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The Future of the #Occupy Movement: Solidarity and Escalation
A month after it began with a few hundred people marching on Wall Street, the #Occupy movement has grown to include tens of thousands of participants throughout the country and has captured headlines around the world. If it has not yet succeeded beyond its wildest dreams, that’s only because its participants have dreamed big: imagining a sustained popular uprising that could force fundamental changes in our political and economic system—ones that could end corporate dominance and promote real democracy.
The movement can, in fact, propel significant changes. But #OccupyWallStreet and its allied occupations still have a ways to go before realizing their potential. The two issues most pressing as they chart their next steps: solidarity and escalation.
“Co-optation” or Flattery?
Despite great success in capturing the public eye, the actual number of people camped out at the various occupations around the country remains relatively small. While there are several hundred people camping in hubs such as New York City and Los Angeles, overnight participants in smaller cities number in the dozens. What bolsters the power of these encampments is that they are representative of a much wider discontent. Far greater numbers of sympathizers turn out for mass meetings, marches, and online shows of support. And, importantly, more established political bodies—unions, advocacy organizations, and community groups representing large constituencies—have offered endorsements of the growing #Occupy effort.
As more have signed on, some activists have been wary of outside expressions of support. Particularly as Democratic Party officials (including President Obama and Vice President Biden) have said positive things about the movement, some have voiced concerns about “cooptation.” They have argued that outside liberals, “while pretending to advance the goals of the Occupy Movement,” could instead “undermine it from within.”
How big of a danger “cooptation” actually represents is a matter of dispute. In a recent interview, Chris Maisano asked veteran social movement theorist Frances Fox Piven about this issue. (Piven is author, among many other books, of the landmark Poor People’s Movements and has considered the issue of cooptation at length in her work.) I believe she struck the right tone in her response:
Maisano: [As] recent comments by even the president and vice-president have showed, a lot of the more institutionalized forces on the left like the unions and MoveOn and the Van Jones American Dream Movement are trying to latch on to the protests and turn them into what some people have called a liberal version of the Tea Party. How do you think their involvement will effect the movement? How should the activists at the core of the movement relate to them?Piven: They should be friendly. They should ask them to do things; they should give them assignments. And not adopt the insignia of these groups as their own. In other words they should maintain considerable autonomy, but nevertheless they should treat these groups as allies, as they treated the unions as allies. But they shouldn’t ever let unions tell them what to do, they shouldn’t let Van Jones tell them what to do. Partly because they seem to know better, really.
So I don’t think that’s their biggest problem, how to deal with their erstwhile supporters.
The danger of cooptation should be put in context. There have been some clearly opportunistic instances of Democrats trying to capitalize on the movement, such as the none-too-radical Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attempting to build its mailing list through a “I Stand with #OccupyWallStreet” petition. But is it really possible that the Democratic Party would somehow swoop in and “take control” of the #Occupy movement? It doesn’t seem like even a remote possibility.
Moreover, Peter Drier has made the important point that, when it comes to social change, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The fact that mainstream figures attempt to co-opt and advance watered-down versions of movement demands (as they did with once-impossibly-radical calls for “a progressive income tax, the eight-hour day, the direct election of Senators, old age insurance, and voting rights for African Americans”) is not a defeat, but a sign of victory. Of course, if activists use this as an excuse to call it a day, that is a problem. But if we treat it as an occasion to push for even greater changes, it is a very positive thing.
Joining Forces, Gaining Power
One problem with the rhetoric of “cooptation” is that it casts the need to expand the movement’s reach in a negative light. It leads figures such as Chris Hedges, in a more-radical-than-thou cri de coeur, to adopt right-wing talking points denouncing allies as “union bosses,” rather than to approach coalition-building in a constructive manner. This is unfortunate. For, while cooptation is something to be avoided, a much more pressing and ongoing need for the #Occupy movement is fostering solidarity.
Before #OccupyWallStreet ever existed, there were lots of people working to fight banks, reverse foreclosures, and challenge corporate power. The problem was that their efforts were isolated and almost universally ignored by the media. The #Occupy movement has created a great opportunity for many of these campaigns to see themselves as part of a unified fight and to receive an added jolt of energy. In return, the more groups that sign on and see themselves as part of the #Occupy effort, the more that movement is able to sustain its status as a growing and dynamic force. It gains greater numbers of participants, more diversity, and heightened credibility.
