riparian zones and clean rooms

This is a forgotten poem I scrawled on a page for a lover as I was packing up and moving from one city to another. That lover recently got back in touch with me, typed up the poem, and sent it. Here it is.

Why are you here?
So that, in a moment,
as you expressed a simple idea about cleaning
and empty rooms
I could look at your radiant eyes
the color of an aged mahogany tree
who has seen generations of people walk beneath it
but remains standing alone
in that moment I understood fully
exactly what I was letting go.
All the richness of your person
and the solidity of your comportment
the tapestry woven by your experience
and the will to survive
that is stored in the creases your eyes trace
as your smile spreads out across long-ago happy skies
the smoothness of cinnamon-colored rolling skin
and long graceful fingers that plucked the strings of my future
singing songs into the flesh-colored cavities of my hopes
accompanied by a wholly unwarranted humility.

And there are no clean lines in this world.
Did I love you?
I knew in that moment that I did.
But if you look closely at any line
the edges blur into ugly grayness
that transform into vagabond pigeons and escape
muttering things both true and insane
turning the ordered pragmatic life
into a circus of madness.

I try to catch them, calm them
smooth the lines back
but this is a riparian zone, a flood plain
A green-yellow edge of slash-and-burn
where machines scratch and tear at the earth
where wild creatures are exposed
and they get lost and die
in a world not their own.

And there is love between us still, despite him.
Despite my imminent migration.
Love to soften your rough voice
laid over delicate silken guitar
Love to forgive many missteps

Please don’t believe for one moment
that you are not unique, indeed cherished
regarded more highly than him in so many ways.
But I am not in a position now to receive you.
This is the edge of a wave
a changing zone of calculated destruction
as the mother ocean draws the sand into her depths
I will find waves to ride to solid ground.

This is cleaning
and this is my empty room

Filed under: lacy's life, poems

churches and social services: things to remember this Thanksgiving

Churches and places of faith used to offer programs that fed the poor, took care of needy children and the elderly, and healed the sick. But as people have become less religious, these programs have closed their doors one by one, leaving the needy with government programs to rely on.

There is a myth that America became great solely through rugged individualists who never had help from anyone. But I don’t think this is true. Pilgrims like the ones we remember on Thanksgiving cared for each other and shared their common wealth. Religious programs were there for our forefathers and all generations of Americans to pull them through hardships. They provided a way for everyone to share the common bounty, including a way for wealthy Americans to donate their bucks to help those in need.

Now that churchgoers have disappeared one by one, and now that places of faith have stepped out of the center of public life, we especially need to protect the government programs that provide services to people in need. These programs are now in Republican lawmakers’ crosshairs as they seek to cut social programs — while they continue to allow wealthy Americans to avoid paying their fair share in taxes.

This Thanksgiving, as Americans everywhere sit down to share a common bounty of turkey, stuffing, and good cheer, I am going to be thankful for social programs offered by places of faith and by our government. These programs were there for us when we needed them, and helped America become the country that it is.

Filed under: activism

A letter to an unemployed activist: Occupy.

I got a letter today from a young unemployed activist, a recent college graduate from New Jersey. He wrote to my office address, looking for a job at the nonprofit organization I work for, the Institute for Policy Studies. We’ll call him Brian.

Brian writes:

I don’t know if I have stood out in any petitions or other forms of advocacy you have promoted, but I am an avid supporter of all of the work you perform. I haven’t found a welcoming place within our grandiose job market to grant me a livable wage or compensation package since my time, effort, and student loans spent receiving my Bachelor’s Degree in 2009. Because of this, I was inquiring about any possible employment opportunities and/or assistance needed with anything you guys have in the works. 

Brian has spent a little while canvassing for a local environmental organization. Disenchanted by the idea of going to work for a “major banker,” he’s looking for a job with a livable wage somewhere in the progressive movement.

