Well, of course I would relate today's impending nationwide and increasingly global Occupations to what I know. After yesterday's enormous surge in attendance at Liberty Plaza and the peaceful demonstration at Police Plaza, and after witnessing the difficulty the Chicago GA had getting anywhere, I woke up this morning hearing that title, "Grand National Meet-Up Day," repeating again and again in my head.
Of course it feels like the 2004 presidential campaign (I was volunteering for Dean, many of those I knew were Clarkies; no one was for Kerry) which was dominated, at least in the activists' day to day experience, by the Meet-Up phenomenon.
Of course neither Dean nor Clark got very far electorally that year, but it would be wrong to say they didn't have an influence. From the ground, though, the frequent meetings were sometimes part of the problem. Some of them felt very much like the many meetings -- "just to meet" -- that went on in the social activist realm, in some parts of the government, among not-for-profits and so on. Participatory democracy is hard, and that's the point. The endless meetings became a way to defer or interfere with action.
You met and communed and argued and disputed because that's what you did. Not necessarily because you needed to or even wanted to.
Of course, this Occupation Movement is a very different kind of thing, so that isn't going to be a problem.
Is it?
We'll see...
No comments:
Post a Comment