Some Occupy Stuff

Nathan Schneider has been flogging his book, "Thank You, Anarchy" since September. He was on Democracy Now!



and did a Book Salon at FDL today:

http://fdlbooksalon.com/2013/12/15/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-nathan-schneider/

and has written a number of Occupy themed articles and posts for a range of publications including Waging Nonviolence, and his own blog, The Rowboat.

I certainly had my differences with him during the Occupy heyday, but he seems to have come around to a much more positivist view than he had then. It's difficult to describe, but these days, as he talks and writes about how Occupy developed and evolved, he seems to recognize just how deeply rooted in community this Movement has become, and how evolution has strengthened it.

Also, as an aside, but it may be an important one, Nathan seems to be a genuinely nice person, something increasingly rare in today's media landscape.

Some Additional Thoughts To Throw In The Mix

America's Favorite

Some additional matters of interest have been swirling around this end game the political class seems to be playing. While they and their owners and sponsors continue to wrangle over how quickly and thoroughly the tattered remnants of the Republic (we have been unable to keep) shall be unraveled, we the People wrestle with a whole other set of circumstances Our Betters have neither the time nor the patience for:

• Joblessness


• Debt


• Hunger


• Homelessness


• Stolen Future


• Endless Sacrifice

And that's just for starters, to get the ball rolling as it were. The situation for many households in America is dire. A report just came out (can't find the link at the moment, but will add it once I do) that points out that California's median household income fell by 11% between 2007 and 2010, a spectacular drop compared to the oft reported increases in median (or sometimes "average") income during this Endless Recession.

I've long been suspicious of any statistical report that claims rising income for Americans in general because it just isn't so. I've witnessed too many cases of household incomes remaining perfectly flat at best during the course of the Endless Recession, and too many cases, way too many cases, of household employment income falling by anywhere from 10% to 50% (and sometimes more) in the course of a few years.

The statistics have clearly been skewed by the fact that those at the top continue to amass gigantic fortunes from which they derive enormous income, though statisticians deny it.

Millions have been forced out of their jobs, and millions have been forced out of the job market altogether; labor force participation is at the lowest point in generations and it continues to shrink. Poverty is at the highest level in generations and it continues to grow. The two are related it seems to me, factors, you might say of one another. Duh.

But in his acceptance speech -- which I have still not seen any of -- the Would-be King Emperor, Shahanshah, declared that when $21.00 an hour jobs with benefits "went away," Americans rolled up their sleeves and took two jobs that paid $9.00 an hour without benefits and they forged onward, uncomplaining, happy indeed to be able to continue the March of Progress -- at least that's a paraphrase of a report I saw. "Only in America," right?

Americans are falling backwards rapidly, and this is due, as I have repeatedly pointed out, to the deliberate policie at the top of the Government which in turn are determined -- if not dictated outright -- by the desires of the Masters of the Universe who crashed the economy to begin with. Those few people still control the United States and they largely control the rest of humanity as well.

Should the RomneyBot and His Familiar succeed in their Pinky and the Brain plan to take over the world -- their plan after all is directly out of the Reaganite-Gingrichite playbook. I've long assumed that the models for the cartoon characters were Ronnie and Newty -- things for the average sod will only get worse, far worse, far more pervasively and far faster than anyone thought possible.

The so-called political "opposition" isn't even playing a rearguard action any more, it's now a rout. The Future -- at least anything resembling a Future as we once understood it -- is gone.

"There's nothing left."

Well, not exactly "nothing." What Our Rulers are attempting to engineer, and the ACA is a perfect example of it, is the subjugation of the American People, through a form of taxation, to corporate interests in perpetuity; it's a form of debt slavery. Whether it is precedented or not I can't say, but in the end it hardly matters whether it's been done before, what matters is that it proceed with as few impediments to those on the top who will benefit from these extractions as possible.

So far, so good.

The New Future of Universal Debt Slavery -- through what amounts to automatic extractions from the 99% on behalf of corporate interests via innovative forms of taxation -- will shortly become the New Normal in part because there is almost no conscious opposition to it. There is opposition but not so much at the root of the problem, the real issue as it were.

Somewhat tangentially, there is a remarkable review by Mike Beggs of David Graeber's "Debt" over at Jacobin that is quite a wonder in its own right, for it does seem to go on forever. These are the kinds of exercises I have long had a love-hate relationship with, for they often add to the consideration, even though ultimately they are as light as froth floating in the air. It's appreciable in its own evanescent right, though what it actually has to say about "Debt" -- apart from the nostrum that "anecdotes aren't enough" -- is lacking... clarity. In fact, Beggs seems to be quite taken with Graeber's anthropological and indeed anarchist approach to his topic, one that makes mincemeat out of economists (who deserve it of course), and provides a comprehensive and comprehensible framework for the woefully uninformed public to understand what is really going on.