I wrote Brian back:

Dear Brian,

The job market is very tight right now. Many young progressives are looking for jobs, even those who are qualified like yourself. I’m sorry, I am not aware of job openings.

My advice to you: Keep up the job search. But in the meantime, find Occupy Boston, Occupy Wall Street, or Occupy DC. Take a bus. Ride a bike. Ride a pickle. Whatever you need to do. Occupy.

Lend your skills to the progressive movement full-time for the winter. The connections you’ll make at the occupation, the friends you’ll meet, the things you’ll learn, and the experience you will build, will be invaluable to finding a job in the progressive sphere once the economy looks up a bit. Come join the movement where it is now: In parks, plazas, and squares all over the country and all over the world.

Good luck to you, and hope to see you down the road!
~Lacy

Filed under: Uncategorized

What I’ve Learned Occupying Wall Street and DC

"We are the 99 percent!" is a favorite cheer among the occupiers. People like the Koch Brothers are a good example of the 1 percent. (That's me in the bottom left corner of the photo!)

In squares, parks, and plazas all over the country, we’re taking the time for true democracy to work.

I was standing on a street one evening near my home in Washington, DC — it seems like ages ago now — with a chatty friend who travels often to New York. He mentioned that a few New Yorkers were planning an “occupation” of Wall Street.

Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I said, “I’m there.” A few weeks later, I boarded a bus, backpack and sleeping bag in tow. I was there when Occupy Wall Street began.

After some chilly nights in Liberty Plaza, I returned to Washington to help plan an occupation in my city. Others in Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, and so many more cities have begun their own occupations. Occupy DC started October 1, and is still going strong.

(Sarabeephoto / Flickr)

Many people are asking why. While the occupation of city squares all over the nation is inspiring many people, others are (understandably) a bit perplexed.

But I think people understand more than they know. Something is very wrong with our country and our world. The rich got richer from our economic crisis and the poor barely got the crumbs from their banquet table.

Now big corporations are asking for a new tax break, a tax holiday that they say will create jobs – while the last time Congress granted that tax break the main result was layoffs and downsizing. Corporations are sitting on over $2 trillion in cash but aren’t hiring. Our environment is under assault. Natural disasters are laying waste to towns like Joplin, Missouri, and some lawmakers even held up relief efforts by threatening to trim education, health care, and other vital services to free up money for emergency aid.

We keep paying for wars and people keep dying in them. About 50 million Americans have no health insurance, and too many of them go bankrupt paying for health care. Agribusiness is destroying family farms. Poverty is rampant. Congress can’t stop squabbling. Corporations have too much control. About 25 million of us are unemployed and underemployed and can’t find jobs. Too many college graduates can’t find jobs. Our children’s future is uncertain.

So, many of us are fed up. We’ve brought our anger and hopes to our city squares. We’re not leaving until we see real movement toward change. More people are arriving every day and joining us. In liberated squares, parks, and plazas all over the country, we’re discussing challenges and talking about solutions. Every voice is equal, and all of us are expected to raise our voices, our ideas, our concerns. We’re reaching consensus. We’re figuring it out as we go.

All I can say is that true democracy takes time. At Occupy DC, we meet daily to discuss why we’re there. The unemployed, the foreclosed, and the sick-of-it-all are coming together to discuss the world that we want to see and how to get there. We have big problems. We need big solutions. And those big solutions take time.

While on Wall Street and on McPherson Square on K Street in Washington, I’ve learned how to change my clothes in my sleeping bag. I’ve learned how to run a generator, which keeps us in electronic touch with the outside world. I’ve learned the best methods for hauling plastic bags of donated bread, pastries, and bagels nine city blocks. I’ve learned to appreciate tarps.

I’ve also learned that when we all raise our voices together and work in the spirit of true democracy, we can work toward real solutions and real changes to our world. We the people tend to agree on a lot more than we realize. It just takes coming together, talking things through, and not leaving until things change.

And that’s what the occupations are doing: We’re staying put, and taking the time for true democracy to work.

