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Inventing New Politics
It took the brutality of some New York City police to break through the mainstream media silence on Occupy Wall Street. First came the attacks on women exercising their rights to publicly demonstrate. Police leadership shot them in the face with pepper spray for no reason at all. Then came the massive arrest of non-violent protestors when 700 people were corralled on the Brooklyn Bridge and carted off to jail. In both cases police actions are being investigated.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media has been unable to grasp what is going on. Most have attempted the twin tactics of dismissal and demonization. When they cover the events at all we are told these are nothing but old hippies or youthful good for nothings. We are told they are making up stories of homelessness and evictions. Even the most friendly mainstream journalists muse that they can’t really support what is going on because they don’t know what the protestors “want.” Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times thought the protests so vague, he offered to some demands of his own to help them out. 
These protests are a reflection of the growing efforts of the majority of people in this country to create a new democracy. (photo: Ianqui Doodle)
But these protests did not begin on September 17 when people massed in Liberty Plaza. Nor will they end when they ultimately disperse.
These protests are a reflection of the growing efforts of the majority of people in this country to create a new democracy. They are slow, often clumsy, and frequently frustrating. But they are moving all of us in a more human, more socially conscious and responsible direction.
Occupy Wall Street has its roots in more than a decade of steady, sure challenges to the excessive greed and destruction wrought by global capital. In 1999 the resistance to the World Trade Organization burst onto the streets of Seattle. The Battle of Seattle held the promise of the first sustained effort to demand public accountability of private capital. The protest was possible because of years of work in communities around the globe challenging foreclosures, land grabs, exploitation, diminished social supports and a culture of greed and corruption.
The promise of that demonstration faded under the shadow of 9-11 and the decade of war that consumed us. But it’s spirit was kept alive through the consistent efforts to challenge the WTO at every meeting around the globe. It was nurtured in the plazas of Argentina in 2001 where people gathered to look to one another for support as their economy collapsed. It was supported by the World Social Forums, called in Brazil that same year. For more than a decade the WSF has been developing horizontal, open space decision- making processes. It’s People’s Assemblies have encouraged a new form of direct, participatory democracy. These methods informed the group decision making for the US Social Forums in Atlanta and Detroit. They have been nurtured and refined in countless progressive gatherings.
As the financial human and ecological crisis has escalated in the U.S., countless gatherings have emerged in communities to respond. Sometimes people gathered in protest, but most often in imaginative efforts to restore community and support one another.
In all of these processes we are inventing a politics that has never been seen before.
It is a politics emerging out of a global struggle to create a just, sustainable and joyful world. It is a struggle as one of the leaflets from #Occupy Wallstreet says, “Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas.”
It is a politics that proclaims, “We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent. As members of the 99 percent, we occupy Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of our discontent with the current economic and political climate and as an example of a better world to come.”
The creation of a living democracy will take many forms. But it is a process that is gaining momentum.
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Show All"It is a politics that proclaims, “We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent. As members of the 99 percent, we occupy Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of our discontent with the current economic and political climate and as an example of a better world to come.”
The creation of a living democracy will take many forms. But it is a process that is gaining momentum."
I agree. And I am wondering just what sort of demographic they would like to see at these protests? When I see film of the protests, I see all ages, sexes and ethnicities. Looks pretty inclusive to me.
There is a serious need for new politics because of the Supreme Court giving birth to a new kind of citizen in America. The corporate citizen. The Constitution will be used to benefit and protect this new creation of Wall Street. The we of we the people is now at best a second class citizen. This parasitic corporate citizen will become the “good Germen” in service to globalization.
Hoa binh
I believed in the anti-war, alternative-life-style, earth-friendly cultures advanced through the social protests of the sixties. I lived to see them repudiated and dissolved into the dominant me-focused greed and sameness. I can only hope the hopes and dreams now being kindled are stronger and don´t experience a similar fate.
The OCCUPY movement is much deeper than politics. It is a social movement to transcend corrupt politics and to re-invent America absent the corruption brought by money. It will do nothing less than revolutionize the reality of the 21st Century. It will leave the rot behind to feed upon itself while advancing visions of life in a culture of sustainability. The young are blazing new paths to a new future, not the rot left to them by their parents, the first generation to leave America worse off than they received it from their parents. The young do NOT need their parents permission to build a better life for themselves. Politics is not central to the revolution but will have to run hard to catch up to it. The OCCUPY movement is the beginning of a sustained and fundamental transformation of America. It is a new beginning.
The Counter-culture of the late 60's that grew out of a decade of protests had similar dreams and goals. It made a serious mistake though it tried to build on drugs as a catalyst and the visions they supposedly provided. They only IMO destroyed those dreams and gave rise to dangerous Drug gangs and a false consciousness. I would warn this generation that Revolution is not a party, or as the lyrics to the 80's anthem about Rebellion ( Life During Wartime) song goes" this ain't no Disco this ain't no party, this ain't no messing around." Its deadly serious stuff and the elites like the Predators they are are paying attention now, closely. 1st they will look to cull out those they view as leaders, failing that, next they will use violence against these gatherings and imprisonment. We must follow MLK and and Gandhi's path here or else. We cannot win the Class war with violence they are too strong militarily. But, we can win if we stand our ground and refuse to use their tactics of fear and violence.
