#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[Project Willow]

Is this you Jack?

This is Jack: http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=410939#p410939

[Bruce Dazzling]

My point is.... somehow, someway, we have to embrace each other. This guy is my ally, my friend. He has to be, despite whatever differences we might have. We share enough that we can and should find common cause. We must find common cause. If we don't we're doomed. It's not that the differences should be ignored, but they should be set aside for a bit.

Yes, beautifully said.

This is why there is no single message currently coming out of the movement. Right now seems to be a collective moment of realization that the dream is over, or more accurately, that the myth of American exceptionalism has always been a MYTH.

Lots of people with different views, from different backgrounds, are coming together and rallying around the idea that the current system is unjust and must be changed. There are countless ideas about how to go about making the changes, and there will be heated debates and lots of in-fighting to come, but at this point, the most important aspect of this is that people are coming together, shaking hands, hugging, screaming, marching, and exchanging ideas face to face..

I have no doubt that details and a coherent message will coalesce over time, if we just keep talking to one another and realizing that we're all rowing the same boat.

[Luther Blissett]

^^ I'd love to meet up Twyla, I'll be there this weekend as well.

....

Still no word on whether the park will be cleared but here's a quote from our Mayor:

"We are facing unprecedented inequality in this country. It is always true that bad times are harder on the poor. But we have not seen income inequality this great since 1928, the year before the Great Depression started. The top 1 percent control 34 percent of the nation's wealth. The top 10 percent control two-thirds of the nation's wealth. It is an unprecedented grab by the most powerful to get a bigger share of a shrinking pie."

I wonder how this sentiment will play out with protest logistics.

Our mayor (called Nutter, no joke) is so cool that I could picture him joining in the occupation.

[Elvis]

Reporting from Westlake in Seattle (on my boss's computer)...
the tents are still there, across the street from where I am.
I made a visit and checked out the donation tents for food, coffee etc.

Willow---I didn't get here until dawn, sorry i missed you (I'd expected to be here at 7pm or so last night). Except for a short nap I'm about to take (been working & driving for the last 17 hours), I'll be here at the Halloween store.

My boss was giving me sidelong glances as I started hanging "V" costumes in the big windows. I'm trying to talk him into letting me put a "V" costume on a mannequin in one of the display windows.

82-28 and Twyla! -- if you're down this way today, by all means stop by. Just look for the zombies and "V" masks in the window. We can go hang out at the park.

I'm gonna try to stay overnight here.

More later, hope to see some of you!

As the demonstrators cheered a honking car, I told my apolitical boss, "You know this is the beginning of the revolution." He grinned.

PS -- the Halloween store is not open yet (opens Friday), but you can come visit me, and I can take off to do stuff.

I look kinda like a 50-year-old Jesus (or Charlie Manson, some say)...you can't miss me. Pop in the side door inside Century Square and ask for me.

[JackRiddler]

.

Right on, Jason Del Gandio!

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/05/ ... tics/print

October 05, 2011

Radical Imagination
Occupy Wall Street: a Reply to Skeptics

by JASON DEL GANDIO

On September 27th Lauren Ellis published an essay in Mother Jones Magazine entitled “Is OccupyWallStreet Working?”

The essay argues that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is not working because the movement has no clear message and is not demographically representative of those who are affected most by the current economic problems. While Ellis does raise important points about movement-messaging and political representation, she in no way tries to understand the internal logic and outward expression of OWS.

Ellis’ conclusions center around four main points: that OWS’s “kitchen sink approach” is a form of ineffective messaging; that the media’s focus on the police brutality distracts from OWS’s main message (or lack thereof); that the hacktavist collective Anonymous inhibits the OWS movement; and that the OWS participants are the “usual suspects” of “dreamers.” In what follows, I provide counter-arguments to each of Ellis’ points as an attempt to flesh-out some of the philosophies, practices, and communicative strategies of Occupy Wall Street. I want to note that I am not seeking to attack Lauren Ellis in any way. Instead, I am trying to demonstrate why her arguments—representative of many like-minded skeptics—are insufficiently substantiated.

