Last Night At The Revolution...

Oh man.

Well. It got kinda intense. Again. When the GA was hijacked. Again. Internal dissension this time, not a featured speaker, over something that was never entirely clear, though I get a real strong sense of what the issue was.

It has to do, mostly, with the way things have been run at OccupySacramento, not organized, run. The general idea of autonomous self organization by committee/working group has been mostly doing well with a glitch here and there primarily due to lack of or mis- communication, the kind of thing that is typical for most newly hatched Revolutions.

But these autonomous self-organized committees/working groups can become outposts of ego, and when ego trumps everything else, watch out.

One explosion after another has been the result, as various interests collide, go into furious battle with one another, and their battles royal hijack everything else.

Last night, those facilitating the GA knew something was up, but not what form it would take. Soon enough, we all found out. The GA was hijacked right at the outset by four or five members of a committee who were fricking furious, their anger -- we found out later -- having marinated overnight after their plea to... those who run this show... fell on deaf ears. They took their issue to the GA, demanding what exactly nobody quite knew, but they wanted to be heard and for their anger to be validated. Anger at the "lack of transparency." At being brushed aside. At being... forgotten?

It was quite something. As more and more interests joined the fray, the lead facilitator for the General Assembly tried his best to broker a deal between the warring factions -- he tried everything he could think of -- and then, when nothing worked, he tried to call for a 5 minute break to let the temperature cool down a bit and maybe let people discuss the issue on the side. "No break! We want action NOW!" But on what? Another half-hour was spent negotiating a 5 minute break, and then everybody broke into affinity groups or listened to more of the complaints or defenses, insults, screaming, and on and on, while the rest of us discussed how, really, it is better this is happening now rather than three weeks from now, and you know, this is what happens when so many conflicted people get together, but don't quite gel.

In fact, during the next couple of hours (the GA never resumed), whole new alignments of people emerged, and there was a good deal of "jelling" of common interest and affinity. It was remarkable. People who had only nodded to one another if that got to know each other and found, if not life-friends, at least others with whom they could associate proudly. Ad hoc spontaneous work groups were formed to pursue all kinds of previously neglected aspects of the Occupation. Love was in the air, as one of the fellows who comes to the Revolution in his tie dye went around the tumult with his sign reading "Love here. Hugs free!" On the other side: "Free Therapy, Inquire within." A fellow who had been watching the scene on the Livestream raced down to the Plaza from his home to see how he could help get things back on track.

Dinner was served.

I have no idea whether those screaming the loudest last night got what they wanted, but those of us who saw the other side of this coin were just amazed. There is a really deep, fairly broad level of not simply interest but outright skill available from people who say they can let go enough to just "let it happen" and let it grow "organically," and not let incidents like last night's or the previous several nights derail the whole thing.

I was laughing ruefully at one point. There were several mediators on hand, professionals in the field, and not one intervened. And it's good they didn't. It's too soon to get over the pain, the anger, the betrayal so many people feel so deep in their souls they don't even know where it's located any more.

No, that anger is from the Heavens.

As soon as it is directed at the right targets... I don't think you want to be in the way!

Staying sane in the midst of it isn't easy. But neither is Revolution. I've mentioned similar scenes in Austin, and I saw something not unlike last night's events taking place in Richmond on their first day of Occupation. Then I was reminded of David Graeber's observations about what it was like at the very beginning for Occupy Wall Street.

We're doin' good. And we're right on schedule.

Chris Hedges Explains It All For You -- at OccupyWallStreet Times Square

And ... bursts into tears.

//sniff, < not a tear of sadness, those are tears of joy... whoever thought we'd see the day? > sniff //

The Whole World's Watching -- They We Are Not Leaving

Livestreaming the attempted eviction of OccupyWallStreet from Liberty Plaza, New York:

http://www.livestream.com/avaazwallstreet

(Global Revolution's OccupyWallStreet Livestream seems to be having one of its nearly perpetual breakdowns...)

People with any memory at all may find this scene so inspiring on the one hand -- and so nervous making on the other.

Courage!

OccupyDenver is also under assault.

(Denver Post is livecasting, the park has been... cleared?)

I'm sure there are others facing eviction "for cleaning" tonight.

Occupy Austin, for example:

Watch live streaming video from occupyaustin at livestream.com

OccupySeattle is facing many of the same struggles.

Is there a coordinated action by The Rulers under way? Ohhh....

Simplicity, Intentional Community, and Infiltration -- or zOMG!!1 UR doinit wrng!!!

This post is prompted partly by my experience watching a good deal of the Austin, TX General Assembly and its aftermath last night on the Livestream (btw, all props to John, I think it was, who was handling the internetcast with aplomb and good humor and stuck with it throughout.)

ZOMG!!! Those poor people. Oh, my, fucking, god.

All right, now everybody who's tried it acknowledges that the General Assembly process, the participatory democracy that's at the core of the Occupations, is a BITCH (in a completely gender neutral way, btw) to learn and to do. It goes against every level of conditioning most of us have had most of our lives. Ideally, there is no hierarchy and there is no leadership in a General Assembly; there is a format, an agenda, moderators (sometimes with assistance), a recorder, and participants. That's it. Consensus must be achieved to move forward, and we're talking about consensus in the purest form. In the models from Europe and North Africa, there are no votes. Oh really? Nope. Consensus is achieved when no one objects to -- or blocks -- a proposal. Consensus doesn't mean, in other words, that everybody agrees; it means that no one is in sufficient opposition to block the proposal.

This is a concept of democracy that I doubt many people have ever heard of. There is grounding for not taking votes, but I'm not going to get into that here. Instead I'll link to the Quick Guide on Group Dynamics (pdf) which is the basic operating manual for General Assembly. Getting access to this document was not easy in the early days of #OccupyWallStreet. I found it through the Stimulator, and I wouldn't have found the Stimulator if I wasn't watching the balky and often offline Livestream from New York which sometimes used Stimulator clips as filler when the media team in Liberty Plaza was having yet another crisis.

The Quick Guide is now available at the Occupy Together Wiki site where you can also find a lot of additional helpful operational information, but to find it, you pretty much have to have a key. I got it from this post at Corrente. This difficulty of accessing the most basic operational information has meant that many of the Occupations are spontaneously arising but then they are flying blind. They may have seen the operations of a General Assembly and/or Working Group on the New York Livestream -- or maybe not. Not everyone involved can sit in front of a computer all the live long day and night absorbing Occupation information. And a lot of those who spend more time in front of a computer than I do have no idea this information even exists.

So it's no wonder many of the Occupations are having severe operational problems and some are floundering badly.

Back to those poor people in Austin. They have the format down, pretty much, and the basic structure is in place for General Assembly, much more so than is the case in Sacramento (which I'll try to get to before the end of this post), but they wound up not at a good place. That was so for several reasons that I could spot right off:

The Assembly space was set up outdoors on the steps of the City Hall, but it was arranged like a nightclub. There was a sort of rostrum or stage on the left where the moderators held forth and the audience (they were a passive audience, not active participants) sat quietly (well, until they wouldn't put up with it any more) in a semi-circle listening to the speakers who were using a club-caliber PA that was as loud as what you would expect at Open Mic night at the Comedy Room and which literally overwhelmed and overrode any other discussion or comment whatsoever.

The moderator said he was trained in conflict mediation, and yet was constantly trying to assert authority over the General Assembly, telling participants what they could and could not do or say and how -- or whether -- they could present their proposals or participate in discussion, interfering constantly, and otherwise ratcheting up the tension and animosity toward him and toward the process itself until it nearly reached an explosive level.

I'm a trained conflict mediator and meeting facilitator, too, and because I am, I will not, under any circumstance, volunteer to moderate or facilitate either a General Assembly or a Working Group, for the simple reason that I know, no matter how much I try to suppress it, my professional training and the skill set I have in mediation and meeting facilitation is going to emerge, and it is simply wrong for this process. I even hesitate to give advice. What I know how to do is not how this process works or can work, and even if I try not to, any advice I offer will have inappropriate elements that simply don't work and can't work in this kind of process.

