Nights in Tents

by Laura Love

  I started out by making a concerted effort to find open-pollinated, non-GMO, organic seeds to plant in my garden. I combed the Internet to find seed companies that specialized in exactly that. As it turned out, there was a local business in my area, the Glover Street Market, which sold products by Uprising Seeds and Seeds of Change, two of the companies I was attracted to in my online search. I’ve heard it said that we humans vote three times a day when buying and consuming food, which seemed to me to be a golden opportunity to get cracking right away to put some fresh faces in office. While I was off Occupying, I’d neglected my 880 square foot greenhouse, and the roof collapsed due to an unusually heavy snow load. Normally, I’d have been right there after every storm to rake and pull the snow from the plastic roof, but, in my absence, it did not get done. My first order of business was to extricate and reconstruct the splintered rafters, gas up the backhoe, lift them into place to secure to the frame, and repair the structure for use. Next, I brought over load after bucket load of manure that our horses had been busy manufacturing in their corral all winter long. Later that day I put up a YouTube video of me dumping it onto my garden, offering each “steaming pile of manure to my friends at Monsanto.” Shortly afterward YouTube removed it as “inappropriate content.”

  I am proud to say that in the last two months I have not prepared a single bite of produce I did not either grow or buy from a local organic farmer, who employs the same methods that I practice. Last night’s supper featured an arugula salad, with sesame oil, garlic, rice vinegar, baby spinach, tamari, and toasted pine nuts. Every time I walk into my garden and select succulent greens, strawberries, beans, or vine ripe tomatoes to grace my table, I feel like I am doing something tantamount to printing my own money. The thrill of it consumes me. Throughout the last few winters, my family and I have enjoyed canned and frozen vegetables that I grew myself, as well as bushels of potatoes, beets, and carrots which were stored safely in the root cellar we recently built. Almost everything I planted this spring was from seeds I saved from last year’s bumper crop. I even fenced in an additional four thousand square feet and planted an heirloom wheat, which I will harvest and grind by hand soon. With any luck, I should be able to harvest at least one hundred pounds of whole wheat grain, which I will thresh by hand against a wooden box and throw into the breezy air to winnow in a basket, just as was done in this country for hundreds of years before modern machinery came along. When I checked today, thirty or so of the hundreds of wild asparagus seeds I harvested last year from a hillside, had germinated and were reaching their whispy fronds heavenward. What it ultimately came down to was this: I may not be able to abolish corporate wrongdoing, but I can grow a tomato so delicious and nutritious, it’ll throw you into a tantrum that’ll make your head spin off its axis and steam come out of your ears every time you have to choke down anything less.

  And, there were lots of small things I found that I could do every day to make my immediate environment a better place to live. I’m not able to completely eliminate homophobia in my obscure micropolis or the surrounding farming communities, but I discovered I could help our first ever Methow Valley Gay Pride Festival become a ringing success by holding my rainbow flag up high and dancing my booty off on a June Sunday in 2014. I, along with my gay, bi, straight, trans, and non-binary friends, could shake my moneymaker to Madonna and The Village People, right there in broad daylight in our main street city park. I can keep smiling and ignore the occasional redneck gunning past us in disgust as we link arms and step out, to show everybody how groovy and fantastic it is to be loving, tolerant, and inclusive. And, I can forever cherish the memory of a shy teenager named Tiffany, with black hair, clothes, makeup, and fingernail polish, jumping up and down—crying and shrieking like a contestant on The Price is Right when she won the grand prize of a day spa makeover and pampering session, in our cross-dressing, “drag race” relay. After winning, she grabbed the microphone from the MC and breathlessly announced, she “finally felt like she belonged somewhere,” and that she was so proud and grateful that our valley had come together and done this so boldly, which, she said, had given her the courage to help start a GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) chapter at our only, small, high school. Priceless.

  A few months ago, I spoke up at a packed Town Hall meeting where a bunch of suits were toeing the water to take the temperature of our community regarding their hopes to construct an open pit copper mine on a pristine mountain nearby, which is home to a number of threatened and endangered species. Many of my friends and neighbors were there, politely questioning the Forest Service and mining experts about the possible harmful consequences of the mine, as well as expressing their doubts and concerns about the whole idea. Before my tenure with Occupy, I may have been hesitant to throw my two cents in, fearing I’d embarrass myself somehow by being too emotional, tripping over my tongue, or not having enough facts in order. I’d have kept quiet, for fear of reprisal, or thinking I hadn’t lived here long enough to have earned the right to speak up in a room full of locals, some who’d been in the Methow Valley for generations. Not so anymore. I thrust my hand into the air and bounced on the edge of my chair like a grade-schooler waiting to be called upon. When my turn finally did come, I said that I did not believe the company’s assurances that they’d run a squeaky clean mine that wouldn’t harm the ecosystem in any way, because I knew for a fact that no mine has ever in the history of humankind been able to do so. I said that there was intrinsic value in having a mountain left intact that didn’t have a “goddamn copper mine on it,” and that Flagg Mountain shouldn’t have to justify its existence by making money or creating jobs. And further, that we, the citizens of Okanogan County didn’t have to get caught up in that ridiculous argument. I said that the mountain’s only job was to stand there and be beautiful. I concluded by shouting that I “would throw myself on the gears of the machines before I let another jerk trying to make a buck destroy something I love.” Not once did I replay the scenario in my head that night, riddled with self-doubt and recriminations. I just closed my eyes, smiled, and slept great.

