#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[8bitagent]

I want wait to see all this Occupy hub bub for myself. Im facebook friends with some of the Occupy people in the eye of the storm, sounds like cops are pretty brutal lately.

It's interesting that so much of the Occupy activity is a few blocks from where all this madness started: world trade center. Yet I have not seen any indication the Occupy folks are too interested in
*that* mystery mindfuck. At least some in Occupy are networked with NY We Are Change, so the rift doesn't seem to deep.

Wow, where to begin? So, because a movement trying to focus on financial fraud and tyranny doesn't highlight 9/11, it is a fault? Further, they have apparently rebuffed 9/11 issues in your mind, and so much so that there is a 'rift' according to you. Okay...all imagined in your mind with no substantiation, but okay.

This post reminds me of ones made by zealot 'no-planers' or the pod-on-plane people who insult anyone who doesn't champion their issue. Actually its a worse situation. At least their zelotry is directly related to the event. Its not like they do not tackle a host of financial issues, and thet those are many and time consuming. No. What about the child kidnapping rings and immigration? Where are the occupy WALL STREET people on lizard people?! What is Occupy's stand on the Annanochi?! Where are these occupy hub-bubists on these issues?! There must be a contemptious rift afoot! They must be stupid, clueless, in denial, or agents. One surely finds it 'interesting'.

Maybe there should be a 2012 conspiracy focused Occupy?

Not sure where the reptile no planers thing came from(hey ya forgot the "Zionist bankers" too) I see Occupy as a sort of hub that can be about whatever the fuck people want it to be about.
Water issues, illegal gas fracking, funding cuts on help for the homeless, major polution issues, etc. I know of several Occupy folks who in recent months have steered things toward specific localized issues.

As long as Occupy people don't end up becoming Obama-bot DNC drones, I see it more and more as the spirit of 68', and overall the real left that lost it's way after the great 1999-2001 anti globalization period. Finally good to see the youth left grow a pair a decade later. Just would be nice if we saw more anti war, and more ranks swelled with inner city folks.

[8bitagent]

Yet I have not seen any indication the Occupy folks are too interested in
*that* mystery mindfuck.

I've seen loads of indication that a skeptical view of it prevails, in a low-key way. It's not the current way to make a movement.

I understand questions related to 9/11 is seen as taboo amongst even the left even to this day, however from talking to core people in NYC area Occupy chapters We Are Change and related groups
seem to be a well respected part of that sphere. NYC also seems to be where some of the most brutal action against Occupiers is going on.

[Nordic]

This was just down the street from me tonight:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local ... 47645.html


Police Pepper Spray Crowd Outside Santa Monica College Board of Trustees Meeting

At least one campus police officer pepper sprayed a crowd protesting outside a board of trustees meeting at Santa Monica College Tuesday night, according to witnesses.

About 30 people were treated for pepper spray, and two were transported to the hospital.

Roughly 200 students were involved in the demonstration, Cpt. Judah Mitchell of the Santa Monica Fire Department told City News Service. No arrests were made.

Priscillia Omon, 21, said she was standing behind the police officer when he pulled out the pepper spray and fired it in the mouths and eyes of people standing arm’s length away.

She described a man next to her convulsing and spitting up foam after being hit with the pepper spray. A family, including a 4 year old, were in the crowd when the officer used the pepper spray, Omon said.

Other students, including Christine Deal, said police roughly handled many of the students in the front lines of the crowd.

Deal, whose story was supported by at least two other students, said a police officer grabbed her by the neck during the clash.

Santa Monica police were not immediately available for comment.

A crowd of more than 100 people gathered in a hallway outside the door of a 60-person capacity room in the business building, said Omon, member of the activist group Student Organizing Committee of Santa Monica College.

They were hoping to get into the trustee’s meeting because they were slated to discuss a controversial tiered payment program, which has drawn the ire of students and professors claiming that the plan would make in-demand summer classes -- like English, math, history and biology -- staggeringly expensive.

"The students wanted to be heard and we wanted to be in the room where we could fairly discuss this topic, and be seen by them," said Aura Chavez, 18, who was standing in the back of the crowd when the pepper spray incident happened. "We wanted to let them see how many students care about their education."