Right on, Stone. Well said.
"Meanwhile, the mainstream media has been unable to grasp what is going on."
No, not "unable". Unwilling.
Mainstream media is Corporate media, funded by the same greedy sociopaths the OWS Movement is opposing. Corporate media, by its very intrinsic nature as media controlled by private interests, is anti-democratic to its core. Given the choice between presenting the inconvenient (to the Ruling Class) truth or misleading and lying to preserve or increase profits, it will nearly always choose the latter. FOX "News" is merely the most glaringly obvious example.
New politics must also include inventing new media which truly are the voice of the powerless, vulnerable, and dispossessed. That is why the internet MUST remain open to all, without censorship or control.
ED, for several years, I worked in the regional office of the state unemployment compensation agency for a good-hearted but exasperating Regional Director.
The Director would occasionally get phone calls or letters from desperate claimants who'd been charged with an overpayment of benefits; for better or worse, if it's considered a quasi-fraudulent "fault" overpayment, there are consequences such as interest charges to the unpaid balance, and even liens on property that affect the person's credit.
I happen to be a bleeding-heart too, so like the Director, I felt sorry for those who'd been assessed an overpayment-- especially if it arose from arcane bureaucratic reasons that the person was unable to comprehend.
Occasionally the Director would call a staff meeting about some egregious overpayment case; my boss, his second-in-command, would field his questions. He found the overpayments offensive and even embarrassing to his belief that the agency existed to help, not hassle, people.
He would ALWAYS begin by saying, "I don't understand this overpayment."
My boss, practically a caricature of the dutiful, wonkish subordinate, would patiently take the Director through chapter and verse, analyzing and clearly setting forth the reasons that the overpayment had come about.
The director would appear to listen attentively and respectfully. But when she finished, he'd smile and repeat, "But I still don't UNDERSTAND..." And more often than not, she'd go through it again, desperately rephrasing some bits to "clear up" the Director's confusion.
The meetings always ended because the Director had to move on to other items on his agenda, but he NEVER finally "understood" the problem-- at least, he never admitted that he did.
After the third or fourth time I sat in on one of these Kafkaesque nightmares, I told my boss afterwards, "You must know you're wasting your time going over and over the same stuff with X. " She just smiled.
I went on to point out that when people normally say that they "don't understand" something, it means that they truly believe that they're missing something or lack crucial information to connect the dots.
"But when X says he 'doesn't understand' overpayments, he's not honestly looking for explanations or enlightenment-- he's really just saying that he WON'T understand them. He doesn't want to understand them! He REFUSES to understand them!"
I suggested that she give up on the tedious, repetitive attemps to make him "understand" the situation. Actually, what he really wanted is to find out if there was a way to make them disappear-- and I suspect that after wasting his staff's time, he called his cronies in Harrisburg to see if he could pull strings to make the burdensome overpayment go away.
My boss just kept smiling, and the charade periodically recurred unchanged.
Speaking of Kafkaesque nightmares, sorry for the long-winded anecdote. But when I learn that the corporate mass-media doesn't UNDERSTAND the OWS phenomenon, I don't fall for it for even a New York second.
I been there before.
Like some other posters, I was in England and France during 1968. I was a witness to some of the events which arguably shaped the future of people over the next decade. What is presently happening in New York and elsewhere in the US is reminiscent of the events of that era. What most of us did not know or realise then was what it took to be politically effective. The OWT people need to organise themselves in order to understand how to select and stand their own candidates for election to political office. They will need to set up a central group to co-ordinate New Politics candidates in all local constituencies, including local wards, towns, cities, states, up to and including Congress and Senate elections. It might even be possible to stand their own presidential candidate too - you never know. It will take a lot of work but it will most certainly shake up the existing parties who might just decide now is finally the moment to start listening to the people rather than the lobbyists. If you can target party candidates and threaten to vote them out of office they will stop listening to the special interests and start listening to the interests of the people.
"In all of these processes we are inventing a politics that has never been seen before.
It is a politics emerging out of a global struggle to create a just, sustainable and joyful world. It is a struggle as one of the leaflets from #Occupy Wallstreet says, “Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas.”
The difference could be that this one will work...permanently, if it remains direct democratic
co-optation is the danger.
remember the tea party was supposedly a true response to the bailouts and such. how quickly was it co-opted by dick armey and the koch brothers et al?
as long as such events and movements are viewed and allowed as catharsis by the superclass they will be looked on by the rest of the masses as either amusing or tilting at windmills. once such a movement gains any sort of momentum among the vast majority who are basically non-political, those having been pushed into a "daily struggle just to survive", then it will become a true threat. then the corporatist media will pay attention. then faux noise will become the full-thorated state organ that it is. until such time it will be portrayed as nostaligia or as the dirty, f---ing hippies again.