The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

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The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:18 pm

The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street: From Libertarians To Nazis, The Fact And Fiction Of Right-Wing Involvement

Re-posted from http://www.politicalresearch.org/
By Spencer Sunshine, on February 23, 2014


Spencer Sunshine is an associate fellow at Political Research Associates. His research interests include U.S. white nationalism, post-war fascism (particularly Third Position and European New Right politics), left/right crossover movements, and left-wing antisemitism; his other scholarly work is focused on the intellectual history of left-wing movements. As an activist he has worked on issues regarding anti-fascism, police misconduct, prisoner rights, global trade agreements, environmental issues, and bisexual and queer politics.


The most successful mobilization on the Left in recent years—the Occupy movement—had ambiguously defined enemies and used an organizing model that was easily replicated. These strategies were key elements of its success, but they also enabled a significant level of participation by the Right. Though it is tempting to gloss over or deny that reality, the Left would benefit from beginning to grapple with it.


Image
Occupy Wall Street on Nov. 15, 2011. Protestors were evicted from Zuccotti Park that morning.

**This article appears in the Winter 2014 issue of The Public Eye magazine.**

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has often been portrayed as the Tea Party’s ideological mirror image: a left-wing response to the global economic crises that began in August 2007. Initiated with a tent city in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park in mid-September 2011, spinoff “Occupations” soon spread across the United States and then to cities across the globe. These protests, which targeted the federal government’s cozy relationship with the banking interests that caused the economic collapse, channeled the mounting anger of those most devastated by the economic meltdown, especially debt-ridden students, the unemployed, and people who lost homes in the subprime mortgage crisis.

But this mainstream-media view tends to gloss over the involvement of right-wing and conspiracist groups in Occupy. In the perception of many participants, the Right’s presence was largely limited to a lone homeless man who paraded antisemitic signs around Zuccotti, which became the basis of a right-wing “smear” campaign. More recently, venture capitalists like Tom Perkins have slandered Occupy, absurdly comparing its attack on wealth inequality to the Nazi persecution of Jews.1 Because of this, many progressives plug their ears when they hear about right-wing groups and Occupy. (In this essay, OWS refers to the New York City occupation, while Occupy refers to the movement in general.)

Certainly, Occupy was always a largely left-leaning event. But right-wing participation has been the norm rather than the exception within recent left-wing U.S. movements—including the antiglobalization, antiwar, environmental, and animal rights movements—and Occupy was no exception.2 Right-wing groups inserted their narrative about the Federal Reserve into the movement’s visible politics; used Occupy’s open-ended structure to disseminate conspiracy theories (antisemitic and otherwise) and White nationalism; promoted unfettered capitalism; and gained experience, skills, and political confidence as organizers in a mass movement that, on the whole, allowed their participation.

Ideally, none of these things should have happened. Advocates for social justice need to assess the motivations, extent, and substance of right-wing participation in Occupy—just as has been done with past movements. Despite the painful feelings it might evoke, it is time for this process to start.

THE PROBLEM OF FINANCE CAPITAL AND AMBIGUOUS ENEMIES
The original call for OWS from Adbusters magazine said the demonstrators themselves would decide on the “one demand” of the occupation, but this never materialized. Instead, the eminently populist slogan “We are the 99%” became their rallying cry. The one percent—often assumed to be those whose household incomes were over $500,000—was obviously associated with “Wall Street,” the focus of the demonstration.3 But many people with that kind of income were not associated with Wall Street at all. And, in any case, what exactly was Wall Street: the New York Stock Exchange? Banks? Bankers? Global corporations? The Federal Reserve? And who were the one percent: Crony capitalists specifically? Capitalists generally? The rich? Political elites? The Bilderberg Group? The Rothschild family? Jews? Or—as one popular conspiracy theorist had it—our reptilian overlords?

Particularly at the beginning, Occupy embraced everyone, just as a number of organizers intended.4 If the goal was to unite “the 99%” against a tiny elite, after all, didn’t that require a Left-Right alliance? Many on the Right openly called for such an alliance, though the agenda they proposed usually offered little that the Left could get behind.

But in addition to this general, populist appeal for uniting the people against the elites, there was one specific piece of common ground. While few right-wing actors see capitalism as a system to be abolished, many are harsh critics of finance capital, especially in its international form. This critique unites antisemites, who believe that Jews run Wall Street; libertarian “free marketers,” who see the Federal Reserve as their enemy; and advocates of “producerist” narratives, who want “productive national capital” (such as manufacturing and agriculture) to be cleaved from “international finance capital” (the global banking system and free-trade agreements).

Finance has become a larger part of the U.S. economy, and increasingly international, in the last few decades. As an industry, it produces comparatively few jobs, and it functions globally as one of the pillars of neoliberalism, exacerbating economic inequality. While economic downturns are an intrinsic feature of capitalism itself, it was the largely unregulated behavior of banks that caused the most recent crisis. Occupy was just one of many global demonstrations against austerity economics that have been populist in approach and politically amorphous, and, especially in Europe, these have a particular appeal to the Far Right.

In Occupy the most common demand of the various right-wing and conspiracy groups—especially those who openly called for Left-Right unity—was for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. Whether this is an issue actually shared by the Left, or just an attempt to get the Left to support right-wing policies, is another question.

THE INITIAL CONTROVERSY OVER ANTISEMITISM
The Right’s participation was far from limited to a handful of antisemites, but it is nonetheless true that Occupy’s attacks on finance capital attracted many of them, since such attacks were easily integrated into their fantasies of Jews controlling the banking industry. (Rather than explicitly naming Jews as the villain, antisemites often instead demonize a subgroup that they identify as Jewish, such as Zionists, international bankers, neoconservatives, “the Frankfurt School”—or Wall Street.)

Adbusters, the magazine that initially sparked OWS, has an especially troublesome past. Its editor and co-founder, Kalle Lasn, published an article in 2004 criticizing neoconservatives by invoking numerous antisemitic narratives. The article included a list of prominent neoconservatives with marks next to the Jewish names. Responding to widespread criticism, Lasn denied that he was antisemitic but showed no understanding of why the narrative of the article was offensive. More recently, the magazine has published articles by antisemitic writer and musician Gilad Atzmon.5 This certainly raises the question of whetherAdbusters’s choice of Wall Street as a target may have been shaped by narratives influenced by antisemitism.

Some mainstream right-wing media attempted to discredit OWS as being primarily antisemitic from the outset. The catalyst was an October 2011 article in Commentary by Abe Greenwald. Relying on two antisemitic videos from Zuccotti—one of a homeless man who appeared daily with antisemitic signs, and the other of a random participant—Greenwald claimed that OWS “protesters are literally boasting of their Nazi credentials” and that the “point of Occupy Wall Street is to scapegoat fellow Americans. And wherever political scapegoating takes place, anti-Semitism is sure to follow.” In mid-October, the Emergency Committee for Israel released a broadcast ad implying that the OWS demonstrations were overwhelmingly antisemitic, and demanding that President Obama repudiate the incidents. Its evidence consisted entirely of the two videos.6

All of this created such a media uproar that more mainstream groups weighed in. The Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman said that there was “no evidence that these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are representative of the larger movement or that they are gaining traction with other participants.”7

Journalist Jonathan Chait summarized the situation by writing that the “ratio of outraged published reports or commentaries about anti-Semites at OWS to actual anti-Semites at OWS is probably about ten to one.” Despite this, the Zuccotti General Assembly (GA) never passed a resolution specifically condemning antisemitism in its own ranks. (The GAs were the directly democratic gatherings where everyone could speak, and where OWS decisions were made.) In November 2011, the GA did pass a resolution condemning antisemitism in the abstract, though it involved an incident unconnected to Occupy.8

The result was that many Occupy protestors on the Left felt that they were being unfairly “smeared” as antisemites by the mainstream Right in an attempt to discredit the movement as a whole, and, furthermore, that these claims were without merit.9 This fear of subversion created an atmosphere of denial and a general consensus that there was no involvement in Occupy by those further to the Right than Ron Paul.