Access to meeting was a point of contention among demonstrators, who said they requested last month that the trustees gather in a larger room to accomodate the crowd.

"They were trying to silence our voices by not allowing students access to this supposedly open forum," Omon said.

Campus police tried to limit the number of students inside the board room to about a dozen, Santa Monica College counselor Patty Del Valle told City News Service.

The program in question would cost $180 per unit during the summer session, up from the usual $46 per unit. That means a high-demand 3-unit course would run about $540, more than most students pay for an entire semester in the fall or spring.

"This program, only a selective few can afford that," Chavez said. "What about the rest of us?"

The crowd assembled at the steps of the Liberal Arts building at 6 p.m. for a rally, Omon said. From there, they marched to the front of the Business Administration building, where the trustees meeting was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

"They began without us," Omon said.

Demonstrators moved their protest to the Santa Monica College police department, where a few dozen people gathered outside the building.

Officials said medical bills will be reimbursed for those who required medical attention.

Santa Monica College has become extremely popular because it's actually almost affordable. Now, due to the high demand, they've decided to astronomically raise rates so only those of means can get in.

[lupercal]

heya 8bit, nice to see ya... did you happen to follow the 2010 Oakland mayoral election? It was pretty surprising:

Quan's victory immediately set off a debate about the merits of ranked-choice voting, sometimes called instant runoffs. For Quan and her supporters, the system creates a path to victory for a candidate who is vastly outspent, as the councilwoman was by Perata.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1GADKC.DTL

That and the current recall effort ("Recall Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, CA is on Facebook!") tell you everything you need to know about Operation Occupy.

[Allegro]

.
Edited to tag the source interactivist.autonomedia.org

_________________
Occupy the US! Horizontal Decision Making in the Occupy Movement
— Marianne Maeckelbergh | March 28, 2012, 1:50pm

The year 2011 has breathed new life into horizontal models of democratic decision-making. With the rise of the 15 May movement and the occupy movement horizontal decision-making became one of the key political structures for organising responses to the current global economic crisis. While this decision-making process has arguably never been as widely practiced as it is today, it has also never seemed as difficult and complicated as it does today. At its height there were 5,000 people at the general assemblies in Placa Catalunya in Barcelona and even more in Madrid. It is no longer just activists trying to use and teach each other these decision-making processes but it is hundreds or thousands of people who have a far greater disparity in terms of backgrounds, starting assumptions, aims and discursive styles. This is incredibly good news, but it is not easy.

The current historical juncture requires reflection on these decision-making methods and here I explore a few of the important lessons that seem to stand out after participating in these processes in Barcelona, New York and Oakland. First, more awareness of the political values that underlie these seemingly practical meeting procedures referred to as “process” would be helpful. Second, the link between these political values and the social relations of economics could use some analysis: in order to create new political structures we actually have to let go of certain economic relations which we take as given. For example, horizontal decision-making does not work when we assume a) that resources are scarce, b) that we therefore need to compete with each other and c) ownership is an exclusionary relation – a proprietary relation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the more we try to set the rules in stone, to find the ‘golden key’, the ideal set of procedures, the more we disengage from the central political questions of how we decide – a terrain of politics that has to remain open if it is to remain horizontal. In order for a ‘general assembly’ to be productive, effective and empowering to participants, the procedures have to maintain a certain degree of flexibility as the circumstances in which we find ourselves shift. Let me explain what I mean…

Whirlwind History

Horizontal decision-making was, of course, never invented as such. People taking decisions together without any structured hierarchy has always existed. The particular form that horizontal decision-making is taking today in the Occupy movement in the US, for example, has a history that can be traced back at least into the 1960s. During the 1960s, the New Left broke off from the traditional political party structures and began (inspired of course by those who came before) a long journey on the path towards participatory democracy, inclusion, equal say of participants and a less programmatic approaches to social change. Communism as the main ideology of the Left came into discredit with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and then Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the lacuna created by the decline of Communism as a real alternative to capitalism grew a search for a less ideological, less programmatic approach to social change. Notions of participatory democracy started to merge with practices of consensus, especially in the US, and grew over time into a key aspect of movement culture, in no small part due to the women’s/feminist movements, anti-nuclear and peace movements of the 1970s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Do-it-Yourself culture and environmental movements kept these decision-making practices alive to be reinvented as “horizontal” decision-making in the 2000s, post-Seattle, post-Zapatista uprising, post-2001 Argentinian economic collapse, etc. For ten years horizontal decision-making was practiced on a relatively large scale,with varying degrees of success, within the global networks of the alterglobalization movement during the preparations for the anti-summit protests (anti-WTO, IMF/WB, G8) and for the world, regional and local Social Forums.