Many actions that different local occupations have embraced have grown out of solidarity with groups that were already organizing to advance the interests of the 99 percent. As just one of many examples, #OccupyLA joined up with an anti-foreclosure action against several banks and successfully compelled the reversal of at least one foreclosure decision. This action—wonderfully militant and effective—did not emerge out of the occupation itself. Instead, it had already been organized by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), an LA community organization. But the fact that the #Occupy movement joined in solidarity was a great boon to all involved. It added a ton of energy to ACCE’s direct action. And, for the #Occupy folks, the positive media attention created by the action generated greater excitement about the City Hall encampment and helped bring a wider range of people to the occupation’s assemblies.
When Piven argued that cooptation is not the #Occupy movement’s biggest problem her interviewer replied, “What do you think their biggest problem is?”
Piven gave a prescient answer: “Spreading the movement. Thinking of second, third, fourth, fifth phases. Other forms of disruptive protest that are punchier than occupying a square.”
She is right. If the #Occupy movement is to remain in the media spotlight and continue gaining momentum, it must escalate. That could involve many steps, including occupying banks, continuing to use direct action against foreclosures, and embracing further international days of action. Solidarity will be an important part of all of these.
Within the call of “We Are the 99 Percent” is the idea that, while no one can take over the movement—no single individual or group can declare it over or announce that its ambitions have been satisfied—the coalition of those invited to take part is vast. The movement draws power from its reach. And that is no small part of its brilliance.
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104 Comments so far
Show AllAs more and more people lose their homes, jobs, savings and remain in that condition for an extended period of time, more people will join the movement in all locations.
Hopefully, but its not easy living in a tent in many parts of the country. OccupyLA is easy compared to OccupyNome , Alaska. So the movement has to get creative fast or winter will defeat it the way it defeated Napoleon in Russia.
Exactly; it needs to move beyond the "gimmick" of camping in a city park. In most major US cities, The weather will defeat them - or they will become so preoccupied with simply avoiding hypothermia that they will stop making demands at all.
As far as "watered down" demands, the movement's participants may often look radical, but its demands are already largely of the watered down reformist sort.
"As far as "watered down" demands, the movement's participants may often look radical, but its demands are already largely of the watered down reformist sort."
Probably so. I'm afraid that if we don't at least get Constitutional amendments repealing corporate personhood and allowing only real, flesh-and-blood individuals to make [strictly limited] campaign contributions, little will come of OccupyWallStreet.
Regarding the author's statement that
"Moreover, Peter Drier has made the important point that, when it comes to social change, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
I'm not interested in being flattered--I want to see real change. I think we'd be well advised to start saying, persistently, something like,
"In their first 5 minutes of reading our signs, the politicians and MSM could have found a dozen good ideas to act upon expeditiously, starting with an amendment to repeal corporate personhood. Instead, they keep asking us 'what we want', which really means 'How little will you take to shut up and go away?' We know what their game is, and we're not going to play it."
SSJJ&all the other commenters that are in such a hurry,take a deep breath &relax,ROME WASN'T BULIT IN A DAY,go to a occupy near you,join in and become part of the "natural&unrushed process" because this revolution is just a baby and is growing at just the right speed!!!!! that said,it took more than 10yrs to end the vitnam war,because these idiots in power will fight us tooth&nail for their "money god" so we must stay aware &keep a constant watch on these bums&if they are about to do something really evil,we must be ready to put millions on the streets to stop them/it's a chess match& i know we can beat these arrogant assholes!!!! ho ka hey/it is a good time to live
"SSJJ&all the other commenters that are in such a hurry,take a deep breath &relax,"
Do you honestly believe that this is the time to relax? Take a good look at this Common Dreams article on what Obama and the corporations are getting away with:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/22-7
Thanks to the Supreme Court, corporations are legal persons. There are effectively no limits on their campaign contributions. Thanks to the Kelo vs City of London decision, the politicians they get elected can use eminent domain to turn private property over to the corporations.
That's a dangerous combination of powers. I don't want to wait ten years while the situation becomes increasingly worse, thereby risking either a violent revolution or widespread chaos. I see enough of that sort of thing where I live in Mexico.
