Blog: Gill Tract Reflections—The Mulch of Human Kindness

You know, for about the first 24 hours of Occupy Gill Tract farm, I was pretty jazzed about the bravado of this flash farm action, and thrilled to be "stickin' it to the man" (i.e. UC leadership). But that was until I realized that the people being skewered were . I had to give up my attachment to reliving the glory days of my mispent youth (i.e. radical hippie/punk) when I realized I was now complicit with a peculiar form of entitled cruelty. By my support for the farm, I was actually sanctioning the displacement and .

Do you know how hard it was to look at myself in the mirror after that? Or to face my younger son as he said, after listening to my first effusions, "You know, Mom, I was wondering what was going to happen to Damon's job." Ouch. Ouch. Ouch!

So let's ask ourselves, why is it that some of us are so opposed to "the system?" Well, it's often big, powerful, heartless, entitled, greedy, and takes what it wants without caring what happens to the little people who get in its way. I've experienced the brutality firsthand—shoved by CAL cops during the Oak Tree Sit, watching them push even older people with fragile bones. I experience this heartlessness as a citizen appalled at the state of the economy; the environment; the endless war; rising unemployment; the lack of affordable housing, health care, and education; and so on. I understand the necessity for social change and the fact that we all must be involved in some way.

However, if we see the necessity for social change, we have to avoid aping the powers that be. We have to avoid being heartless, entitled and greedy, and we have to avoid taking what we want without caring what happens to the people who get in our way. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," and in the case of the , the toll on that road will be paid by the worker/researchers and their families. 

Like it or not, the Occupy Gill Tract farmers are hurting real people—actual individuals in our community—and it is not okay. And so I ask the farmers to cultivate human relationships from now on, to pay attention to the delicate workings of social ecology before they put another seedling in the ground. I ask them to care about the individuals they are hurting, just as they say they care for turkey eggs and the pear orchard and the crops. I ask them to apologize, to admit they were wrong. I ask them to go quickly, and with grace.