Filed under: Uncategorized

wealthy elite, jump ship!

They have always optimistically said that a rising tide may lift all boats, as if the invisible hand of capitalism were anything but a closed fist. But now the tide is receding as the United States and much of the rest of the world drops down into a recession that may never end. It is time that the rich jump ship and join the rest of us, or we may pull them off their boats and repurpose their luxury accommodations to serve all of us. We are tired of the rich getting tax breaks, offshore cheating schemes, and bailouts while the rest of us are left to tread water, however we can.

The tea party has been created to save the rich. Most of them don’t know it, but they are working to bail out water by the buckets while the yachts of the corporate elite sink under the tides of public opinion. The orchestrators of the tea party have them calling for corporate freedom, for deregulation and privatization, under the guise of supporting personal freedom. They have them calling for lower taxes for corporations under the auspices of reducing the federal budget.

We are chucking the tea party as well, like overpriced tea being chucked into the Boston Harbor. Like taxed tea from Britain, the tea party is nothing more than a tool to keep us under an imperialist, colonizing system.

Filed under: Uncategorized

fluffed up into news: the royal wedding spectacle

So, two of my family members are certifiably anglophiles. They love all things British. Seriously.

Last night I was having drinks with said family members, which somehow spiraled into a plan to have a slumber party at one of their homes, and wake up at 6:00 AM in order to watch the British Royal Wedding in its entirety on network television. Just a little preface to explain why I am posting about this absurd public event.

ABC News, CBS News, and USA Today all headlined today with the royal wedding. It was hard to think about anything else this afternoon when viewing their news websites, as each site housed dozens of articles, features, videos, and photo slideshows were popping out from all directions. MSNBC at least shared their “above the fold” space with a feature about the storm damage in the southern US. “Faux News” (or Fox, which doesn’t really count since it’s not news,) had the wedding sharing headline space with some favorite right-wing topics: Donald Trump and stem-cell research. The New York Times was among the few news outlets this afternoon in headlining with the storm damage and President Obama’s visit to the US South, forcing the reader to pan down the page to find coverage of British royals.

The absurdity was overwhelming. I think it’s great that two people who like each other a whole lot want to strengthen their commitment. Love is beautiful. However, it’s not news. There is nothing about this wedding to merit so much time and resources of every major news network, yet it was somehow fluffed up into a major television event that had the play-by-play analysis of an event that none of us have any business caring about anyway. It made me think a lot about our news media’s culture of spectacle. Things that aren’t really news become news because the television networks tell us that we should care about them. It is news for news’ sake.

Which is tragic, especially when there are actually very important things happening all around us that actually do matter, and that we should be hearing about. There are hundreds of people dead due to the storms in the southern US, and thousands upon thousands of people displaced. There are people struggling for their independence in Bah’rain and Libya, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq. Japan’s under-reported nuclear disaster still threatens to disseminate some of the deadliest toxins known to science.

News networks should cover real news. Not puffed up spectacles like the royal wedding.

Filed under: lacy's life, media, thoughts and philosophies

wild like me

A song by Lacy MacAuley, for a dear friend
(Working on a little recording with music. To be continued!)

Photo by Ernst Haas.

There I stood, as the sun and stars forgot to shine
There I stood, in a cloud of lust and red, red wine

I asked a sacred question: Am I lost?

And what could I do? I flew.

And now here you stand in front of me.

Are you wild like me?

Are you wild and ready?

Can you fly like me?

Can you leave today?

I’ll take you out, out, out and away,

but you have to be ready for me.

Feral hearts can house a thousand things.

Just listen now to the songs that they sing.

I can shelter you and still give you wings,

and I don’t need their papers or their diamond rings. 

You can’t hold the ground if you want to fly.

Take to our wings and who knows what we’ll find.

A hundred adventures I see in your eyes

share tomorrow’s secrets with the sunrise.

A winged creature, I cannot be caged.