Basically it boils down to this: while seeming to be "neutral," the mediator or facilitator is always in charge. At the core, mediation and facilitation are aspects of Authority. The Working Group and the General Assembly are supposed to be democratic bodies that eschew authority over others on an individual level. The Authority of the Working Group or General Assembly is that of the whole reached through discussion and consensus and not guided to a conclusion by a leader. *

They seemed to be trying to race to decisions or conclusions without adequate discussion or buy in by the Occupation participants. This led to more conflict, more attempts at "conflict resolution" -- rather than open discussion and development of ideas. This led to more hostility and conflict and so on. I was watching from 2000 miles away, and I could feel it in my bones. It was not pleasant, nor was it productive because people wound up focusing on individuals and their hostility toward them. I could spot what was going wrong but there was no way to intervene, and I doubt I would have done it anyway if I had been there. Each group has to work this shit out for themselves, and it's hard to do.

Much of what I was witnessing sounded like a group therapy session or even an AA meeting. Yikes! They seemed to recognize they were off track, but they couldn't get back on the right track on their own, and the moderator was not much help -- partly because he'd already inspired so much hostility among the group and because it seemed like he was on this therapeutic/recovery track too. Some of the others did try to intervene, but they didn't know quite what they needed to do to move the group back in the right direction without causing even more upset.

Finally, the Assembly was adjourned by the moderator -- who was quite huffy by this time. He acknowledged that the process was a problem for many of the people there and that the primary complaint was that it was taking too long and there were too many extraneous items; and, further, he acknowledged that many of the participants had a problem with his moderation of the General Assembly.

So, the Assembly broke up into Working Groups and Affinity Groups and the Livestream stayed with them. Some people were really angry at what they had just been through, but others seemed to take it in stride; things would work out in their own time, etc. That tends to be my attitude, but still... it is really tough emotionally. It is wrenching when you are so worked up and so angry at what is happening and you can't seem to do anything about it. You've got to get rid of this fury somehow or you're going to drown in your own venom. Oh how I know that to be true!

Some seemed to recognize it was misplaced anger, to boot. The source of the anger is outside the Occupations; it's found in the utter powerlessness of the People to affect the ruling elites through any conventional means, and what they were experiencing in the GA was an example of how what was driving the generation of the Occupations was being transferred directly into the Occupation itself. It was a very frustrating recognition.

The cameraman then went down the street to a coffee house where the Facilitator Working Group was meeting, "chaired" by -- facilitated by? I don't know -- the moderator (I think his name was Josh) who had just adjourned the General Assembly. There were moderators, facilitators, and other interested people in attendance, maybe fifteen or twenty altogether, and one just lit into this Josh fellow with a verbal chain saw. He took the floor, he would not yield, he was going to have his say no matter what Josh wanted or didn't want, and neither Josh nor anyone else could stop him.

He was furious, he was absolutely furious at what he had witnessed at the General Assembly; it took too long, he said it shouldn't take any more than half an hour, he was proposing that the time limit be a half an hour, and he seemed to be saying that he tried to make that proposal at General Assembly, but Josh wouldn't let him. From that point, he got pretty incoherent, but it seemed to be most about how manipulative and controlling Josh was trying to be, and how he would not let people state their case, he would interfere, he would restate, or he would simply refuse to allow someone to speak, and this guy just would not take it any more. Others were more subdued about it, and they tried not to make their criticisms personal, but it was clear that at least half and maybe more of those in attendance at this Working Group meeting thought that Josh had really screwed up. After a good deal of intense discussion about what had happened, Josh announced that he had a yoga class in the morning, he was tired, and this was not something he thought he could do any more. In effect, he quit. Many of those in attendance applauded.

As soon as he left, the remaining Working Group participants got down to business, discussed what needed to be discussed regarding future plans and moderating General Assemblies, came to tentative consensus on some issues, saved others for later, and basically ended the meeting on good terms.

After Josh left, nobody was officially chairing the meeting, nobody was leading the discussion, yet they were able to work through the matters they needed to, set others aside, and then go on with their lives.

The contrast between the hierarchical/authoritarian "leadership" model of running a meeting and the more free form leaderless model could not have been starker. It doesn't mean that one form is objectively better than the other. It means that one -- the hierarchical model --is not appropriate for this kind of endeavor.

I should point out that everyone I could see and everyone who spoke up in the Livestream of the Working Group was white and non-female-identified gendered (terminology can get a little baroque, eh?) Few were older than 35, most seemed a good deal younger, though there were a couple of old coots there for spice. I noticed, too, that at General Assembly, almost no one "talked Texan" (I hear more Texas-style talking in New Mexico than I heard at this General Assembly) whereas at the Working Group meeting, there was far more Texas talk. That got me thinking, too. Josh did not "talk Texan" but many of those who were challenging him did. The fellow who started off the litany of complaints, however, did not have a Texas twang. And I wonder if part of the issue with Josh was an identity thing: did the native Texans, in other words, see him as an outsider -- or even worse, a turncoat? People can get these notions in their heads and they can be especially corrosive when they're not conscious of it.

Yet despite all the internal dissension and turmoil in Austin, it was clear this was a highly cohesive group determined to make a positive difference in their own lives and those of others through the establishment of an Occupation and the intentional community that the Occupation inspires. I don't know how many were in total attendance, but I'd guess a hundred or so, and for the size and nature of the city that's pretty darned good. Many of them intended to stay the night on the City Hall steps. They would not be moved. It seemed to me from a distance that most of those in attendance were young and white and possibly from UT. There were a few people of color and of age, and some seemed to be old-line lefty activists, but it was not entirely clear that that was the case. I'm sure there was an anarchist or two, and there were probably members of other political factions -- at least one was a Ron Paul partisan, at least judging by his tee shirt. But it really doesn't matter what faction you're from unless you're trying to promote that faction unduly -- ie: it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Otherwise, it's all good.

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In Sacramento, the Occupation is developing differently. Quite a bit differently, in part because of the Principal Issue: the arrests. There were none last night, I read, but I wasn't able to discover why before I started writing this. I suspect there was a decision at the GA that no one stay in the Plaza after 11pm, or whenever, and be subject to arrest. But I haven't found confirmation that was the case yet. Part of the problem with communications that afflict all the Occupations is that there is a super-abundance of information chaotically thrown out there in multiple fields and formats, and finding what you're looking for can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Last night, I was also following some of the action in Boston on the Livestream as their sub-camp was raided and destroyed by police while a hundred or so activists were arrested, some violently. There is so much going on. It's impossible to keep up.

Last night was the first night since the Occupation began in Sacramento when there were no arrests of Occupiers. There are plans tonight to ask the City Council to direct staff to cease and desist the arrest of peaceful petitioners for redress of grievance, or however they choose to word it. Talk about "baroque." They are about to be introduced to the utterly opaque and Byzantine operations of Sacramento city government. I haven't been closely involved with it in about 15 years, so maybe things have changed, but I doubt it. I know that some of the Occupiers are relatively familiar with how it works, but for others, the operations of City Government will come as a real shock. For example, they may think that the City Council or the Mayor have authority over city staff. For all practical purposes, they don't. They can direct staff, but they can't compel. The City Manager is actually in charge and is actually the decision maker. He is accountable only to the City Council, not to the public, and the only thing the City Council can do if they don't approve of what he is doing is fire him; but that can only happen if a super majority of the Council agrees. There have been reports that the arrests have been ordered by the City Manager, and the police are merely complying with what they are told to do. That's pretty obvious, but a couple of things arise: the Council can say whatever they want, and the City Manager can blow them off, and nothing will change. Second, it seems like the police are really tired of this nightly ritual, and they would very much like to defuse the issue. So my suspicion is that staff is working out some sort of quasi-accommodation such that the Occupation can continue without further arrests, but without official permission to "camp," and the city officials can get back to their important business of serving the interests of the NBA and other billionaires.

Sigh. That's how they used to handle these kinds of things; whether they will still do it this way, I don't know. There has been a lot of hostility between the City Manager's office and the Occupation.

As for process here, only the very basic outlines of the General Assembly and Working Groups are being implemented. There is a General Assembly at least once a day, and there are active Working Groups which report to the Assembly. This Occupation is not using the Quick Guide model of operation, however. Instead, they are using an informal version of Robert's Rules of Order. At least they were as of Saturday. I haven't been down to the Occupation since then. They're using it, I assume, because it is familiar -- and an agenda can be processed through real quick, lightning fast if need be. I got real nervous about doing things that way, it's gonna cause trouble, as it already has, over "leadership" issues, but so far, the Occupation has been able to keep modifying the rules so that no one person is The Leader, all are Leaders. The advantage I can see for this course is that things can stay pretty spontaneous, decision-making can be quick when need be, participants aren't discombobulated by a totally unfamiliar process, and the need for moderation and facilitation is limited, so people who are trained to do it aren't in a position to force issues or "agreeance." (A term heard at many Occupations. It is a Bushism.)