Instead, I want to push hard, now, using legal means, to make Constitutional reforms that will reverse trends that are clearly dangerous. That's an honorable goal that TPTB will have a hard time either ridiculing or making up excuses for impeding.
"If they are about to do something really evil,we must be ready to put millions on the streets to stop them."
Obama is waging a war on whistleblowers. He's about to cut a deal with the robber barons who trashed the economy. He thumbed his nose at the War Powers Act to get involved in Libya, He had an American citizen killed by a drone strike, and classified his administration's legal case for doing so.
What "really evil thing" are you waiting for? And with increasing government secrecy, and the control that the Corporations exercise over the media, how are you going to mobilize millions of people in time to stop it?
The "watered down" is because of the B.S. Campus Left idea of Unanimity-Seeking Consensus somehow gaining such traction in the Occupations.
Letting circumstantial minorities rule leads to watering down.
The gimmick will kill this -at least this phase of the- Movement unless the necessary Winter Hiatus is dealt with.
I say the organization of and promotion of a National General Assembly would address this issue.
I also say I haven't yet seen any other idea that will do so as well.
I agree the campus left and identity politics as a wedge for co-optation are real dangers, but REALLY disagree with the biggism of a national assembly. For starters a consensus process will break down with over 10,000 people. Consensus and empowerment of all participants to speak and even to block is what makes the leaderless OWS a uniquely democrat process that empowers ALL people to reclaim their communities directly. So I have 3 points to make about a "national assembly," and the dangers of biggism and mediated (un)representational politics in general.
1. Nothing would be more antithetical to OWS than a national assembly where a few "movement leaders" make top down speeches to a mass of people mindless chanting slogans under the leaders direction, not only is this old school left model of activism inherently authoritarian IT HAS'T WORKED in almost 50 years.
2. Big institutions like big banks, big corporations, and the big imperialist Federal government have failed us utterly completely, to substitute our biggism for their biggism is the fundamental mistake Bolshevik Marxist Communist made. It is a recipe for alienating of empowering individual people from their ability to change their community at the very least, and perhaps a gateway to Bolshevik style outright tyranny at the worst.
3. Even if it's just a rally and not the new top down leadership, these rah, rah rallies are kind of meaningless, the real work is retaking our communities from the banks, corporations and their state protectors. The way to do that IMO is to occupy and stay until we win in our local communities and model direct democracy and cooperation in the actions of the occupation itself. We might win faster than you think with continued planned asset stripping economic disasters by the financial oligarchy causing more millions to suffer everyday, and imperial overstretch, the sort of thing that led to the end of the Soviet Union. Our vote for example, when the choice is Romney, Perry, or Oily Bomber is ALREADY as meaningless as voting in the Soviet Union was, and economic conditions are nearly as dire. OWS CAN be a non violent, non hierarchical, leaderless local direct democracy peoples revolution revolution if we don't let it be co-opted by the Dims and MOVEON and other hangers on from the current failed paradigm of top down 1%er "leadership."
Your anarchist notions are little more than wishful/magical thinking.
Your tired anti-communism reveals your rightist outlook.
Anarchists have an inclusive class analysis that includes the homeless, self employed artisans, wage slaves, students suffering under the burden of student loans, and family farms in short the WHOLE 99%. Communists and their "vanguard" intellectual class murdered MILLIONS of Kulak farmers in the Ukraine, the choice is obvious to anyone with a brain and a sense of common human decency.
Anarchist principles worked in revolutionary Spain, and are enacted everyday in food co-ops and open source software that is likely serving this very web site to you. There are NO Bolsheviks left in the world, Cuba is abandoning Bolshevism and Chevez's participatory local self rule and support for co-ops selling in a market is the antithesis of top down Commie totalitarian control of society.
Communism is dead and rightly buried because of the rivers of blood and gulags it left in it's wake, no serious sane person is a Bolshevik in the 21st century, deal "comrade."
Only Commie symps define left as being either a murderous Commie or nothing, stay mired and the past and watch the bottom up OWS pass you by in incomprehension, it's you CHOICE whether you join, or stayed mired in the embrace of dead brutal Communism.
Again, who is advocating Bolshevism? Why is red baiting your answer to every criticism of anarchism?
