinda thing. We have been having problems with our solar electricity storage — we seem to not have much energy stored no matter how much sun we’ve had. The inverter tells us we have a full charge, but then we can’t even charge the computers. Then there was the smell of burning plastic that we couldn’t track down . . .

So, we took the kitchen apart in order to get clear access to the entire battery storage area. What we found down there surprised and shocked us. We got very lucky. The cables had come loose, had moved, and at times were arcing. The negative terminal on the initial battery in the storage melted almost completely. The positive and negative cables had melted together and were almost to the point of copper touching copper.

It could have been a terrible situation if we had waited any longer before working on this problem. Of course, we didn’t know what was happening under the kitchen area, so it was fortuitous for us that we had decided to take time to attend to all of Godzilla’s needs.

So, today Stacey and I took the entire electrical system apart, and put it back together again minus one battery. Now we have 5 batteries for storage — which was the number of batteries in our original plan. We had acquired an extra battery for free so had included it in the storage system, but now we are back to the original 5. We’ll see if that’s enough storage for our needs — we know it is not nearly enough to store all the potential energy from our 1 kW solar system, but it may be enough for us.

If you like what we’re doing, please consider donating to help us with the cost of repairs and maintenance. Thank you.

::donate to the tour::

Interview with Occupy Bus Tour

WeAreChangeCT interviewed us when we were in New Haven helping with the re-occupation there. Here is the interview.

Please go visit the http://wearechangect.org/ website, they are doing a fantastic job of citizen journalism. Their efforts inspire us all. They are true heros of the revolution.

::donate to the tour::

Occupying 1 Wall Street

Here are more photos from the everyday, occupation protests at Liberty Park, Trinity Wall Street Church, and 1 Wall Street, BNY-Mellon.

The Info Table in Liberty is an important outreach opportunity.

Captain, occupying Liberty Park

Shangry, occupying the issues.

Star beaming with life!

Tigger, making it happen.

Nappy & Ocita, keeping it real

David,occupying the night

Me, and Star, chillin’

Michael, occupying the video-phone

Chris, keeping it pumped

Chilling in the shadow of 9/11’s Ground Zero

Art on the street

 

Zach, occupying philosophy in the park

Arjeta, occupying wild life

Apollo and Katrina, occupying actions

Gathering food . . .

Bank security protesting my protest.

Occupying, protesting, live-streaming, info outreach, all rolled into one.

My posse showed up to keep bank security off my back.

Rain & Katrina O. with the Ideas for a Better World banner

 

We are powered by the people. If you like what we’re doing, and want to see more, please consider donating by clicking the image link below. Thank you.

::donate to the tour::