But it's not enough for him, he wants something both grander and more granular, and cites a number of works that provide what he is looking for. Ergo, what? Yes, there are other works out there, and isn't it great? Anyway, I didn't mean this to devolve into another criticism of the critic -- one of my favorite pastimes when time was -- but Beggs' contribution to the discussion is something else again. Check it out if you have a few hours to spend on... froth.

Meanwhile, Mark Ames has put out a piece dealing with the nature of the shoot-to-kill kultur that pervades American Authoritarian Society these days and how it relates to both the propaganda culture and the "twerps" who so often are placed in positions to defend the indefensible. It's a rollicking ride than can make for substantial dot-connection. Ames is very good at that.

As is his former colleague at the Moscow headquarters of the late-lamented Exile, Matt Taibbi, who works his gonzo mangler into a perfect storm of revelations regarding RomneyBot and his devotion to loading companies with debt from which many never recover, while he collects fabulous amounts of free money. Automatically. That's what it's all about in our financialized supposed capitalist casino, getting to the point where "I win, you lose" is institutionalized and made permanent.

There's your trouble -- and there's your Future.

Let the Dixie Chicks make it all better:


Finally, from May, a piece from the Occupied Chicago Tribune regarding the Dreaded Black Bloc. Much virtual ink has been spilled on the topic (lord knows, I've done my share), but this is one of the better examinations of the phenom of the Black Bloc and just what it does and doesn't do. Recommended.

"Dance for that Anarchy" -- Po-Po Troopers getting out of the rain in Tampa on August 27 prior to the RNC, while the folks dance for that anarchy in the downpour.



Another Po-Po Troopers in Tampa video. This is actually pretty sad... it's from Indybay.org:

Kropotkin's "The Coming Revolution" as Visualized by Magazin

In German with English subtitles:

Kropotkin - The Coming Revolution - english from Magazin on Vimeo.

Now I wish my German was better because the visuals -- compiled mostly from movie clips -- are compelling though not quite apropos of the text. Or maybe they are. It's hard to read and watch at the same time.

To some extent, I believe that what Kropotkin describes as the Coming Revolution is actually taking place through and in alignment with the Occupy Movement and all the parallel revolts under way. It's not at all like the Revolutions we're accustomed to from the literature (not that most Americans have any direct experience with actual Revolution of any kind...) Rather than trying to take over or replace existing governments, for example, the primary effort under way is to develop new models of society, law and economies. In that context, the battles with authority are minor distractions. The actual work of Revolution is going on well behind the battle lines, not at all in secret because it is practically everywhere, but it's rarely noticed for what it is. And that may be just as well.

Kropotkin was quite the visionary. But the society he envisions is extremely vulnerable to predatory interests; the voluntary association method only works on a small scale, and associations of associations tend to reach maximum levels very quickly so that the kind of "mesh" of associations he envisions is not very likely to occur spontaneously with the necessary variety and on the scale for an "advanced" civilization -- although the "mesh" of associations throughout the Occupy firmament actually resembles Kropotkin's ideal, and it has been largely spontaneously generated. Once there were some linkages they were developed further and further, and to this point, they are stronger than ever. But Occupy is in no way capable of serving all the needs and interests of a whole society... or is it?

An end to property and the state? How does one do that? Or is it even necessary? This is where the discoveries being made today may significantly modify Kropotkin's vision. Too soon to tell.

At any rate, last year Mark Ames over at the Exiled Online peered into the FBI's files on the Yippies and such like. It's quite a cautionary tale. One that it is well to remember. (Warning, there is a link in the story to a pdf file of the FBI documents; it's about 6,500 pages. Might want to skip it...!)

The Second Stage of the Revolution and the Problem of Scale

I'm watching the Revolution continue in Egypt as the dissatisfaction with the interim military rulership has increased to the boiling point.

That the People of Egypt have arisen yet again -- after their stunning uprising earlier in the year -- is to my eye the signal that the '2nd Stage of the Revolution' is now under way. The Center of Energy has shifted once again. It's no longer in California or New York. It is now back in Egypt, mostly in Cairo at Tahrir Square and in the streets of Alexandria. The scenes are evocative of the uprising in January and February, but the action is clearly not the same.



