This is a lucky day for me, to stand before you.I wish I could offer something in returnFor what you’ve given me:
The hope I thought I’d spent three years ago.
You great human specimens
Who offer your nights and days to the Occupation
Who offer yourselves as a lens on the world.
A vision of changing our lives,
To reflect our passion for justice,
For community and for connection,
Outside what’s permissible under the corporate regime
Which now passes for our republic
And still goes by its great name:
The United States of America.
You, here, on the Barricades of the Now
I wonder where you find the strength
To stand and stare, and endure the gaze
Of those who haven’t heard the call.
My thoughts turn to the middle-men
Whose incomprehension and scorn
Stands between you and the new world
On which you’ve settled your gaze.
The police, yes, and the traders
The wannabe moguls, the eager drones.
The newscasters and commentators
With their weary condescension.
Tribes that insulate the status quo,
That bad dream, which they too, suffer
And who stultify your dream of another world.
The only analogy I can offer
Is that of the service call.
We’ve all made such calls
To some bank or agency or institution
Some monolith which typifies
The drab abuse of routine power.
Precisely those whose inspire your resistance here.
Think of those you encounter on such a call
How they speak as if the rules that bind them
On the wrong side of the human story,
Were laws as natural as gravity.
As if the curbs on their humanity, and yours,
Were common sense, were right as rain.
How I wish, at those times, in my weakness
I could climb through the phone,
And commence my career as a strangler!
And so I imagine how you must feel
Looking into those faces.
Your grace, your restraint, is astounding.
God bless you for that.
For it’s never worthwhile to heap abuse
On those who perpetuate the lies
When you know they’re lied to as well.
Even those who sneer or berate,
They’re one of you, one of us,
Just not willing, not yet, not quite,
To try on the glasses, to look through the lens.
Not yet conscious of the possibilities
That lay within your steady gaze.
So they react in defense
Of the only world they know,
And against fear of what’s unknown.
What’s best to do, on a call like that?
Best is to summon these words:
“I’d like to speak to your supervisor.”
And then, usually, to say it again,
When the so-called supervisor appears,
“Now your supervisor, please.”
And so on, up the line.
That’s what this Occupation is:
The greatest collective service call ever made.
The ones you want to speak with
Are those who enact the structures
Within which the operators serve,
The real architects of the status quo.
The muckety-mucks, not those
On who they dump their muck
Nor even those who dump on their behalf.
I’d like to speak to your supervisor, please.
A graceful question, and peaceful too.
I’d like to speak to your supervisor, please.
Until you get to the top of the scheme,
The secret room at the summit of the tower.
How simple, really.
We all know who they are,
The supervisors with whom we wish to speak.
Their name crawl across our televisions,
Are etched on the plastic in our wallets,
And on our stadiums and concert halls.
They’re the ones avoiding your call,
And they’re the ones you want to speak with.
For if corporations are persons now,
Let them and their masters be called to account
Within the human community,
Let them answer to We, The People,
On this vast person-to-person call.
The phone’s ringing now.
You’re about to get through.
So go to the top.
Don’t settle, my friends, don’t settle for anything less.
Occupy Wall Street Library 