February 22, 2012

Hello from OccupyKochTown - Fight Tar Sands in collaboration with Sierra Club 2/17-19/12 pt.2

P.S. Casual remarks from Wichitans along the route of Saturday's march indicate that they do not know the Koch bro's Tar Sands Pipeline project is for FOREIGN oil on its way to ASIAN markets, nor that it is estimated to raise the price of a barrel of oil by $3.00.

February 22, 2012

Hello from OccupyKochTown - Fight Tar Sands in collaboration with Sierra Club 2/17-19/12 pt.1

OccupyWichita hosted OccupyTulsa, OccupyCentralOklahoma, OccupyKU, OccupyKC, and the Sierra Club. There was community education, marching to the Kansas Policy Institute, Wichita Chamber of Commerce, and a Women's fair in downtown Wichita on Saturday. On Sunday the coalition collaborated in a GA and then marched to and mic checked their message loud and clear, despite a few counter-protestors, to Koch HQ on the outskirts of Wichita. The people's mic closed with a strong unanimous promise to continue to fight the XL Tar Sands Pipeline project and to return to Koch HQ.











Labor historian/journalist Mike Elk from In These Times

February 1, 2012

Fond memories of hands. Strong, firm hands, some with motor grease around the nails.

Motor grease from doing ALL of our own car repairs, in addition to his paycheck job . . .

Sun-browned hands, black hair at thick wrists, clutching motorcycle grips, pulling the front break, twisting the throttle...

Mom's hands alternately pounding and then smoothing bread dough, for 6 loaves, 2 times a week. Or caked with mixing flour and eggs for noodles that would dry in sheets on wooden clothes-drying racks on the back porch . . .

My dad's hand with a crushed thumb-nail, purple black, swollen; without a word, he quickly & expertly used a drill to make a hole to relieve the pressure, then wrapped the palm & thumb in strips of torn dish-towel and took us fishing . . .

Powerful hands full of life and doing,

Not the empty hands of a hollow idle man who mouths that others do, in commands from the sound of silence.