Importantly, these decision-making methods were not just practiced as procedures, but as the building blocks for the alternative models of social and political organization being proposed by these movements. These same procedures of horizontal decision-making re-emerge in the Occupy movement, or very similar ones, as well as the idea that decision-making procedures are not only practical, but also the basis for political alternatives to the current economic paradigm of governance.

The Political Values Underlying Horizontal Decision-Making

General Assembly at Occupy Wall Street. By Caroline Schiff. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.
Perhaps some reflections on the political values that have accompanied horizontal decision-making in the past would therefore be useful. Here I draw on ten years of experience with horizontal decision-making in the context on anti-summit mobilizations and social forums to raise some food for thought. (for a much more detailed and complicated analysis of these values see the book: The Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalisation Movement is Changing the Face of Democracy)

1. Horizontal decision-making practices are not just procedures, but they are the building block of an alternative form of governance in the making. It is therefore very important that the meetings are as inclusive as possible, as functional as possible and, perhaps most importantly, as empowering as possible.

2. Horizontal decision-making rests on a transformation in the way we think about ‘equality’ and how it is created. The starting assumption is that full equality between all participants cannot exist naturally, and therefore structures and procedures are needed in order to continuously challenge hierarchies as they arise – whether they be based on gender, sex, race, class, education, skill, job, ability to express oneself, or inter-personal power dynamics based on past interactions. In this model of thinking, equality is not something that can be declared and then forgotten about as in: ‘all men are created equal’, but is something that has to be continuously created and worked on.

3. In order to ensure that equality can be increased between people from different backgrounds, the differences between people need to have room for expression. The aim of decision-making cannot be to create the one best solution that is enforced on everyone. Unity of thought, of action, of identity makes this type of equality impossible. This is why one of the key values underlying decision-making in the alterglobalization movement is ‘diversity’. Diversity is a rejection of unity as the guiding principle of cooperation. What diversity means in this case is not that everyone is different, but that these differences are taken seriously and translated into the outcomes of the decision-making process. There is very little political power in giving each person equal input into a decision if the outcome of the decision only represents the concerns of one group of people (as in a winner-takes-all voting system). This multiple outcomes approach, however, requires that people realise that they have the option to act autonomously. This means that if they don’t agree with a decision taken, they don’t have to implement it and they can do something else.

4. Autonomy between participants is essential to keep the ‘general assembly’ from becoming a source of centralized and hierarchical power. If equal outcomes are multiple outcomes then the best suited political structure for horizontality is a structure that allows for multiple, separate groups of people to coordinate with only limited unity of purpose. Decentralized network structures are ideal for this. People align themselves based on any number of different interests or activities and only come together with people who share different interests or activities in order to a) communicate about what they are doing and to hear about what others are doing, b) to coordinate their activities when necessary, and c) for decisions that will affect everyone. Autonomy/decentralization is necessary to embrace diversity and diversity is necessary for equality.

From Political Values to Economic Relations

The task facing meeting ‘facilitators’ today is considerably harder than the task facing facilitators in the alterglobalization movement. Even before I arrived in the US, I was struck by how often I heard via email, phone, facebook, and via-via complaints about how ‘bureaucratic’ the process of decision-making had become in the Occupy Wall Street movement. But it was not until I attended my first general assembly in Zuccotti park and not until I spent hours having discussion after discussion about the problems with ‘process’ in new york (with people from the different working groups inside occupy wall street, loosely affiliated activists and people who intentionally reject the ‘occupy wall street’ label) that I began to understand what was meant by ‘bureaucracy’ and why it was perceived as such a danger to the movement.