Right-wing and conspiracist participation in Occupy was nonetheless real, and it involved more than 20 groups, prominent figures, and media outlets. These included Ron Paul supporters, Alex Jones, Oath Keepers, David Icke, We Are Change, the Zeitgeist movement, Tea Party members, National-Anarchists, Attack the System, the Pacifica Forum, American Free Press, Larouchites, Counter-Currents, the American Freedom Party, American Front, David Duke, the American Nazi Party, White Revolution, and others. (A detailed account of their participation is available separately in my essay, “Twenty on the Right in Occupy.”)10 Their involvement included attending planning meetings, taking part in the encampments, making appeals directed to the Occupiers, and co-opting online resources. They fell into four overlapping categories: anti-Federal Reserve activists, conspiracy theorists, antisemites, and White nationalists/neo Nazis.

THE “END THE FED!” FACTOR AND THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
As Occupy Wall Street burgeoned, Ron Paul was campaigning for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Although there was no obvious mechanism organizing their participation, Paulists were at the OWS planning meetings, and they remained a fixture in the movement and appeared at almost all Occupations, though they were usually a small but vocal minority. (Paul himself made only guarded pro-Occupy comments.)

David Duke, an elder statesman of the U.S. White nationalist movement, made a video titled “Occupy Zionist Wall Street.” Writing on a popular White nationalist web forum, he declared, “Occupy is an opportunity…Grab this opportunity!”

One of Paul’s central goals is to abolish the Federal Reserve (commonly known as “the Fed”), and he has popularized the slogan “End the Fed!” He believes that it fosters “crony capitalism”—big business working hand-in-hand with the federal government—and facilitates foreign wars. Abolishing the Fed will, he believes, both reduce U.S. militarism and make the federal social safety net impossible to sustain. In Paul’s utopian free market, the old, sick, and disabled would be left to suffer and die unless their families or others volunteered to help. Paul also opposes abortion and Social Security, and he has a long history of accepting support from and dialoguing with White nationalists.11

The ambiguity of Occupy attracted a substantial number of Paul’s supporters, who in turn attracted a fair amount of media coverage for themselves. They gained general traction within Occupy because of their objection to the Federal Reserve’s bailout of the major banks after the financial collapse, and sometimes focused on its role in the subprime mortgage crisis. Counterintuitively for many, the lesson of the crisis for Paulists was the need for less—not more—federal involvement in the banking system.

Many others who wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve also became involved in Occupy; most supported Paul’s candidacy. Alex Jones, one of the most popular U.S. conspiracy theorists (although not a consistent supporter of Occupy), attempted to crash the movement by calling for a national event on Oct. 6, 2011, to “Occupy the Fed.” Jones said that, contrary to media portrayals of Occupy as left-leaning, “The people on the ground … understand the Federal Reserve is the central organization empowering this world government system. This is a revolt against banker occupation.”12

At the same time, the Oath Keepers organization, in concert with Jones and others, concocted a national push to insert “End the Fed!” rhetoric into Occupy under a call to “Occupy the Occupation!” (Oath Keepers, which holds armed marches, recruits current and former military and law enforcement employees who swear to “uphold the Constitution,” and is driven by conspiracies about the coming One World Government.) It also helped establish an encampment in Occupy Los Angeles and attempted to recruit there.13

Another Fed critic was David Icke, known for his metaconspiracy theory that the global elite are descendants of reptilian aliens who seek to enslave humanity—a story that weaves in classic antisemitic narratives. His “Essential Knowledge For A Wall Street Protestor” video, which promotes anti-Federal Reserve and related economic conspiracies, has about 350,000 views. He also made an hour-long “ad-lib documentary” in Zuccotti Park just after the encampment was evicted by authorities.14 Icke’s followers were active in both U.S. and U.K. Occupations.

Other conspiracists who worked in Occupy include We Are Change (WAC), an international 9/11 “Truther” group. Luke Rudkowski, the group’s founder, is a prolific video blogger and is well-known for his paparazzi-style interviews. On site at OWS from the first day, he did extensive video coverage at Zuccotti Park and is also featured in David Icke’s videos.

Members of WAC New York City, a splinter faction, were also active in OWS, including Danny Panzella, a Tea Party activist who ran for state office in 2010. Even before OWS, Panzella organized demonstrations against the downtown Manhattan Federal Reserve, and he worked hard to refocus Occupy on an “End the Fed!” agenda. He appeared on the Fox News show Freedom Watch, in one of a number of the show’s broadcasts that encouraged libertarians to attend Occupy events.15 Other members of the group who worked with OWS included Craig FitzGerald, a “National-Anarchist” who promotes Holocaust denial and endorses White separatism.

ANTISEMITES, WHITE NATIONALISTS, AND NEO-NAZIS
Attack the System—which promotes an alliance of racial separatists, theocrats, and Leftists against what it sees as an increasingly globalized, centralized, liberal “system”—also courted Occupy. The organization produced a video—“Power to the Neighborhoods (A Message to ‘Occupy Wall Street’)”—that called for Left-Right unity, offering a left-wing critique of contemporary problems while offering a classic right-wing solution: complete local control.16

Online, antisemites have continued to be connected to Occupy projects. The most popular is an imposter Facebook page that mimics the “real” main one—and posts blatantly antisemitic content. It has attracted nearly 650,000 followers. (By contrast, the page affiliated with the organization that arose from the Zuccotti encampment has fewer than 500,000 followers.) It is unclear who the secretive administrators of the imposter site are, or why it became so popular. Attempts to remove it have so far been unsuccessful.17

One of the Far Right’s most enthusiastic Occupy champions was the American Free Press, an antisemitic weekly newspaper that is heir to Willis Carto’s media empire. It promoted Occupy even before the initial action, and for months it printed numerous articles supporting the movement, including firsthand reporting from various Occupations.18

Lyndon LaRouche’s Far Right sect was initially involved in OWS. It has long pushed for restoring Glass-Steagall, a New Deal-era act that limited the kinds of investments that banks could make, which was repealed in the late 1990s. Many believe that it would have prevented the housing crisis had it remained in effect. During Occupy, two bills were in Congressional committee that would have restored its provisions, and it was a priority for many Occupy protestors on the Left, as well. LaRouche’s followers were active in the OWS planning meetings, where Glass-Steagall’s restoration was one of six initial proposals for the never-realized “one demand.”19 LaRouche’s organization even claimed credit for making its reinstatement “a leading demand of the movement.”20

