Town Halls in Preparation for Interdependence Day on June 16th

Town Halls

In Preparation of Seven Sisters’

~Photograph by MissNikkiAnn

Interdependence Day on June 16^th at Bushnell Park, Hartford

Structure

Seven Sisters has decided to hold a series of small town halls with individual groups over a period of a few weeks:  May 1^st – May 20^th.  The purpose of these town halls is to help in establishing the content of the event by exchanging ideas on speakers, musicians, and even brainstorming with you on methods for organizing your community.

We will supply each group with an organizing questionnaire to be completed before the Town Hall in order to have a focused discussion about what your groups needs may be, and solidifying these things on the day of the official meeting.  We will then share the results of each town hall with the proceeding group and post the results of each town hall on our blog and Facebook.  Together, in this way, we will have planned Interdependence Day!

The First Step

Appoint yourself the organizer of your town hall or recruit a friend to do it; gather a committed group of people who want to demonstrate to the oligarchy our power; contact us (ct7sisters@gmail.com); and together, we’ll determine a date and time for your Town Hall and send you the organizing questionnaire.

In preparation for the Town Hall

Ask yourselves:

• How is our community MOST affected by current economic and social conditions?
• What is our community’s GREATEST need?

Then figure out how and what your community can contribute.

Also, we’ll ask you to bring to the table suggestions on the following:

1. Speakers
2. Musicians/Storytellers/Dancers/Choirs/Drill Teams, etc.
3. Information booths (so it’s important to know what political, social or neighborhood organizations you think should be there representing.).
4. Carpools/Buses (we’ll have two streets closed off for event parking, so let us know you’re coming!).
5. Creating a plan for inviting your neighborhood and communities.
6. Devising slogans, posters and fliers to advertise to your community.

Let’s bring all of Connecticut out for a day in the park, celebrating our growing resistance to the oligarchy!


~Seven Sisters

The Youth Is Duly Disturbed by Olive K.

~Photograph by MissNikkiAnn

For most of my childhood, society didn’t really matter to me because I thought I was going to Hogwarts.  Needless to say, this didn’t happen; thus, along with an entire generation raised on the false promise of a letter by owl post, I came to accept that this world is all we get.  In the fall of 2001, when I had achieved the height of the average hobbit, I noticed that my parents were turning off the news in disgust.  From this, I deduced that the outside world is a bad place.

I am glad to say that my antipathy towards this world has since been tempered by a broader worldview and the acquaintance of some truly wonderful people, but I am by no means the only teenager so affected.  I will not attempt to characterize my generation because I have no right to do so: I don’t want anyone branding me as part of the “text-message generation,” so I won’t label anyone with my own generalizations.  I can confidently say, however, that much of the apathy and dissatisfaction of America’s youth can be attributed to the poor decisions of our supposed role models.

Time and again, I have seen any and all shortcomings of the newest crop of teenagers blamed on the media, parents, technology, schools, subversive music… I could go on.  Believe me, there are times when current pop music makes me question our intelligence too.  However, I find that adults often forget something important:

When the government fights a war it can’t finance, we know who will ultimately pay.  When taxes are bottom-heavy, we know that talent, intellect, and work ethic are not enough to get us through college.  And when we hear, “Drill baby, Drill!” we know that we cannot even count on older generations to leave us with an earth fit to inhabit.  Intelligence is not magically endowed when one turns eighteen; kids are observant enough to notice current events and to be duly disturbed.

To say that the youth is in decline is inaccurate because it implies that the rest of the population is not.  At this point, blame is arbitrary.  With America and the world taking a turn for the worse, we are going to have to get over ourselves and admit that, as human beings, it is our responsibility to clean up the mess that we, as human beings, created.

To me, the Occupy movement is simultaneously an expression of this dissatisfaction and living proof that society does not have to be so dysfunctional:

If a few hundred people can live peacefully in a small park, sharing food and living space, then why must America continue to fight both against its citizens and any foreign nation with oil while waging a full-out war on the environment?

My generation is not the first to struggle with entering the society that our parents have built.  But if drastic action is not taken, we may be one of the last.


~Essay by Olive K.