Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[WildCat]

My only complaint is the broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement.

OK, but...

This is what I hear from protestors regularly now in the news.

The OWS message:

• End the corrupt entanglement of business and govt.
• Investigate the activities that led to the housing and market collapse.
• Pass the jobs bill.
• Increase the tax rates.

There you go again with "the OWS message", after once again complaining about "broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement".

It seems you only have a problem with "broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement" that you disagree with. Because I could say the message of OWS is:

• Ending capitalism
• communist revolution
• free Mumia
• free tuition
• Mortgage/student loan debt forgiveness
• end police brutality
• recognize a Palestinian state
• etc etc etc

All from signs I saw at the protests. This list is at least as official as yours is.

 

[Brainster]

Mayor Quan of Vichy Oakland discovers the that even being a collaborator does not guarantee immunity:

We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

On the good news front, the occupiers have come up with a new definition of consensus:

1607 people voted. 1484 voted in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained and 46 voted against it, passing the proposal at 96.9%. The General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.

 

[stilicho]

....

There you go again with "the OWS message", after once again complaining about "broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement".


....

I don't think they even have a message apart from their slogan which is clearly a reference to the marginal tax rate. Even there it's hardly coherent.

I just saw a couple of them on Colbert Report and they're entirely lost. No message. Easily bemused and confused. No apparent goal or wherewithall to achieve it even if it existed.

Leaderless "movements" are by definition doomed to failure. Thus spake stilicho.

 

[Virus]

Protesters at Occupy Ottawa air their grievances about all the violence and sexual assault that's going on and being covered up. Looks like the problem's getting pretty bad.

 

[WildCat]

Protesters at Occupy Ottawa air their grievances about all the violence and sexual assault that's going on and being covered up. Looks like the problem's getting pretty bad.

It really is a religious cult now, getting more secretive and covering up sex crimes by their members.

 

[GreyArea]

There are a couple of reasons that Occupy Wall Street didn't start with pre-determined demands. First, this was a reaction to that typical laundry-list approach.

One of the first organizers of OWS, David Graeber, was interviewed for a business website called "Main St." He explained how it all began.

Me and some friends showed up at this movement and sure enough there was a workers* rally and we thought it was stupid. We said, 'Let's not play along, let's see if we can have a real general assembly.'

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/meet-man-behind-occupy-wall-street

* That was apparently a misquote. It wasn't a simple workers' rally, but specifically a rally of the Workers World Party, one of the U.S.' little Leninist groups.

not a "worker's rally"! A WWP rally! And I was just a conduit, they weren't my ideas. Otherwise good. http://bit.ly/uPk6Ca

http://twitter.com/#!/davidgraeber/status/129982983926071296

He gave Bloomberg Business Week a little more detail.

When Graeber and his friends showed up on Aug. 2, however, they found out that the event wasn't, in fact, a general assembly, but a traditional rally, to be followed by a short meeting and a march to Wall Street to deliver a set of predetermined demands ("A massive public-private jobs program" was one, "An end to oppression and war!" was another).

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/david-graeber-the-antileader-of-occupy-wall-street-10262011_page_3.html

I think the coalition showed up on Aug. 2 and said they would do a rally and then show up on Wall Street with a list of demands that were total boiler plate – a massive jobs program, an end to oppression, money for us not for whatever. They were nice people, but it wasn't very radical, just the usual demands.

Adbusters, when they originally threw the idea out there, they were basically marketing guys who changed sides. They thought like marketers and one of their schticks was to come up with one single demand. That makes perfect sense from a marketing perspective, but it doesn't make sense from an organizing perspective. You need to organize people around a list of grievances.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/meet-man-behind-occupy-wall-street

So here you have one of the original organizers of Occupy Wall Street criticizing the originators of the idea. And then he not only criticizes the top-down nature of what a communist party was trying to do with the event, but his group even took away their audience to ask them what they really thought. Do the critics here have any criticisms of this outcome?

The second reason that demands were not pre-determined is that the organizers wanted to agree about demands through a democratic process. This was quite the opposite of the usual approach of both the vanguardist communist parties and the two mainstream electoral parties.

We don't want to give up the broad-based appeal. I do think every Occupy group has brainstorming groups coming up with this stuff, so there is a very long process of how we are going to come up with alternative visions democratically. That’s being done. But people have been trying to put out demands and protest since the 2008 collapse and no one shows up. We say the system is f---ed and suddenly we get hundreds of thousands of people.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/meet-man-behind-occupy-wall-street?page=2

Democratic decisions take time. What's your hurry? Those of you criticizing this movement don't even have a stake in the process.