The focus shifts inevitably toward "doing something" -- events in other words -- rather than the process that leads to doing something. There are typically several marches a day, for example. There is a growing intentional community that is very simply arranged but which works very well. Of course it has to be set up and torn down every day because of the restriction on staying in the Plaza overnight, but the only real problem with that is that it is not an "occupation." It is a coming-and-going. Many "Occupations" are actually comings-and-goings and periodic events rather than taking ground and holding it. There has been no real conflict with the police, but there is -- at least as of Saturday -- no real liaison with them, either.

The arrests are frankly Agit-Prop Theater. They are staged and choreographed events, all very carefully worked out in advance with the legal team, volunteers for arrest, and whoever is in charge on the police end. From what I've seen, the police are actually using them as training opportunities for how to deal with civil unrest and demonstrations. They are varying their approaches and modifying their actions, apparently to try out different methods, and they have largely restricted witness access to what is going on and how they are doing it (which may be a violation of rights, among so many others.) The volunteers, the police, and the demonstrators are all playing their roles in a kind of nightly pageant focused on securing First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievance. Very straightforward.

No one has yet produced an ordinance, rule or regulation that authorizes closing the Plaza to the public between the hours of 11p or 12m and 5a. And no one has been able to justify the prohibition of an overnight demonstration or protest, when in fact the "public protest" ordinance is clear that public protest is a protected activity that does not require permits but is only subject to a fairly limited set of rules of conduct. That's all.

There have been some fairly intense personality clashes and people storming off in huff during the first few days of the Occupation, but really surprisingly little of it, and most of the tension that has arisen has had to do with "leadership" issues (as far as I can tell) -- most of which have been more or less temporarily resolved. Of course just bringing this very simple and yet very functional intentional community into being at all has been a major accomplishment which participants are very pleased about -- as they should be. The Sacramento Declaration of Occupation is still being modified, though I'm hearing there are efforts to rush it to completion for presentation tonight. I'm leery, but it's not my decision, and what I'm personally learning to do is to trust other people's decisions about the correct course of action -- and to let it be. This is an Evolution Revolution, and no one is in charge of it. No one has to be. It takes care of itself.

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The question of Infiltration has come to the fore after the story of the American Spectator editor who infiltrated the protest demonstration at the Air & Space Museum and helped provoke the overreaction of the museum's security staff, which in turn led to the pepper spraying of over 50 demonstrators, as well as some of the museum staff, and -- apparently -- the provocateur himself.

All I'd say is that infiltration and provocation by police and by political opponents is to be expected. The question is not whether it is happening, it is. The question is what you do about it, if anything. One thing I've noticed about almost all the Occupations I'm following is that there is no fear. They're really not afraid at all. They may want to think about being more on guard and more alert -- for example, I'm really uncomfortable with what happened on the Brooklyn Bridge. That was too much like "leading the lambs," and it would be good to find ways to counter that kind of thing before it happens or while it is happening rather than just letting it happen. The passivity I saw in the videos was alarming. But then, I'm old and I have memories...

I have said many times that as long as there are no secrets from one another the Occupations have nothing to fear from infiltrators or the police.

On the other hand, more and more alarm is being generated over the potential of "hijacking." Noises are coming out of the White House, for example, in "support." Sure. Right. Whatever. Democrats in Congress are cautiously exploring the possibility of potentially offering their "support." Whatever. Meanwhile, Republicans are hotly denouncing the whole thing. Whoa. Who'd a thunkit, eh? Media is cleaving in twain on self-interest and partisan lines. But the clearest signs of political infiltration and influence ("hijacking") are not from the Democrats, not by a long shot. Or by the unions. Or by the Marxists (ha!).

The most obvious -- and pretty successful -- efforts at infiltration and influence I've seen are from Ron Paul supporters, libertarians of all stripes, and something I'd never heard of before: The Zeitgeist Movement. And all I can say after looking at some of their material and watching a video or two is "WTF???!!!" This is a cult. You become a member of the cult when you can parse the complete gibberish its Leader spouts and then can Spread The Word. These people seem to be everywhere, and their gibberish is winding up in all sorts of Occupation documents and discussions. It's insidious. But then I've never been easily swayed by cultic nonsense. The closest I got to it was attending a couple of talks by a would-be cult leader who had been a follower of Ram Dass back in the day (he was still Baba Ram Dass back then). Gurus and cult leaders can be positive for people who need that sort of thing, but I'm not one of them, as anyone who's followed me around the internets has seen. I reject hero-worship and discipleship utterly.

Consequently, I'm attracted to a Revolutionary - Evolutionary movements like the Occupations almost instinctively. As I've said periodically, this IS the Revolution, whether we like it or not, whether we even know it or not. Once started, something like this cannot be stopped -- as many dictatorships have discovered to their surprise. On the other hand, where it will lead, no one yet knows. Not here and not abroad.

Everything's all in flux.

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*Frequently, there is no conclusion, there can't be. The matter isn't settled. This is one reason not to take votes and why a single individual can block consensus. In New York they've modified the process so that there sometimes are votes (90% rule for example) and they characterize a block as something so serious you really don't want to do it unless you absolutely cannot bring yourself not to. Someone who feels they have to block a proposal that is otherwise supported by consensus, and who still blocks even after extensive discussion and modification to suit the needs of the blocker, will generally face the 90% vote, and if the proposal is adopted, the blocker will have to leave the Occupation.

But in other cases, if the there is no consensus on a proposal, it will be tabled and be sent back to a Working Group or wherever it came from to be reconsidered and reworked. And it may then go back to General Assembly over and over until consensus is reached or the proposal is dropped.

It is a very slow and inefficient process for most items. Given the iconic use of the Human Microphone to communicate in New York, it also takes two or three (or sometimes four) times as long to state the proposal and conduct the discussions as it would if someone were using a PA system to address passive listeners.

And yet, the Human Microphone, as many observers have noted, is actually one of the keys that makes for a functioning intentional community at Liberty Square. The Human Microphone is a participatory tool par excellence. There's really nothing else like it. It is used in some other Occupations, but many do not use it, preferring to use bull horns and PA systems if they can, or to speak unamplified to a relatively close in audience.

About that "Naomi Klein" Quote

This quote has become an internet staple during this week of extraordinary expansion of the #Occupyitall movement. It seems to be everywhere, posted multiple times to practically every Occupation's Facebook page and almost always attributed to Naomi Klein:

please protesters, I can't say this enough: DO NOT MARCH. SIT DOWN or stand with linked arms. DO NOT MARCH. I have studied protests for the last fifty years -- the ones that ended in state violence (they always win) are short and the MARCH. the ones that brought down regimes are LONG and STOP TRAFFIC and involve SITTING DOWN OR STANDING STILL WITH LINKED ARMS. They take patience.

The only problem is that Naomi Klein didn't say it -- she wouldn't say something like this, for one thing -- it is a quote from Naomi Wolf's Facebook page from October 2, 2011.

Naomi Wolf said a lot more than this that day, and many people commented on her statement. She asserted herself as the voice of authority on successful protest movements because she has studied them. Naomi studies, you listen.

This is the link to the actual quote:

http://www.facebook.com/naomi.wolf.author/posts/10150329972349476

These are some of the other things she said that day:

But there is a great doc too[p] about estonia where they literally san[d ]g the (forbidden) national anthem everywhere totally peacefully in huge masses no violence, not marching, and finally the soviets just couldnt do anything and gave up...

...you need big numbers of course...

ok you are right matching t shirts not ideal but a color for sure is ideal. and respectfully it was not the marches of the suffragettes that did the deed, it was when they chained themselves to the gates of parliament and congress and went on hunger strikes.

when someone is chained to something for days or seated in the middle of everything en masse the story does not go away. also masks are a TERRIBLE idea, gives free reign to provocateurs.

also it took sixty years, the suffrage movement, that is why long haul tactics are the ones to choose.