In the US, the anti-communists have a much worse track record than any communist party has had
Frankly you sound like a deranged McCarthyite. Your reactionary rhetoric simply reinforces my view that if you scratch a middle class anarchist, the anarchist veneer is thin and under it is a lot of middle class gentry prejudice against the urban working class.
What class do you identify with, guitarist?
I identify myself with the 99% not making it under oligarchic state supported finance capitalism, a way bigger group of people than Marx's outdated category of industrial proletariat. How many towns in the U.S. have any industrial proletariat at ALL? Do those towns without industrial factories loose their rights under some ossified 19th century world view Marxism? Too many innocent family farmers and independent self employed people have DIED anytime anyone tried to implement Marxist ideas, and yes anarchists like Bakunin and Proudhon, DID try to warn us that this would be the outcome if Marx's Communism was actually implemented
Fuck that not learning from history, and trying to shoehorn a 21st century world into a 19th century theory bullish. It is actually ironically antithetical to Marx's own project which was science based, not a static set of laws like a bible. Doctrinaire Marxists who try to fit everyone into the static classes determined in the 19th century are antithetical to Marx's actual empirical research paradigm, much like 99% of Christians have nothing of Jesus in them at all. Marx was an iconoclast doctrinaire Marxists are not, they are followers looking for an easy to follow cookbook set of rules to categorize and dehumanize people. I am not less human as a self employed landscaper making less than 10,000 a year, compared to the 50,000 + made by a supposedly "proletarian" auto worker in my neighborhood Fuck that! And yes there are autoworkers in my neighborhood I live less than 5 miles from the WIllow Run auto plant still one of the largest in the country, and I support the right of workers to strike!
Sigh!
It seems that you are the one hung up on Marx and anti-communism.
There are no factories in the mid-west because the capitalists exported the US industrial proletariat - Lenin wrote extensively about this aspect of capitalist imperialism. It is also documented non Mrxian history. The return of those industrial jobs would be heartily welcomed in those towns.
The Bolshevik movement was complex, as is the history and legacy of the USSR. Your strident and simplistic McCarthyism is not an accurate tool for assessing the full legacy of the communist movement.
I don't claim to be a communist but they got a lot of it right, and many of their ideas were sound. Stalinism was not one of the sounder developments and was horrific, Bolshevism was a failed solution, but that does not negate either the bolshevik analysis of capitalism nor the effectiveness of Bolshevik techniques of rebellion and overthrow.
I disagree emphatically with your bigoted charecterization of marxists as dehumanizers. That's more of your personal prejudice speaking.
Did you come from a middle class family?
Bolshevism slid down hill before Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky militarized industry, ie occupied the factories in Russia with military police by 1920 and in the same time period shot thousands of anarchist sailors, trade Unionists, and peasant farmers at Knonstadt for daring to demand an end to martial law and an implementation of workplace democracy that had been promised during the revolution. So no, I won't just look down at the ground and pretend to like murderous Communism out of some mythical quest for "solidarity," with murderous Commies, go fuck yourself "comrade!" You should have plenty of blood on your hands to lube the self pleasuring process as a Commie.
Sigh!
You're rude, hateful. sexualized rhetoric are no substitute for an argument.
You keep screaming about the commies, asshole. Nobody is really paying attention and no one cares.
Your analysis is right on, even if your grammar is sometimes a bit off! The #Occupy movement should spend as much time as possible on Ideology 101. Ignorance is what has long separated the United States from the rest of the world.
The OCW movement has already been hijacked by donations from the financial community and Naomi Klein calling for more focused issues so that the movement doesn't "fizzle." The OCW movement was doing just fine using it's widely decentralized participation model. OCW spoke the issues most American's care about, especially the big banks. That is why the movement was expanding, it spoke to everyone. Naomi's call for more focus seems to have resulted in the esta blishment of an OCW Convention in Philadelphia. What a stupid thing to do. That was merely an effort to shape the movement as a progressive movement. OCW was bigger than progressive issues. A progressive OCW will then be identified as the anti Tea Party. Here we go again, once again DIVIDED and largely divisive with little or no chance of making real CHANGE. OCW is being engineered right into the existing system.
Since OCW has been centralized and placed in the anti-tea party category. despite the naysayers it has become cooptated.
It had something REAL going for it and it sold out to financial interests and one influential progressive author. Shame!