Nothing that's happened in this country has yet matched the uprising in Egypt and the sacrifices of the Peoples of North Africa and the Middle East in the current cycle of revolt and revolution. Not even close.

I usually doubt that anything like that will ever happen here because we don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship -- not yet anyway -- and there are still some outlets available to the People of the United States of America that are not available in some of the hot-spots overseas.

As much as we may crab about our own condition, and as much as we may engage in struggle with the Powers That Be, our general situation is still much better than that of those abroad who are struggling so bravely against their oppression.

That being said, however, Revolutions do tend to proceed in two -- or more -- stages, the first of which is rather euphoric, the second deadly serious.

The Egyptians are now in the second stage.

I usually think of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolutions as models for how the stages work. The first is relatively bloodless, the second is often the product of civil war or is the precipitating cause of civil war.

Euphoria is replaced with determination, and sometimes with surpassing violence.

The question has been raised over whether the Occupy Movement is a Revolution or not; I've answered in the affirmative in a certain sense, but my developing view is that the Occupy Movement itself is not The Revolution in the sense that it does not -- and in a way it cannot -- actually "change" things. That phase is yet to come, and what it will look like, I can't say. All I can say is "look to Europe" (and North Africa -- the uprisings in Europe and North Africa are symbiotic).

Europe at the moment is surprisingly quiet, but I doubt it will be that way for much longer. Egyptians are going through the most difficult part of their Revolution. I heard a commentator on Al Jazeera say the other day that Egypt has only had a little over 60 years of domestic rule in the last 3,000 years, and for all 7,000 years of its history, Egypt has been ruled by the military. Now, for the first time in their 7,000 year history, Egyptians are demanding an end to military rule once and for all. If they can win...

In Europe, the United States, North Africa and elsewhere, much of the initial Revolutionary fervor and activism has been carried by anarchists. I've defended anarchists for giving Americans the intellectual space for there to BE an Occupy Movement at all. It would not have happened had it been left to the "left." No way. No how.

And while the anarchist image of an ideal society has a strong appeal, it is impossible for it to be "scaled" beyond a very small community of like minded people who are often ethnically homogenous and sometimes even related. You can't have nation-states on an anarchic model, for example.

The Egyptians are demanding an end to military rule and the establishment of a democracy. The model of democracy they seem to want is the anarchic model of the General Assembly. A nation-state like Egypt cannot operate on a General Assembly model; in fact, no nation-state can operate on that model, and even many Occupations are massaging it to look and feel more like the representative model that was pioneered by... the United States. A model that is itself crumbling from decadence and corruption.

This is the dilemma of the Revolution, and I have no idea right now how it can be resolved. The desire for small-scale and comprehensible community -- which the General Assembly democratic model encapsulates -- is human nature, I think. But the comforts and conveniences of a vigorous nation-state (or dast I say it, empire) are antithetical to that low key, small scale model.

One can't live the way most Americans (still) live through an anarchic system.

The way I was thinking about these things in the summertime with "A People's Constitution" project was to use something like the Swiss model -- which is still too big -- to form a more perfect union, yadda yadda. But what if the Union itself -- which is in effect a Domestic Empire like India, China, Russia, or even Egypt -- isn't desirable?

No matter how it is reconceived, maybe the conception itself is not appropriate, and some other way of organizing community and society is better.

Anarchy can work -- it doesn't necessarily -- on the relatively small scale of a few hundred to a few thousand community members.

But a nation-state of 300,000,000? No.

What are the alternatives? I think we'll be searching for some time to come.

Howard Zinn on Revolution:

Why I'm Not A Fan of the Spokes Council Model

The New York City General Assembly adopted a significant revision to the operations of OWS and a significant limitation on the power and authority of the General Assembly itself when it adopted the Spokes Council Proposal of the Structure Working Group on October 28.

Fritz Tucker's widely publish dissent has made the rounds. It's very clear to someone who has been following the NYCGA what Tucker's dissent is dealing with, but it may not be so clear to the non-involved public. It looks like the question is all about money and nothing else. In fact, there is a lot more going on than simple pecuniary interest.

There has actually been a great deal of dissent and wide-ranging discussion leading up to this major structural change, and though I can't be certain (one's eyes can deceive one), it appears that much of it has now disappeared from both the NYCGA and the OWS websites. Instead, there are hundreds of off topic posts among which a few of the posts arguing against the Spokes Council model remain, like raisins in a pastry.

But one thing is certain: minutes have not been posted from any NYCGA since November 4; there are no minutes posted of any Spokes Council meeting; there are no archived Livestreams of any GA since November 2, and there are none at all for any Spokes Council meeting.