1. Kitchen Sink vs. Multi-Issued Messaging. It is common practice to critique festival and carnivalesque protests (and radical social movement overall) as lacking coherent, effective messages. I agree that protesters and social movements (of all kinds) bare the responsibility of effective messaging. But we must realize that OWS does involve a rhetorical logic. OWS is not lacking a coherent message; instead, its message is multi-issued, politically complex, and systemic: economic inequality, layoffs, house foreclosures, bank bailouts, million dollar bonuses, overpriced health insurance, cuts to social welfare, credit card debt, the student loan industry, tax breaks for the rich, underfunded schools, climate change, genetically modified food, the burgeoning prison-industrial complex, war, as well as racism, sexism, and homophobia are interconnected issues. None of these occur in a vacuum; instead, each contributes to and affects the others. One of the root causes of “this current system” is corporate dominance. Most (if not everyone) can agree that corporations control this country. Political, educational, prison, mass media, and military systems are dominated by the corporate will-to-profit. Even the production of culture is a corporate manufacturing of brands, logos, jingles, and cradle-to-the grave advertising. How many people identify themselves by the brands that they wear, consume, and purchase? How much material support is given to independent artists, musicians, and film makers? How many words within the collective lexicon—like Google, Xerox, and Coke—are actually corporate titles? Corporate dominance is not the only root cause of these interrelated issues, but it is a good place to start. Protesters are thus occupying Wall Street because it is the epicenter of corporate dominance and condenses all of these issues into one symbolic force.

2.a Police Brutality Stealing the Spotlight vs. Political Theater. It is also common to critique mass arrests—and the direct actions that usually spur those arrests—as another form of ineffective messaging. But people must realize that direct action and civil disobedience are forms of messaging, albeit, forms of embodied messaging—the action is the message, with the assumption that observers will have the wherewithal to understand this form of messaging. Just as audience members “read between the lines” to understand the actions that occur on a theatrical stage, observers must also read between the lines to understand the actions that occur on a politically occupied street corner. This is not a lot to expect given the fact that we are all actors and audience members, everyday and all day. Each of us is a walking embodiment-and-expression of our roles, beliefs, values, perspectives, and philosophies. We are all constantly performing for one another, continually expressing and reading-and-reacting to one another’s embodiment. This intersubjective and reflexive process often occurs subconsciously. But direct actions and mass arrests call us to attention: politics is an embodied phenomenon. Occupy Wall Street is therefore a message about reappropriating our political agency: The business of greed, hyper-competition, private gain, casino capitalism, and political corruption must stop immediately, and people are willing to put their bodies on the line to make this happen. And if that message is too long and complicated, here’s an easier one: Our current system of profit before people is inhumane and unjust.

2.b Police Brutality Stealing the Spotlight vs. Journalistic Integrity. Arguing that direct action and mass arrests distract from the main message implies that the protesters are to blame for how the media portrays the situation. Again, every protester has some responsibility for rhetorical effectiveness. But in this case, we should be blaming the mass media rather than the protesters. There are a million ways to cover a story and a million details to focus on. But much of the mainstream coverage focuses on the cop vs. protester scenario. Why? Because the public has become accustomed to want such time-tested, politically vapid narratives. As the saying goes, if it bleeds, its leads. This is a problem of journalistic integrity, not of ineffective messaging by the protesters. I find it hard to believe that reporters and journalists are incapable of properly deciphering the basic message of Occupy Wall Street. At the very least, one could interpret the occupation as “Wall Street equals Bad.” I would assume that an honest, hardworking reporter would want to understand why this message is being communicated with such passion, dedication, and urgency. If that were to occur, then perhaps mainstream media outlets would actually air open and honest debates about the merits and pitfalls of the Occupy Wall Street message.