The post about the bonus march is important but incomplete. The Bonus March marched to washington AND STAYED THERE. They camped out for MONTHS and sat on the steps on Congress (in a way that is forbidden now) so that every time their congresspeople passed they had to deal with them. THEY SAT DOWN THEY CAMPED THEY DID NOT LEAVE and eventually they did get their money.

Protesres have to behave in a way that does not turn the city into a context scary for kids families and old people but that SHUTS IT DOWN.

No disrespect to them but someone should let them know the sixties raised fist is really truly the wrong branding. It should be inclusive, non-militarist, patriotic and take our country back.

The idea of 'marching' comes form the New Left -- it is a quasi-militarist idea of social protest. The ones that really worked like tahrir square, and all over eastern europe, took weeks or months but people CAMPED IN PUBLIC PLACES STAYED STILL SANG WERE NONVIOLENT and disrupted business as usual (and commerce by STOPPING TRAFFIC. stopping traffic is really the only leverage the people have. DON"T MARCH because that gives police an excuse to escalate violence and it DOES NOT WORK. SIT DOWN. Estonia latvia and lithuania brought down the societ regime by parking cars and standing all along a linked highway and singing -- no traffic could pass.

When traffic can't get through then business puts pressure on government to address the protests.

also you are missing great media coverage by not choosing a single color to represent this movement and everyone dressing in it -- that way even people at work can show support.

also singing is better than chanting for the same reasons.

The civil rights movement did march but they mached to a destination and more important was the protest in whcih they SAT on buses or SAT at lunch counters and PEACEFULLY DID NOT MOVE.

The police are not your enemy. "Business as usual." is what your goal is to disrupt peacefully.

You want to bring the city to a standstill PEACEFULLY

BTW this is not woo woo it is really historically tested.

though love never hurts. Those cops are just trying to feed their families too. it is the machine that is the 'enemy' not individuals trapped in it.

marches are a lot easier for police today to manipulate, they have technology that did not exist in midcentury.

The first quote, misattributed and completely out of context, is so widespread by now that it is almost an article of faith.

Remember, this was October 2, after the initial police brutality incident during a march to and from Union Square. Actually, the argument she's making here is a vast oversimplification of a relatively complex and nuanced set of circumstances.

While it seems that she is denouncing marches as a useful protest tool, in fact, she isn't. She's basically making the claim that they are ineffective, much as many, many bloggers and other ponderers have claimed for many years. Marching in the streets is a waste of time. Especially if there are icky giant puppets.

She's responding to a specific instance with a general observation: Marches don't work to bring down a regime; they only aggravate the authorities and lead to failure for the cause. Sit down, link arms, and sing songs instead. That will work; I know because I've studied what works for years.

Yes. Well.

That's fine. Her observations are fine as far as they go, but because she is trying to argue her point like a lawyer rather than consider that the issue is actually a good deal more complex than she makes it, she stumbles badly.

It's as if she feels that the mission of the Occupy Wall Street participants is her's, that it is a mission to overthrow the existing government, and that success can only come through adopting the tactics used to lead to the collapse of the Soviet empire.

I'm quite fond of those tactics myself, but our situation is not quite theirs. Nevertheless, the sit-in has a long and storied history in this country; standing protests, silent protests, and camping protests have all been utilized from time to time, as they continue to be. So are marches. So are strikes. There's a whole panoply of tools that can be used to accomplish particular social/political objectives "outside the system" as it were, and at any given time, any of them -- or a combination of them -- might be used. None will necessarily be effective right out of the gate, and they may not be successful at all, ever.

Any activism you choose to name can -- and often does -- fail. This is no mystery.

The Occupation has been using all sorts of tactics, not just marches and sit-ins and teach-ins and camping overnight. To my eye, the most effective part of the action in New York is the General Assembly and all that goes with it. This will, I hope, become the lasting legacy of the movement. But as I've said many times, it is very difficult to do; it is so difficult that most people cannot and will not do it. But enough seem to be willing to try it, adapt it, and use it, that there are now General Assemblies and their associated Working and Thematic Groups in hundreds of cities around the world. This is really quite an amazing accomplishment.

So amazing that many people are still gobsmacked by it.

The second most effective tactic or tool used is the "occupation" theme itself. An occupation has many layers of meaning, from that of claiming and holding territory (that someone else thinks is or should be theirs) to that one's calling and employment. People are claiming territory in their cities, often the main public square, or at least a significant one. They are using that public space for mostly public purposes, ie: establishing and demonstrating the operations of a model community in the midst of the broken and failed social and political institutions we're surrounded with. Wall Street is a symbolic rallying cry, but the problem of our failed and broken institutions is pervasive. It's everywhere, and it can only be corrected through common action, in public, as a demonstration of what the civil society should be.

That's why it works. Not so much because the activists are sleeping in misery on cold granite or marble or asphalt surfaces, but because they are demonstrating how to create and operate a viable, democratic, and functional New Civil Society.

If it is successful over the long term, that's why it will be successful, not so much because of the sit-ins, sleep-ins or the marches.

Naomi Wolf makes some valuable observations, but because she is arguing her point rather than engaging in dialogue, she's actually modeling the opposite of the #Occupation. She's asserting authority, arguing narrowly, and she refuses to yield to responsible counter-argument. It is the old "I'm right and you're wrong," top down, hierarchical model that has been such a stupendous failure. And like many others, I doubt she is ready to recognize it.

It takes time.

It's hard to bite your tongue and listen. But that's what this movement is calling for.

Time, humility, and an open mind. With those tools and a few others, there's little or no end to the possibilities.

19 20 Arrested Last Night [with inserted updates]

No violence.

The arrests appeared to be carefully choreographed, done -- on both sides -- with a great deal of professional courtesy and respect, everyone, including heavy media presence, performing their roles.

But then word comes this morning that a few of the arrestees have been released, charged with trespass and interfering with business (whatever that is), [the actual charge is "failure to disperse," but the charge sheet says "remaining at a place of riot post order to" -- oops. There no riot] while a number of drivers-by were cited during the day for "illegal use of horn" by honking in support of the demonstrators.

Furthermore, the arrestees have been "banned for life" from ever setting foot on the plaza again. [See updates in Livestream post. In fact the "ban" was a form of restraining order that was "issued in error" according to a member of the police force who personally contacted each arrestee. I witnessed at least one of those contacts. It was a remarkable scene.]

Ha!

That's a good one.

Onward in Solidarity.

The Revolution Starts... Now...

Actually, we're coming a little late to the party, but that's OK. Our Action, the local Solidarity Occupation, starts in a few hours, and after last night's melees in New York and various reports locally of "what we can expect from the police," there's a sense of anxiety that was present prior to yesterday.

What is wrong with those White Shirts in New York? Good God. I had the Livestream on in the background while I was doing other things. It seemed calm enough in New York, though nobody seemed to know what was going on. The Square was ringed by police, and it appeared people weren't allowed to leave; there were many, many thousands of people on the streets and sidewalks around the Square, but the police were keeping traffic lanes open, and it seemed like the sort of stalemate situation that occurs all the time.

As I was puttering with other things last night, I heard from the Livestream something that sounded like the chants on the Brooklyn Bridge, and I thought they were showing footage from the Bridge again. The Livestream had been terrible most of the day, very choppy, very difficult to follow at times. I thought it had gone out again and they were showing previously recorded footage. But no, when I looked, I could hear shouting and screaming but not really see it, though I saw at least one person being led away in zip-ties. Not only was the Livestream very poor, the camera was quite far from most of what was happening. But apparently there were "mass arrests" under way, and the police were "out of control." People were being beaten in the streets, and it was a mélee.

Then footage started showing up, first of the media team in the paddy wagon, bruised and bloodied, telling terrible stories of being bludgeoned by the police, slammed against the wall, kicked and punched... apparently for doing nothing but being there and recording what was going on. Then there was footage of White Shirts wailing away with their nightsticks in fury and rage at demonstrators who, as far as I could tell, were simply... there. Where? On their way to Wall Street.

Eventually the story came out that a very large march to Wall Street had been organized combining elements from the Labor Demonstration that had been going on all day and #occupywallstreet. There were, perhaps, twenty thousand or more marchers. The police would not let them go to Wall Street, and at an intersection near Wall Street (it may have been more than one, I haven't had time to sort the reports yet this morning) they stopped the march (some reports say it was an offshoot of the main march, and that those involved were intent on reaching Wall Street, and disobeyed the police), people kept moving forward, toward the barricades, and the White Shirts responded with violence.