Announcements are made of pending meetings of the Spokes Council, and the time or place is changed suddenly. There is no follow up on any of the OWS websites, so whether or not they actually took place is unknown. Nature of these meetings is changed suddenly; announcements are not necessarily timely, nor are they particularly accurate.

Requirements for Spokes Council membership are strict but not necessarily adhered to, necessary forms are not provided or not easily found, communications falter.

I could go on and on, but the overall picture is clear enough: in an effort to alleviate the chaos inherent in a Direct Democracy model as used by the NYCGA, the Spokes Council model was proposed to operate in parallel and in tandem with the GA; the proposal was rejected several times before a revised proposal was accepted, but once it was, many of the operations at Liberty Plaza and throughout the OWS Movement -- in New York -- went into a state of paralysis or chaos as people tried to figure out what was what and who was now suddenly who, and how this whole New Model OWS was supposed to work. Nobody knew and information was in very short supply.

I am reminded once again of images I don't want to recall; that reminder was very stark as the captives on the Brooklyn Bridge were corralled and then led one by one and in batches to their fate. Without resistance.

Now it is a reminder of the chaos of re-establishing authority in a brand new, very complex system that under psychological if not physical assault every minute of every day. Review the documents of the chaos and the re-establishment of authority in the ghettos of Eastern Europe during the Period of Unpleasantness* in the previous century. This is what the re-establishment of authority through the Spokes Councils looks like to me, and this is one of the reasons why I don't like it.

[*Period of Unpleasantness = the totalitarian/Nazi conquest era in Europe, not simply World War II; Fascist, Nazi, and crypto-Nazi ideology and political power pervaded Europe from the end of WWI through the end of WWII. The scapegoating of the Jews long pre-dated either of those events; their ghettoization and finally extermination was all but pre-ordained within the overall European context, and people still remark at how the Jews mostly meekly complied with the Orders for their round up, concentration and death. When I see some of the same meekness and compliance in the face of authority in New York -- especially -- I get very nervous about what may be in the cards in the by and bye. I try not to make too much of it, but I won't turn my back on the evocative nature of what I see. Better to point it out than to avoid the issue.]

I don't have an ideological objection to the Spokes Council model in tandem with the GA, for I think it could be an excellent means of scaling up the operating model of the Movement. An inherent problem with Direct Democracy is that in order to function properly, it has to be maintained at no greater than a certain, fairly small, scale. Those who originated the idea and practice in Athens thousands of years ago figured that out pretty quickly: the model could only function -- and even then not necessarily well -- at a scale of no more than 5,000 or 6,000 participants. Ideally, the Assemblies were smaller; and there had to be an elected body from within the Assembly to handle day-to-day operations in any case. In other words, the Assembly was not capable of appropriately handling minutiae, nor -- tragically for Athens -- could it appropriately handle bigger questions of War and Empire and such on behalf of the People.

The Spokes Council model, if it is operating properly (which it is not in New York) can provide a means to deal democratically with both the larger and smaller matters that the General Assembly cannot do well or at all. But it carries with it significant risks to the interests of and the overall health and well being of the People it is supposed to represent.

The Spokes Council is, after all, a form of Representative Democracy that is at least tangentially related to the failed Representative system the OWS Movement seeks to... change or at least to move beyond.

The advantage of a Spokes Council model is that it can be scaled up, whereas realistically -- as the folks in New York found out -- the GA model cannot. They had to split into two General Assemblies, one at Liberty Plaza and one at Washington Square, and empirically, they were still too large to operate productively. Something of the same problem has occurred in other cities (Boston, Chicago, Oakland, etc.) where the GA and the Occupation became too large for the site and for reasonable operations and they calved off supplementary locations.

If each is autonomous, then (if) as each grows, they will have to split in order to survive. The GA model is one of endless proliferation and autonomy. It has its function, but it also has inherent limitations. (Think biology.)

The Spokes Council model allows for limited and structured proliferation on a common pattern with common interests and goals, especially if it is taken to its logical extension: the Council of Councils, or as has been attempted in rough form via conference calls, the National Council of the Occupations. This is already taking place.

Supreme Soviet, Politburo, all of that. It is that Soviet model -- as well as the failure of the current liberal democratic representative model, let's not fool ourselves -- that is at the foundation of much of the criticism of the Spokes Council model. We've seen this movie before. We know how it ends. Why would we want to willingly go through it again?

But is there any rational alternative?