It's only been a month. There are going to be many twists and turns, steps back and forward, some good and some bad. I think it's a mistake for any of us to think we know for certain anything about OCW future.
I think we need to think long term, particularly if we are going to be looking for an Amendment to the Constitution. One only has to look at the history of the Equal Rights Amendment as an example. That's a long term project that will require action at the state and local levels. Steps towards that long term goal could be equal ballot access and further restrictions on who candidates can receive donations from which is different than the Citizen United case.
In the short term, calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan, ending the use of private mercenaries in Iraq and other countries, a moratorium on home foreclosures, breaking up of the big banks, reinstatement of Glass–Steagall Act, reclassification of Marijuana and legalization of Hemp, passage of a real jobs bill, increase in marginal tax rates above a million and billion dollars and ending corporate welfare are all things that could build and keep a wide base of popular support through the 2012 election cycle.
What the hell is "OCW"?!?
How do you get that from "Occupy Wall Street"?
Talk sense before you expect folks to think you are talking sense. ;)
I think this entire piece is divisive.....I have read a couple of Chris Hedges reports as well as many others from those who bothered to actually go there....just because someone speaks out in support and understanding of what is happening there doesn't mean they are trying to coopt it.....well maybe except for Obama... I think he voiced support for it because everyone can see it's growing and agrees with it and he wants to stay on the right side of it - as with everything he does.....and sure enough several jumped on it and started trying to say the democratic party was behind it......and of course that's baloney.....when the donations started rolling in they even had to be careful who they chose to help manage it....cuz of course the very entities that are behind the destruction of the 99% were eager to do just that....
Mad Angel is on FB
I think you're right about this piece being divisive. Especially Engler's cheap shot at Chris Hedges' recent article, calling it a "more-radical-than-thou cri de coeur,"
I agree with Engler. Hedges using the term "union bosses" is the equivalent of using right wing memes and terms like "welfare queens" and "affirmative action babies."
So Hedges started sewing the division with unbalanced anti-union rhetoric. Engler is just calling him out on it. If Hedges wants to express a reasonable and constructive critique of the problem of hierarchy and corruption in US unions, I would welcome that. Jumping in with simplistic "union bosses" rhetoric is not welcome and is frankly classist and dismissive of the US labor movement as a whole.
Let's face it, Hedges is smart and well educated, but clearly his largest flaw is his over-identification with what I consider the petty bourgeoisie moralist wing of social action. It's all about sermonizing and bemoaning the moral and ethical flaws of the supposedly previously noble "liberal class", usually with a healthy dose of disdain for the masses ("Joe Six Pack") thrown in. Hedges' construction lumps unions into the same category as the corporate media, elitist liberal foundations and the mainline Protestant churches. This is a fundamentally flawed categorization, and is a foundational belief of the rightist anti-NWO crowd such as Rense, whatreallyhappened.com and at Pat Robertson.
The venom and vile spat at unions by the self styled anarchists and the bourgeoisie lifestyle and consciousness crowd is a prime example of classism from people who don't even comprehend the nature of their prejudices. It demonstrates that classism is alive and well among petty bourgeoisie "progressives."
.
I agree. Hedges is holier then thou sometimes, but his heart is in the right place nonetheless.
---"petty bourgeoisie"---
It's "petit-pourgeoisie".
Only if it's not translated into English.
"Union bosses" is "classist" but "petty bourgeoisie" is not?
Sometimes your posts read like the work of a computer program that is set to inject lines from 100-year-old books at strategic points in a letter so that they almost make sense to the wholly ignorant.
Union bosses" is "classist" but "petty bourgeoisie" is not?
Correct, and I could care less what you think of my writing, as I have virtually no respect for your opinions on issues of class and classism. Based on youe anti-union and anti-marxist rhetoric, I believe that you are a classist reactionary posing as an anarchist.
Or in more modern terms, F-ck Off!
I support the IWW, but modern trade Unions like the Teamsters are NOT examples of authentic worker democracy. They are nearly as corrupt with their well paid bosses, lobbyists within the failed system, and top down leadership as the system they oppose. I support an authentic inclusive worker democracy Union like the IWW, trade Unionism that is not about revolution or including all oppressed workers including service workers, IT workers, and farm laborers in it's embrace is a corrupt non starter IMO. Yes to strikes for real worker place worker self management, and equal pay or equal work, no to the current complacent Union leadership which is full of middle class regressive Archie Bunkers who are as dismissive of the millions working in the service industry (which ought not exist) as any capitalist/banker.