WTF?

These people are completely out of control; and by these people, I mean the White Shirts, the instigators of the violence in New York last night.



An eyewitness report from the ground indicated that the police had confined the marchers between very narrow barricades, and they had been funneling them away from Wall Street. Tens of thousands of people were being funneled around Lower Manhattan this way. Apparently, the police violence occurred when the people either couldn't or refused to move back from the barricades.

The question arises: Why such barricades in the first place? What are they protecting?

The people are peaceful -- loud to be sure, but that is not violent.

The police, and only the police, have been violent, and last night's violence was -- perhaps -- the last straw.

Well... this is an ongoing occupation action. There is no "last straw." It will go on till it doesn't.

Today is the big October2011 Stop the Machine rally and occupation in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. Few are there as of 9:30am EST according to the Livestream but more are gathering. A homeless man is speaking on the Livestream, he's quite articulate about the need for a different set of priorities in this country and for more and more people to attend the rally. He says he's a veteran, and he was in the service for over 20 years. He says if we spent only 20% of the military budget on things we need, everyone in the country would be housed, fed, and provided medical care.

All of which is correct. We know what's wrong. We know what to do about it. Our rulers are indifferent.

The stories were flying last night that the local cops were planning to show up at the #occupation here in force and in full riot attire. This word apparently came directly from the police department itself to one of the local organizers. WTF?

As I've said, protests and rallies and marches are a way of life around here. They are so frequent, they are routine parts of city life. The police do not get riot-geared up for them. Not the state police at the Capitol and not the city police everywhere else. There have been few confrontations and no riots at all for many years.

So this is a very strange -- and not really credible -- threat from the SPD. And yet...



That is how the Bay Area transit police get all dolled up to confront peaceful protesters routinely.

What are they afraid of? Who are they protecting?

I don't have Ipads and such, nor does my laptop have a built in camera, so it's unlikely I'll do any live blogging. But I might surprise myself. As of right now, more than 1100 have signed up on Facebook to attend today's local #occupation action.

Onward!

Solidarity!

Tomorrow...

WE... ARE the 99 percent and so are
YOU... ARE the 99 percent and so are
WE... ARE the 99 percent and so are
YOU... ARE the 99 percent...

My adaptation of the 99% chant goes round and round in my head this morning. The earworms out of this movement are legion. That's one reason it's working so well... so far.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow? But let's not fret about it, shall we?

Tomorrow begins the local Occupation occupation Downtown at the city's central plaza; I haven't checked in with the Occupation Central Committee(!) yet -- No, that's not what they call themselves, I'm having a bit of fun at the expense of Teh Revolution, so just settle down -- so I'm not altogether sure how far along the preparations are, but they were doing quite well as of some time last night.

Organized chaos, as it were.

Of course October 6 is also the kick off of the October2011 occupation action in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, a somewhat bigger and more comprehensive sit-in that's been in the planning stages for months and looks fair to eclipse -- at least for a while -- the #occupywallstreet actions in New York and all over the country and more and more around the world. The DC effort is looking far glitzier and less spontaneous. God knows how the media loves that! Which is not meant as a put down of the October2011 efforts. It's all good. One of the organizers of the October2011 action (Lisa Simone) posts comments periodically over at Ian Welsh's place, and she has provided some valuable insight during these initial phases of the US Days of Rage.

Oh, the US Days of Rage were something else. And on that note, I'd just point out that like the global uprisings in 1968, the #occupywallstreet movement and its many offshoots, as well as the October2011 action in DC, are not by any means sui generis. They are all part of a global spirit of rebellion-becoming-revolution and a continuation of rebellions and revolutions that have been going on all year and which physically began last year. The necessity for something like this has long been recognized, and anyone who's been following this blog and my posts knows I've been hammering Teh Revolution theme almost from the very beginning of :Ché (What You Call Your) Pasa: on the interwebs.

These occupations have not arisen out of a vacuum, in other words. In a sense, they are the inevitable result of years and years of official indifference to and oppression of the masses while cleaving ever more tightly to the (shrinking) 1%.

Frau Merkel, I'm looking at you. Among others.

Well, yes. There is that Herbert Hoover clone in the White House as an example of official indifference. Another theme I've been hammering for a loooonnnng time...

Well, enough about me. Let's talk about tomorrow.

The local occupation will begin at Cesar Chavez Plaza, which has been the city's central square since it was founded and laid out in 1848. It was for many decades called "Plaza Park," which is kind of redundant, but that's how it goes. It was renamed in honor of Cesar Chavez, noted farmworker organizer, in... I'm not sure what year, but I think it must have been 1994 or 1996, not too long after he died.

The plaza is very much the city's central square. On the north side is the Old City Hall -- still used as part of the City Hall complex, while right behind it is the New City Hall. The south side hosts a "boutique" hotel that is located in what was the first local skyscraper (14 stories, wow!) built in the 1920's as offices. On that side are also a string of deteriorating buildings from various eras that are intended for some kind of civic rehab eventually, but, given the economy and all, it's not likely to be soon. On the west side is the USBank Building (how nice!), as well as the Central Library. The east side hosts a large parking structure and some Deco era office buildings.

Events occur in the plaza all the time; it hosts all sorts of local festivals and fiestas as well as arts and cultural activities, there's a restaurant in the plaza, there is a weekly farmer's market, weekly concerts in the summer time, and on and on. Hosting an occupation as well may cause some civic tension, I don't know, nor does anybody else right now. We are not yet liasoning with the police, though there has been some limited contact between the SPD and people doing the planning for the occupation.

We are told that no permit is required for protesting and demonstrations, though there are "rules" to be followed. But camping in the city is not allowed. This is actually a matter for litigation, and there have been ongoing issues around the topic because of the homeless situation and the local lack of anything close to sufficient safe housing or camping ground for people without homes. There was a long and quite wrenching article in the March issue of Harper's (pdf link to blurb) that detailed what's been going on from the ground level, and it's not a pretty picture. That said, debate has been ongoing throughout the #occupytheirass movement about how to approach the "rules," and whether or not to engage in civil disobedience by... camping anyway.

There are plans to camp in the plaza, but whether they will be realized I can't say. Civil disobedience is a froughtful issue around here. This is the capital city of California, and those who still have jobs (ha! unemployment is appallingly high in the area) are mindful of how close they are to the edge and how anything might hurl them over. Civil disobedience is done, of course, but generally it's rather ritualized, done only briefly and on behalf of a specific set of demands.

Then we look at where we are going to be and who is honored there and what he and UFW did back in the day. Is it honoring him to conduct this occupation action? I think it is, but others may not. It is something to be worked out, it seems to me, in General Assembly.

If civil disobedience by camping in the plaza is actually done, then what? If there is rousting by the police and arrests, then what? Being the Capital, the place is full of lawyers, and both the ACLU and NLG have pledged support on behalf of those arrested, if there are arrests, but right now, it's not even certain anyone will attempt to camp in the plaza.

What is looking more and more certain is that there will be a large demonstration in the plaza tomorrow. 700 or more are signed up on the Facebook page, and that's only part of the activist community that's involved. There has been quite a lot of television news coverage (surprisingly, really) here that has set the stage for the demonstration tomorrow. Far more people know something about it than we might realize. Given the breadth of anger and frustration among the general public, the demonstration could turn into quite a large and vibrant event.

But it is an occupation as well as a demonstration. Demonstrations happen all the time around here, then everyone goes home. It's a form of political ritual. The occupation format, however, is a much rarer occurrence and when occupations have occurred, they have tended to focus on one individual and that individual's supporters. (The late Cesar Chavez comes to mind.) What's coming up tomorrow, though, is something else again. Not quite what Cesar did. Yet in some ways sharing his spirit.

As I ponder it, I think about what happened to the farmworker's movement, how successful they were in some ways, and how conditions for many farmworkers in California today aren't any better, and in some cases are worse, than they were when the UFW began. More than once, this anomaly has been raised in public discussion, and one of the insights about it is that every generation has to make their own claim on the Future. The abuelos did what they could, and they were very successful in doing it.