Fritz Tucker's well-articulated dissent has to do with money and how money is collected and handled by the NYCGA, and how the Spokes Council takes the authority over money away from the GA. Tucker also raises the alarums over the fact that a handful of interested people are ramrodding the Spokes Council model, setting themselves up as "leaders" forcing what they want on the rest of the body by stifling dissent and discussion and limiting what can and cannot be raised at Assembly.

I won't dispute his points. The problem of charismatic leaders is intrinsic to the human condition, and it does not good at all to simply complain about it. What needs to happen, it seems to me, is to recognize that the emergence of leaders -- even in an "leaderless" movement -- is completely natural, human nature, and the way to deal with it is not to try to prevent it, but to institute adequate controls on the assertion of Leadership. It's the lack of those controls that has led to so much disaster in our poor and weary world. (Cf, the Period of Unpleasantness in Europe).

The Spokes Council ideal attempts to deal with this natural human state through rigorous adherence to stated principles, and through the constant rotation of the Spokes. Since theoretically anyone can become a Spoke (momentary leader), and everyone is encouraged to be, no one charismatic Leader can (theoretically) emerge. I would urge caution in that belief. The model is not functioning at all in New York, and if it ever does get up and running, I can almost guarantee that a handful of more assertive and persuasive Spokes will assume control of the whole, and they will be almost impossible to dislodge. Most people will go along with it because most people are more comfortable with this state of affairs. They would rather be led than lead.

Human nature once again.

In my view, the best course of action for the time being is proliferation through operating General Assemblies. The problem is that many -- maybe most -- GAs don't function in the manner in which they are intended in part because there has been very little information about and training to use the GA model. Simply put, people of good will don't know how the GA model works and they don't know what to do in the face of their ignorance. They can't learn it from the Puerta del Sol Quick Guide, either. This was one of the chief failings of the initial OWS expansion. There was very little documentation and no training (unless you went to New York) on the practical aspects of "how to do it." Consequently, hundreds of Occupations came into being all of a sudden and each had to figure out for itself how to function, mostly without communications, guidance or even insight from those who had already done it.

Many adopted the superficial aspects of the NYCGA -- ie: hand signals, stacks, etc. -- but not the core principles (if those were even known), and from an operations standpoint, many, if not most, adopted some version of Robert's Rules rather than the far more egalitarian, anarchic and open model of the NYCGA and its progenitors.

Anarchy is not well-understood in this country, and many Anarchists can't articulate their politics very well. They can do "it," they just can't express what "it" is coherently or cogently.

So what happened was that many of the Occupations started out on an Authoritarian model, often without even realizing it. Some of them are trying to move toward a more open/egalitarian (ie; Anarchic) model but are having a very difficult time doing it. The Original Sin was to start out on an Authoritarian path. Once on it, you're almost stuck there.

On the other hand, some of the Occupations which started out on an Anarchic path (such as New York City's) are now gingerly feeling their way back toward Authoritarianism (with a stop for some Chaos to let the need for Authority percolate in) because their "leaders" (in waiting) have decided Anarchy Doesn't Work.

What do you do?

What do you do when you realize this Revolution is not going to be stopped? All the struggles over "models" are really peripheral. The Revolution is carrying on regardless.

And in that context, the hyper-sensitivity some have shown over Black Bloc tactics becomes almost clownish. Much more deeply rooted and important matters are at hand, and a broken window or two simply doesn't matter in that larger scheme. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Black Bloc is all but irrelevant in the larger scheme.

The Movement-Becoming-Revolution is already beyond Black Bloc.

Oakland is the Energy Center for the Movement now, and it is in Oakland where a lot of the real work of consolidating the Revolutionary aspects of the Movement are going on. But eventually, the Energy Center will shift again, maybe to somewhere abroad, where other aspects of the Movement will be worked out and consolidated.

What's happened to the Movement-That-Became-Revolution in Europe and North Africa ought to be instructive, but who among us even knows what's happened there? If you rely on CNN, you literally know nothing at all about it, and I haven't had time to look into it as deeply as I want to.

Watch Greece, watch Spain, watch Italy, watch Morocco and Tunisia and Libya, especially watch Egypt.

"Reality" changes every day.

Decide for yourself whether Spokes Councils are the way to go forward. For me, they're not. But I've been known to change my mind!

David Graeber Explains It All For You

From the outset of this OWS Revolutionary Period I've become much more aware of -- and appreciative of -- its Anarchist roots. I am not an Anarchist for various reasons, mostly having to do with my belief that Anarchist ideals can't be realized in the real world, at least not beyond a very small scale. And the scale-problem is built in to the Anarchist vision. If there were a way for peoples to split into innumerable affinity groups and maintain autonomy while doing it, without the need for government and the protections (and limitations) inherent in government, then fine, but the scale problem cannot in my view be overcome, so pure Anarchism will never be more than a pipe dream.