  It seems that many of my comrades from the movement reached the same conclusions I did, as I observe them choosing sensible portions and taking manageable bites from their plates as they operate, post-OWS. I’m regularly seeing many of their current projects blossoming and coming to fruition. I just saw a post from an activist friend I met in Oakland at OGP, who was outlining her intentions to “Carpe the shit out of this diem” and get bodies in the streets to raise a ruckus over the recent construction of a building known as the DAC, or Domain Awareness Center, which is a surveillance hub that happens to be located very near where our commune existed. Several days ago, I saw that my Washington DC, Occupy the Supreme Court/Congress friends, Tighe Barry and Medea Benjamin, along with other members of their organization, Code Pink, were on the NBC Nightly news … again—this time for disrupting the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in the Nation’s Capital, where members of Congress were trying to sell the idea of redeploying American troops and weapons to defeat the latest swarm of Muslim extremists called “ISIS” or ISIL, depending on whom you talk to (which stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria/Levant). This latest incarnation of the furious faithful in the Middle East arose in wrath-filled retaliation for US military war atrocities committed against them over the past decade. Medea, Tighe, and their co-conspirators stood before the panel holding signs, loudly calling out, and shaming individual hawks, like Republican Senator John McCain and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel for relentless fearmongering and war baiting. Code Pink accused the committee of trying to foist another chapter of America’s endless wars onto our broke, obese, unemployed, debt-straddled, under-educated, over-medicated populace. She and others accomplished a brief halting of the proceedings by loudly shouting, “Don’t drag us into another war,” while holding a sign aloft that said, MORE WAR = MORE EXTREMISM. Their strident voices created such havoc in the room they prompted Democratic Chairman Carl Levin t
o pronounce, “You’re acting very war-like yourself,” idiotically, to the assembly of elected officials. Secretary of State John Kerry was so undone by their affrontery, as they chanted, “Your invasion will not protect the homeland,” that he began to engage in a rare counterargument of unscripted debate, saying that he understood dissent …” but that the protestors “should care about fighting ISIL” because of their record of committing rape, mutilation, and other barbarities against women that, “frankly comes out of the stone age, making a mockery of a peaceful religion.” Wow, I thought as I watched the video, if an aerial bombing campaign is going to be our new standard response to violent, women-hating religious extremism, maybe we could go after the NFL next … or even the Church of Latter Day Saints.

  Practically everywhere I look there are signs that our populist revolution is not only far from over, but growing exponentially worldwide and poised to burst even more forcefully into the forefront of global awareness. Last Sunday, September 22, 2014, a crowd estimated as high as four hundred thousand people, comprising everything from the great unwashed, to captains of industry and presidential hopefuls, descended upon New York City and marched for hours to protest stultifying inaction on the urgent life-threatening crisis of global warming on our home planet. Marchers drew compelling, science-based connections between such occurrences as the out-of-control wildfires in the American West to the rapid spread of the Ebola virus in Africa to the onslaught of record-breaking temperatures caused by carbon emissions and unsustainable addictions to fossil fuels. Experts said that the heat was throwing everything out of whack, producing super-fires, super-floods, and super-germs that threatened mass extinctions to all life forms … including us. I was particularly receptive to their message after having had to evacuate my own family, along with our horses, bunnies, cats and goldfish, down the highway this past July, as out-of-control, record-breaking wildfires bore down upon us with unprecedented speed and fury as we raced to outrun the flames. Scores of my dear friends and neighbors lost their homes and their beloved animals as the fire consumed 360 homes around mine and devastated our tiny community—leaving it almost unrecognizable as I drive to our daughter’s school. Inexplicably, the network news, on the night of the largest climate march in history, was jam-packed with everything but that, as anchors devoted all but a few paltry seconds to detailing the intricacies of a man hunt for a “crazed cop-killer on the loose,” and a missing college co-ed, who just happened to be blonde, white, and pretty, from a Virginia campus. After those compelling stories of grave national security and importance, came the coverage of the latest barbaric ISIS beheadings against Westerners. The broadcast that evening seemed wholly devoted to hysteri-cizing the urgency to devote more massive-scale counter campaigns in the Middle East, as well as to chasten those who dare challenge our moral authority and military might.