Now it's your turn, they say to the jóvenes.

Ain't it the truth, though.

Adbusters Co-Founder Kalle Lasn Explains It All For You

An early Adbusters ad. (c.1999)

There is certainly a lot of "explaining" going on out there. Tells me this #occupyeverything movement has, shall we say, broken through the barricades behind which our rulers have long been hiding, and they want to know what the hell all those kids are doing on their lawn. And, for the nonce, how long they might have before the tumbrils come for them.

The origins of Occupy Wall Street explained
Salon talks to the editor of Adbusters about the practical and philosophical roots of the movement

I enjoy the casualness of his approach to what he envisions turning into a global revolution more profound than that of 1968.

We are not just inspired by what happened in the Arab Spring recently, we are students of the Situationist movement. Those are the people who gave birth to what many people think was the first global revolution back in 1968 when some uprisings in Paris suddenly inspired uprisings all over the world. All of a sudden universities and cities were exploding. This was done by a small group of people, the Situationists, who were like the philosophical backbone of the movement. One of the key guys was Guy Debord, who wrote “The Society of the Spectacle.” The idea is that if you have a very powerful meme — a very powerful idea — and the moment is ripe, then that is enough to ignite a revolution. This is the background that we come out of.

1968 was more of a cultural kind of revolution. This time I think it’s much more serious. We’re in an economic crisis, an ecological crisis, living in a sort of apocalyptic world, and the young people realize they don’t really have a viable future to look forward to. This movement that’s beginning now could well be the second global revolution that we’ve been dreaming about for the last half a century.

Well, that's certainly an original interpretation of the uprisings of 1968, not necessarily wrong, but I would say incomplete. It's a revolutionary truism that the spark comes -- always -- from a very small group of people who may not even be intending the revolutionary result. But to suggest that the Situationists were able to trigger the 1968 uprisings sui generis all around the world is hilarious. And very wrong.

And for him to suggest that the 1968 eruption of unrest was a "cultural [kind of] revolution" borders on -- I'm sorry -- crazy. Of course, I realize he's "playing" with the interviewer, and is not meaning to be taken seriously. (For the historically impaired, there was a Cultural Revolution going on in China prior to and continuing well past the eruptions of 1968 that took place elsewhere. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a state-sponsored rebellion primarily by the young against the remaining counter-Revolutionary elements in China. Most scholars in and out of China agree that it was a devastating set-back for the Chinese People. It is generally thought to have begun in 1966 and concluded ten years later.)

People in the West knew there was a Cultural Revolution in China, and those who were paying close attention knew -- sort of -- what it was about, but it was recognized even then that the Chinese Cultural Revolution was not a spontaneous uprising of China's youth. It was directed from the very top; Mao himself, his wife Jiang Ching, Lin Piao, Chou En Lai, and so on, were intimately involved in the inspiration and direction of the Cultural Revolution, and local Party cadres were never far from the action. Of course some of them got caught up in it, but still...

It's nothing like what happened in the West in 1968 -- unless, of course, Lasn is hinting that maybe those uprisings weren't quite as spontaneous as they seemed.

The idea that conditions now are far more "serious" than they were in 1968 is an interesting way of looking at how the situation has changed. The threats people were living under in 1968 were different than today's, certainly, but they were no less serious. In certain parts of the world, they were much more serious. This was before the Green Revolution and serious efforts at pollution control were underway, remember. The Indochinese War was reaching a crescendo on the ground. Starvation and environmental degradation and pollution were so commonplace as to be assumed.

Simmering discontent at the general oppression by the ruling classes was constant and spreading. That simmering discontent led to violent uprisings against authority in many, many, many cities and lands well before the more widespread uprisings of 1968. The pattern of rebellion had long since been set. The explosion was unexpected in scope and duration but not a surprise, because so much of what happened had already been pre-figured.

That aside, Lasn's comparison of today's global sit-in/occupation demonstrations to the uprisings of 1968 may be intended to give the occupiers a historical sense of greater purpose. I myself see what is going on as more intentional and purposeful than the more or less inchoate rebellions of 1968. They partake of some of the same energy of frustration, though, in that those who rule us now -- as then -- simply will not hear the People, and they continue to rule counter to the Peoples' interests. I call it "governing contrary." And now, as then, the People are not going to take it quietly any more.

The rebellions of 1968 were mostly a phenomenon of youth, widely influenced by radical leftist thought. Not so much now, however, nor is there any interest in confining the current uprisings to the young and the left.

It's everyone, the 99%, against the tiny minority who own and control governments all over the world. No matter their age or condition.

But as I say, Lasn seems to be "playing" with his interviewer. He makes the points he needs to make in a way that may have a very interesting psychological effect on the 1% -- if they ever see the interview. It's a clever way to put the Fear in them without a direct threat.


A more recent Adbusters ad (date?)

Nobody Expects the Paris Commune

A lot of the critical attention being paid to the Occupation movement has to do with its amorphousness and apparent absence of leadership. The lack of clearly articulated demands. Inability to appoint a spokesperson. And that sort of thing.

Etc.

Well, yes. It's true.

Ezra (Klein) did an interview with David Graeber today for the Washington Post that sort of documents how this thing originated. It's worth a close read. Because it is posted in its entirety at dKos, I will cheerfully repost it in its entirety here.

‘You’re creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature.'

David Graeber is an anthropologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of ‘Direct Action: An Ethnography’ and 'Debt: The First 5000 Years.' He was also one of the initial organizers of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests. And he thinks the people asking for a list of demands are missing the point of the movement quite dramatically. We spoke this morning by phone.

Ezra Klein: So when did your involvement with these protests begin?

David Graeber: July 2nd. That was the first actual meeting. What happened was AdBusters put out this call for these protests. We had heard there was supposed to be a general assembly on July 2nd. So I just showed up. But it was a rally, not an assembly. Some traditional Marxist group had set up stages and megaphones and was making speeches and were planning a march. Acting as if they were already running the whole show. So we said we don’t need to do this. We pulled a small group together and decided to have a real assembly.

So we wandered over to another part of the area and began a meeting and people kept migrating over. But we had a problem because we only had six weeks. AdBusters had already advertised the date to 80,000 people. And their date was a Saturday. You can’t really shut down Wall Street on a Saturday. So we were working under some significant constraints. We assembled 80 or 100 people and formed working groups for outreach, process, so forth and so on. And we began meeting every week.

One thing that helped a lot was a smattering of people from Spain and Greece and Tunisia who had been doing this sort of thing more recently. They explained that the model that seemed to work was to take something that seemed to be public space, reclaim it, and build up an organization headquarters around that from which you can begin doing other things.

EK: This movement is organized rather differently than most protest movements. There isn’t really a list of demands, or goals, or even much of an identifiable leadership. But if I understand you correctly, that’s sort of the point.

DG: It’s very similar to the globalization movement. You see the same criticisms in the press. It’s a bunch of kids who don’t know economics and only know what they’re against. But there’s a reason for that. it’s pre-figurative, so to speak. You’re creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature. And it’s a way of juxtaposing yourself against these powerful, undemocratic forces you’re protesting. If you make demands, you’re saying, in a way, that you’re asking the people in power and the existing institutions to do something different. And one reason people have been hesitant to do that is they see these institutions as the problem.

EK: So if you say, for instance, that you want a tax on Wall Street and then you’ll be happy, you’re implicitly saying that you’re willing to be happy with a slightly modified version of the current system.

DG: Right. The tax on Wall Street will go to people controlled by Wall Street.

EK: By which you mean government.

DG: Yes. So we are keeping it open-ended. In a way, what we want is to create spaces where people can think about questions like that. In New York, according to law, any unpermitted assembly of more than 12 people is illegal in New York. Space itself is not an openly available resource. But the one resource that isn’t scarce is smart people with ideas. So we’re trying to reframe things away from the rhetoric of demands to a questions of visons and solutions. Now how that translates into actual social change is an interesting question. One way this has been done elsewhere is you have local initiatives that come out of the local assemblies.

EK: It also seems that the tradeoff here, from an organizational standpoint, is that if you say you want, say, a tax on Wall Street, then the people who aren’t interested in a tax on Wall Street stay home. So remaining vague on demands can make the tent bigger. But it also seems that, at some point, people are going to need to be working towards concrete goals and experiencing dicrete successes in order to sustain the energy of a movement like this.

