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Occupy Wall Street on the Move
Ralph Nader, CommonDreams
The question confronting the Occupy Wall Street encampments and their offshoots in scores of cities and towns around the country is quo vadis? Where is it going?
This decentralized, leaderless civic initiative has attracted the persistent attention of the mass media in the past five weeks. Television cameras from all over the world are parked down at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Wall Street.
… there is trouble ahead.
First, police departments in other cities will be observing the nature and reaction of mass arrests in places like Denver, Chicago and Atlanta. The plutocrats’ first response is always to push police power against the people. The recidivist violations of the ruling class are rarely pursued, yet the rumbles of the lower class are often stifled. With the onset of colder weather and looming police pressure, the protestors need new venues for their demonstrations
Activists need to vary their tactics. I suggest citizens surround the local offices of their Senators and Representatives. The number of Americans fed up with a gridlocked Congress, beset by craven or cowardly, both marinated in corporate campaign cash, can motivate an endless pool of activists who want their voices to be heard.
We know that the Occupy people want to keep their opposition on a general level of informed outrage and not get to the specific policy level. Fine. The 535 people in Congress, who put their shoes on every day like we do, are quite susceptible to a fast rising rumble from the people. They don’t need specifics. They know all about the savagely avaricious corporate paymasters and their swarming lobbyists on Capitol Hill wanting ever more varieties of goodies and less corporate law enforcement. What they need to know is that you’ve got their number and that people are fed up and on the move.
More members of Congress than one might expect, with their finger to the wind, start readjusting their antennas when they sense voter agitation. It is just that for years, there has been nary a breeze from that crucial source, while the corporatists have had their party year after year with their governmental toadies on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Make no mistake; support for the power shift espoused by the 99 percent movement is now only a breeze but a windstorm is coming. The protesters are feeling their way – demonstrating before big banks and closing out their accounts in favor of smaller community banks. Protests in front of the Manhattan mansions of the superrich from the big media and the big hedge funds also make sense.
Each new protest gives the protesters new insights. The protestors are learning how to challenge controlling processes. They are assembling and using their little libraries on site. They are learning the techniques of open, non-violent civil disobedience and building personal stamina. They are learning not to be provoked and thereby win the moral authority struggle which encourages more and more people to join their ranks.
(27 October 2011)
Rise of the Planet of the People
Zoltan Grossman, CommonDreams
I first heard about Occupy Wall Street in August, when I visited my former home of Madison, Wisconsin. Shortly after protesting in the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda against 13% pay cuts for state workers, and being impressed with the energy and creativity of the protesters, I attended the Democracy Convention nearby. Some of the speakers at the Convention were inspiring, but others were repeating the same vague rhetoric and tactics I’ve heard for many decades.
As I was doodling, a young speaker mentioned that Wall Street would be occupied starting September 17 (Constitution Day), and I sat bolt upright. It took only about two seconds to understand the rationale of Occupy Wall Street, so most Americans would be able to grasp its message without complex explanations. Americans have historically put on great marches and uprisings, but have rarely stayed in one place to make their demands. OWS seemed to draw from the examples of past occupations in Manila, Beijing, Belgrade, Kiev and Cairo.
photo: Edward Hoover
Above all, spreading occupations around the country and world would mobilize our home communities, rather than expecting us to spend time and money to travel to (and be repressed in) a central place. We could educate our own local towns and cities, and they could show support by joining and bringing food and supplies. So far, I have been just as impressed by the Occupy movement back in my current home of Olympia, Washington, as I have been of the mass protests back home in Wisconsin.
… The Occupy camps have an unprecedented opportunity to get out into their community, and connect with existing grievances and issues in the neighborhoods and workplaces (such as the rallies against police brutality last weekend). In our area, we have seen major strikes by Tacoma teachers and Longview longshore workers. We can also connect with the concerns of people outside the labor movement, including Iraq/Afghanistan veterans who have been abandoned by the military, Indigenous peoples who are trying to “unoccupy” their nations, and single nonpolitical moms just trying to feed their kids and keep them safe.
The Occupy camps are also an ideal venue for continuous teach-ins, for the participants to share knowledge and skills, and draw lessons from social movement in other times and places. It sucks that the only way to get an education in this country is to pay huge amounts of money. In the Occupy movement, different generations can share ideas on effective tactics and strategies, rather than just repeating stale and predictable slogans from the past. Younger folks can educate older folks about how strategies from the 1960s or 1980s may not be as effective in the age of Facebook, Twitter and hiphop. Older folks can tell younger folks about past strategies that have been effective or ineffective, and the State’s predictable pitfalls to avoid.
Pitfalls
The first pitfall is the electoral morasse. With an election year coming up, there will be intense pressure from Democrats to put down the protest signs and pick up the ballot box. Historically, this has been the worst possible choice to maintain momentum–holding the protest signs high is the best way to influence elections.. Only pressure from the streets has secured real reforms, and both Republicans and Democrats have to be pressured to move on anything.
(27 October 2011)
Occupy Wall Street: Outing the Ringers
Jay Smooth, illdoctrine.com
A few thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, I’ve been watching it and going down there for a while now but hadn’t had a chance to speak on it.
(19 October 2011)
Suggested by Post Carbon Institute which writes, “His Three Card Monte analogy is awesome.”