Meanwhile, the reason you see all those signs from the WWP is that that's pretty much all they do: organize re-tread rallies and marches, hand out hundreds of signs to people who aren't members, and generally try to run the show.

Would you have preferred the usual demands from the far-left splinter-groups?

 

[RandFan]

It seems you only have a problem with "broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement" that you disagree with.

It only seems that way because you selectively cherry pick what I say.

Because I could say the message of OWS is:

• Ending capitalism
• communist revolution
• free Mumia
• free tuition
• Mortgage/student loan debt forgiveness
• end police brutality
• recognize a Palestinian state
• etc etc etc

All from signs I saw at the protests. This list is at least as official as yours is.

I WOULD NOT MIND THAT if you would A.) concede that not everyone shares that message (as I have done) B.) Support the claims as I have done.

Jesus H. Christ do you really have your fingers shoved so tightly in your ears that you will not listen? How many times do I have to point out the facts?

Seriously?

 

[RandFan]

It only seems that way because you selectively cherry pick what I say.

I WOULD NOT MIND THAT if you would A.) concede that not everyone shares that message (as I have done) B.) Support the claims as I have done.

Jesus H. Christ do you really have your fingers shoved so tightly in your ears that you will not listen? How many times do I have to point out the facts?

Seriously?

Let me provide proof of what I mean. If you want more I'll give them.

I'm not. I've made that abundantly clear. First off, I didn't post an anecdote and draw a conclusion about the entire group. I've conceded that not everyone shares those goals. Jesus Christ how often do we have to go over this? Some percentage of the movement want anarchy and to end capitalism. Just as some percentage of civil rights protestors of the 60s wanted to end capitalism.

So no. If I were doing that I wouldn't mind the tu quoque. I'M NOT DOING THAT.

Wildcat, see the part in red. THAT'S what I can't get you guys to do. "Dirty hippy communist meme" is a one trick pony for many. Don't label me with that as I'm willing to have an honest discussion and concede demonstrable facts. Many on this thread are not and I resent that.

I don't mind disagreement. I mind dishonesty and fallacy.

 

[Checkmite]

P.S. would you please not personalize the discussion?

Fair enough; my bad.

I WOULD NOT MIND THAT if you would A.) concede that not everyone shares that message (as I have done) B.) Support the claims as I have done.

Question: if not everyone shares that message (as in, the one you've defined), by what right do you justify labeling it The OWS message?

 

[Drs_Res]

I don't think that anybody here thinks that EVERYONE with any Occupy group agrees with any particular message posted here. Heck, they can't even agree on their own "good neighbor policy".

 

[RandFan]

Fair enough; my bad.

Question: if not everyone shares that message (as in, the one you've defined), by what right do you justify labeling it The OWS message?

My bad. Just like the protests of the 60's there is no THE message. That is to fall for the trap. Declare there is NO message and when a person provides a message point out the speciousness of stating that it is "THE message". There is no single over riding message. So I utterly reject the trap. There are some very significant shared messages. I've enumerated them and bullet pointed them.

To say there is no message is demonstrably false. Can we have an honest discussion and admit that there are shared common goals and there are also goals that are in conflict much like the protests of the 60s?

 

[Checkmite]

My bad. Just like the protests of the 60's there is no THE message. That is to fall for the trap. Declare there is NO message and when a person provides a message point out the speciousness of stating that it is "THE message". There is no single over riding message. So I utterly reject the trap. There are some very significant shared messages. I've enumerated them and bullet pointed them.

To say there is no message is demonstrably false. Can we have an honest discussion and admit that there are shared common goals and there are also goals that are in conflict much like the protests of the 60s?

Would it be fair to say there's no unified message, but a bunch of separate, individual messages?

 

[RandFan]

I don't think that anybody here thinks that EVERYONE with any Occupy group agrees with any particular message posted here. Heck, they can't even agree on their own "good neighbor policy".

Agreed. Absolutely. Just like the cvil rights movement of the 60s. Like any revolution or popular movement.

There is discontent with govt that centers around corruption and malfeasance and the unwillingness of govt to address problems. Govt appears largely beholden to the rich and powerful. Events like the banking scandals and inability to solve the debt crisis loom large. High unemployment, shrinking wages, foreclosures, these are causing unease among citizens. Pointing out that there are different views on how to fix the problems is just a red herring IMO.

 

[RandFan]

Would it be fair to say there's no unified message, but a bunch of separate, individual messages?

I wouldn't complain. But I would add A.) I think there are fractions and that those fractions share many of the same complaints and possible solutions. B.) I think the driving force behind the discontent fairly ubiquitous. Govt corruption, malfeasance and deafness to the needs of the people. C.) There are shared common goals and there are also goals that are in conflict much like the protests of the 60s?