GB: As the thing grows, new organizational forms will develop. At this point, the New York occupation has 30 different working groups for everything from handling sanitation to discussing labor issues and tax policy. So we’re trying to set up ways that people with different interests can plug into the movement. There’s even a newspaper. The ‘Occupied Wall Street Journal.’ Of course, this is nothing compared to what happened in Tahrir Square, where they even had dry cleaners.

EK: We’re also beginning to see “Occupy Wall Street” link up with with more traditional activist groups. Some members of the protest were speaking via videofeed at today’s big confab of liberal groups in Washington. MoveOn.org and organized labor are planning a march in support of the occupiers for Wednesday. How does that change what is, for now, a very decentralized movement?

DG: It is organically happening but there are definite problems that occur. We found this back in the days of the globalization movement. Unions were very supportive and provided resources but they’re very different organizations. The real difficulty is how to work with people who are top-down and have a funding base, as it means there are things they can say in public and things they can’t, and groups where people can say whatever they want and the whole idea is to be decentralized. One problem I’ve already heard of is that people are coming in and changing the tenor of the general assemblies to speeches, and that’s not really what it’s supposed to be about. So you have to balance the aspect where you’re trying to show what direct democracy could be like and the effort to link up with groups that have a form of organization we’ve rejected.

EK: The name of the group is “Occupy Wall Street,” but from what I can tell by listening to interviews with the protesters and reading messages at ‘We are the 99,’ it’s not just about Wall Street, it’s about the powerful in general, which include politicians and wealthy folks who don’t make their money in finance, and beyond that, it’s really about the less-powerful. The real running theme I’m hearing is hopelessness: that we did everything right and played by the rules and went to school or got a job and now we’re buried in debt and can’t make ends meet, while these folks at the top of the economy seem to just keep prospering and prospering.

DG: Right, and Wall Street is just a beautiful illustration of that. Here we have these guys who were just greedy crooks, who crashed the global economy and did terrible things to the lives of people all over the world. None of them have paid at all. There was a debate about whether their bonuses should be lowered. On the other hand, if people point out to vigorously that this has happened, they do get arrested. And that helps to point out the essential double standard of the system.

When you think about it, as many are doing right now, this is an extraordinarily revolutionary vision and the consequence of the vision is extraordinarily revolutionary action. Which we have been seeing spreading over Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, into Asia, and of course all over the United States now. It's an amazing and wonderful thing. 132 Occupations so far planned or taking place now in the United States, over two dozen internationally not counting the predecessor actions in Greece and Spain, Tunisia and Egypt and so many other places.

It is as fully a communitarian vision in action as I've ever seen, and it is quite different than those I knew and knew of in the Old Days. Those who insist it is nothing other that Dirty Fucking Hippies acting up once more before they die off simply have no idea. Or perhaps they're just too frightened of going through that era again.

Some of the occupiers no doubt are utopian visionaries, but most seem very firmly grounded in an almost Puritanical propriety. No drugs, no alcohol, no violence. Though it is not mentioned, one assumes: No sex, either. People participating in occupations continue to work at their jobs -- if they have them; they help one another on site and in their communities if they don't (or if they do, as well). The occupations, therefore, are far more ascetic than their critics are able to understand yet. In a sense, they're almost like monasteries -- without the overlay of hierarchical religion or a strictly political motivation or a pecuniary interest. They exist to be, to live, to share, to enjoy; they don't exist to have, to steal, to destroy.

Obviously, Authority in its global majesty does not know what to do with them, nor how to. The Occupiers are their sons, their daughters, their friends, their colleagues. The Occupiers in a very real sense are them, at least those among 99% who impose authority in exchange for a regular paycheck.

This is where the DFH analogies simply fall to pieces. The movements of the 1960's were consciously based on separation from the majority. The Hippies were trying to make a better world to be sure, but they were doing it by setting themselves consciously apart from the "straights" -- which is to say, the rest of Americans, the vast and silent majority Jerry Rubin mocks so cuttingly in his interview with Phil Donohue -- going so far as to actually ghettoize themselves in the context of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury. Shortly, the Hippie movement became a commercial product of the media. Which is why, at the end of the summer of 1967, the Diggers proclaimed the Death of the Hippie. In the sense of a genuine counter culture movement, it was over, while the commercial exploitation of the movement and the exploitation of naive and impressionable young people continued unabated for some years more.

What's going on now is something else again entirely, almost impossible to exploit commercially, ultimately far more "proper."

It's not the Paris Commune, but in some ways it may be even more revolutionary. It remains to be seen. I won't predict an outcome.

But there is very definitely something happening here.

Occupy Everything!

Occupy Everything from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

We do have to be careful that the whole thing doesn't turn into an excuse for making yet another music video.

Don't we?

[Oh, I scarfed the video from this thread at dKos. If you haven't already read it, please do. It is really good.]

UnFuck The World

I like this a lot.

"Occupy Wall St, Taking the Brooklyn Bridge" from Robert Lyons on Vimeo.

We can do it.

Idly Noodling

A THOUSAND DISMAL CAMPFIRES

Woke up this morning with a somewhat depressing vision of the near future of the Occupations.

A headline reads:

"A Thousand Dismal Campfires"

The body of the piece is the story of all these wet and freezing Occupiers around the country, with special emphasis on the coldest places like Chicago and Minneapolis, Buffalo (brrr) and what have you, where a handful of protesters continue their pitiful Occupations around scattered campfires of abandoned cardboard signs. Occupy: What For?

Yes, well. We know the media will be reporting like that no matter what. It is what they do, especially the higher up the food chain you get. They have to be dismissive of anything that either isn't them or doesn't pay them.

The media, the major mass media at any rate, has never been the kind of "fair" and "objective" -- won't say "balanced" for the obvious reasons -- Americans like to pretend or imagine it used to be. It never was. I've frequently used Time Magazine as an example of bias and contempt for ordinary people and straight out corporatist/government propaganda and lies from its very first issue until today. Its style has changed -- it used to be a lot sharper and wittier -- but it has always been what it is, always done what it does. Why would anyone think it was ever "fair" and "objective?"

And so it is with the NYT and the rest of the Big Newspapers, all the national television news, and so on. It's always been pretty much as annoying and biased and vapid and celebrity obsessed and wrong as it is today.

This always comes as a surprise to people who believe -- sincerely -- that back in their day, or at some other time, the media was "better." If we could only get back to that time, things would be fine for the rest of us.

Uh. No. There never was such a time. The major mass media have always served the needs and interests of their sponsors.

Always. That's pretty dismal, isn't it?

The media issue continues to come up with regard to the Occupations because they still "aren't covering us." Except they are, especially local media, and in some cases quite extensively and relatively honestly. The point I would make is that you don't necessarily want all that much coverage from the major mass media. There is an alternative media, and you really want your coverage, and that's where it hasn't quite reached a kind of critical mass.

There's still a lot of naysaying and negativity where there should be interest and support, especially in the "legacy" alt media (heh) and the blogosphere.

This Movement is the start of the Future for all of us. If you're a Doomer, then nothing anyone does makes any difference, we're all dead in the end anyway, the sooner, perhaps, the better. "Let the children play. Nobody cares."

Well, I'd say that's wrong. Very many do care, and they are doing their part, whatever they can, to offer the young people in the van of this Movement, this Rebellion-Becoming-Revolution, their support and encouragement. Instead of a thousand dismal campfires, it's more like a fire under the butts of apathy.



THE STIMULATOR

I like The Stimulator -- who I would never have found if it hadn't been for the Livestream of the #OccupyWallStreet action -- for he is sassy and right about most things and he doesn't give a shit whether you like it or not. "Good Morning, runaway slaves." Or just plain slaves.

Exactly. Of course, I will tire of him in due time, I always do. But for now, he's a tonic for all the apathy that still rules the land. He doesn't give you any hope at all, he just tells it like it is and tells you it's time to do something about it.

The more who do, the more who are doing it.

For some reason it reminds me of something I would have seen or done or picked up and pondered in the University of Washington district of Seattle back in the day. Well, yes. Seattle. I used to go there quite frequently but haven't been there for several years. For a time, the University was my chief hangout. There is a vast open square, paved with red brick, called -- appropriately -- Red Square, in the midst of the campus, and it's where events like #OccupyEverything should be taking place. But I understand they went down to Westlake Park instead. Oh, for cripes sake, I thought.