Staff at Counter-Currents, a leading U.S. publisher of intellectual fascism and White nationalism, claimed to have attended the San Francisco and Oakland occupations, and they described the events as a valuable experience:

Given that the protestors are overwhelmingly White, Occupy Wall Street does provide opportunities for White Nationalists. There is nothing to prevent us from getting our ideas into the mix. However, there is no reason to think that our ideas will make any headway given the basic nature of the protests [that is, Occupy’s General Assembly format]. A far more promising angle is for us to ponder how to frame an open-source protest movement that would serve our purposes rather than the establishment’s.21


The most prominent figure on the Far Right to endorse Occupy was David Duke, a former Republican state representative from Louisiana and an elder statesman of the U.S. White nationalist movement. In a video from October 2011, “Occupy Zionist Wall Street,” Duke denounced the “Zionist thieves at the Federal Reserve” and “the most powerful criminal bank in the world, the Zionist Goldman Sachs, run by that vulture-nosed bottom feeder, Lloyd Blankfein.” The video has received more than 100,000 views to date. Duke later wrote on the White supremacist web forum Stormfront that “OWS is an opportunity. … Grab this opportunity!”22

White nationalists also participated in some of the movement’s less high-profile iterations, such as Occupy Indianapolis (OI). Matt Parrott of Hoosier Nation—the local branch of the White nationalist American Third Position Party, now called the American Freedom Party—attended OI, and made a video interviewing participants. He wrote: “Our experience was peaceful and positive, affirming my suspicion that the majority of the Occupy Indianapolis attendees were fed up with the same corporate and federal abuses the majority of the Tea Party protesters are fed up with.”23 His colleague “Tristania” posted a comment on Stormfrontsaying that “it was a very good opportunity for outreach” and that “it’s about cherry picking people from those audiences and recruiting them to our side.”24

Parrott posted his video on the OI Facebook page, which the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement (HARM) took issue with. Although the video was removed, HARM eventually split from OI, claiming that it had “become a safe place for conspiracy-theories, antisemitism, racism, anti-worker sentiment, pro-sweatshop propaganda, and religious intolerance.” Other OI activists contacted HARM to complain of racial harassment at the Occupation itself.25 (A representative from the OI Facebook page denied that the administrators were racists or antisemites, and said that because of splits in OI, the Facebook page had no connection to the physical occupation by the time of the racial incidents.)

American Nazi Party leader Rocky J. Suhayda wrote that Occupy was tailor-made for Nazis and other White nationalists, since the “vast majority” of Wall Street bankers were Jewish. He urged his fellow activists to join the protests with “flyers EXPLAINING the ‘JEW BANKER’ influence”—but warned them not to wear anything hinting that they were Nazis.26 Other neo-Nazis also became involved, such as Billy Roper, who wrote that Occupy represented people who were tired of the rich, the media, the banking industry and the Federal Reserve, and that among Occupiers, “More and more people are willing to name the Jew.”27


Image
A performance by the LaRouche choral group.
Lyndon LaRouche is a longtime leading figure of the U.S. Far Right.
The photo was taken on Sept. 17, 2011—
the first day of Occupy Wall Street.




Occupy highlights the extraordinary challenge facing popular mobilizations: how to create a strong movement that is open to “everyone” without becoming a forum for right-wing protest?

National Socialist Movement member J.T. Ready came to Occupy Phoenix with his vigilante U.S. Border Guard, armed with AR-15 rifles, claiming that they were demonstrating their support for the Second Amendment. In Seattle, several neo-Nazis came into the Occupy camp at night, prompting antifascists to kick them out and then set up a self-defense patrol. But in both cities, antifascists tangled with liberal Occupiers, who claimed that—as part of “the 99%”—the neo-Nazis had a right to stay.28

WHY DID THEY PARTICIPATE?
It is a mistake to view these right-wing groups and people as “infiltrating” Occupy, since in some cases they supported and helped organize it even before it started. Others were simply participating in a demonstration that loudly proclaimed that it was open to everyone and refused to define even its most basic concepts or demands.

Yet some on the Right did view their work as intentional co-optation. This is an intrinsic problem with the “franchise activism” model, or the practice of setting up a name and format that anyone can adopt and act under. While it allows for ease of replication and flexibility in action—one of Occupy’s great strengths—it also allows a variety of political visions to be pursued under its banner. For example, almost no mechanisms are available to deem the “imposter” Facebook page as illegitimate in relation to the “real” one.

In addition, for decades, elements of the Far Right have been trying to concoct a strategy for a decentralized White nationalist movement.29 One group tried to think up how it could set up a White nationalist version of Occupy, while another praised the open organizational structure as a boon for spreading its ideas.30

The point it is not so much that the Left was significantly damaged by the Right’s presence in Occupy—though its presence did open the movement up to attacks in the mainstream media, which wasted the time and effort of organizers while turning off potential supporters. The deeper problem is that right-wing groups benefited from the Left’s willingness to give them a stage to speak from and an audience to recruit from.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Many Leftists argue that mass organizing should occur in a Popular Front style, with the critique of capitalism as a system being the core politic and specific, popular grievances merely the focus of mobilizations—egregious examples to rally people around but not the actual cause. This organizing style requires either an ideologically cohesive coalition or a specific group behind the mobilization, controlling the messaging and serving as a gatekeeper against right-wing participation.

After the August 2007 crisis, however, the traditional U.S. Left was unable to lead a popular protest movement in this format, and it took OWS nearly four years to get off the ground using digital-age organizing, self-selected organizers, and ambiguous politics. It is unlikely that organizing along the former model would have ever succeeded, or that mainstream liberal pundits, who were instrumental in popularizing OWS, would have supported a more traditional, centrally organized leftist mobilization. The ambiguity of OWS politics, which let people hang their own hats on it, made Occupy possible—but also became a double-edged sword, since what helped the Left also enabled the Right.

As a result, the involvement of right-wing groups in Occupy raises questions about the dilemma of creating a movement that is open to “everyone” but must exclude certain elements if it is to avoid becoming a forum for right-wing populist protest. The basic format of the demonstrations—a populist attack on finance capital with ambiguous formulations—harmonized quite well with the political vocabulary and framework of the Right and conspiracy theorists.

Successful mass protest movements around the globe have been leaderless and decentralized in recent years. With its critique of finance capital and financial elites, the Right will continue to try to profit politically from them.

Are there any practical steps, then, that activists on the Left can take to minimize participation by the Right?

The administrators at the OccupyWallSt.org forum, the main online location of internal discussions, took one small step after they were deluged by conspiracy theorists and Far Right propagandists. In October 2011, they banned anyone who posted about Icke, LaRouche, Duke, or Jones.31

A more proactive first step would be to endorse an anti-oppression platform at the very start, such as the one created at Occupy Boston. Unlike the relatively vague statement from Zuccotti, Boston’s statement explicitly named the types of oppression that it opposed, including White supremacy, patriarchy, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Arab sentiment, Islamophobia, and anti-Jewish sentiment.32

A member of the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement pointed out that if such a platform had been in place in Occupy Indianapolis, when racist sentiments were expressed towards people of color, there would have been an existing agreement to point to—and a basis for asking the larger group to intervene—rather than relying on nonexistent cooperation from the majority of the largely White participants. The HARM member also said that if racists had been confronted and expelled from the physical occupation, they likely would not have posted a positive video of their experience, felt welcome to continue to participate in the group’s social media, or written about their warm reception.33 Not taking a proactive stance against antisemitism at Zuccotti led to significant bad press and much time and energy invested—often by Jewish participants—in putting out fires.