 

[Brainster]

A female activist discusses the ongoing problems with sexual assault, and reveals that at least one of the rape victims was a young deaf man:



Note her gripe about the police not doing much to help them; could this be the reason?

Even when organizers have requested their intervention, police enter to a mixed chorus of “brutality” and “pig” calls side by side with chanted reminders that “you are the 99%.”

Meanwhile, an unexplained, "natural" death at Occupy Oklahoma City.

A man thought to be a protester was found dead Monday inside a tent at Kerr Park, police said.

The man's name has not been released by police, but he was thought to be in his 20s, Oklahoma City police Capt. Dexter Nelson said.

 

[Checkmite]

I wouldn't complain. But I would add A.) I think there are fractions and that those fractions share many of the same complaints and possible solutions. B.) I think the driving force behind the discontent fairly ubiquitous. Govt corruption, malfeasance and deafness to the needs of the people. C.) There are shared common goals and there are also goals that are in conflict much like the protests of the 60s?

Okay, that's fine. I agree that the movement is...let's use "sectarian" for lack of a better word.

Here's the problem as I see it: addressing the broader issues in a way that would satisfy one of these fractions would not have an effect on the others' complaints and perhaps in some cases may even antagonize them further. Because of this, I think it is by definition impossible to satisfy or address "Occupy Wall Street" as a movement; placating any fraction within it will not make the occupiers as a whole go away.

At the same time, I'm sure you must have noticed for yourself that any person or group which attempts to put up a webpage, say, with a specific list of demands or proposals is quickly disowned or at the very least disclaimed by OWS as a whole. "It's not an official list of demands" and so forth. Yes?

So it seems to me that the OWS movement, as it currently exists, is counterproductive to the goals of its fractions and supressive of positive action toward change.

What, for instance, would be a disadvantage of a fraction diverging from the OWS umbrella and working to advance a set of specific goals?

 

[portlandatheist]

A female activist discusses the ongoing problems with sexual assault, and reveals that at least one of the rape victims was a young deaf man:



Note her gripe about the police not doing much to help them; could this be the reason?



Meanwhile, an unexplained, "natural" death at Occupy Oklahoma City.

I'm really glad somebody subverted the dominant paradigm and simply called the police when they found someone dead instead of how they are dealing with rapes and assault.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

This is what I hear from protestors regularly now in the news.

This is what I hear from protestors regularly now in the news.

• End the corrupt entanglement of business and govt.
• Investigate the activities that led to the housing and market collapse.
• Pass the jobs bill.
• Increase the tax rates.

Some want to end capitalism and start socialism. It's not a monolithic movement.

While I'm hardpressed to label the individual protestors this way; the inspiration behind the movements' propaganda is more than a little unsettling...

Going as far as replicating not one, or two, but several symbols of old soviet propaganda. I'm all for tackling corruption where it hits in the big business area, but I'm not enthused with supporting a movement that gets it's imagery from the vintage Soviet revolution

 

[stilicho]

Agreed. Absolutely. Just like the cvil rights movement of the 60s. Like any revolution or popular movement.

There is discontent with govt that centers around corruption and malfeasance and the unwillingness of govt to address problems. Govt appears largely beholden to the rich and powerful. Events like the banking scandals and inability to solve the debt crisis loom large. High unemployment, shrinking wages, foreclosures, these are causing unease among citizens. Pointing out that there are different views on how to fix the problems is just a red herring IMO.

You're approaching this as though there is a fundamental set of grievances aired through Occupy that has no other venue or resolution process available. That's because you're rational but the people like "Ketchup" who asserts she is a "human in female form" couldn't put anything close to that together on Colbert last night. She (assuming she allows that pronoun) and her cohort were busy showing hand signals they use at their "consensus-building" meetings and babbling about world hunger (which is not on your list, by the way).

Is it possible that you're projecting a serious set of agenda items onto Occupy? Michael Moore says outsourcing should be illegal yet "Ketchup" says world hunger is an important issue. Outsourcing helps people in developing countries eat. So who is right? Michael Moore or "Ketchup"? They can't both possibly be right or can they?

 

[stilicho]

While I'm hardpressed to label the individual protestors this way; the inspiration behind the movements' propaganda is more than a little unsettling...

.....

Going as far as replicating not one, or two, but several symbols of old soviet propaganda. I'm all for tackling corruption where it hits in the big business area, but I'm not enthused with supporting a movement that gets it's imagery from the vintage Soviet revolution

I like #2: All your Wall Street are belong to us.