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Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Please forgive us, your elders, for the many sins we have visited upon you. Specifically (for I know the list is long), for failing to foresee the end of growth. Given our quest for infinite growth on a finite planet, we should have seen this coming. And it has come…and, unfortunately, just as you and your peers are entering the work…errr un/der-employment force.
“When They Execute a Corporation,” read a sign held by activist Gary Abreim, 69, “You Know They Are Real People.” When asked why he had been coming to the occupations, Abreim explained, “There are seeds being planted here. I’m here to water those seeds. They are a yearning, a passion on the part of Americans to return to a democracy that we have lost.”
What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets — not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping. While the laws vary from city to city, one of the harshest is in Sarasota, Florida, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that makes it illegal to”engage in digging or earth-breaking activities” — that is, to build a latrine — cook, make a fire, or be asleep and “when awakened state that he or she has no other place to live.”
As the Wall Street protests have spread from New York City to the rest of the country, some media pundits have criticized the protesters for being unfocused — as if there were only one thing wrong with the financial sector of the U.S. economy. The protests have provided a welcome response to Wall Street’s massive takeover of governance, and continued opposition to the status quo could produce opportunities to enact real reforms.
– Twenty-four hours at Occupy Wall Street (video)
– Occupy: protesters in their own words (slideshow)
– Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong (photo essay)
– Ugo Bardi: The Club of Rome is back
– UN report: Population of world ‘could grow to 15bn by 2100’
– Independent (UK): Western nations are now ripe for revolution
– New Scientist: Study reveals – the capitalist network that runs the world
– The Economist: Leaderless, consensus-based participatory democracy and its discontents
– Intellectual Roots of Wall St. Protest Lie in Academe
– Athenian Democracy
– A brief history of consensus decision-making (Quakers and pirates)
– Naomi Wolf:The First Amendment and the Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt in a Free Society
– Barbara Ehrenreich: Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue
– At Zuccotti Park, Conflict Arises Among Occupiers
– Michael Kinsley: Four Iron-Clad Demands for OWS
– Global indignation inspires Spanish movement
– Chinese web censors block terms related to “Occupy,” to stamp out movement’s spread in China
– How to cook a pacific #revolution (from Spain)
– Consensus (Direct Democracy @ Occupy Wall Street)
– #occupywallstreet general assembly facilitation
– Quick guide on group dynamics in people’s assemblies
– HowToCamp / HowToOccupy
– Ketchup’s description (via Chris Hedges)
– How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started
– From Protest to Disruption: Frances Fox Piven on Occupy Wall Street
– What ‘Diversity of Tactics’ Really Means for Occupy Wall Street
– Could the Occupy Movement’s General Assemblies Replace Today’s Parliaments and Legislatures?
– What can OWS learn from a defunct French avant-garde group? (Situationists)
In its purest form, politics in a democracy is about the contest for power. The best ideas don’t always win, nor do the most deserving candidates or causes. It is the side that organizes the best and mobilizes its voters most effectively that carries the day and takes power.
This is a lesson we learned in 1981, and it is lesson that is being learned in the Arab Spring states of Tunisia and Egypt where elections will soon decide which side initially takes power and reaps the benefits of the popular mobilizations that led to the downfall of the regimes that governed for decades.
Drawing strength from the rage of the masses is not a formula for longevity, especially in a consumer culture, where rage shifts seasonally…Just ask the veterans of the great uprisings of 1968. We still wonder, what became of our revolution? Rather than being adopted by everyone, it unified the opposition, and while it made some milestones, especially in the popular culture, it missed its political mark by a wide mile.