No bars can hold a tempest, a sage.

The darkness of night will turn to the dawn.

And when it does I’ll be traveling on.

Still you stand in front of me.

Can you shake the cold

and step into the light?

Can you shake the oppression

of the long empty night?

Come with me and be one

in the journey. 

Are you wild like me?

Are you wild and ready?

Can you fly like me?

Can you leave today?

I’ll take you out, out, out and away,

but you have to be ready for me.

Filed under: lacy's life, poems

hey US government, are you serious about promoting US jobs?

If the presidential administration really cared about US jobs, why would they be pushing free trade agreements like the proposed Korea FTA, allowing corporations to close up shop and move to countries where they can more readily exploit the labor force (like these South Korean women in a textile factory)?

Speaking to the worst of the worst capitalist business tycoons yesterday, President Obama tried to appeal to a sense of patriotism among business leaders, telling the Chamber of Commerce to promote American jobs.

But if the presidential administration is serious about increasing US exports, why would they be trying to ram through free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia? In December Obama urged Congress to promote the Korea agreement, saying it was a “landmark trade deal.” Hearings on these agreements were pushed up on the Congressional calendar and took place in January.

These free trade agreements kill US jobs. They only give US corporations easy access to exploited workers (which they call “cheap labor”) in other countries, allowing corporations to close their US factories faster than you can say “sweat shop.”

Obama told the Chamber of Commerce yesterday that:

How do we make sure that everybody’s got a stake in trade, everybody’s got a stake in increasing exports, everybody’s got a stake in rising productivity? Because ordinary folks end up seeing their standards of living rise as well. That’s always been the American promise.

Later in his speech he alluded to growing the manufacturing sector, telling success stories of US-based corporations like GM and Whirlpool opening new factories in the US.

If the presidential administration is taking a stance in support of increasing our manufacturing sector and therefore our exports, why would they be pushing for US job loss through free trade agreements (FTAs) – with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia?

A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that, if we were to implement the Korea FTA, we would actually lose 159,000 jobs in the US within the first seven years. Not exactly very patriotic, then, to promote trade with Korea.

As testified by Global Trade Watch in a hearing on Capitol Hill this past January, Ambassador Kharan Bhatia stated in October 2006 that it was a “myth” that “the US will get the bulk of the benefits of the FTA.” He further stated that:

If history is any judge, it may well not turn out to be true that the US will get the bulk of the benefits, if measured by increased exports… the history of our FTAs is that bilateral trade surpluses of our trading partners go up.”

Even the official US government numbers don’t add up to increased jobs through these free trade agreements. In a report released September 2007, the US International Trade Commission projected that we will run a trade deficit for all goods from textiles to iron ore, from cars to computers. It showed a deficit of between $308 million and $416 million. That’s bad news for workers in the US.

And furthermore, US job loss is just common sense. South Koreans can make everything on the cheap thanks to their low currency. If we care about US jobs, why promote free trade agreements?

Filed under: activism, consumerism, global justice, human welfare, immigrant rights, indigenous rights, international relations, thoughts and philosophies

Egypt has been due for an uprising!

I know that two very inspiring labor leaders I worked with last year, Kamal Abu 'Eita (far left) and Kamal Abbas (far right), are in the streets of Egypt right now, demanding revolution! Photo by Lacy MacAuley.

In Egypt, there are tanks on fire, thousands of people in the streets of Cairo and Suez, and a dictator whose days are numbered. I’m glad to say that I have been telling people of the coming uprising for about a year! Brave Egyptians have been violating Mubarak’s protest ban, starting as early as 2004. Their numbers increased dramatically throughout last year, culminating in the inspiring revolution that’s happening in Egypt right now.

