This article from Liberty Squared by Jill Turner was printed out of order in the original version. It is now corrected in the version you can download here at VAS and here it is in it's entirety below.

An Occupy Wall Street Blog Post 

by Jill Turner

January 21, 2012­

It is an emotional time. 

Yesterday at the Occupy the Courts rally in Springfield, MA our big fix it man, W, strawberry blonde with cheery rosacea cheeks, was first in the line of people holding signs up - “Honk if you’re not a billionaire”.  I swear most people were honking! And each time people honked, hooted and hollered, waving wildly down State Street, a look of puzzlement seemed to fleet across the faces of the special police brought in from Washington D.C. - sent out of D.C., one cop said, “Because this was happening all around the country”, at all the federal courts.  

Billions: either you got ‘em or you don’t. And, damn it, not having ‘em might mean you live on SSI – Social Security Disability, at $812 a month now, like this petite woman I know here, wearing cheapo sneakers on a snow day and a coat so enormous it could fit her big guy friend. This cup of coffee at Starbucks is likely all the entertainment they can afford. 

Shit food, shit shelter, indecent clothing —like jeans slipping off someone’s butt not because it’s the style, and the frayed edge of thermals stained with who-knows-what getting the edge on ragged sweater cuffs. It’s not fair, not to be able to afford education, walking around stunned because you never thought it would be your mind that got atrophied. No money for transportation either. 

We are all in denial to some degree. If we were suddenly aware of the suffering around the world and here at home we’d crack. Yesterday at the rally, R told me she thinks shame is not a real emotion. This was a follow up to an incident the other night when a bunch of middle class revolutionaries made a promo video for the Occupy the Courts rally at R’s Studio. 

I thought they were clever cutting out a bunch of paper heads and drawing corporate logos on them —Monsanto, McDonald’s, Walmart, Shell, etc.—and pinning them up on the wall with torso and feet from some Renaissance art cards. The young kid there asked, “Like an art gallery?”  And someone else said, “the Hall of Fame” and I offered, “the Hall of Shame!”

At first R was delighted and called it out to the group with glee: “Hall of Shame!”  But a good-looking dancer guy in his 40’s nixed it with a look of disdain bleeding through his well-wishing smile.  He muffled some comment about shame being a bad thing and without comment my contribution was vetoed.  I let it go because I have a history with these people from the dance community and the last thing I want is to lower any revolutionary fervor. 

With our signs held high, R and I crossed to the other side of State St. How much influence can 1.5 million copies of John Bradshaw’s “Healing The Shame That Binds You” have? Regarding shame as an entirely personal experience, born out of the past, without an interpersonal present context seems bizarre to me.

Surely Bradshaw didn’t intend to breed a new age culture devoid of this particular emotion, unknowingly complicit in the demise of human kind. He specifically refers to “toxic shame”.  

In my Buddhist studies I ran across a reading about shame – that there are 7 kinds of shame, three wholesome and four unwholesome. But, according to social science, confrontation can be for better or worse, and saying “shame on you” is never necessary.  Revolution is tricky business.  

Hug master, D, with his catchy smile, headed up the Occupy the Courts effort, putting in endless hours. Unbelievable how organized they were! He went in advance and measured the fancy new courthouse on 300 State Street next to St. Michael’s Church and the Quadrangle in Springfield. D went around to each mammoth planter, drilled a hole in the frozen dirt, and we plugged in metal poles with wire-fortified vertical banners reading: “We are the 99%”.  We got permission from the building manager and, with heavy-duty clamp belts, we slipped the sturdy loop of the huge “Our Country – Not For Sale” banner onto metal extension poles and secured them.

D MC’d. An estimated 100 people gathered around in the full sun. We danced and sang. There was a long line of speakers using a red megaphone. The courthouse building—a giant glass golden mean spiral ending in some stairs to nowhere­—sits kitty-corner to the Catholic Church.  And right behind it are buildings and an old school all boarded up. 

I caused a ruckus when I went to use the toilet in the courthouse.  I’m not sure how it happened. I resented the over kill high tech security at the entrance, the bunch of black suited punitive gentleman hovering there. I rapped something about the corporations they were protecting  and then a beady-eyed guard  told me I couldn’t use the bathroom because I used the f word. The library was closed. So I walked around to the back of the rectory and left a yellow hole in the snow there. 

I was so happy to celebrate after the rally at C and D’s lovely Northampton house. These people have it so together! C is a psychotherapist artist from my dance community; I remember her vagina photo portraits show. She brought homemade soup. There were breads and cheeses. D brought a huge bag of Bruegger’s bagels. This was opulence to me. 

The poor have been protesting all along.  Surviving poverty and living on the streets. Surviving insanity is a protest!! Now the middle class has been driven over the edge. They are ready to rebel, are suiting up for the revolution, and we watch to see what all that ingenuity can bring.