1. Rounding up more thoughts on Occupy Wall St

    Using this post as a collection point for what I’ve been reading, hearing, seeing. I did make a short trip over to Liberty Plaza/Zuccotti Park with Quinn Heraty Monday night, who gave me the full tour. We also stayed for the first chunk of the General Assembly meeting… Deepak Chopra spoke for a minute (!), and then there was a hearty discussion about purchasing sleeping bags. (That sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not. It was good.)

    Overall, the trip didn’t win me over (or woo me back into my hot, lusty relationship with activism of yore, to continue the metaphor in my previous post). But I’m still thinking and learning, and the fact that we’re all hemming and hawing over has to mean something for the moment. I hope that’s not just my privilege speaking.

    Planning on going to the big labor/community march today, looking forward to see what this next jump in evolution brings.

    Now, some reactions from friends, via email or on the web.

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    On Racialicious, some great posts on race, and colonizing langauge:

    Maharawal’s piece was especially interesting after my own experience watching the General Assembly, wondering how explicitly race, gender, other identities are accounted for in these kinds of open, nearly-structureless systems. I worry about the “Tyranny of Structurelessness,” which should be required reading for any lefty activist. Basically, the these says that when you remove explicit structure (hierarchy, power systems, etc), implicit structure (bias & other nasty bits) arises without the perpetrators being conscious of it, and without accountability. “Every can just raise their hand to speak if they feel like it” doesn’t actually work as well as one might think it would.

    —

    Ruth Ann Harnisch commented on the lack of (specific) demands, and suggested simplicity and clarity (hardly ever bad things, in my opinion). Emphasis mine:

    A simple, sensible suggestion for a single reform/action. …[I]f we find one simple thing to change, just one success, then there is something to build upon. What is that one thing that makes so much sense that it cannot, must not, be denied?

    Catherine Taylor echoed this point with an example from the UK:

    It’s interesting (to me, at least) to compare this to the “UK Uncut” campaign, which is a comparable grassroots campaign, but with a clear, simple, cause-and-effect message, i.e. “don’t cut public services while letting huge corporations avoid tax, when those tax revenues would more than fund those services”. UK Uncut has had a big impact by keeping it specific.

    —

    Over at Colorlines, Kai Wright nails a lot of my thoughts on race & class in this context. His piece: “Here’s to Occupying Wall Street! (If Only That Were Actually Happening)”

    So the question I’m stuck asking is this: Why is it still so hard to get folks to focus on the crisis at hand? Which is that we’ve built an economy on a foundation of predation and inequity; that it is by definition unsustainable for everyone other than the few who profit greatly from it; that it has fallen apart over the past three years and our response, stunningly, has been to frantically put it back together in the same manner. Why, still, is it impossible to bring our politics—left, right and center—in line with the challenges these realities present?

    I fear I know the answer: Because the people most affected by it aren’t meaningfully involved in the nation’s politics—left, right or center. There are literally millions of people who have been kicked out of their homes, laid off or forced to work multiple part-time jobs, caught in predatory debt traps and, yes, so harassed by cops that they have petty criminal records that make them unemployable. These millions are neither lobbying Congress nor marching across the Brooklyn Bridge; they’re trying to make it through the week without another crisis. They are also overwhelmingly and not in the least bit coincidentally black people. And I suspect that until we build our politics around their participation, we will continue to miss the point. Everyone will continue to suffer as a result. Well, everyone except the Wall Street fat cats who have gone right on with their theft throughout their occupation.

    He goes on to point out that the New Bottom Line (what does that name mean?) is working on precisely the problem of organizing the most affected.

    I did notice last night that the crowd was more diverse than what you see on TV or in the newspapers. It’s not perfect. But maybe it’s changing for the better, hard to say.

    —

    My friend Arthur always has smart things to say. Emphasis mine.

    If it is the case that the displeasure with Occupy stems from an eerie familiarity with “our” politics- than wouldn’t the argument be that radical leftists have an responsibility to work with social movements rather than distancing from them? For me, Occupy is a painful reminder that I have left my beliefs that the role of radical leftists must be first and foremost and educational one at the wayside. If I fault Occupy for incoherence than I must also fault myself for not being more involved to challenge people to think politically and strategically. I do not mean this in a paternalistic way- I believe movements must render themselves self conscious through debate- internal and external, decision making, and knowledge of their own history and roots none of which happens over night.

    —

    From a comment on the original post:

    The function of protests is rarely to provide well-thought-out policy alternatives.  The function of protests is to make it more difficult for the powers that be to continue on with business as usual without having to at least formulate a response.  So I am hopeful about the Wall Street protests even though I harbor a bit of cynicism about them.  Go protesters!

    —

    Another comment, plus some good reading, from longtime activist Savitri D (who I completely adore, fwiw):

    I don’t think there are UFO’s or delusions going on at OWS, just a lot of old fashioned dissent, which in this completely conservative and unimaginative time can only be good.

Notes

  1. randomdeanna posted this