Occupy Sandy volunteer talks about encounter with the national guard, the police & other adventures

[limpyhobbler]

Published on Nov 3, 2012 by LMNOP Person
Volunteer Sofia Gallisá Muriente talks about an encounter with the military, the police and the other adventures. YANA Community Center B113 Rockaway Beach Blvd. Working with Occupy Sandy in Far Rockaway, which saw some of the worst damage in the hurricane in NYC. A massive fire burned to the ground 120 buildings and homes. The houses that weren't burnt, were flooded. The projects lost their electricity. They still have no electricity, day 5. Many people in need. Red Cross no where to be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=A44z33fSGqE

[snpsmom]

1. It's wonderful that Occupy is doing this

Last edited Sun Nov 4, 2012, 02:21 PM - Edit history (1)

but the hostility and fear toward the National Guard is unwarranted. The Guard are in their uniforms and helmets because that is what they wear to work and their work right now is getting supplies to folks like Sofia and helping with cleanup. If you want peace and "another way," then you need to be open to the possibility that what happened last night can become the norm, rather than immediately expecting the worst. My experience in 20 years of military service is that people join to SERVE.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. made me cry

knr

[immoderate]

3. My old neighborhood.

I grew up in Far Rockaway. Technically, she is speaking from Rockaway Beach, although the whole peninsula is sometimes called "Far Rockaway" which is at the east end (up to Beach 25 Street) or "The Rockaways." The name is from an Indian tribe that were there when settlers took over.

--imm

[sabrina 1]

4. That made me cry also. Cops and National Guard chanting 'another word is possible'!!

How beautiful. I did see on Twitter that Cops had joined OWS somewhere.

This must have been what they were talking about!

Happy tears! They are all so wonderful!

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. ...

[tama]

6. Thank God for Sandy

Bringing people together to realize what really counts. Not monetary capital, but social capital. Networks of friends.

And my male eyes just Love Her Eyebrows!

[limpyhobbler]

7. Is Occupy Wall Street Outperforming the Red Cross in Hurricane Relief?

In Sunset Park, a predominantly Mexican and Chinese neighborhood in South Brooklyn, St. Jacobi’s Church was one of the go-to hubs for people who wanted to donate food, clothing, and warm blankets or volunteer help other New Yorkers who were still suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. On Saturday, Ethan Murphy, one of the people heading the kitchen operation, estimated they would prepare and send out 10,000 meals to people in need. Thousands and thousands of pounds of clothes were being sorted, labeled, and distributed, and valuable supplies like heaters and generators were being loaded up in cars to be taken out to the Rockaways, Staten Island and other places in need. However, this well-oiled operation wasn’t organized by the Red Cross, New York Cares, or some other well-established volunteer group. This massive effort was the handiwork of none other than Occupy Wall Street—the effort is known as Occupy Sandy.

The scene at St. Jacobis on Saturday was friendly, orderly chaos. Unlike other shelters that had stopped collecting donations or were looking for volunteers with special skills such as medical training, Occupy Sandy was ready to take anyone willing to help. A wide range of people pitched in, including a few small children making peanut butter sandwiches, but most volunteers were in their 20s and 30s. A large basement rec room had become a hive of vegetable chopping and clothes bagging. They held orientations throughout the day for new volunteers. One of the orientation leaders, Ian Horst, who has been involved with a local group called Occupy Sunset Park for the past year, says he was “totally blown away by the response” and the sheer numbers of people who showed up and wanted to help. He estimated that he’d given an orientation to 200 people in the previous hour.

By midday, a line stretched all the way down the block of people who’d already attended orientation and were waiting for rides to be dispatched to volunteer. Kiley Edgley and Eric Schneider had been waiting about 20 minutes and were toward the front of the line. Like several people I spoke to, the fact that this effort was being organized by the occupy movement wasn’t a motivating factor—they found out about the opportunity to volunteer online and just wanted to help.

So how did an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, best known as a leaderless movement that brought international attention to issues of economic injustice through the occupation of Zucotti Park in the financial district last year, become a leader in local hurricane relief efforts? Ethan Murphy, who was helping organize the food at St. Jacobis and had been cooking for the occupy movement over the past year, explained there wasn’t any kind of official decision or declaration that occupiers would now try to help with the hurricane aftermath. “This is what we do already, “ he explained: Build community, help neighbors, and create a world without the help of finance. Horst said, “We know capitalism is broken, so we have already been focused on organizing to take care of our own [community] needs.” He sees Occupy Sandy as political ideas executed on a practical level.
...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/04/occupy_sandy_hurricane_relief_being_led_by_occupy_wall_street.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. The willingness of people to help others in need...that's the stuff!

[sabrina 1]

9. Wow!

And I love this:

“This is what we do already, “ he explained: Build community, help neighbors, and create a world without the help of finance. Horst said, “We know capitalism is broken, so we have already been focused on organizing to take care of our own needs.” He sees Occupy Sandy as political ideas executed on a practical level.

They are teaching the world that Capitalism is a farce as making this a better world for a maximum number of people.

They are doing all this without charge. Compare these efforts to the Bush gang during Katrina who saw it only as another opportunity to profit from. Barbara Bush eg, made a donation, but ONLY if it went to buy her son's stupid educational program.

And while all these wonderful people are not even thinking about money, but focusing on lives, we read about some who are taking advantage of people's needs, charging hundreds of dollars to rent a room, to ride a cab according to Anderson Cooper last night.

You can see why the Predatory Capitalists hate OWS. They show them up, they shatter their lies that everything has a monetary price, that nothing can get done without someone making a profit from it.

Good for Slate for writing this article.