In truth, even if such measures are enacted, right-wing involvement in popular demonstrations that have traditionally been the province of the Left is likely to continue. The mass-based left-wing parties and unions in the West are rapidly losing their remaining influence as state communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe; Keynesianism and social democracy are in eclipse; and neo-liberalism illuminates the world with its triumphant calamity. The countries that remain in opposition are a handful of creaking authoritarian regimes and religious theocracies in the Middle East and Asia, along with a few left-leaning democracies in Latin America that, at least for activists in the West, have not generated the same inspiration that past revolutionary governments did.

On the ground, most successful mass protest movements of the last decade and a half in the West, North Africa, and the Middle East have been leaderless and decentralized. They have also had vaguer and vaguer goals. The Right—with its criticisms of finance capital and financial elites—will continue to try to profit politically from economic crises. In the last few years, fascists have been able to do this in Greece, Bulgaria, and, most recently, Ukraine—where they have been the most prominent faction in the weeks of street-fighting in Kiev.

Advocates for social justice would do well to have a plan to deal with them.




http://www.politicalresearch.org/20-on- ... -in-occupy
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:31 pm

Nowadays OWS - it exists! - is basically the NYC left. I like to say it's at Stage 5 on the Moyer progression. The ideas have widespread acceptance - De Blasio, whether or not he's real to any extent, got 73% of the vote talking Occupy rhetoric, complete with 1% and 99%. And everyone's in despair... until the next crash. (DOW still at 16,264.23.)

I know this guy. He's now a colleague (GC!).
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:20 pm

Covers similar ground but also goes beyond the OP:

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Rightists woo the Occupy Wall Street movement

by Matthew N. Lyons

Most right-wing responses to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement have ranged from patronizing to hostile. Rightists have variously criticized the Occupy forces for--supposedly--copying the Tea Party; failing to target big government; being dirty, lazy lawbreakers; being orchestrated by pro-Obama union bosses and community organizers; having ties with radical Islamists; fomenting antisemitism; or failing to address Jewish dominance of Wall Street. (On the Jewish Question, the John Birch Society wants to have it both ways--arguing that antisemitic attacks are integral to the Occupy movement's leftist ideology, but also that the movement is bankrolled by Jewish financier George Soros, who is backed by "the unimaginably vast Rothschild banking empire.")

At the same time, some right-wingers have joined or endorsed Occupy events, causing some leftists and liberals to raise warning flags. Neonazis have shown up at Occupy Phoenix and been kicked out of Occupy Seattle, where leftists formed an antifascist working group to keep them out. The Liberty Lamp, an anti-racist website, has identified a number of right-wing groups that have sought to "capitalize on the success" of OWS, including several neonazi organizations, Oath Keepers (a Patriot movement group for police and military personnel), libertarian supporters of Texas congressmember Ron Paul, and even the neoconservative American Spectator magazine. Leonard Zeskind's Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights has warned against Tea Party supporters "who want to be friends with the Occupiers," including FedUpUSA, Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, and conspiracist talk show host Alex Jones. The International Socialist Organization has focused on Ron Paul libertarians as a particular threat to the Occupy movement. In a related vein, the socialist journal Links reposted a detailed expose of Zeitgeist (aka the Venus Project), a conspiracist cult that has been involved in Occupy movement events, many of whose ideas are rooted in antisemitism or other right-wing ideology.

There is always a danger that some rightists will come to Occupy movement events to harass or attack leftists, or act as spies or provocateurs. More commonly, rightists see the movement as an opportunity to gain credibility, win new recruits, or build coalitions with leftists. When pitching to left-leaning activists, these right-wingers emphasize their opposition to the U.S. economic and political establishment--but downplay their own oppressive politics. In place of systemic critiques of power, rightists promote distorted forms of anti-elitism, such as conspiracy theories or the belief that government is the root of economic tyranny. We've seen this "Right Woos Left" dynamic over and over, for example in the anti-war, environmental, and anti-globalization movements.

Neo-fascists against financial elites

Rightists who support the Occupy movement aim to redefine and redirect Occupiers' discontent. Hoosier Nation (Indiana chapter of American Third Position) pledged to join Occupy Indianapolis as a "popular uprising against the financial elites" but criticized the rally organizers' call for human unity as "muddled thinking": "Not to quibble, but our races, religions, and identities do matter. Our identities aren't the problem, they're the solution.... The notion that we don't exist as families and nations but rather as autonomous individuals is a fiction perpetuated by our financial elites to topple the barriers standing in the way of exploiting us."

A cruder style of rhetoric comes from Rocky Suhayda's American Nazi Party, which champions the "White working class" against "this evil corrupt, decadent JUDEO-CAPITALIST SYSTEM." The ANP praised the Occupy movement as "a breath of cleansing air" and urged its supporters to get involved. "Produce some flyers EXPLAINING the 'JEW BANKER' influence--DON'T wear anything marking you as an 'evil racist'--and GET OUT THERE and SPREAD the WORD!" (Another fascist grouplet, the National Socialist American Labor Party, immediately repudiated the ANP's stance and denounced Occupy Wall Street as a Jewish Communist movement.)

The Lyndon LaRouche network, which offers a more esoteric version of fascist politics, has a long history of attaching itself to popular movements--as well as violence, spying, and dirty tricks against political opponents. LaRouchites have always denounced finance capital as one of the world's main evils, so it is no surprise that they have joined Occupy events in several cities. True to their current attempt to package themselves as Franklin Roosevelt liberals, the LaRouchites are pushing for reinstatement of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act's wall between investment banking and commercial banking, which was repealed in 1999. The LaRouchites take credit for supposedly making Glass-Steagall reinstatement "a leading demand" of the Occupy movement.

Attack the System's "Message to Occupy Wall Street"

A more sophisticated rightist overture to the Occupy movement comes from Keith Preston's Attack the System (ATS) network. Two ATS associate editors, RJ Jacob and Miles Joyner, have produced a YouTube video titled "Message to Occupy Wall Street: Power to the Neighborhoods." The 13-minute video is explicitly "tailored to the mainstream left" and contains many elements designed to appeal to leftists. Jacob and Joyner call for OWS to develop into a revolutionary insurgency against the American Empire and highlight their opposition to U.S. military aggression, state repression, global capitalist institutions, corporate welfare, gentrification, and other standard leftist targets. They also advocate a strategy of "pan-secessionism" to help bring about "a system of decentralized cities, towns and neighborhoods where all colors, genders, and political groups can achieve self-determination."

What Jacob and Joyner's video doesn't tell us is that their organization's vision of revolution would not dismantle oppression but simply decentralize it. ATS founder and leader Keith Preston believes that most people are herd-like "sheep" who will inevitably be dominated by a few power hungry "wolves." Although Preston calls himself an anarchist, he has no problem with authoritarianism on a small scale and has made it a priority to "collaborate with racialists and theocrats" against the left. White nationalists and Christian rightists are major players in the pan-secessionist movement that ATS and the Jacob/Joyner video promote. (For details on Preston and ATS, see my article "Rising Above the Herd.")

