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Why Occupy? Why Tea Party? Why Protest? Simple; The US economy is broken. Incomes are less than they were 35 years ago. Everything costs more. We've had 17% unemployment (traditional measure) for 2 years and we're about to lose many more jobs.. Our collective debt is 370% of our GDP (from all sources, from consumer to gov't). Our financial system has a) enabled the transfer of our manufacturing jobs to a mercantilist (managed trade) China and b) stolen the rest of our wealth (and is in the process of gambling what's left of it away). Finally, given the ongoing instability of our economic system, we don't have long before the entire thing fails and with it our collective future (rich or poor). The question really is: why aren't you protesting? why isn't everyone protesting?
This chart (below) shows why the Tea Party is different than the Occupy movement
There's no question that the Occupy groups have done a great job with constructing the outlines of resilient communities in the heart of many of our most dense urban areas.
People pitch in to do work. They are considerate despite the difficulty of the arrangement. Food gets served. The area gets cleaned. There is entertainment. There's innovation (equipment, tech, workarounds). There is education (lots of seminars being taught). There is open, participatory governance. All of this is great and this experience will definitely pay off over the next decade as the global economy deteriorates, panics, fails. It will make building resilient communities easier (there are lots of ways to build a resilient community, we're trying to document all of the ways how on MiiU).
However, is this experience building a tribal identity? An Occupy tribe? Something that can eventually (there's lots to do in the short to medium term) go beyond protest and build something new? One even strong enough to create new resilient economic and social networks that step into the breach as the current one fails?
Welcome to MiiU ("me:you")
The Resilient Community Wiki
A resilient community is a place that produces most of what it needs locally. It connects virtually for everything else. It's a vibrant local economy as well as a community that is immune to a) global depression, b) political instability, c) shortages, famines, etc., and d) most effects of natural disasters. In short, it's resilient.
MiiU is a collection of all the resources and places that make personal, family, and community resilience possible. Resilience isn't only about surviving global failures, it's about building a better life for you and everyone around you.