Westlake Park was sort of the central focus of the Battle in Seattle in 1999, so it has a certain memorial quality about it, and it is where the people are downtown. But still, Red Square at the University is just visually wonderful. In a kind of scary way. It is so huge. And the buildings around it are enormous. It is so outscaled, it practically gives you vertigo.



Right. Everyone wants to be a critic, don't they? Westlake will do.

EVERYTHING'S A DISTRACTION FROM EVERYTHING ELSE



Yeah, right, sure. Who cares any more?

Contrariwise, the #occupywallstreet movement-becoming-revolution is trying to say, among other things, that everything is connected to everything else, and every one is connected to every one else, and the more you atomize and individualize issues and people, the less, inevitably, you can get done.

All for all, instead of all against all.

Strange concept, isn't it?

Well, yes. That's part of what is so attractive about the movement to so many different kinds of people.

Consciousness raising is a big part of the process.

Eek. The Process. Eek! Participatory Democracy is HARD. Not everyone can do it. Not everyone should do it. I'm serious. I love the model being used. I think it is great. It lets everyone have a say and contribute what they can, when and how they can, and it values all participants. It does not exploit anyone, yet it gets a tremendous amount of social good done, something that is becoming more and more problematic or impossible according to standard operational models. Since the participatory model being utilized is not based on the survival of the original organizers or organization but is instead an organic evolutionary mechanism, it can never become an institution. Yay.

But doing things this way is frustrating, aggravating, inefficient and appallingly difficult.

It connects everything to everything else instead of separating everything into discreet pockets of self-serving and interest, but when you see the connections, you also see how huge the job to be done is, and there is an instinctive negative response. OMG, we can never do this, not in a million years! Run away!

Well. No. It has to be done. And it can be. And it will be. Take your time, don't overdo, learn from your mistakes, grow and flourish. What's necessary will be done.

While I was participating in the organizing meeting for the local #occupyeverything action on Saturday, for example -- and it is just a tiny example of what happens, what can happen -- the person designated scribe for the time and location working group I was part of (oh, my! self organization! who'd a thunk?) was doing it wrong. At least in my jaundiced and experienced view. She was spending most of her time drawing a map of the downtown area on her whiteboard while people in the group were discussing the advantages and disadvantages of various locations. She failed to write down all the locations under discussion while she concentrated on her map. When it came time to wrap up the meeting and report back to the GA, there was a very incomplete list on her board of what the group had been discussing, and yet we were going to have a vote in minutes, and she apparently hadn't even been listening. We were going to select a location for the occupation, but the scribe had failed to record the complete list to choose from.

I was in something of a dither, but I did not intervene. Yes, I know "how to do this," and obviously this woman had no idea. But something interesting happened. She'd spent all this time drawing her map, and yes, she had been listening all along. When it came time to vote on locations, she was able to point out on her map where the various places being considered were in relation to other locations, and she was able to compare and contrast the main ones. Thus, the vote was relatively painless. Two sites were chosen to present to the GA for a final vote. Each had its advantages and disadvantages, and ultimately a starting point was chosen, and a time, and a date, and though making the choice involved a lot of talk (and a good deal of, to my eye, "doing it wrong") it got a result, and the result is fine. It was all in all quite painless.

And the problem with this is?

It seemingly takes forever, you have to listen to everyone's spiel, and you have to be humble, especially if you think you know something the rest of the group doesn't.

It's hard. Very hard.

Not everyone can do it. Not everyone should do it.

And it is working.

Censorship?

I'm seeing notices on Twitter that indicate both Twitter and Facebook are censoring both @OccupyWallStNYC and other #occupywallstreet posts and photos.

Sigh.

The social media have been crucial for the success -- or at least progress -- of the many other occupation and revolutionary movements elsewhere, and governments did their best to interfere with social networking Over There.

In this country, there is a decreasing difference between the Government and the Corporate interests that sponsor and to a large degree control it, including the corporations that own and control the social media. Like Twitter. Like Facebook. And the others.

A question that is going to come up -- because there is no way to avoid it -- is whether #occupywallstreet and all its many offshoots is some kind of black op.

I sure hope not. So far, I don't see any sign that it is. But our Rulers don't have the best reputation for, shall we say, disinterest in popular movements.

Harrumph.

Another Jacobin Weighs In

How Can the Left Win?
By Richard Seymour · In Summer 2011

Of course it deals with Britain, but the situation is similar here. Well, except for the absence of a political "left" -- which still exists in Britain, even if it is largely co-opted by the Gods Who Walk Among Us.

The premise that the right is unified and ready whatever happens is pretty spot on. They not only have a unified message, they have a unified vision. This is how that have been able to succeed so well over the last few decades. In addition, they are relentless. Persistent. And absolutely determined.

I have long thought they learned their lessons from the Old Left. As I pointed out in my Kochevik series of posts, the Koch brothers were strongly influenced by what their father saw in the Soviet Union under Stalin, and in fact their philosophy is nearly Marxist. Their vision is an inversion of Soviet social and Marxist economic ideals, to be sure. But it is dependent on both Marx and the Soviet model.

What passes for the Left, but is actually a very conservative protector of the status quo in this country, has largely abandoned Marx altogether and would sputter in raging denial of any affinity with the Soviet Union or Stalin. In that they would be correct. The so-called "left" in this country isn't even remotely Socialist, let alone Social Democratic. It is conservative and elitist. Much like Rockefeller Republicans of days gone by.

Richard Seymour is writing about a political Left that is still viable in Britain and much of Europe, which is -- yes -- becoming more and more aligned with the what the conservatives used to be, more and more hidebound, and more and more devoted to preserving the status quo against the barbaric radicals of the other side.

It is the solutions that he recommends that I find interesting.

Now we can state, in slightly more abstract terms, what the strategic aims of the Left ought to be. First, since it is normal for people to entertain conflicting ideas and ambitions, we should aim to shift the weight of emphasis along the continuum away from reactionary resentment and toward popular and class-based anger. Secondly, we should destabilize the austerity alliance by attacking their weak links, and shaking free some loose elements ripe for re-appropriation. ... Thirdly, the aim is to re-articulate many of the same elements operated on by the Right into a new majoritarian leftist political mobilization.

The majority has long been far more closely aligned with the principles and policies that we associate with the Left than it is with those of the ostensible Right, but what's happened, especially in this country, and especially since the Reagan years and collapse of the Soviet Union, is that the genuine Left has clammed up, essentially gone silent, and an ersatz political "left," within the Democratic Party and among the Libertarians that infest the internet masquerading as "progressives," has taken its place in public consciousness.

A consequence has been a captured political and electoral system that serves the immediate and pecuniary interests of its sponsors.

Shifting the emphasis away from resentment and toward what I would characterize as righteous anger is essential, and it is happening. The Occupation forces are countering resentments -- for example, that public employees like cops (still) have pensions -- by calls for everyone to have a decent retirement. Why should 20% of children live in poverty in this country? Why should anyone be homeless?

We know why. Those who have the most won't be satisfied until they have it all. They are trying to steal the Future from everyone else.

The whole "austerity" gambit is intended solely to entrench the highest levels of the Ruling Class in their positions forever and to do it at the expense of everyone else. Forever.

The People are rising up and resisting. "End the Wars, Tax the Rich." Very simple, but getting it done is proving to be nearly impossible. The People must persist.

The People will win. It is inevitable.

The current movement is "transpartisan," neither right nor left, but beyond them. The Leftist ideals are still motivational; their realization, however, seems to be possible only outside the political and electoral system. Understandably, this makes the political parties nervous, in ways they weren't at all nervous about the TeaBaggers -- knowing as they did that the 'Baggers were a branch of the established Republican Party and were funded by well known and respected billionaires. The Occupation Movement seems to have come out of nowhere -- which is not quite what happened, but set that aside -- and has no clear line of authority back to any political party or even ideology, nor does it seem to be funded by anything other than grassroots contributions of money and supplies.

It is legitimately outside the system.

It isn't controlled by anyone. It is fully open and participatory.

Scary, hunh?

Well, it is to the Ruling Class, or at least it should be if they've been paying any attention to Movements this year.

They should be.