Last year I had the opportunity to work with Kamal Abbas and Kamal Abu ‘Eita, the heads of a labor groups that have been calling protests since 2004. These two leaders were receiving a prestigious award from the AFL-CIO on behalf of all Egyptian workers, and receiving training and resources that would help them in their struggle for fair pay, good jobs, and basic human rights. Over tea and baklava, I chatted with these two inspiring men (and reporters) about the coming Egyptian uprising!

They had been invited to DC by the Solidarity Center, the international affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The center had just released The Struggle for Worker’s Rights in Egypt, a report that showed that protests were on the rise. I worked to make reporters aware of the study, which documented the growth of an Egyptian movement of resistance. The New York Times took notice (as did AP, the BBC, and the Wall Street Journal), featuring the article on the front page of its “WORLD” section with a full-color photo, stating:

“Nearly every day since February, protesters have chanted demands outside Parliament during daylight and laid out bedrolls along the pavement at night. The government and its allies have been unable to silence the workers, who are angry about a range of issues, including low salaries.”

Today, the New York Times referred again to the Solidarity Center’s report:

“From 2004 to 2008 alone, about 1.7 million workers have engaged in 1,900 strikes and other forms of protest, demanding everything from wage increases to job security in state-owned industries that were privatized.”

It’s incredibly exciting to see the news from Egypt, knowing that we were right this past year that the Egyptian people were due for an uprising! I know that Kamal and Kamal, some of the most vocal opponents of Mubarak’s regime, are out there now in the streets, calling for revolution!

Filed under: Uncategorized

each word a stone to throw

A poem by Lacy MacAuley

Eliminating laws, opening trade, deregulating the market
has put us in a prison.

Cold austerity, chilling strictures
have ignited us and caused the streets to burn.

The largest sums of money paid by the hugest banks
have only caused more poverty.

The neoliberal world
is one in which the most basic sense is backwards, upside down.
It is as false as a mirror,
turning backwards all that is trusted, reversing that which is true.
A glass world of pomp and doublespeak.

And who is to say that a single strategic brick – red and sure as the hand on the drum, as the red human blood pumping through my raised fist, as red as the veins of the earth scratched raw by their bulldozers – who is to say that a single strategic brick could not bring down this house of mirrors?

Filed under: activism, antiwar, climate justice, environmentalism, immigrant rights, lacy's life, poems, thoughts and philosophies

uruguay’s free trade woes: free people, not trade!

"For many the pictures we're showing are aggressive. The truth is is what is aggressive is what's inside" the cigarette package, said Walter Abascal, program head for Uruguay's anti-tobacco program. Abascal spoke to Al-Jazeera reporter Teresa Bo (pictured left).

“Free trade” at work. Uruguay passes legislation to discourage smoking. So multinational corporation Philip Morris presses charges against them under a free trade agreement, saying Uruguay’s health-oriented laws are hurting their business. Ugh.

Uruguay’s anti-tobacco legislation requires cigarette companies to cover 80 percent of their packaging with pictures of the effects of smoking. This results in cigarette boxes with unsightly images of yellow teeth, underweight babies on life support, throat cancer victims with open tracheas, and more. The legislation also prohibits smoking in public places.

“For many the pictures we’re showing are aggressive. The truth is is what is aggressive is what’s inside” the cigarette package, said Walter Abascal, program head for Uruguay’s anti-tobacco program, speaking to Al-Jazeera reporter Teresa Bo.

Philip Morris is pressing charges against the tiny Latin American nation on the grounds that the legislation is hurting its profits in Uruguay. The multinational tobacco corporation intends to press charges under a clause of the free trade agreement between Uruguay and Switzerland, where the corporation’s operational headquarters are located. On these grounds, the corporation might actually win in international courts, forcing Uruguay to reverse legislation.

Free trade agreements violate a country’s right to self-governance. Governments don’t often express the will of the people, but it’s still better to have a government making decisions than a freaking corporation. A tiny country like Uruguay shouldn’t have to defend its legitimate legislation enacted by its democratic government on the grounds that some corporation’s profit margin is threatened.