Nevertheless, I appreciate Anarchist thought. David Graeber's "Revolutions in Reverse" is a good selection of essays on timely topics. Well worth the time to read.


Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination

I wouldn't have stumbled on it were it not for a comment left over at Ian's Place on the post regarding "how OWS actually works" -- where I also picked up the link to the Global Research essay on the adoption of the Spokes Council model of operations.

As Greece Descends into Chaos -- or Ascends from Slavery, depending

Photo from Guardian slide show about the continuing tumult in Greece over the loss of sovereignty to rapacious banking interests and other things.

Some discussion of "Diversity of Tactics" might be in order. In fact, there is such a discussion over at Waging Nonviolence, a site that features writers and articles I sometimes take issue with, but which keeps an ongoing and comprehensive record of nonviolent change -- not always through resistance and revolution -- all over the world.


Ché's Intro to the Waging Non-Violence Article below:

"Diversity of Tactics" refers to the utilization of a variety of means and methods of direct action to accomplish social and political change. Cut and dried, right? Well, no. Among the tactics that fall under this modest and unassuming rubric, are such things as marches and rallies and public demonstrations of all kinds, general and strategic labor strikes, various forms of computer network disruption (such as is used by Anonymous and the like), leaks of sensitive or secret information (such as is done by WikiLeaks and others), and most characteristically, so called Black Bloc actions -- mostly hit and run vandalism, overturning dumpsters, spray or other forms of painting buildings (or in Greece, some of the police), breaking windows or setting cars or other stationary objects alight. Black Bloc tactics specifically target buildings and inanimate objects, often symbolic of the oppressive power structure that is being resisted or opposed by the particular direct action under way (such as, for example, direct action opposition to Globalization or the Olympics).

It is the Black Bloc tactics, primarily, that most people get very nervous about. But keep in mind many people don't like any form of direct action for social justice and change at all, preferring the familiar and relatively safe indirect action of routinized and standardized civil society; ie: politics as usual.

Politics is hard; democracy is harder. Social democracy that actually works to the benefit of the masses is hardest of all.

The form of social and political democracy that has been adopted by OccupyWallStreet is one of its many strengths; the nonviolent philosophy that underlies it has provided an extraordinary level of safe ground for direct action.

And so, to the article, which I will excerpt parts of and yammer and natter about.

What ‘diversity of tactics’ really means for Occupy Wall Street

by Nathan Schneider | October 19, 2011, 12:02 pm

Even as Occupy Wall Street shapes the public conversation about high finance, political corruption, and the distribution of wealth, it has also raised anew questions about how resistance movements in general should operate. I want to consider one of the matters that I’ve returned to over the past month, as I’ve watched the occupation up close and its means of making its presence felt on the streets of New York and in the media.

“Diversity of tactics,” in the context of political protests, is often treated as essentially a byword for condoning acts of violence. The phrase comes by this honestly; it emerged about a decade ago at the height of the global justice movement, especially between the 1999 demonstrations that shut down a WTO meeting in Seattle and those two years later in Quebec. While all nonviolent movements worth their salt will inevitably rely on a variety of tactics—for instance, Gene Sharp’s list of 198 of them—using the word “diversity” was a kind of attempted détente between those committed to staying nonviolent and those who weren’t. Consider this characterization by George Lakey:

“Diversity of tactics” implies that some protesters may choose to do actions that will be interpreted by the majority of people as “violent,” like property destruction, attacks on police vehicles, fighting back if provoked by the police, and so on, while other protesters are operating with clear nonviolent guidelines.

Until I became involved in the Occupy movement, I had never paid attention to the term "Diversity of Tactics," and I may never have heard it before. For most of my life, I've been very engaged in social justice causes and in direct and standard political action. Yet I'd never heard that term before, at least not to the point where it had any meaning and I committed it to memory. Now, however, the term and the idea is percolating through the Occupy movement, and while I don't hear it often, I do hear it and read about it.

Like much of the rest of the Occupy movement's grounding philosophy, "Diversity of Tactics" comes directly out of Anarchic thought and action.

While I've long been an activist -- even a radical -- in a more or less traditional "lefty" sense, I've never before had much contact with anarchists and anarchist thought. Until a demonstration was made in New York of how an anarchic organizational model can work -- through OccupyWallStreet and the New York City General Assembly -- I essentially dismissed it out of hand, much as I've seen more traditionally minded Socialists do to this day. They have no faith that something like this can work, so they don't believe it does work. Much as I believed until I saw it for myself.