Although people themselves were still searching for what they specifically meant by ‘bureaucracy’ and why it was such a big problem, several factors were immediately apparent. Those participating in the general assembly were applying what I would consider a ‘capitalist’ logic to horizontal decision-making. Specifically, the three related assumptions that I saw appear, which I classify here as ‘capitalist’, were 1) that resources are scarce, 2) that we need to compete with each other to be heard or to get what we want and 3) what I would call a ‘proprietary’ attitude between participants: people were claiming domains of activity or knowledge as theirs, as something they were in a privileged position to know or act upon (everything from the kitchen to the figures of the ‘artist’ or the ‘academic’ were mentioned in discussions as groups of people who set themselves apart, claimed certain privilege based on knowledge, skill or work hours, and used this claim to knowledge to exclude others). As a result there was a perception that people were placing themselves in a position of control/superior knowledge and were resistant (for what I imagine are a very complex set of reasons) to sharing these tasks, skills or knowledge by creating the forms of constructive communication that are essential to the functioning of horizontal decision-making.

Madrid: A representative of the library's committee waits for his speaking turn at the general assembly.

Part of the appeal of horizontal decision-making is that it rests on a different set of values than those of the current profit-driven society. This is also the source of its potential as an alternative to the current economic paradigm of democracy. So it is no small matter when the ‘process’ isn’t working well for so many people. As the weeks carried on, I began to see how interconnected all of these assumptions were. These complaints when taken together indicate that far form using the term ‘bureaucracy’ informally to refer to ‘red tape’, those complaining about bureaucracy were expressing an implicit understanding of the relationship between bureaucracy and capitalism. This insight, which is being both intentionally and unintentionally developed in New York, is crucial to understanding how horizontal decision-making works and when it does not work as a political structure.

First, the idea that resources are limited. The introduction of so much money into the Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be at the centre of this problem, but it is not only money. Fame too, is a big one. So many people want to be in spotlight and the spotlight is limited and fleeting. But Occupy is not the first movement to have money or to need money. Though the precedents in terms of money’s influence on horizontal movement building are not great. One of the reasons that anti-summit mobilizations worked more horizontally than Social Forum mobilizations was in part due to the different attitudes to money. In the anti-summit mobilizations money was often treated as secondary – first you decide what you want to achieve politically, and then you see how much money you need and where to get it from. In this way political discussions were separated from financial ones.

In strong contrast to this, the General Assemblies I attended in NY were equating political points and financial ones and as a result the discussion was confused. Someone would make a political point in support of a particular course of action and the ‘concern’ raised or the block made would be based on there being a lack of money – or the ‘need for receipts’ – which cannot always be produced. People did not seem to recognize it as such, but this is a capitalist logic. The idea that you can only act when you have money is based on thinking of money as power and as a restrictive form of power. Sure, if there is no money, you have a practical problem, but it is one that is rather easily solved and one that has rarely impeded people from taking action in the past. (If and when the movement needs more money, an appeal can be sent out and people will donate more, or the movement will find ways to carry out activities without money, as they did at the start and as others continue to do all over the world).

In Oakland on the other hand, the political discussions were separated from financial ones. First a discussion complete with pros and cons would be had about whether or not to take a certain course of action, or how to take it, and then at a separate meetings a proposal would be submitted for funds for this action. In the case of finance proposals, there were only clarifying questions and then a vote, no pro/con discussions. This structure seemed to work much better than discussing the pros/cons of an action at the same time as the cost of an action. This had the added bonus of making the meetings far more empowering because every meeting was not about finance (which is framed as a limit to action), but many were about potential for action and created a collective pro-active spirit.

The second damaging aspect of treating resources as limited (when in fact there is no real reason to) is that it leads to competition between actors. If the resources, whether it be money, fame, political options, or decision-outcomes are considered to be limited, then large-scale horizontal decision-making cannot work. This is due to the central importance of diversity to the functioning of horizontality. If those participating in the horizontal process perceive their ability to get funds for their activities to be threatened by your request for funds (because it diminishes these scarce resources) then they will of course vote against it, rather than think about the value of an activity itself. The aim of horizontal decision-making should be to look for ways to make all activities possible, if need be without money, so that this attitude of competition does not arise.