Ever heard of SEIU? There are many service workers unions.
I like the IWW also, but is a very small part of the labor movement.
In the short term, OWS needs the unions and OWS organizers understand this. It's only unrealistic idealogues who preach destructive and divisive ideological purism.
To me, whatever helps the masses, that's what I support. Unions help the masses. Of course many need reform, but your monotonous anti-unionism marks you as someone who is not ultimately supportive of the masses of workers, service industrial or agricultural. You are too busy shouting anti-communist rhetoric and purer than thou anarchist ideology..
It's more complicated than "anti unionism," until the system falls I would like to see MORE workers in Unions, preferably in radical Unions like IWW, but I actually even support the more mainstream Unions to organize workers, but I do not want to see them co-opt the more radical OWS agenda with a slate of reformist demands, that is not what this movement is about. But I wish all Unions luck in this climate, even if I don't think the occupy movement is the right venue for them to make their case.
I think that the unions and OWS are natural allies. As far as I know, relations between the two are good, including solidarity actions that run both ways.
My hope is that OWS will further radicalize individual memers who in turn will push their unions to the Left, and to more militant actions.
So far, the unions have made no bid to co-opt #OWS. THE AFL-CIO called out its activists tp protect Liberty Park when the cleaning eviction was brewing.
I would really request that you tone down your fear of and antagonism for the unions.
By all means, broadcast any concrete actions that unions take to co-opt OWS, but until there are such actions, howling about potential union co-option is divisive and counter-productive.
OWS has much bigger things to worry about.
I think this is good article and that Piven is right. The movement needs to grow and embrace allies while keeping its own center of direct democracy. I hardly think that Naomi Klein is going to sell out the movement. To whom? She is all about people power and exposing the mechanisms of the elites. Thats what her books have been about. There is so often a strain of misogyny in CD comments that I wonder where this is coming from or is Stone trying to say that we shouldn't alienate the Tea Party types? In which case I'd say it is inevitable as the politics become more defined that those who are terrified of a real analysis of capitalism will shy away. The groups Engler cites here have been working to help people with foreclosures and have called out the banks for years. Well yes they have been progressives and we can't be afraid of that. Embrace all who want to be a part and especially those who have already been doing the work. Don't fall into the charismatic leader syndrome and don't let yourself be defined or cowed by what your enemies in the corporate media call you.
Et, Blah Blah Blah!
Do you actually think that throwing more money to social programs without reducing our military empire abroad will do anything but create a chasm from whence we cannot escape?
Obviously!
artemix wrote: "There is so often a strain of misogyny in CD comments that I wonder where this is coming from"
When one criticizes a persons words, and not the person, how is that misogyny? It's not, it's debate. However when one chooses to criticize legitimate debate, it does suggest a strain of philogyny.
artemix wrote: " is Stone trying to say that we shouldn't alienate the Tea Party types? "
No, what I am saying is that a more complete understanding of the movement is that of the development of a new MYTHOS, a transformative process designed to invent and implement new more livable future. Minimizing the movement to a mere Tea Party oppositional group is narrow casting the movement and will invite unnecessary political opposition.
artemix wrote: "In which case I'd say it is inevitable as the politics become more defined that those who are terrified of a real analysis of capitalism will shy away."
Capitalism already died. There are 150 TRILLION OF TOXIC DERIVATIVES currently on the big bank books. That is over twice the GDP of the World. The elites have used socialized losses to prop up the dead Uncle Sam, reminding us of Weekend at Bernie's. The question is when is the funeral and how do we live afterwards. These questions are much larger than liberal conservative perspectives. OCW began to address these perspectives, then got hijacked. When something is working, why change it?
So toxic derivatives, who the hell knows? Why change it? It didn't really work when we Americans are on the hook for 75 trillion dollars. That is more than the net worth of all of the countries of the entire world! ???
The OCW was working as a true decentralized movement as defined below. There was no need to change it.
The fundamental difference between 20th Century change and 21st Century change lies in the ARCHITECTURE of change.
Change in the 20th Century was CENTRALIZED. It is represented by a triangle where power rests in the hands of the few at the top, and was dictated downward to the People.