ATS elitism is reflected in "Message to Occupy Wall Street." In explaining what's needed to move toward revolution, the video puts a big emphasis on the development of "an intellectual and philosophical counter-elite." It is this counter-elite that develops revolutionary ideas, which then "trickle down into the ranks of the masses." No hint that "the masses" might develop a few ideas of their own.

"Message" also calls for a revolutionary movement that transcends left/right divisions. This is a standard theme for ATS (and many other far rightists), but the approach to it here is different from what I have seen in Preston's work. Jacob and Joyner argue that "counter-elites" on both the left and the right have contributed to developing a revolutionary movement--but in very different ways. The leftist counter-elites "have served as leaders of systems disruption, networked resistance, informational warfare, communications, and public intelligence." Meanwhile, "it is the counter-elites of the right who are developing an entirely new political paradigm in opposition to the state ideologies of the system." In other words, leftists are good at developing the technologies of revolution, but rightists are the ones with the actual vision for society.

John Robb, open-source technocrat

The counter-elite figure who gets the most coverage in "Message" is John Robb, who runs the Global Guerrillas website, and he deserves attention here because of his murky politics and his interest in OWS. Robb is a former U.S. counter-terrorism mission commander turned independent military theorist and technology analyst. He has written about the rise of "open-source warfare"--characterized by decentralized networks of terrorists, criminals, and other non-state actors acting with a high degree of innovation and flexibility--and the hollowing out of traditional nation-states. In response to these and other trends--including economic and environmental crises--Robb promotes the development of "resilient communities," which are autonomous and largely self-sufficient in terms of energy, food, security, and other basic needs. Robb has praised the Occupy Wall Street movement as a pioneering example of "open-source protest" that is "constructing the outlines of resilient communities in the heart of many of our most dense urban areas."

Jacob and Joyner's video characterizes Robb as a leftist, and indeed many of his ideas, such as his belief that both capitalism and the nation state are breaking down and his emphasis on decentralized solutions, sound radical. But while I don't claim to fully understand where Robb is coming from, I am deeply wary. Robb himself avoids political labels, and Thomas Barnett has characterized him as "a serious technocrat who distrusts politics." According to his online bio, Robb has consulted extensively for government agencies such as the CIA, NSA, and Defense Department. And his anti-establishment friends seem to be found mainly on the right. For example, he has archived the former blog of fellow military theorist William Lind and features it prominently on the Global Guerrillas home page. Lind, whose theory of "fourth generation war" has a lot in common with Robb's ideas, is a hardline traditionalist conservative who spent many years at Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation.

Robb's writings are often reposted on right-wing websites such as AlternativeRight.com, The Occidental Quarterly, Occidental Dissent, and Attack the System. As far as I know, he has never tried to dissociate himself from these organs. Intentionally or unintentionally, his own work often resonates with rightist themes without invoking them directly, as when he writes about "the decline of the West" (echoing Oswald Spengler) or the virtues of building a "tribe" (echoing national-anarchists, among others). John Robb's relationship with the right merits more in-depth study, but he is no leftist.


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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:32 pm

Characterizing John Robb as a right fascist is f'ing absurd, but being an American citizen I naturally have the upmost respect for the opinions of all my fellow free men.

Characterizing John Robb as a liberal would be equally absurd. He's a systems thinker. Definitely recommend his book Brave New War, it is concise and cogent, exceeding the sources he built it upon.

Worthing noting that Robb's current work on "Resilient Community" represents a genuine way forward precisely because it is an apolitical approach to real world power dynamics and system constraints.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:40 pm

My own experience with 3 different city-level Occupy groups was fundamentally the same, in terms of the OP here. The meetings were continually dominated by union organizers and social justice activism which pushed out the Ron Paul / Militia end of the spectrum, which was really a pity, because each time it basically sorted itself into a new front for MoveOn. (Which is a credit to their organization, to be clear, despite my cynical disdain for their hysteria their ground game is unfuckwithable, as they say on Wall Street. Also worth noting that a big part of their success is funding and infrastructure; MoveOn reps were able to take on more responsibility and deliver better results, period.)

So when I say it was a pity, I just mean that a potentially interesting open forum with a very diverse group of ideological frameworks got reduced to an echo chamber of people who already agreed with each other and had experience working together. So it goes.

20 years ago Robert Anton Wilson was talking about getting the gun nuts and the potheads together to form an unbeatable Liberty coalition. It is frustrating to see this idea still languishing, especially given the proclivities of homogenous groups to splinter off into The Narcissism of Small Differences, such as the eternally hypenated civil war that passes for "Anarchism" in the Western world today.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:04 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:32 pm wrote:Characterizing John Robb as a right fascist is f'ing absurd, but being an American citizen I naturally have the upmost respect for the opinions of all my fellow free men.

Characterizing John Robb as a liberal would be equally absurd. He's a systems thinker. Definitely recommend his book Brave New War, it is concise and cogent, exceeding the sources he built it upon.

Worthing noting that Robb's current work on "Resilient Community" represents a genuine way forward precisely because it is an apolitical approach to real world power dynamics and system constraints.


For whatever it is worth, here are the comments from that piece at Three Way Fight, including a comment from the author Matthew N Lyons, regarding Robb:

20 comments:

Anonymous said...
Great post. I don't think Robb is at all sinister. He has some far rightists popping up on his blog in the comments section, and he makes no attempt to police them, but I think it's because he sees himself as an objective theorist without a truck in anyone's political dispute.

You can criticize *that* as faulty for a lot of reasons, but beyond that I don't really know what to say. Nowhere in his discussion of tribalism does he advocate for racially cleansed death squads. It just happens that people who do want that see Robb's theorizing as a model. But again, a military theorist who knows a lot about tanks isn't a Nazi because the Nazis used the theorist's ideas to invade Poland.

November 08, 2011 10:47 PM
Anonymous said...
David Duke has also endorsed OWS:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011 ... street.php

and more in the same vein:
http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=512

November 09, 2011 10:19 AM
Matthew N Lyons said...
1. Not at all sinister? Someone who helps the CIA et al do their work better?

I agree that rightists using Robb's ideas doesn't make Robb a rightist. But I think Robb's relationship with the far right--or more specifically the relationship between Robb's ideas and far right politics--merits more exploration. I'll leave it there for now.

2. Thanks for the links. Spencer Sunshine's article on OWS for Shift Magazine is great. The only point I would quibble with is at the end, when Spencer says "only the weight of the numbers of the progressive participants" has kept conspiracist, far rightist, and antisemitic elements at bay within the Occupy movement. More important than numbers, I think, are the active efforts by leftists within the movement to shift the discourse from nebulous populism to more substantive radical analysis and action.

November 10, 2011 9:53 AM
Anonymous said...
Thank you. We made and published the Russian translation here:

http://www.aitrus.info/node/1750

KRAS-IWA

November 16, 2011 1:51 AM
Anonymous said...
Miles Joyner is African American and R.J. Jacob is a Lebanese Arab. The associate editor who "reposts John Robb's writings at Attack the System" is Vincent Rinehart, a Native American Indian activist from the Tlingit Tribe (not Keith Preston).

How 'bout them Arab, African, and Indian 'white nationalists'!

Hilarious.