Every free trade agreement is nothing but a weapon of domination, enabling the wealthy corporate aristocracy to tighten the grip that they have on our necks. Free people, not trade.

Filed under: activism, consumerism, global justice, human welfare, international relations

judy bonds: “fight harder”

Judy Bonds (center) was a fearless keeper of the mountains. I snapped this photo with fellow activists at Mountain Justice Spring Break 2010.

The fearless Judy Bonds, keeper of the mountains, passed yesterday.

I remember first meeting Judy way back in 2004, when I was a brand new activist accompanying a friend to the Heartwood forest conservation conference. With others from her team at Coal River Mountain Watch, Judy talked to me about coal mining in Appalachia, the harmful practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and what it was doing to the communities and the ecosystems of the region. As we stood under a pine tree on the conference grounds, she spoke about the destruction she saw in her own holler. I remember being astounded that industry could erase a whole mountain from the surface of the planet, mountains that had taken hundreds of millions of years to form. From that moment on I have been convinced of the urgent need to save the mountains from the coal companies.

In that conference of environmentalists six years ago, few had heard of mountaintop removal coal mining. But there was Judy, alerting people to the destructive coal mining in Appalachia. From the very beginning, Judy was there, igniting the movement to save the mountains.

She was a truly inspiring activist and organizer, a coal miner’s daughter who loved the mountains around her and did not want to see them sacrificed for greed. Her mountains were an inheritance for her grandchildren. Like all true crusaders, Judy would not want us to do anything but work harder to save the mountains.

Vernon Haltom, fellow mountain justice activist, said it best: “While we grieve, let’s remember what she said, ‘Fight harder.’”

Instead of mourning, I am taking this moment to renew my commitment to working to save the earth.

Filed under: activism, climate justice, environmentalism, lacy's life

red moon solstice ~ it’s been quite a year

From the streets of Wall Street, to the mountains of Appalachia, from New Orleans to Pittsburgh to Toronto, the moon has borne witness to an incredible year for me. As I watched this celestial body emerge from the eclipse on a red moon solstice, I saw myself entering a new phase.

I marked the red moon solstice from the top of a snowy mountaintop on the Appalachian Trail, bundled in blankets with three fellow adventurers. As the moon went from a silvery white orb, then passing into the accidental shadow of the earth, growing to the full red of a hawk’s eye, I saw the moon as a grandmother. She watches over the small comings and goings of all of us, from the great deeds we do to the moments we’re not as proud of.

The moon has borne witness to an incredible year for me.

January found me emceeing a rally in the cold streets of New York, just off of Wall Street, calling for a fair, effective carbon tax policy, shoulder to shoulder with the renowned climate scientist James Hansen.

In February I was giving voice to Egyptian workers, rising up against unfair working conditions and a global economy that has left them on the receiving end of unfair trade policy and crippling external debt to institutions like the IMF.

In the early March I was in the mountains of rural Appalachia offering media relations workshops at the movement-building Mountain Justice Spring Break to save the mountains from the harmful practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Filed under: activism, human welfare, lacy's life, media, thoughts and philosophies

really really free market rocks the free world

Everyone found something to call theirs at the Really Really Free Market. Brian and Nicole display Brian's fabulous new-to-him powder blue blazer.

A statuette of Brahms. A purple leisure suit. A stylish Mariela folding bicycle. An oversized brasier. A silky powder blue blazer. Bike tires. An adventuring backpack. All of these things traded hands at last night’s Really Really Free Market without any money whatsoever, and many people got holiday gifts without ever having to look at a shopping mall.

“The holidays are a time when everyone is confronted with the ugly face of consumer capitalism,” said Drew Sherlock, one of the event’s organizers. “But people don’t see an alternative to the long lines and stampedes. We are providing that alternative with the free sharing of goods that can be used as gifts. No money, no barter, no trade – just our community taking care of each other.”

Radical carols sung had titles such as "The Twelve Days of Shopping."