Change in the 21st Century is DECENTRALIZED. It is represented by an inverted triangle where power rests with the people at the top.
The architecture if the Internet is one of DECENTRALIZATION. Now, each participating Citizen is a potential publisher and participant. The DECENTRALIZED change process is vitalized by free and open communication in all directions by the participants. A VISION results from the free and open communication when the majority of the participants adopt an idea or concept in their minds and hearts. VISIONS are FLUID and will change as the minds of people evolve and change.
The speed of change spikes complexity. CENTRALIZED entities lack the numbers of intellectual talent to compete with DECENTRALIZED intellectual talent (people) when making decisions. In hyper-culture CENTRALIZED decision making derails and fails, whereas, DECENTRALIZED decision making brings order out of chaos. The fundamental difference lies in the great numbers of people participating and sharing their ideas and beliefs. From this pool of ideas, the best ideas take flight and are adopted by the majority of participants.
Today’s media is entrenched in centralized organizations and 20th Century thinking; therefore, their reporting has been confused. They don’t get it! The OCCUPY revolution is deeply decentralized and EVERY PARTICIPANT IS A LEADER. This process is highly useful when attempting to change or transcend the status quo. If one leader is isolated or eliminated by the status quo it has little effect because each person is a leader and each person has adopted the vision, so the revolution continues.
Another advantage of a decentralized revolution is that no outside entity can take it over. This is important. Political organizations or infiltrators have little effect on the revolution because the vision is so widely understood and shared by the participants that the vision cannot be corrupted unless centralized decision making is reintroduced. A vision developed by the majority of people will survive traditional attempts to derail it. Organization participation should be avoided, individual participation encouraged.
Goals are a centralized decision making process. Visions are more complex and result from decentralized decision making. Many people feel that the current governmental and economic systems are so corrupt as to be unchangeable. Decentralized change can transcend the current system and establish a new system, and new pathways to better lifeways. One good example of this is the concept of sustainable living. Decentralized decisions will develop a new MYTHOS, a way of confronting the world as it is and developing NEW lifeways from it.
No one yet knows the shape of the future. What is sure IS the pathway to that future. It is in the process of being envisioned by widely decentralized cooperating participating Citizens. As visions are developed and implemented, the old will be transcended as the visions take hold. WE ARE ON THE PATHWAY OF INVENTING THE FUTURE, A FUTURE THAT WILL UNVEIL ITSELF AS WE PROCEED. Trust the young for the future is theirs. “ TRUST THE PROCESS.”
Finally, this is not a political movement to be used by media types to divide us. This revolution derives from a deeper place, is broad based, and cannot be used to divide us. Mother Nature wired us all differently to achieve a balance. If respect is accorded to all then her natural balance will be achieved. Everyone is welcome to participate in this revolution and the greater the participation, the more meaningful and balanced will be the results. Seek to act with peace and harmony as the system is transformed. It is not necessary to respond to negativism because one’s response only strengthens the negative. The power of this decentralized transformation is too strong to waste time responding to negativism. Instead, welcome the negativism for it too is a part of the balance.
One caution, history suggests that a blackshirt or brownshirt movement may emerge in an attempt to seize power and negate the revolution. The difference today is that the speed of communication allows for quick mobilization to counter and defeat such actions. A readiness to do so is important. Peaceful resistance to such efforts are essential. Modern techniques used by the CIA overseas to COLOR a revolution, are used to control it. It assists in formenting, planning, and funding the revolution. Once successful in overthrowing the status quo, it installs a friendly puppet whom the people believe is their choice, but in reality is not. The result is that the movement was managed by the CIA, and is the status quo. See more info at http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=27053 In conclusion, decentralized action via new communications is key, visions are formed and adopted as the revolution progresses, transcending and not challenging the current corrupt political and economic system through social action is important, each participant is a leader, a reinvention of life in a sustainable environment will be the outcome. The old politics will die in it’s own rot and the new paradigm will replace it. AGAIN, TRUST THE PROCESS.
"Goals are a centralized decision making process. Visions are more complex and result from decentralized decision making. "
So, if centralized = bad, decentralized = good, and goals = centralized, vision = decentralized, then goals = bad, and vision = good ?
Somehow i think that a lot of folks in the 99% do have some goals they would like to achieve, and frankly, if some are not achieved i think you will see this process peter out ...