Consequently, "Diversity of Tactics" is not widely known or employed. But New York is using "Diversity of Tactics" in its direct actions, and at the same time, it is modifying the idea to be physically nonviolent.

"This. Is. A Peaceful Protest!" And so it is.

Those who extoll the importance of total nonviolent discipline—as Lakey eloquently goes on to do—might be disappointed to learn that Occupy Wall Street has made “diversity of tactics” its official modus operandi. However, the way that the occupiers have carried out this policy might actually lead us to think of its meaning and implications in a more compelling way.

Emphasis mine. Yes, well.

"Official." Give me a break! "Diversity of Tactics" is being utilized in a characteristically (for OccupyWallStreet) nonviolent way. Despite hundreds and hundreds of arrests in New York and around the country, there have been no reported acts of violence against property -- such as spray painting, breaking windows and overturning dumpsters -- that is so identified with Diversity of Tactics. Clearly we're dealing with something else again.

So far, at least, what “diversity of tactics” has meant to the occupiers is not simply openness to violence but actually a richer interpretation of the phrase—indeed, a whole philosophy of direct action that comes out of anarchist thought. In this, “diversity of tactics” shares the same heritage and logic of the open assemblies that are the heart of the occupation movement. Take this passage from a pamphlet on hand at occupied Liberty Plaza, Anarchist Basics:

Affinity groups ["of 5 to 20 people"] decide on their own what they want to do and how they want to do it, and aren’t obliged to take orders from any person on top. As such, they challenge top-down decision-making and organizing, and empower those involved to take direct action in the world around them. Affinity groups can make decisions in whatever way they see fit, but they generally use some form of consensus or direct democracy to decide on goals and tactics. Affinity groups by nature are decentralized and non-hierarchical, two important principles of anarchist organizing and action.

Small groups acting more or less autonomously toward common goals is a matter of principle as well as of pragmatism. These groups, in turn, can voluntarily coordinate with each other in spokescouncils. Operating this way reflects the kind of values that many in the occupation movement insist on: individual autonomy, consensus decision making, decentralization, and equality.

That is (pretty much) the model of how it is done in New York, but let's look at what's been done, too:

Consider, for instance, the two main events which brought public attention and sympathy to the movement: the arrest of nearly 100 on a march near Union Square on September 24 (which included an infamous pepper-spraying incident), and the approximately 700 arrested a week later on the Brooklyn Bridge. In both cases, the arrests directly followed instances of autonomous action by small groups, which splintered away from the plan established by the Direct Action Committee. (At Union Square, there was a dispute about whether to take the march back to Liberty Plaza or to the United Nations; at the Brooklyn Bridge, hundreds of marchers chose to spill onto the roadway rather than remaining on the narrow pedestrian walkway.) In both cases, too, the police responded to such autonomous action with violent overreaction, which in turn garnered tremendous interest from the media.

Indeed, it was the grossly disproportionate action of the NYPD on September 24 that triggered media interest in what was going on, and the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge were, from a media standpoint, gold.

How these two incidents came into being is of some interest. Since there is no Central Office that is actually in charge and directs these things, their autonomous nature is surprisingly easily replicable by those who might want to try it.

I have previously called for the movement to adopt more orderly kinds of civil disobedience actions, ones targeted specifically at the laws they oppose—on the model of lunch-counter sit-ins in the civil rights movement, for instance. However, I’ve been forced to recognize that the chaotic stuff seems to work.

I would add that the tension between traditional and more free form (and intrinsically anarchic) organizational and action models is part of the internal dynamism throughout the movement.

Thus, while it can be disheartening to see so much traditionalism and even rigidity of thought in OccupySacramento, there are those who continue to press a free-association, anarchic model as well. The problem here, as it is in many other places, is that most of the participants have no familiarity with -- or in some cases even knowledge of -- how other Occupations are organized and how the New York model came to be and is being adapted.

This is the key thought in the piece:

We already know that power structures which rely on violence are helpless against coordinated nonviolent action. During the civil rights movement, a highly structured and disciplined action in a segregated city like a sit-in or Freedom Ride had the capacity to confront the system in a very direct way, presenting the powerful a dilemma between violent overreaction and capitulation. Such actions, however, have since turned ritualized and generally ineffective in American protest movements. But Occupy Wall Street commends to us the anarchist insight that, in much the same way, hierarchical command structures are highly vulnerable to non-hierarchical action.