The reason why network democracy is more inclusive than nation-state-based democracy is largely due to the lack of forced centralized unity. A nation-state is a political structure based on the delineation of a geographical area within which everyone must share some aspects of national identity and within which everyone is subject to the same legal rights and responsibilities. This may seem inevitable within a polity, but within a network, there is no clear beginning or end and as a result also no clearly delineated group of people who are subject to the remit of decisions taken – even by the general assembly. Although this can seem “out-of-control” sometimes, this is actually the strength of horizontal decision-making. Networks can multiply and split without creating divisions.

Flexibility not Bureaucracy

In order for the general assembly to avoid becoming a centralized form of authority that attempts to ‘control’ the behaviour of others (and hence reintroduce hierarchy), there has to be an understanding that when someone or a group of people disagree with a decision, they can do their own thing, they can create a new subgroup, a new node of the network within the existing structures. In order for most people, especially those of us who are used to the nation-state system of democracy, to feel comfortable relinquishing control like this it requires us to think through a few questions, for example: why do we want to control other people’s actions? Do we see their actions as reflecting on ourself in some way? Finally, an important question is, where does this desire to control other’s actions end? Will we try to control everyone’s actions? If so, the task is hopeless anyway. If not, then you need criteria to distinguish between those that need to be controlled and those that do not as well as a way to enforce this arbitrary boundary of inclusion/exclusion. The point being, in order to use horizontal decision-making, participants have to be willing to relinquish their desire to control others.

This means that the general assembly would not be a space to control, monitor, or approve of the actions of participants, but it would be a place to discuss, cooperate and create these actions – it would be a space for coordination and communication to improve the actions taken. The procedures and structures in place through which to coordinate and communicate work better when they retain a degree of fluidity. Once there is a “decision” about how the meetings are going to run, and that decision is taken to be binding for all meetings, all decisions, all circumstances, all groups, all topics, a great deal of flexibility is lost. This makes the process seem rigid and often undermines its effectiveness for dealing with a diversity of people and for adjusting to changing circumstances. And since social movements are usually trying to bring about changes in circumstances, this is a considerable drawback.

More importantly than the practical draw backs to having procedures set in stone, are the political ones. The key lesson from the decade or more of anti-summit mobilizations and social forums, was that meaningful political participation must involve an ability to influence not only which decisions are made and what is decided, but crucially, how the decisions are made. It is in the procedures for how that the lines of inclusion and exclusion are drawn and so continued attention to matters of how and a certain degree of flexibility in how decisions are made is essential to ensure that large-scale horizontal decision-making is empowering to the participants.

[8bitagent]

heya 8bit, nice to see ya... did you happen to follow the 2010 Oakland mayoral election? It was pretty surprising:

Quan's victory immediately set off a debate about the merits of ranked-choice voting, sometimes called instant runoffs. For Quan and her supporters, the system creates a path to victory for a candidate who is vastly outspent, as the councilwoman was by Perata.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1GADKC.DTL

That and the current recall effort ("Recall Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, CA is on Facebook!") tell you everything you need to know about Operation Occupy.

Had no idea about it. What's the gist of it? Man, Oakland...that little town seems like the hot spot for everything cutting edge music/culture, political goings on, violence, anti marijuana busts, etc.
The numerous cop shooting incidents(like the BART execution) still blow me away.

Just read this: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/hipst ... id=1081746 Strange how many people I keep meeting flocking to Oakland, not realizing it's still the same Oakland no matter how many artsy scenesters and activists flood the place.

[lupercal]

Strange how many people I keep meeting flocking to Oakland, not realizing it's still the same Oakland no matter how many artsy scenesters and activists flood the place.

Yep, still no there there, except when there is: "What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there." --Gertrude Stein, 1937

Anyway Quan lost the election on the first round but after a nail-biting week won on the third run off, and it ticked off the cop-candidate and his big-business backers no end:

"When first-place votes were initially counted after the Nov. 2 election, Quan had just 24 percent, and Perata had 35 percent. But Quan proved to be a more popular second and third choice among supporters of the other eight candidates, and in the end, she had 51 percent to Perata's 49 percent."