Voices were raised in radical carols led by James Ploeser, a local organizer who had just returned from the Cancun climate summit. The twisted carols had titles such as “God Bless You Very Wealthy Men” and “The Twelve Days of Shopping,” with lyrics that called into question consumerism and capitalism.

Several pizzas were dropped off by an anonymous donor at some point in the night, joining candy and cookies. A classic folding Mariela bicycle was brought home by a local bike mechanic, and a Peugot beauty with a cracked derailer was brought home by a bike-loving activist. Books and bike parts, skirts and shirts, toasters and trinkets, cosmetics and cookbooks, dishes and dancing shoes, jackets and jangles all changed hands in a non-monetized atmosphere of open sharing. And the price couldn’t have been better.

Smiles abounded, and the question on everyone’s mind as they were leaving was, “When can we do this again?”

Friends showing off their Really Really Free Market booty!

Filed under: activism, consumerism, environmentalism, lacy's life, Washington DC

hula hooping at the National Association of Broadcasters to say, “Stop making community radio jump through hoops”

Yes, that's me hula hooping on Democracy Now and chanting "Free the airwaves!"

On Monday I hula hooped in front of the National Association of Broadcasters to ask them to stop the “hoopla” and support low-powered community radio. Community radio and independent media is an essential part of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but the NAB wants to kill a bill that would free the airwaves so that more people could use FM radio to communicate and make their voices heard.

Gordon Smith, the chief of the NAB, is rumored to be walking the halls of Congress lately, meeting with our legislators, to try to kill the Local Community Radio Act (HR 1147 and SB 592). This bill would make the airwaves far more democratic by making it easier for communities to start their own radio stations. Low-powered radio is essential to local fire departments, independent media, and other emergency responders. If you have a chance, please call your Congressperson to tell them to support these bills!

For more information please visit www.prometheusradio.org.

Filed under: Uncategorized

hey DC Council, tax the rich, don’t cut from the poor!

“No tax breaks for corporations! Tax the rich, don’t cut from the poor!”

This was my message upon disrupting Tuesday’s budget vote at the Washington DC Council (as shown in the video). As US Congress discussed their own tax cuts to the rich, Empower DC and other Washington DC advocacy organizations were calling for a one percent tax increase to the city’s rich, especially millionaires, rather than cutting vital social services to low-income Washingtonians.

Adams Morgan ANC Commissioner Chris Otten and I disrupted the vote by standing in front of Vince Gray, the Council chair, holding up a banner and saying our piece. Other brave activists stood up as well and stated their objections to the proposed cuts. Our disruption was noted in the Washington Post blog, as well as other local news outlets.

The DC Council wants to slash the budget for important services such as assistance for grandparents taking care of their grandchildren (there are many in this city), food subsidies for mothers taking care of their children, and valuable job training for residents. And this at a time when the city’s unemployment rate is nigh on 20%. A “millionaire’s tax” would raise enough revenue to pay for all of these services, but the DC Council is unwilling to tap this potentially vast source of revenue.

Filed under: activism, lacy's life, media, Washington DC

luck dragon

A poem by Lacy MacAuley

luck dragons, now I know,seldom to good or evil go

I’m stepping out of a dragon’s lair
Still smokey from the crackling air
The luck dragon who dances there
has rhythm tangled in his hair

Nearer to the stars is nearer to the past
Holding a movement to make the morning last
We climbed closer but did not take flight
Our wings may open on some other night

What delicacies do dragons keep
if not maidens to help them sleep?
Unicorns to cast a spell with?
A fire tonic for hearts to melt with?

Lining their nests with golden words
with captured colors, songs they’ve heard,
luck dragons, now I know,
seldom to good or evil go
but weave and move in weaving lines
to neutral truth, serpentine
in their passage, covering ground
enough to circle many times round
the earth until they reach a speed
felt only by hearts wild and free,
something like the speed of light
into an eighth dimension flight.

