Posts by Hilary Stace
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And without revealing in that one sentence something they would rather not have publicised. As in, "This is Garth, he has a wonderful model train set in his garage".
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Emma Hart,
I would love to be able to do that. Tricky part is getting them into the same place at the same time, when it is quiet enough for each to hear the other. Unfortunately, they might also dislike each other on sight.
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It is very difficult to find that value neutral question to start a conversation. I have found that if it is at a party or function for someone or for a particular cause to ask "What is your relationship to x?" and that is usually pretty safe, and they have to answer with more than yes or no and that provides something to build on. People are often happy to talk about their own lives if you can get onto something that is important to them (not too confidential). Once you have got that far you can get on to politics.
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I'm lucky that I am in that demographic that is both mass-produced and invisible (even though I'm not a small person). I can meet people several times and they have no recollection or meeting me, or think I'm someone else. Just as well that I also have a poor memory for faces, although I can identify people by the way they walk or move, sometimes without seeing them for many decades.
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A short video from the beginning of yesterday's Occupy Wellington (The Milanese reporter missed the Milanese native a few feet away.)
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Occupy Wellington chose its venue carefully - across the road from the NZX building and beside the public heart of the city, civic square. (They can probably also see the big screen at the fanzone from their site.) The mayor has been to visit them today.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Sacha,
I feel a bit like a neutrino. My post got here before me. Thanks Sacha. But the whole era is feeling a bit odd so nothing is surprising any more. I haven’t checked twitter either (Occupywelly) but even with the free wi-fi in Wellington people seemed to be doing that unusual thing of actually talking to each other today, rather than reporting it electronically.
Giovanni got a bit annoyed at the poor spelling and grammar on some of the placards, which I am sure he will comment on later, and he introduced to me to Deborah who was in Wellington. Close by some young ACT people tried to be provocative with their placards praising the free market, and Ron Paul, but in these postmodern times no one took any notice. I noticed the TV1 guy chasing around for some good shots and a young reporter for Scoop seemed to be giving interviews as much as interviewing others. Anyhow it just reinforced to me that what you see on the news is only one tiny aspect of what is happening.
A reasonably sized diverse crowd gathered on the bridge in the rain at 1 pm basically to connect, out of curiosity and just be part of a worldwide movement which is saying something like stop and change direction. Unlike Auckland there were few political party/union identifiers and I only noticed one person with a Unite flag. Before long it cleared up and was pleasant and mild on that well-designed City to Sea bridge people space. People came and went and there was much chatting about politics and common concerns. Connecting. Lots of families and babies and kids. I liked that. Some are inevitably driven to organise and a section decided to march down to the stock exchange to have some anti-capitalist speeches. A staunch young woman I have known since she was a baby called for like-minded people to form a ‘committee’. My friend (her mother) and I were getting tired feet so we went off to the library cafe to ponder on our parenting skills and activist role-modelling if this is what our children had learned – to form a committee. When we came back Occupy had evolved into a variety of large and small groups of people doing their own thing, surrounded by their placards. Some tourists stopped to ask some young women what their notice ‘Don’t buy sh*t’ meant. Didn’t hear the answer.
A large circle of mostly young people had formed their committee and were sitting on the ground taking turns with a talking stick (someone’s juggling baton), introducing themselves, reading out stuff, having their say, or deciding on strategy. It was very heartening, though, to see the next generation so able and together. Who knows what comes next and this global movement is, after all, only 4 weeks old? But for once I felt optimistic for the future. These days my activism strategy is to encourage others. Then retreat to a cafe.
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Anyone posted this yet? Occupy Wall Street as a work of art
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It seems that Simon Power's new job involves managing the wealth transfer following the sale of state assets to a few high net worth individuals who are customers of Australian owned Westpac. What a great example of the the 99% versus the 1%.
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I've been watching this movement mostly via twitter since just before 17 September. A friend lives in New York and I kept asking him about it but he hadn't heard anything until he went down to the park and saw it all happening (but he has a banking background so wasn't inclined to join). It's been very interesting watching the media slowly take an interest since the early days (less than a month ago) when Al Jazeera and the local Indymedia provided the only coverage apart from extensive social media.
Anyhow it's exciting and heartening that is starting to happening around NZ, including a meet-up at the Wellington City to Sea bridge over looking the NZSX building from 1pm Saturday. It's seems to be very postmodern movement - very grassroots, youthful, and bring-your-own-poster, - and resistant to any one person or group claiming to have 'the' message that others should follow. And if you are inclusive to the '99%' you will have a variety of interpretations about what this means. So I'll be there - even if I am 20 years older than anyone else.