So whaddya know, while Quan is in DC shaking the tin cup one day, "Occupy" hits the headlines and a peace-loving Iraq vet supposedly gets shot, but later gets better, hmm.

So when Quan gets back to town, the "Occupy" crowd immediately calls for her scalp, and now they're organizing a recall, backed by, surprise, cops and big-business no-tax types:

Recall supporters say Quan "has ignored the call of Oakland residents to significantly increase the number of police officers and instead supported a regressive $11 million parcel tax." [1]

Quan's handling of the Occupy Oakland protests has also come under scrutiny. [6] She has been accused of mismanaging the protests. [7]

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/J ... rnia_(2012)

Meanwhile Quan has been challenging the police chief and City Attorney who have resigned:

City Attorney John Russo and police chief Anthony Batts have both left their positions over conflicts with Quan. [7]

Unions and labor groups however are standing behind her:

Union leaders in Oakland have said that they oppose the recall effort against Quan. Josie Camacho of the Alameda Labor Council said the recall efforts are "a waste of resources and a waste of energy," and "the Labor Council is committed to fighting the recall efforts as much as we can." [9]

Recall opponents have formed a group called Stand With Oakland. The group's website says, "We oppose the recall of Mayor Jean Quan. We feel the recall is an attempt to divide Oakland even further, to pit neighborhoods against one another and to create instability in a time where Oakland is beginning to see a new era of progress." [1]

Stand With Oakland coordinator Pam Drake says, "we feel very strongly that a recall would be unfair, divisive and incredibly expensive." [10]

So it looks like Occupy is exactly what it's always looked like, a spook operation to crap on people they don't like, just like they crapped on Ben Ali, Mubarak and Ghaddafi and are crapping on al Assad in Syria with their equally fake color revolutions.

[8bitagent]

It's rather late here, so not far off from Zzzs...so I'll ask it like a kindergartner: Quan sounds like an on the level sort of person, and Occupy wants her out?

I'm never one to get behind memes. I'm cautious, if not skeptical. Especially with things I consider "controlled left". A lot of the anti war "movement" during Bush to me was
hardcore gatekeeping(especially with blocking of 9/11 Truth, Anti Afghanistan, Pro Palestinian, etc stuff) And man, now with Obama in office three years on, the anti war movement seems all but dead.

So be it "Kony 2012"(far right anti gay agenda married with AFRICOM/Obama war initiatives and mineral resources) or the Trayvon/Zimmerman race baiting, I'm trying to be careful how much I cheerlead for things...even if the causes are something I can get behind. It's like wikileaks...I want to believe Assange is sincere. And I know Manning is a good guy. Just so much grey area

Which brings us to Occupy. Truth be told I dismissed it, but I think in some ways it has potential to have checks and balances and highlight crucial issues. I just wonder how much the pacified smart phone kids of today can truly mobilize for great cause. Everythings a frickin' macro meme these days. And to me the college left activism of today doesnt hold a candle to the late 60's(from what Ive researched) Most college kids dont seem very anti government, or care about stopping wars

I got a lot of angry replies from even some good friends when I posted this on my facebook last fall. But I genuinely was curious why all the footage of Oakland Occupy doesnt show a lot of black people, who have long been the core of Oakland and social justice issues? I wish so bad I could go back to the 60's, when black activists , white activists and activists of all color were lock step in the battle against the government, inequality, war, etc. There's a definite cultural gap going on here. It's Arcade Fire vs the inner city

[lupercal]

Yep "controlled left" is exactly the word. What has Occupy Oakland accomplished, besides f*cking over a nice lefty mayor? Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo. And they shut down the port a couple of times meaning lots of teamsters didn't work. Way to hand it to Wall Street banksters, shut down the Port of Oakland. Totally illogical and pointless, and that's Occupy in a nutshell.

[8bitagent]

Yep "controlled left" is exactly the word. What has Occupy Oakland accomplished, besides f*cking over a nice lefty mayor? Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo. And they shut down the port a couple of times meaning lots of teamsters didn't work. Way to hand it to Wall Street banksters, shut down the Port of Oakland. Totally illogical and pointless, and that's Occupy in a nutshell.