  The day after that historic rally, there were over three thousand, mostly young people, who showed up in Battery Park and surrounded the bronze bull, declaring their willingness to be arrested if need be, in order to attain their goals, which were declared, “To shut down Wall Street and end capitalism in America.” Go big or go home, I thought, as I read their optimistic mission statement and watched them through the lens of familiar Occupy livestreamers who noted that the NYPD had “wisely chosen” to eschew riot gear and other paramilitary shows of force that day. The streamers attributed the modified police attire to the unanticipated groundswell of activism by people of color in the wake of recent Ferguson, Missouri protests that had erupted after jacked-up law enforcement personnel gunned down a black teenager accused of shoplifting in that town. As I watched the wide-eyed kids in New York City, linking arms and looking up fearfully at cops for hours, my heart filled once again with compassion and a fervor to support their efforts to undo some of the damage my generation has done to them and their future prospects. As I monitored their uneasy, hours long-standoff with the cops, I checked the Internet for airline deals as I considered joining them if they were still there in a few days, which was the time it would take me to reach them from my remote perch. As I observed police slowly drawing a noose around them, and preventing them from re-entering after brief, “comfort breaks”, I even debated the relative merits of going astronaut style and sitting in an adult diaper with them, should I choose to fly out there and try to get inside the circle. Even if this particular stand was dismantled, I knew that others would soon arise in replacement, as it dawned on more and more of us that breaking the law was our only hope for survival. Even normally reserved college students in Hong Kong are amassing in droves to give birth to a new movement called, “Occupy Central with Love and Peace,” which urges its participants to demand fully democratic elections from Chinese leaders and “Disobey and grasp your destiny.”

  My dear friend Laura Koch is now volunteering to defend activists like us with the Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild. We texted each other excitedly as we watched indie journalists cover the Climate Change Rally in NYC. “I’m afraid I’m not going to get much work done today,” she texted me as we glued ourselves to our social media with glee. Punkboy continues to advocate and agitate for the rights of the 99% both in the streets and from an online newspaper he calls, The Punkboy Times. One of his latest endeavors has been to call out a recent push by corporations and their political backers to create a fast lane for Internet users, who are able to pay higher premiums to providers to access them. He has even launched an online talk show called Wake Da FuQ Up Radio, where I have called in to chat with other guests and voice my opinions. A short time ago thousands of his followers were alarmed to see that he’d been arrested, along with several others, while protesting at Google’s San Francisco headquarters. They were trying to encourage the huge, multinational Internet service provider to be more vocal, proactive proponents of net neutrality, which is crucial to our ability, as citizen activists, to use social media as a means to quickly inform, organize, and coalesce people around an issue. Luckily, he was only detained briefly and then released, much to the relief of many of us, who were already discussing strategies to mobilize and help get him out of there. As soon as he got out he began an additional campaign to begin registering black voters to elect representatives who shared their concerns and would advocate for their best interests.

  To be sure, the 1% is noticing. So much so, that they’re starting to complain—a lot. The ripple effect of Occupy is still evident and expanding. It never ceases to amaze me when I read about yet another bloated bigot complaining about the audacity of activists for daring to expose and confront them. The January 25, 2014 edition of the Wall Street Journal included a letter to the editor by billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who cried foul for what he perceives to be an alarming trend of unjustly demonizing the rich. He said that it was “absurd to attack the rich for doing what the rich do.” In that same letter he compared the persecution he suffers as a person of wealth in America, to that inflicted on the Jews of Nazi Germany. And then he likened the Occupy Movement’s injuries to him, to those suffered by Kristallnacht victims—the infamous night in November, 1938, which saw over ninety Jews killed in a series of coordinated attacks on Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues. Wow.

  Panicky pronouncements like this reveal how opposing forces are getting to them—the engorged entozoa that have made things such an untenable mess lately and threaten to kill the host. Movements such as Occupy and the groundswell of focus groups that continue to spin off as a result are punching through the facade and hitting the hoarders where they live. Inch by inch, hour by hour, they are seeing the handwriting on the wall, in the form of more frequent and effective campaigns to end the wholesale theft of our futures. Today I read that Monsanto, feeling the heat, just announced what is called, an “accelerated share repurchase,” because of a 5% drop in earnings in the third quarter of their latest fiscal year. Much of that drop was due to plunging sales of their genetically modified seeds (especially corn) which numerous groups, such
as GMO Free USA, have been tireless in educating the public about—never missing an opportunity to out them and the role they’ve played, among many horrors, in the rapid evolution of superbugs and superweeds all over the world. In an effort to stop the bleeding, the company is buying back ten billion dollars worth of their own stock, hoping to restore consumer confidence in their products.