This luck dragon heaved a lightning breath
through a cloud of charge into a unicorn’s depths.
Reactively they threw off sparks
to ignite their wooden, waiting hearts.

Filed under: poems

what is “protest”?

Reclaiming space is "protesting." This woman's drumming troupe took over a plaza in my neighborhood a few months ago, in my view a small, everyday act of "protest."

I tend to think of “protest” as anything that reclaims space from oppressors. It is not necessarily “violent,” though it can be. “Protest” to me means asserting my right to be here, to be free, to be connected to people and earth, and to be different than our oppressors tell us we should be. For example: Indigenous people in the Amazon holding onto their language even as the state tells them to assimilate, bold people in Detroit reclaiming a vacant lot for a community garden, a queer person in rural Kansas dressing exactly the way he/she/etc feels, these are also forms of protest against the dominant, oppressive order.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Over 500 attend March and rally to say “No Fracking Way!” to dangerous and destructive hydro-fracking gas drilling

"Only a dying soul," said Reynoldsville, PA farmer Stephen Cleghorn, pointing his finger at the David Lawrence Convention Center, "can contemplate the destruction of life that they're discussing in that building right now!"

“No Fracking Way!” was the thunderous statement made by over 500 protestors in Pittsburgh today, marching from Allegheny Landing to the David Lawrence Convention Center. Residents from West Virginia, Western Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania were joined by activists and artists from all over the country to oppose dangerous and destructive hydro-fracking gas drilling. The impassioned rally circled David Lawrence Convention Center, where inside gas industry executives were meeting to discuss the “future” of hydro-fracking gas drilling and planning to use heavy explosives to blast apart the Marcellus Shale formation to get the gas beneath.

[View photos of today’s rally on the Flickr page.]

[Get the latest updates at www.marcellusprotest.org.]

“This is a revolution!” said Loretta Weir of Lincoln Place, Pittsburgh. Loretta said that a revolution was needed since the gas companies operate “outside the law.” Weir took the podium to encourage city residents to support a moratorium on drilling in Pittsburgh, and to attend a public hearing tomorrow to discuss the matter.

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anti-fracking social hour generates electric crackle

Pittsburgh says "No Fracking Way!" to dangerous and destructive hyrdo-fracking gas drilling.

Activists, artists, and community members gathered at the Shadow Lounge in Pittsburgh Tuesday night for an anti-fracking social hour hosted by the Shadbush Collective, to warm up and gear up for tomorrow’s protest of the harmful process of hydro-fracking. The crowd enjoyed a meal together and heard from Loretta Weir, Lincoln Place resident and supporter of the ban on hydro-fracking within Pittsburgh city limits, on why all Pittsburgh residents should oppose drilling within city limits by attending a public hearing on November 4th and other actions.

As the crowd gathered and discussed plans for tomorrow, an electric crackle rose from the crowd to shout “NO FRACKING WAY!” to destructive gas drilling in Pennsylvania or Appalachia. Tomorrow they will be joined by thousands in the streets of Pittsburgh.

“It’s not just tomorrow, it’s about the emergence of a grassroots movement about it,” said Mel Packer, one of the organizers of tomorrow’s activities, who was present at the social hour. “The anger is building. It’s building all across the city, all across the state. People are making the connections that they’re not about to let their futures get ruined by private profit.”

Later in the evening, the Shadow Lounge was transformed into an open mic night, and activists stayed to enjoy the music and share a bit of their own work. Anti-fracking activist Shannon Ayala, also an artist based in New York City, planned to share his music and poetry:

We were driving, through a fracking land,
We were searching, for a metal hand,
Pointing, into the wind
saying, when will we begin
Sickness, sickness, sickness in Pennsylvania
who brought on, who brought on the mania
Big black gold, big black gold under ya
Who has sold, who has sold Pennsylvania?
- Shannon Ayala, “Beyond Horizon”

Filed under: activism, environmentalism