A lot of the new era of "activism" is on par with the Joker in Dark Knight. Asked why he was burning all the money, and the Joker pretty much says he just wants chaos.

And that's sadly what a lot of the V For Vendetta masked, or black bloc people are all about. While you have street actions by people demanding real change, some people just want chaos.
That big Occupy event, where shops were busted up...how does destroying part of a Whole Foods help your cause? Sure its a high priced fake lib'rul yuppy joint, but smashing up banks, stores and(my god) even mom and pop stores. And ANON. What is that all about? Chaos for chaos sake?

The funny thing is I bet most these pro Occupy bay area liberals will vote for Obama, even tho he's the one authorizing the marijuana shop crackdowns. Freaking Mayor Quan even shows up to pro pot shop rallies(just read about that on sfgate.com) and Occupy wants to throw her under a bus? Lulz. Occupy Oakland left a VERY bad taste in my mouth and I wanted nothing to do with the hooliganery.

I originally dismissed Occupy, just my own bias in dealing with Occupiers who think Im 'too fringe' because of my 9/11 views or criticism of Obama , but I have learned to accept there's a lot of good Occupy people and that it has gotten young people involved in politics

Well, mostly white kids. But when it comes to Oakland Occupy, I do find it shameful.

[wintler2]

Yep "controlled left" is exactly the word. What has Occupy Oakland accomplished, besides f*cking over a nice lefty mayor? Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo. And they shut down the port a couple of times meaning lots of teamsters didn't work. Way to hand it to Wall Street banksters, shut down the Port of Oakland. Totally illogical and pointless, and that's Occupy in a nutshell.

So much misinformation, so obviously projecting your own shadows.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I think lupercal made some excellent and salient points, actually. As much as "horizontal organization theory" stuff fascinates me, it's naive to think there's not a lot of operators in the ranks right now. The fruits of Occupy Oakland right now are exceptionally weird. I would definitely be interested in seeing someone parse what they consider to be misinformation in lupercal's concise summary.

#OCCUPY IS A LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS, and that means it's subject to all the foibles and failures of any other large group of human beings. Common Ground had both Lisa Fithian and Brandon Darby in their small & legendary ranks. This is a nationwide movement, so it scales accordingly.

Where I differ from lupercal is that he seems to think the entire movement is on puppet strings and that's a tough sell if you've got any familiarity and experience with it. Been picking brains from Chicago to Asheville to Boston and the front lines are full of good earnest people. (Plenty of idiots, too, but again: LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS.)

Side note: Allegro, thank you for that article.

[2012 Countdown]

Critique of the 1% (an occupy coined term) and the otherwise occupiers/future occupiers (students and student loans).

[Wombaticus Rex]

Just as background, Mark Faber is a Swiss national and a former Drexel Burnham vulture. You know, one of those 1% types.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Via: http://www.osborneink.com/2012/04/occup ... vance.html

Occupy Irrelevance
By Matt Osborne

I’ve entertained hope that Occupy would evolve into what tea parties pretended to be, and failed to become: a populist uprising that grows roots and becomes a lasting force. Unfortunately, the militantly-leaderless nature of the movement lends itself to success-averse puritopians like this guy:

“I don’t see any opportunity inside electoral politics this year,” long-time activist and former Ralph Nader spokesperson Kevin Zeese remarked.

The speakers called for building a “deeper” grassroots movement outside electoral politices to “build power first,” then maybe a robust third party or infrastructure several years down the road.

There is not enough facepalm in the world to express the dismay such dissonance inspires. “Former Ralph Nader spokesperson” should be a giant flashing warning light: Nader blew up the 2000 presidential race and left nothing behind. Twelve years ago, a “robust third party or infrastructure” was still “several years down the road,” too. Like Zeno’s Paradox, the moment for a third party of “real progressives” is always coming, but never, ever quite here yet.

“There’s always this emphasis on winning,” Occupy Wall Street’s Ian Williams said. “But do we want to win or do we want to transform the world?”