In your world, anyone who stands in opposition to the universal utopian schemes perpetrated on people in the name of "humanity" is fascist. Anyone who remains loyal to a cultural or family tradition is fascist. In this respect, Hezbollah is fascist. Filiberto Ojeda Rios (R.I.P) and the Puerto Rican independence movement for self-determination, fascist. Alfonso Cano (R.I.P.) and the Columbian FARC rebels, fascist. The Palestinian Declaration of Independence, fascist. The 'Black Panther Party Platform, Program, and Rules', fascist. The Native American Indian tribes (the original anarchists), fascist. Little blue smurfs, fascist.

Even more amusing, "Matthew Lyons" sounds white. Nothing new. White man telling us what we can and can't have. I suppose you know what is best for my people, correct?

Priceless.

November 18, 2011 2:10 AM
Matthew N Lyons said...
My OWS post never describes Attack the System as either white nationalist or fascist. My longer critique of ATS leader Keith Preston, "Rising Above the Herd," specifically says that Preston is neither a white nationalist nor a fascist, although he has made it a priority to "collaborate" (his word) with white nationalists, and he shares some aspects of fascist politics. As I commented on Preston's response to "Rising," attacking someone for things that they didn't say and don't believe makes for a lazy polemic.

That said, I'm grateful to the commenter for pointing out that several of the core people in the ATS network are people of color. This is an important reminder to critics who may be stuck in outmoded assumptions about the political right. Toward the end of "Rising," I cited as probably true Preston's statement that ATS and National-Anarchist groups have gained support among "African-Americans, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Gays/Queers, Muslims, and others not generally thought of as being part of the American right-wing." While some sections of the right remain committed to traditional supremacist politics, others such as ATS have broken with it in various ways. We leftists ignore this at our peril.

November 18, 2011 9:23 AM
Anonymous said...
I am not responding to your 7-page critique of Preston's work.

Lumping Arabs, Indians, and African Americans for self determination in with neonazis and right wing hate groups under the title "Rightists woo the Occupy Movement" without revealing our true identities and intentions makes for a lazy analysis.

The post may not directly describe ATS as fascist or white nationalist but certainly presents an incomplete picture to obscure our message, goals and function while insinuating that we are part of a larger conspiracy headed by white nationalists to infiltrate the Occupy Movement (or something along those lines). What else would the anti-fascist networks circulating this article take from it?

November 19, 2011 7:42 AM
Matthew N Lyons said...
It's specious to accuse me of "not revealing" Joyner and Jacob's true identities, given that their ethnicities aren't mentioned in "Message to Occupy Wall Street" or on the ATS "Statement of Purpose" page (which lists the members of the ATS editorial group) or anywhere I can find on thedailyattack.com (ATS's sister site, founded by Joyner).

My post describes initiatives by a diverse array of rightists who have either participated in or expressed support for OWS. There is no suggestion that these forces are part of a "larger conspiracy" or are led by white nationalists.

November 19, 2011 9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
Why are you writing about people who you know nothing about?

If 'Woo' were a fair analysis it would acknowledge the diversity of the self determination movement. The list would include Black Africans, Arab Americans, Native Americans, Queers, Christians, Muslims, and of course, European Americans. Instead, "white nationalists" are the "major players" of the movement that "Jacob/Joyner" "promote."

"ATS's sister site, founded by Joyner"

The Daily Attack was not founded by Joyner.

Again, think and research before you write.

November 20, 2011 4:11 AM
Matthew N Lyons said...
Factual correction accepted: thedailyattack.com's "About" page says that the site was founded by Jacob, not Joyner. I apologize for misreading this.

Beyond that specific point, I stand by what I wrote.

November 20, 2011 8:19 PM
mrda said...
Lyons, why do you persist in referring to all folk in the ATS mileu as "Rightists"? It's less an accurate description and more of a verbal tic, at this point.

November 22, 2011 6:39 AM
Vince said...
Quick comment - I and those Native Americans I count as my friends, family, associates and activist allies tend to identify as leftists. I describe Native American "anarchism" as ethno-nationalism of the left. My hope is that more leftists will recognize the validity of pan-secession; specifically focusing on the development of our respective communities' unique political ideologies, based on our respective cultures, attitudes and historical experiences.

November 22, 2011 3:03 PM
Keith Preston said...
Matthew,

Do you consider Hasidic communities like Kiryas Joel and New Square, the Amish communities of Pennsylvania, or the South African community of Orania to be quasi-fascist oppressors or are they simply different "tribes" with their own unique cultures and ideologies minding their own business and pursuing their own ways of life? If the former, how do you plan on preventing such communities from forming without an overarching totalitarian state imposing rigid ideological uniformity on a universal level? If the latter, how are they any different from what ARV/ATS is promoting?

November 25, 2011 7:51 PM
Keith Preston said...
How would you respond to these comments from some of our participants?

From RJ Jacob:

"So we’re not dismantling oppression by smashing the state, the ruling classes, and western economic supremacy? We have to burn the boats and bridges of people who hold rightist views? Is this guy just another Marxist or is he with the anarcho-authorities?"

From Kan-Wil-Sal:

"Do people like Matthew Lyons even consider why other people have different opinions on how they want to live and that they just might want that freedom?
I read your previous debate with him, he can not defend government from fascists, government is fascisms no matter what ideology they claim to have they all behave the exact same with central power, a decentralized world full of various city states and collectives will not be perfect, but we will have choices, real choices. It will force small municipalities/ tribal councils/theocracies/democracies or whatever else exists to treat people well, because if you don’t, I pack my bag and leave, as easy as that."

November 26, 2011 3:54 PM
Matthew N Lyons said...
I recognize that some people within the ATS milieu consider themselves non-rightists or leftists, and some of their political work may well be consistent with leftism. But to the extent that ATS folks support, advocate for, and promote the growth of ATS, they are acting as rightists, because ATS is rightist both in its practice and its underlying principles. ATS accepts and promotes authoritarianism and hierarchy based on ethnicity, gender, and other factors through its strategic willingness to ally with racial nationalists, Christian rightists, etc. under the pan-secessionist umbrella. In particular, the ATS Statement of Purpose defends efforts to "cultivate a relationship" with "moderate, reasonable, conciliatory, and polite" white nationalists. This orientation follows logically from the philosophical elitism proclaimed by ATS founder, leader, and chief spokesperson Keith Preston, who argues that most people are by nature herdlike sheep unable to exercise significant independent thought or agency. Not everybody in the ATS network shares this philosophical elitism, but Preston's detailed exposition of it on the ATS blog received enthusiastic praise from most commenters. MRDA, for example, called it "one of my favorite articles" by Preston. (See http://attackthesystem.com/2011/07/03/a ... -and-owls/)

The ATS network's fundamentally rightist orientation is embodied in the "Message to Occupy Wall Street" video, which as I noted calls for a left-right alliance but presents rightists -- and only rightists -- as the ones who are developing a new vision for society. One of six rightist thinkers that the video lists as particularly important is Troy Southgate, "the innovative anarchist thinker." For those who don't know, Southgate is a veteran of the British neonazi movement who founded National-Anarchism as a reworking of fascist ideology. Take a look at his N-AM Manifesto, written a year ago, starting with his claims that "an elite coterie of Jews and their allies have effectively manipulated world events for their own interests" and "as a result of Jewish involvement in the bootlegging and criminal racketeering of 1930s America,… eventually went on to finance the Zionist takeover of the Hollywood film industry and, by 1948, brought about the establishment of the bandit-state of Israel." (See http://www.national-anarchist.net/2010/ ... onism.html)