Indeed, without a vision the people will perish - but that vision had better result in setting some concrete goals ....
In a manner of speaking that's right. However, deciding what to do and how to do it should derive from the majority. If people individually choose to goal set that is an entirely different thing. What's important is that the majority adopt the vision. I believe a majority did adopt the vision that the big banks needed to be broken up before they could cause any more havoc. That vision might require hundreds of creative efforts to achieve that vision. Decentralized actions are like mini tests. The most effective would be adopted more widely. Having such a large pool of intellectual creative talent setting their minds to determining how to achieve breaking up the banks, so far exceeds the numbers employed by the banks that the banks cannot match the public's creative efforts, and therefore would falter.
Another great post, you are exactly right that decentralized movements have more intellectual talen than top down movements. Are you on FB? If so would you read this and friend me there?
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150330213732927
Thanks!
Very cogent analysis Stone, the GAs are modeling a new future which is neither failed capitalism, nor old style top down statist leftism.
We are not going to get our of our economic abyss without pain. If "Occupy Wall Street" thinks otherwise, they are stupid. We sat on our laurels and let our Congress and President commit us to undeclared wars, beating the drums of "FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY", and committing our foreign aid to countries, such as Israel which has almost the same per capita income as we have.
We need drastic measures to combat what our Congress and our Presidents have done to us. We need Ron Paul, drastic, but the only solution to solve our problems because of our own negligence and oblivion!
DUH! A no brainer!
Ron Paul might seem great to the guys here, but when you get to women's issues he's a dinosaur.
I am a guy and R Paul looks like at train wreck waiting to happen. When he was on Jon Stewart he was using the industrial revolution as an example of how no regulation of corporate power was so beneficial for the people. Apparently, history is not a requirement for a medical degree. Remember child labor, 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, no vacation, no sick leave, get-sick-miss-a-day loose-your-job benefits, starvation pay, filthy cities, grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth. What's to remember we are repeating it and its in front of our eyes. Other than ending the wars what does Paul have to offer but more of the same old same old. A corporate owned government whether small or large, is still 1% owned at the expense of the 99%.
Great comment. On issues involving class, Paul is completely clueless and very dangerous.
As a member of the tea party formed by the supporters of Ron Paul on Dec. 16, 2007, I have seen an organization of WE THE PEOPLE taken over by outsiders. The current "tea party" doesn't speak of ending the wars or ending the Empire or even ending the Fed. Instead, it promotes war-mongers and even a person who is quite proud of having been a Director of a Federal Reserve Enablers.
So yes, it is possible and actually a surety that a bunch of fakes (Obama and his crew) WILL at least attempt to co-opt the #Occupy movement. Therefore, be wary, be very wary. And remember, the velvet glove of the State covers an iron fist.
Peace
Yes, they realized his potent message and tried to usurp it, but we cannot let them get away with that! Who cares about labels? Tea Party smuck Tea Party. Ron Paul does not need a label. He is the genuine article!
This isn't about Ron Paul ! Stop hijacking this thread. OCW was about much more than politics. It was about the development of a new mythos using decentralized processes. Ron Paul is a pebble on the beach relative to the size of the task before us.Traditional politics is a dead end.
The use of "decentralized process" is brilliant. It is so anarchistic! (If anyone thinks that is a put-down, they need to learn what anarchism is truly about. The first two thoughts that come to mind are liberty and peace.)
Henry David Thoreau made the observation, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The #occupy movement has been going after the evil Wall Street. They are only the branches. The root of the problem is the enabling Federal Reserve System.
The Fed is a creation of wallstreeters (and city-of-london, which is a creation of the "new venetians" party,relocated from venice, via Netherlands, to "the city"). The root is very ancient (as old as EMPIRE), and very big and international, and in continuous existence from ancient times to the present times, even as these words are appearing on the screen. The fed is a branch, BUT one that must be lopped off. OWS is right to focus on wallstreet. It is virtually certain they don't yet realize what an enormous, hoary, old dragon they have gotten by the tail.
Greed is the root of the toxic tree,
capitalism the hoary dragon that feeds from it.
Governments fertilize the ground below with blood.
Think like a Prairie;
a diverse community sharing the space above and below the ground.
It's a New day, let's find a New way.