OCCUPY WALL STREET

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Certainly, I’m happy to provide sources always:

http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com...Organize%21%29

Then there's been the various iterations and riffs on the use of the word 'occupy'

http://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.c...e-wall-street/

http://ignite-revolution.org/

I find quite a bit of the language in the above quite problematic and I think that to the degree that OWS adopts these ideas, that is the degree to which it is problematic. While I understand why consensus decision making seems wonderful, my own experience is that it is not so much democratic as it is a way for a small group of people to hold an agenda hostage. I need point out only what happened to Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta where he showed up in support, someone blocked consensus on his being able to speak which, as an aside, was when I started to think 'Oh no, not again'.

I want OWS to be successful. I want it to push the political class (or drag them kicking and screaming) to the table so that the long hard slog of rebuilding the middle class in this country can begin. But I'm a reformer not a revolutionary. I just don't trust revolutions because so few of them turn out well. I'd love to see us have a Constitutional convention with two goals:

1) A Constitutional amendment specifically defining a person in such a way that corporations are outside of the definition

2) A Constitutional amendment providing for the public financing of campaigns.

I think that those two things alone would go a very long way toward making the voices of the vast majority of people who aren't rich something that elected officials ignore to their singular peril. Right now, there's really no negative consequence to ignoring our voices that isn't outweighed by the consequences of ignoring their master's (read: the top 1%) voice and so they pay the piper that plays the tune. If we are the piper, they'll have to listen to us.

Cheers
Aj

Thanks for sharing your sources Aj.

The article from your first link is really the first I have read about OWS mentioning any words such as petty bourgeoisie and socialism. Well, I have seen the word socialism bandied about but that is from right-wing critics and not from the protestors themselves. I found that whole article quite disturbing. Firstly, I am not sure how people are getting these statistics on the populations who are protesting.

"Since this movement is currently dominated by a class of people who make up, perhaps, the top 20% of the ninety-nine in the US and Canada––and probably only four or five per cent of the global ninety-nine––the fact that it is speaking, in very broad brushstrokes, in language vaguely akin to the language of communists is extremely interesting."

This sentence itself bugs me. How did the writer come up with these percentages? This is a fluid and growing movement and I can't imagine that anyone has collected enough data to do an accurate statistical analysis. It seems like the writer just pulled these numbers right out of her/his ass. Also, what specifically does the writer mean by "language akin to the language of communists" specifically? If you go to the 99delegation website or the OWS nyc working group site that I previously linked, you won't find much of any language resembling that of communists that I can see. No one is calling for an overthrow of the government or an end to capitalism in any of the working groups or general assemblies from what I have read.

And then there is this little gem:

"Even the fact that the movement has been resisting the need to place key demands on its agenda, falling back into some sort of “strength in directionless” ideology promoted by AdBusters (one of the key magazines for the activist, “culture-jamming” petty bourgeoisie), demonstrates the consciousness of a petty bourgeoisie in crisis––directionlessness, confusion, the realization that its class position is, and has always been, unstable."

First of all, Adbusters is a Vancouver based anti-consumerist magazine and yes they were the ones to propose a Sept. 17th occupation of Wall Street. But they don't claim any control over the protests and won't even comment about them when news organizations (such as NPR) ask them to. What the movement has become, has become so organically and not by the orchestration of Adbusters. Secondly, this ridiculous notion that the movement is directionless and that people don't know what they are protesting for is garbage. That's the kind of thing Faux news keeps saying. This sums it up better than any words can:



People know why they are protesting and what it is they want. The OWS working groups are working day and night to come up with a list of demands to put to Washington. This process takes so much time BECAUSE they are trying to include as many voices as possible and come to consensus. They are working towards a national General Assembly for next summer in Philadelphia. They are working on ways to make it possible for people who can't make it to the assembly to vote online. They are putting up as much of the process on the web as they can. This movement is very new and the process is slow, but that is good. It means they are being careful.

There's a lot more of that article that I really shake my head at, but here is a real zinger:

"When this movement peters out, as it surely will, and the majority of its most vocal supporters decide they want “to join the victors when the fight is over,” then we must ask ourselves what victories could be claimed by the left in the aftermath?"

This is just stupidity. It seems like the author is just wanting this whole thing to fail so that he or she can say, 'I was right! Ha ha!!' The truth is no one knows how this will turn out. 80 years ago during the Great Depression this country didn't have a revolution; it had a reformation. The economic situation today is in some ways very different, but in others very similar. The income inequality is almost the same as it was back then. We have corporate monopolies today that are just as powerful as the ones back then. The reforms we enacted back then have been eroded over the decades by all the deregulation done in the name of making America "more competitive". We can change this. We CAN achieve significant and needed reforms. The writer of this article seems to assume it will fail. Well, he/she can kiss 99% of my ass. I am going to stay positive and believe.

Ok so I could go on taking that article apart, but I am tired tonight lol. I do want to come back and talk about your other 2 links. The second one I found interesting, the third one seemed to be some fringe movement that really isn't tied to OWS in any concrete way. I haven't seen anything from them on the 99delegation site or in the minutes from the GA meetings. Ah, but it is late now and I need sleep, so I will sign off and continue this discussion tomorrow.

Thanks for participating!

Drew