November 28, 2011 10:14 PM
Matthew N Lyons said...
To Mr. Preston's first comment, I don't consider the communities he lists to be equivalent. Hasidim and Amish in the U.S. are examples of traditionalist cultural minorities, who are subject to varying degrees of stereotyping and marginalization -- although most members of these groups are also defined as white, which gives them a degree of relative privilege. Within their communities, systems of oppression such as patriarchy operate somewhat differently, but not necessarily more severely, than in the larger society. I don't have a blueprint for how revolutionary movements should deal with issues of hierarchy or mistreatment within these communities. I believe in respecting cultural differences and honoring the positive aspects of different ways of living, but I also believe this doesn't simply trump concerns about oppression. Generally, radical change that comes from within communities is much more meaningful and effective than anything imposed from the outside, although even the most insular community is influenced by what happens around it. I would tend to look first to people who have been silenced or marginalized within these communities, such as queer Hasidic Jews, for guidance or leadership in this area.

Orania, an Afrikaner separatist community in South Africa, involves some of the same issues -- but with a radical difference, because it’s a community directly rooted in apartheid racism, designed to protect and preserve the country's traditional oppressor caste. Orania is for whites only; people of color may visit, but with sharp constraints on where they can go and what they can do. Oranians may claim that they're just minding their own business and preserving their culture, but what kinds of racial and political attitudes and practices does Orania promote, and what impact do these have on South African society? And to Mr. Preston's question about the "overarching totalitarian state," is it totalitarian to tell someone that they can't treat other people like garbage?

November 28, 2011 10:19 PM
Matthew N Lyons said...
To RJ Jacob: Pan-secessionism is based on the premise that the large central state is the main part of class rule, and that dismantling the large central state would result in smashing the ruling classes. I believe this is an illusion -- a utopian fantasy. Capitalism is a system that includes the state but is not ultimately created by it. If you don't attack that larger system you are reconfiguring capitalism, not ending it. Same for racial oppression, and male supremacy, and national oppression, and so on. Assuming that pan-secessionists succeeded in smashing the state -- that they didn't simply get coopted by a declining but still powerful U.S. empire, extending its current policy of outsourcing social control tasks to client states, private contractors, gangs, etc. -- the result would still be a world of tremendous inequality, exploitation, and violence, but even more of the lines would be drawn geographically than they are now.

As for smashing western economic supremacy, clearly that's not the same as dismantling imperialism as a global system. A capitalist world with the U.S. empire replaced by hundreds of mini-states would quickly see the rise to dominance of new imperialist superpowers, notably China. A coalition of "rogue states" led by a National-Bolshevist Russia, whose rise Keith Preston fantasized about in one essay, might also help fill the gap.

To Kan-Wil-Sal: Saying that all centralized government equals fascism renders the concept of fascism meaningless. A fascist state, a liberal "democracy," an absolute monarchy, and a Soviet-style "Communist" state all exercise power in different ways and require different strategies of those seeking to create a liberatory society.

The idea that simply eliminating the centralized state will result in a sort of free market of community options that people can freely pick and choose from is, again, a utopian fantasy. It completely ignores the many ways -- economic, psychological, cultural, political, etc. -- that hierarchy and social control operate within and between small-scale institutions. The fact that this fantasy is specifically rooted in capitalist "free market" ideology reinforces my point that ATS is fundamentally a right-wing movement.

November 28, 2011 10:20 PM
Matthew N Lyons said...
A final note: Although ThreeWayFight has received occasional comments from rightists in the past, I believe this is the first time that a single 3WF post has received a whole cluster of comments from the same rightist tendency. Most of these comments have been substantive and have helped to clarify important issues, which is why I have approved them for publication. However, ThreeWayFight does not exist to provide a forum for rightists or help them to refine their arguments, and I am not able or willing to continue this exchange indefinitely. If you want to know what ATS folks have to say and what they are up to, check out attackthesystem.com and thedailyattack.com. Comments on this thread are now closed.

November 28, 2011 10:22 PM
chet said...
the zeitgeist movement isn't the venus project, nor is it about conspiracies, antisemetism, or right-wing ideology. please do better research before knocking people who are trying to make the world a better place. i'm sure you would want the same courtesy.

January 08, 2012 4:58 PM
Matthew N Lyons said...
The article I cited about Zeitgeist, by Jack Ferguson (at http://links.org.au/node/2567), was written in 2010. The website of the Zeitgeist movement (http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/faq) says that a split between Zeitgeist and the Venus Project developed in 2011, but that "the differences between the two organizations rest in function & strategy while the broad goal is essentially the same." Sorry for conflating these two groups.

Ferguson argues that an important part of Zeitgeist's core ideas is derived from antisemitic conspiracy theories and related right-wing ideology, although this is not explicitly reflected in Zeitgeist's presentation of the ideas. For details, I encourage people to check out Ferguson's article at the URL given above, including the lively debate in the comments section.

January 11, 2012 11:04 PM
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:16 pm

Pan-secessionism is based on the premise that the large central state is the main part of class rule, and that dismantling the large central state would result in smashing the ruling classes. I believe this is an illusion -- a utopian fantasy.


Cheers to that.

Matt Kibbe is basically making a living by creating a mirror image of MoveOn for the GOP. He apes so nakedly he wrote a book called "Rules for Patriots" which is a 1:1 parody of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."

Are there any documented instances of the Tea Party, national or local, reaching out to any Occupy cells? I definitely never saw it and wondered why. I met my first IRL LaRouche recruit in Burlington, VT, but no Tea Party types.

At least not openly...perhaps "Anarcho-Capitalist" is just a Fox News dog whistle instead of a neckbeard movement...

I do like the Patrio-Psychotic Anarcho-Materialism espoused by JR "Bob" Dobbs, though, I feel like it holds a lot of potential for the community organizer caste.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:19 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:40 pm wrote:My own experience with 3 different city-level Occupy groups was fundamentally the same, in terms of the OP here. The meetings were continually dominated by union organizers and social justice activism which pushed out the Ron Paul / Militia end of the spectrum, which was really a pity, because each time it basically sorted itself into a new front for MoveOn. (Which is a credit to their organization, to be clear, despite my cynical disdain for their hysteria their ground game is unfuckwithable, as they say on Wall Street. Also worth noting that a big part of their success is funding and infrastructure; MoveOn reps were able to take on more responsibility and deliver better results, period.)

So when I say it was a pity, I just mean that a potentially interesting open forum with a very diverse group of ideological frameworks got reduced to an echo chamber of people who already agreed with each other and had experience working together. So it goes.

20 years ago Robert Anton Wilson was talking about getting the gun nuts and the potheads together to form an unbeatable Liberty coalition. It is frustrating to see this idea still languishing, especially given the proclivities of homogenous groups to splinter off into The Narcissism of Small Differences, such as the eternally hypenated civil war that passes for "Anarchism" in the Western world today.


I don't think the choice is between Militia types and MoveOn- and I feel sorry for any town in which it seems that way.

