{William Cerf's Creativity Journal 

Hi Michael,

 

I am convinced after much searching that there are no models for us to copy, no people we can rely upon. We need to take lessons learned from the various Occupy movements, the early Christian Church and other sources in order to design the model. It reminds me of the Wright Brothers attempts to create a machine that would fly. We have to create a Radical Christian Way of Life from scratch in the midst of 21^st Century chaos and disillusionment.

 

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

            --Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941)

 

 

We need to design the model, there are NO models for us to copy

We are the ones we have been waiting for!

 

First baby step: Create a core group to begin brainstorming

 

 

 

Random Thoughts – in no particular order

 

• Vision for taking care of ourselves and each other not using a “social service” or bureaucratic model.

 

• Radical Christian idea of Acceptance and Agape

 

• Dealing constructively with the kind of disruptive elements that caused so many problems at Zuccati Park. Having a strategy in place because we know that there will be attempts by hegemonic interests to disrupt our program.

 

• New economy/Solidarity economy model

 

• People do not exchange any money

 

• Church gathering spaces

 

• Occupy Wall Street style food service

 

• Healthcare

 

• Child care

 

• Time Bank or Hours type trading system

 

Questions:

 

• What did OWS get right?
• Where did OWS fail?
• How was OWS manipulated by the “powers of order”?