There you have it. It doesn't mean that you use these tactics solely against the police (in a deeper sense, they're not "against" actions, they're "pro" actions, in favor of the rights of the People). The movement can -- and in many cases does -- use them everywhere. Not so much against "laws" as against "structure."

I encourage people to read the whole piece. It is filled with insight.

And then go forth.

Freely, positively, and forcefully. The time has come.

(See Chris Hedges burst into tears at the realization of what he is witnessing -- and a part of -- in previous post.)
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Also, there is a fuller discussion of Diversity of Tactics and the struggles surrounding their use at the videos linked in this post from October 9.

Arizona Continues Seceding

And getting away with it, too.

Make no mistake. That's what the crazies are doing. Next up, denying citizenship to "anchor babies." Mm. Sounds like a plan. Thing of it is, there's this "Constitution" that says anyone born in the US is a citizen. It would take an amendment to change it; little pissant fucktard states like Arizona can't do it by themselves. But I'll bet that if an amendment were proposed, it would pass overwhelmingly in the Congress, and in state legislatures, just to calm the rabble.

So why don't the no-accounts in Arizona do that instead? Oh, easy: the state, run by clowns and conmen, is seceding. They don't care about your stupid Constitution -- not that anybody but purists and eccentrics do any more -- they want OUT.

They're gonna keep pulling this shit until somebody forces them to stop. And who is that going to be? The Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs and BP in the White House?

Not likely.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Oil Catastrophe, I'm not really into Doomblogging. But... there are signs that the strain the nation has been under at least since the lawless Supreme Court ruling which decided the election of 2000 is reaching the critical point.

Chaos up next?

Well, as they say, "Never let a good crisis go to waste!"

Batten down. It's gonna be a rough ride.

Socialism for the Rich! Yay!

The rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is supposed to help stabilize the Financial System, and that's supposed to be an Excellent Thing. The stock holders will take losses, according to the analysts, indeed, some will lose everything. But the investors are relieved, so they say, and international markets are pleased as punch. Taxpayers may be on the hook for trillions of dollars, but what's a few trillion here and there when the System must be saved?

It's another example, in a very long string of them now, of the Bush Government and its enablers rushing to the aid of the billionaire class and telling the ordinary schmuck in Modesto that he shouldn't a bought that big new house (or that barely habitable old one) in the first place, too bad, so sad. Scram!

It's an old story, one of the oldest in this country, and it is a story that has given rise to populist uprisings time and again, but for some reason, this time, nothing. Not more than a peep out of the lumpen proles, when they are heard from at all. By the millions, they are losing their homes, and we hear nothing from them but for an occasional tear-jerker in the paper about how hard it has been on some people. There are no movements, no marches, there's no growing outrage from the masses, nothing.

Quiet as a mouse.

Everyone is as quiet as a mouse, and the economists are unanimous in blaming the victims.

Their fault they were so easily led to perdition.

Meanwhile, trillions are made available to the billionaires to ensure none of their privilege and position is affected in any way. That IS the System.

Until masses of Americans reach the point of ultimate pissed-offed-ness, and until they realize they can actually do something about it through united effort and pressure (as well as occasionally inconveniencing the billionaires), the System will continue to be saved by serving the interests of billionaires alone.

Progressives and Populists alike should be joining hands to make sure the People do reach that point, but to date they are not. No, Progressives are obsessed with programs and legalism, Populists are still wallowing in theocracy and arbitrary authoritarianism. Consequently the billionaires make out like bandits, rights and programs are diminished, and we slide ever closer to Armageddon.

We need a "class war" in which the well off middle class Progressives, the internet enterpreurs who pose as Progressives, the DFH "anarchists," and the jacked up populists wondering why God's Plan is throwing them out on the streets combine forces to once againcurb and ultimately geld the billionaires.

But that means actually doing things, like shutting down business as usual, exposing and shaming government operatives in the service of the billionaire class, taking over governments on the local and state levels, and pushing hard on federal officials.

It means moving toward and then accepting a level of Socialism for the People that is common nearly everywhere else in the civilized world but still resented here. It means complete top to bottom prison and justice overhauls that drastically reduce prison populations and it means eliminating private prisons and all the corruption that goes with them.

It means taxing the rich into oblivion if they utter a peep of protest. It means deconsolidating media ownership, even seizing some media in the name of the People.

We could go on and on, but the fact is, we have to do something. And do it fast. Something beyond merely sitting passively, enjoying the show.

This is what a Riot looks like

University of Minnesota, Dinkytown, 2003:

From the Minnesota Independent.



Any questions?