Spencer Sunshine- the author of the original post- added many other right wing tendencies, including: Oath Keepers, Tea Party members, National-Anarchists, Attack the System, the Pacifica Forum, American Free Press, Larouchites, Counter-Currents, the American Freedom Party, American Front, David Duke, the American Nazi Party and White Revolution.

I think the grounds for rejecting the politics of these sorts of people are sound.


.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Zombie Glenn Beck » Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:39 pm

how to create a strong movement that is open to “everyone” without being open to people I dont like?


Ah, the central problem of Anarchist movements everywhere.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:01 pm

Take The Skinheads Bowling

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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Luther Blissett » Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:20 pm

American Dream » Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:19 pm wrote:I don't think the choice is between Militia types and MoveOn- and I feeel sorry for any town in which it seems that way.


I feel the same. I was involved with one group and visited two other cities, but didn't notice anything that wouldn't have rejected MoveOn outright.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:16 pm

^^Awesome, thank you sir.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:37 am

http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2011/ ... ersus.html

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Occupy movement: Anti-capitalism versus populism

Occupy Wall Street is one of the most exciting political developments in years, but like any social movement it has its contradictions. As I noted briefly at the end of my previous post, the Occupy movement is vulnerable to right-wing overtures to the extent that many progressive-minded activists lack clear anti-capitalist and anti-fascist politics. While some Occupiers have put forward a radical class analysis, others have voiced a sort of liberal populism, which identifies the problem as specific institutions, policies, or subjective behaviors rather than the capitalist system. Several leftists on other websites have addressed this political limitation and its unfortunate resonances with right-wing ideology. Here I want to summarize some of their main points, then offer an important counter-example of Occupy movement anti-capitalism – the plan by West coast Occupy movements to blockade ports on December 12th.

Against "corporate greed"
Bill Weinberg has urged Occupiers to take a clear stand against capitalism, rejecting the defensive slogan, "We aren't against capitalism, we're against corporate greed." Weinberg counters: "The assumption behind this response is that with enough public oversight or (in the more reactionary versions) if Wall Street brokers acted with greater patriotism, capitalism could 'work.'" Failing to target capitalism as a system, he argues, offers more room to "gold-standard crankery, Federal Reserve fetishism and other right-wing, pro-capitalist responses to the crisis" – including antisemitism.

Ross Wolfe similarly criticizes the tendency by many protesters to blame greed for the inequities of capitalism, arguing that this "mistakes an epiphenomenal characteristic of capitalism for something more fundamental" and "ignores the way that the capitalists themselves are implicated by the intrinsic logic of capital." Even the capitalist who enjoys the benefits of great wealth "is constantly compelled to reinvest his capital back into production in order to stay afloat." Thus "capitalism is not a moral but rather a structural problem." Wolfe further argues that blaming capitalist inequities on rich people's moral failings "ultimately amounts to what might be called the 'diabolical' view of society – the idea that all of society's ills can be traced back to some scheming cabal of businessmen conspiring over how to best fuck over the general public. (The 'diabolical' view of society is not all that far removed from conspiracy theories about the 'New World Order, the Illuminati, or 'International Jewry.'…)"

Glorifying the "real" economy
The Occupy movement's focus on banks presents a related pitfall, depending on whether banks are targeted as a major component of the capitalist system or as a parasitic growth on it. As BobFromBrockley points out in a wide-ranging discussion of Occupy, "the valorization of the good, honest, organic 'real economy' against the predatory tentacular finance capital is not just a feature of the Zeitgeist movement and antisemitic cranks," but has also been taken up, for example, by liberal Christians. Bob continues:

"The idea that capitalism would be fine if we removed all that smoke and mirrors finance stuff and got back to the 'real' production of stuff is both deeply reactionary (based on nostalgia for something that never existed, and with a close kinship to the 'socialism of fools' that thinks the problem is Jew-financiers) but also empirically nonsense. Sweatshops where adults and children labour for long hours in appalling conditions to make clothes and electronic components are part of 'the real economy'. As are the biofuel plantations that are eating up the rainforests that produce the air we breathe. As are the oil wells and oil pipes that poison our river deltas; the manufacture of weapons of torture and warfare; the coltan mines that central African child soldiers kill and are killed for; the soybean and rapeseed monocultures that we rely on for our daily meals, the beds we sleep on wrought from rainforest lumber; and so on. All wage labour involves exploitation, whatever part of the capitalist economy you’re in. The 'real economy' may be realer, but it is ultimately no better."

West coast port shutdown and class politics
In contrast with liberal populism, the plan by West coast Occupations to shut down West coast ports on December 12th defines the movement as confronting structural, class inequality. The action is specifically planned in solidarity with labor battles by port workers in Longview (Washington) and Los Angeles, but more broadly to "economically disrupt 'wall street on the waterfront.'" The website for the action declares, "U.S. ports have…become economic engines for the elite; the 1% these trade hubs serve are free to rip the shirts off the backs of the 99% who turn their profits." Occupy Seattle's port shutdown statement declares further that "the Occupy movement is part of the workers' movement," whether its members are union members or non-members, unemployed, students, or homeless. The Seattle statement also draws connections between corporate union-busting, government budget cuts that target working people, and police violence and harassment of Occupy activists worldwide. (Occupy Seattle organizers have issued an emergency fundraising request to help charter buses for the port shutdown.

Anti-capitalism versus liberal populism is only one dimension of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This issue doesn't capture the movement's dynamism or fluidity: the way it has opened up important new space for people to tell their stories and debate what is happening in the economy and society, and the way people's politics can shift and change – sometimes very quickly – when participating in mass activism or facing police repression. Critiquing capitalism as a system isn't a full recipe for radical change, but it is a necessary ingredient.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Mon Mar 31, 2014 10:20 am

The race divides are deeper and more complex than elaborated here- and there are surely more divisions/oppressions that need to be addressed- but there still is a lot of relevant and useful material to chew on here:


Whiteness and the 99%

by Joel Olson

Occupy Wall Street and the hundreds of occupations it has sparked nationwide are among the most inspiring events in the U.S. in the 21st century. The occupations have brought together people to talk, occupy, and organize in new and exciting ways. The convergence of so many people with so many concerns has naturally created tensions within the occupation movement. One of the most significant tensions has been over race. This is not unusual, given the racial history of the United States. But this tension is particularly dangerous, for unless it is confronted, we cannot build the 99%. The key obstacle to building the 99% is left colorblindness, and the key to overcoming it is to put the struggles of communities of color at the center of this movement. It is the difference between a free world and the continued dominance of the 1%.

Left colorblindess is the enemy

Left colorblindness is the belief that race is a “divisive” issue among the 99%, so we should instead focus on problems that “everyone” shares. According to this argument, the movement is for everyone, and people of color should join it rather than attack it.

Left colorblindness claims to be inclusive, but it is actually just another way to keep whites’ interests at the forefront. It tells people of color to join “our” struggle (who makes up this “our,” anyway?) but warns them not to bring their “special” concerns into it. It enables white people to decide which issues are for the 99% and which ones are “too narrow.” It’s another way for whites to expect and insist on favored treatment, even in a democratic movement.

As long as left colorblindness dominates our movement, there will be no 99%. There will instead be a handful of whites claiming to speak for everyone. When people of color have to enter a movement on white people’s terms rather than their own, that’s not the 99%. That’s white democracy.

Continues at: http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node%2F146[/quote]
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