I will never understand the mentality that sees victory and transformation as separate and incompatible goals. How is transformation even possible without victory? How does a movement propose to change the laws when it refuses to get involved in making them, much less picking the people who will make them? Magic? Prayer?

How does one “build power” without, you know, building power?

Moral power does not translate into a changed system on its own. Neither does popularity. Neither do “the facts.” As Stalin might ask, how many divisions do the facts have? Or how many votes in Congress? Because that is the calculus of politics: victory is a prerequisite to change in every political system that has ever existed. Without power, you have nothing but wishes and dreams.

“Social transformation” is already underway. As I’ve chronicled here countless times, the basic challenge for conservative orthodoxy is that generational, demographic, and public opinion shifts threaten its political supremacy. Conservatism — particularly its Grover Norquist, drown-gummint-in-a-bathtub version — is desperate to preserve its waning power against the tide of history, and so we see teapublicans racing to undo American liberal civilization as fast as they can.

This was happening, and is still happening, and will keep happening, without any help from Occupy.

Contrary to the right wing caricature of Alinskyites running rampant, Occupy increasingly represents the rejection of effective, pragmatic action in favor of ineffective radicalism. This is actually a much older trend than Occupy, however. There is no “left” left, and what people call “the left” is actually a broad category for factions directing their energies all over the map of incoherency. To wit:

Protest against low transit funding on Wednesday is directed at the wrong audience

On Wednesday, people will gather at the Chicago Transit Authority headquarters (567 W Lake Street) to protest “inadequate funding and policies”, according to the Red Eye. Members from at least two groups (LVEJO and Citizens Taking Action) will join to protest public-private partnerships and to support laid off bus drivers. This is part of a larger National Day of Action for Public Transportation called by Occupy Boston.

They are protesting in the wrong location. They should be rallying at locations where there are people who can do something about underfunded transit: the offices of elected officials, like at City Hall and those of state and federal Congresspersons scattered around town. (Emphasis mine)

Kevin Zeese, the Naderite quoted above, also told Occupiers not to get involved in the Obama campaign this year. Remember how well that worked out in 2010? One thousand abortion bills, dozens of voter ID bills, and countless attacks on unions and teachers in state legislatures argue against the stay-home-because-we’re-mad-at-Obama approach. Yet that kind of cliquish stupidity remains a popular conceit.

What Chris Hedges (also not an Obama fan) calls The Death of the Liberal Class is more applicable to the president’s critics than the president. He is in fact more popular than they are, and has actual power to actually change things. So rather than sit out 2012, a transformative movement should dress him in coattails:

If Obama’s weak approval rating stays at 47 percent, there is an 85 percent chance he wins reelection. Should it rise to 50 percent or better, which is the goal of the Obama-Biden campaign, he stands a 99 percent chance of winning.

“The Republican primaries are nothing more than an interesting side-show to an eventual Obama victory,” said Young, managing director of Ipsos Public Affairs’ U.S. polling. He tells Secrets: “Obama is the odds-on favorite barring some unforeseen random event. As such, we really should not be asking who will win the presidency but instead who will hold the House and Senate and will Obama be able to govern?” (Emphasis mine)

The greatest danger for Occupy is not that Obama might lose, but that he might win without them — or even against them, should they continue to define themselves against him. The danger for America is that Obama may be reelected without a Congress capable of passing, say, a simple transportation bill — putting us right back where we are today.

Ideally, the idealists will recognize this and act to give the reelected president a more ideal Congress. Realistically, I am not holding my breath. Tea party astroturf saw lots of attention to practical political goals: flipping the House of Representatives, electing “real conservatives,” and undoing the Affordable Care Act. The only equivalent coming out of Occupy so far is Obamacare, and that’s because it isn’t good enough. See how that works?

Tea parties took two years to achieve the level of irrelevance that Occupy threatens to reach in just six months. If this movement heeds the call to reject political empowerment for iconoclastic puritopian powerlessness, then participants should prepare themselves for eternal outsider status. That might make them feel good about themselves, but it will achieve absolutely nothing else for anyone — and reduce all the sacrifices they’ve made into a historical footnote.