3. Anonymous vs. Anti-authoritarianism. Occupy Wall Street is structured around anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchical principles of decentered organizing practices. Unlike older models of, say, the civil rights movement, OWS does not offer up a single spokesperson standing on a well-defined stage articulating one clear message. Instead, there are many people on many stages offering up numerous-yet-interconnected demands, goals, and/or outlooks. The point is to resist a top-down approach and to invite, instead, a diversified, bottom-up, directly democratic approach. No model of organizing is ideal, and neither is this one. But this helps explain why particular groups—such as the Anonymous hacktavist collective—will appear to simultaneously champion and distance themselves from OWS. It’s like a kaleidoscope: different groups and causes will appear and disappear depending upon when and how you look at it. Such a structure allows people to enter, exit, and contribute on their own accord. In many ways, then, the anti-authoritarianism of Occupy Wall Street is about radical immediacy: the immediate evocation of one’s desired reality. That immediate evocation is partial and incomplete, but that is true for all human-created realities. We are finite and fallible creatures always working from partial histories and moving toward unpredictable futures. Occupy Wall Street is no different.

4. The Usual Suspects vs. The Radical Imagination. It is too easy to reduce Occupy Wall Street to a rendition of the radical 1960s. Such a reduction commonly occurs anytime a radical movement emerges, as if political radicalism began and ended with the hippie counter-cultural movement. Radical social movements—along with anti-authoritarian and anti-corporate sentiments—play an intimate role throughout American (and world) history. I agree that OWS began with a small group of people that may not have accurately represented the overall demographics of “middle-America.” But OWS is consistently gaining sympathizers and momentum. According to occupytogether.org, approximately 130 cities across the United States are now organizing events and actions. Similar events are being organized in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Given these numbers, I find it hard to believe that OWS is just another wannabe revolution put on by the usual suspects of hopeless idealists and out of touch day dreamers. Instead, OWS advances a tradition of radical immediacy that is invigorating the collective imagination. That imagination envisions a world that exists beyond corporate dominance. The many steps to get there are still unknown. But a first step is being offered up by Occupy Wall Street.


Jason Del Gandio is author of Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists (New Society, 2008) and an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy at Temple University in Philadelphia.

[wordspeak2]

Here's the official statement from OWS:


Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted
on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty
Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass
injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We
write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of
the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of
the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our
system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it
is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of
their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power
from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract
wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is
attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come
to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people,
self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our
governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let
these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process,
despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to
give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace
based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual
orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined
the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel
treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these
practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to
negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of
debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as
leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people,
with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways
to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering
lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures
their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be
regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save
people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already
turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty
bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their
control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when
presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to
receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in
Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create
a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions
accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of
direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the
resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

[Allegro]

Here's the official statement from OWS:

Thanks, wordspeak2. Here's the link, which PWillow posted somewhere up thread.

~ A.

POST 1424

[eyeno]

Dylan Ratigan from MSNBC mainstream news gives his take on occupy wallstreet. He was very very supportive. Wonder how long he will keep his job if he keeps doing this? I hope he does not have a nefarious agenda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ZR3PTvrd6g

[Luther Blissett]

Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it

By Douglas Rushkoff, Special to CNN
updated 1:09 PM EST, Wed October 5, 2011

Editor's note: Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist and the author of "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age" and "Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take it Back."

(CNN) -- Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators feigning bewilderment over protesters' demands, mainstream television news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random, silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They couldn't be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.

Consider how CNN anchor Erin Burnett, covered the goings on at Zuccotti Park downtown, where the protesters are encamped, in a segment called "Seriously?!" "What are they protesting?" she asked, "nobody seems to know." Like Jay Leno testing random mall patrons on American History, the main objective seemed to be to prove that the protesters didn't, for example, know that the U.S. government has been reimbursed for the bank bailouts. It was condescending and reductionist.

More predictably perhaps, a Fox News reporter appears flummoxed in this outtake from "On the Record," in which the respondent refuses to explain how he wants the protests to "end." Transcending the shallow partisan politics of the moment, the protester explains "As far as seeing it end, I wouldn't like to see it end. I would like to see the conversation continue."

To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.

In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.

Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem.

Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.

Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns.

That's because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.

Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.

But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and fights for a particular solution, Occupy Wall Street just sits there talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement's Egyptian counterparts, with food, first aid, and a library.

