Re: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:50 pm
In my experience, the misunderstanding of anarchist thought and action is common even amongst those who support #OWS.
What you don't know can't hurt them.
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32630
Wombaticus Rex wrote:I think lupercal made some excellent and salient points, actually. As much as "horizontal organization theory" stuff fascinates me, it's naive to think there's not a lot of operators in the ranks right now. The fruits of Occupy Oakland right now are exceptionally weird. I would definitely be interested in seeing someone parse what they consider to be misinformation in lupercal's concise summary.
#OCCUPY IS A LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS, and that means it's subject to all the foibles and failures of any other large group of human beings. Common Ground had both Lisa Fithian and Brandon Darby in their small & legendary ranks. This is a nationwide movement, so it scales accordingly.
Where I differ from lupercal is that he seems to think the entire movement is on puppet strings and that's a tough sell if you've got any familiarity and experience with it. Been picking brains from Chicago to Asheville to Boston and the front lines are full of good earnest people. (Plenty of idiots, too, but again: LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS.)
lupercal wrote:Wombaticus Rex wrote:I think lupercal made some excellent and salient points, actually. As much as "horizontal organization theory" stuff fascinates me, it's naive to think there's not a lot of operators in the ranks right now. The fruits of Occupy Oakland right now are exceptionally weird. I would definitely be interested in seeing someone parse what they consider to be misinformation in lupercal's concise summary.
thanks Wombat not to be contrary but I'd argue that Oakland is exceptionally not weird, i.e., is representative of what's actually going on, which is pretty familiar both by California standards (same damn deal with Grey Davis, another Jerry protege who got run out on a rail by "activists" and replaced by Reagan clone Ahnuld for enough years to screw up Cali but good -- or by Ajax standards, because it's not at all difficult to see that this is basically Ajax illegally jacked on domestic soil. But who's going to prosecute, right? Thus the violence, which, as with Ajax and the more recent color revolutions, is what gets the job done, i.e., gets Mosadegh / ben Ali / Mubarak to resign, and if they don't, like Ghaddafi didn't, then the fake populism gets shuttered, the cameras disappear, and the bombs fall without apology.#OCCUPY IS A LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS, and that means it's subject to all the foibles and failures of any other large group of human beings. Common Ground had both Lisa Fithian and Brandon Darby in their small & legendary ranks. This is a nationwide movement, so it scales accordingly.
Where I differ from lupercal is that he seems to think the entire movement is on puppet strings and that's a tough sell if you've got any familiarity and experience with it. Been picking brains from Chicago to Asheville to Boston and the front lines are full of good earnest people. (Plenty of idiots, too, but again: LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS.)
Yes, the whole thing is on puppet strings, nakedly obvious ones in the case of Oakland, but I never said there aren't lost of "good earnest people" caught up in it. Cornell West comes to mind, though for all I know he's a spook, but lots of ordinary earnest people are safely "occupied" with meaningless activity. In fact they have to be in order for the thing to have any credibility. Nevertheless, they're purely for window dressing, and whenever there's a shortage of volunteers, as in Libya for example, ringers are easy to find. But it works best with a credulous professor or two out in front.
Wombaticus Rex wrote:.. I would definitely be interested in seeing someone parse what they consider to be misinformation in lupercal's concise summary.
Don't forget Occupy in UK, Spain, Australia etc - are they all "controlled opposition" too?Wombaticus Rex wrote:.. he seems to think the entire movement is on puppet strings and that's a tough sell if you've got any familiarity and experience with it. Been picking brains from Chicago to Asheville to Boston and the front lines are full of good earnest people. (Plenty of idiots, too, but again: LARGE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS.)
lupercal wrote:Yep "controlled left" is exactly the word. What has Occupy Oakland accomplished, besides f*cking over a nice lefty mayor?
lupercal wrote:Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo.
lupercal wrote:And they shut down the port a couple of times meaning lots of teamsters didn't work. Way to hand it to Wall Street banksters, shut down the Port of Oakland.
lupercal wrote:Totally illogical and pointless, and that's Occupy in a nutshell.
MayDay wrote:Thank you, wintler2. At the moment I can't think of any way to reply to Lupercals ridiculous statements that won't get me banned from the site.
willard wrote:You have many many times claimed elections and street marches are meaningless. . .
lupercal wrote:MayDay wrote:Thank you, wintler2. At the moment I can't think of any way to reply to Lupercals ridiculous statements that won't get me banned from the site.
Welcome Mayday, may we assume you know whereof you speak?
lupy wrote:willard wrote:You have many many times claimed elections and street marches are meaningless. . .
Where?
lupercal wrote:Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo.
wintler2 wrote:lupy wrote:willard wrote:You have many many times claimed elections and street marches are meaningless. . .
Where?
Okay, you got me there, i got that wrong, you are not one of those conspiritards who asserts that all elections are meaningless. Mea culpa etc.
The context:lupercal wrote:Let's see, they had a teacher's strike that wasn't really a strike, meaning a lot of teachers used up their personal days on a lot of nothing, meaning they won't be able to use them to work on elections or an actual anti-war demo, bingo.
I doubt the teachers union is attending antiwar demo's in US, and participation in electoral politics is of neccesity far more moderate/controlled than anything Occupy does. Its pretty confident of you to tell the teamsters and teachers they were all wasting their time supporting Occupy, when doubtless they have experience of the activities you say they should be doing instead.
You’re Very Welcome.Wombaticus Rex wrote:…Side note: Allegro, thank you for that article.
Project Willow wrote:…Occupy has already been effectual. It succeeded in affecting the frame of the national discussion about the response to the recession from budget crisis to systemic inequality and fraud, re-introducing these issues into common discourse. Management of perception and the boundaries of debate are major weapons in the control system and Occupy leveled against it a heavy blow. That, to me anyway, is resistance.