Yes, as so many journalists seem obligated to point out, kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their iPhones. The simplistic critique is that if someone is upset about corporate excess, he is supposed to abandon all connection with any corporate product. Of course, the more nuanced approach to such tradeoffs would be to seek balance rather than ultimatums. Yes, there are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones. There are other things big corporations may not do so well, like structure mortgage derivatives. Might we be able to use corporations for what works, and get them out of doing what doesn't?

And yes, some kids are showing up at Occupy Wall Street because it's fun. They come for the people, the excitement, the camaraderie and the sense of purpose they might not be able to find elsewhere. But does this mean that something about Occupy Wall Street is lacking, or that it is providing something that jobs and schools are not (thanks in part to rising unemployment and skyrocketing tuitions)?

The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical, and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable, sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today. They are suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which we are attempting to run our economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture.

And in the process, they are pointing the way toward something entirely different than the zero-sum game of artificial scarcity favoring top-down investors and media makers alike.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Douglas Rushkoff.

[Aurataur]

Greetings denizens of Rigorous Intuition!

I spent approximately 20 hours at the Occupy Los Angeles movement this weekend, and will be returning later today to donate much needed supplies. It's a cold and rainy day here in Los Angeles.

I attended a General Assembly meeting last Thursday night. I had no idea what to expect, and was greatly surprised to find at least one-hundred to one-hundred and fifty people taking part. It was an exhilarating process.

I returned to Pershing Square on Saturday at 10:00am. While I'm no good at estimating the size of a crowd, I would guess that at least two thousand, and potentially three or four thousand, participated in the march from Pershing Square to City Hall, where the occupation would take place.

The atmosphere was incredible. The community, amazing. The General Assembly meeting Saturday night drew a crowd of at least two thousand people. The word from the police was that anyone camped on the grass after 10:30pm would be immediately arrested. 10:30 came and went without a single cop even walking through the park.I would guess that at least 500 were camped out when I left Sunday at 4am. Most chose to camp on the sidewalk, but a few remained inside the park itself.

There hasn't been a single arrest.

Apparently, the Los Angeles City Council just passed a resolution in support of the movement! This could be huge, people! This was heard via the livestream, and I haven't been able to locate a link.

Here are some pictures!

Day 1:






















Day 2:

[2012 Countdown]

Welcome to RI Aurataur. And thank you for being you! Thank you for the photos and report.

[Elvis]

From 4th Avenue, Westlake, downtown Seattle.

The police are here. The tents have gone down. They're arresting people, dragging some away, apparently reluctant tent dwellers. About 15-20 police, maybe more, mostly bicycle cops, two squad cars and a large passenger van type vehicle (paddy wagon, I think.)
Looks like a cople of unmarked cars, parked along the lane where you're not supposed to. Another large police van just pulled up.

Still a crowd toward the stage area, seems only the tents were an issue (for now?).

Damn, no camera with me. I'll try to report more, gotta run.

[Luposapien]

Thanks to all for the contributions to this thread, and especially to all those participating, and provinding on-the-ground coverage! The Austin action is set to kick off tomorrow at 10 and continue indefinitely. While I only work a couple miles from Downtown, I can't really afford (literaly) to take any more time off of work, so I'd need to head over on my lunch break, which would only give me about a half-hour or so, but I'm gonna try to make it out there at some point (or points). I'll chime in with a report if I'm able to swing it.

[Nordic]

Thanks Aurataur! Hell I live in LA and yours is the first I've seen of any account of what's been happening under my very nose! This is very good news.

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks to Aurataur and to practically everyone else in this thread.

And to hell with all the chin-rubbing, nose-picking, ball-scratching, Theory-emitting, nervously smartypants, would-be-authoritarian, pseudo-leftist MANAGERIAL* arseholes who are finding (or rather desperately inventing) reasons to disdain and undermine the very thing they affect to desire: grass-roots action, working-class solidarity and sustained physical movement for real social change.

*the root of all evil. (And Lenin - fuck you.)