OWS -- where have they gone?

[jollyreaper2112]

OWS is getting covered on Newsroom and I just finished reading Debt: the first 5000 years. The book is brilliant and frustrating.

I see there's a related thread to read up on here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021796453

Well, it's August, 2013. Where do we stand on the issues?

Our come to Jesus moment should have been 2008. We bailed out the banks and told everyone else to pound sand. Conventional wisdom despaired at us ever getting action on this. OWS came out of nowhere and was amazing. We all thought we were oppressed alone and had no idea how many of us there were if we stood together.

I agree that society needs a monomyth to explain things. Manifest destiny, divine right of kings, mandate of heaven, religious or material world views, everyone needs a way of making sense of the world and doing right by it. We then have hierophants and priests and pundits and storytellers to help make sense of it and tell us why the way things are is the way things should be. The tacit agreement of capital to labor is you get a piece of the action but we keep most of it. It was a big piece and we could be happy with it. The last 30 years have seen what happens when capital renegs. The new deal is fuck you, now shut up. It's harder and harder for people to believe the American dream. As Carlin said, you need to be asleep to believe it.

OWS crapped in the punchbowl and The MSM went into overdrive creating a new narrative to explain things.

These protests seem like mushrooms. Sure, you can remove the mushrooms but the fungus is not gone, it remains beneath the soil. More mushrooms can arise at any time.

The underlying issues have not changed, things continue to get worse but the wheels are somehow staying on the smoking, rattling bus as it careens down the road, a driverless juggernaut.

So, is OWS gone or gone underground? Are things happening that aren't hitting the MSM or blogs?

[PoliticAverse]

1. You can visit the following website for some updates...

http://occupywallst.org/

[Downtown Hound]

2. They're still around, they've just gone underground

The pigs basically violently pushed them out of all their campgrounds so they're technically not "occupy" anymore. But they're still very much involved in many issues, and my guess is we will see them rise again sometime, although they will likely be called something else the next time.

[randome]

3. Please let them be called something else.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. The Occupy movement is very much alive -

and active and involved in the Jubilee movement, challenging foreclosures, and in local disaster response. If you're not following OWS directly you can very well miss all the action on the ground.

[leftstreet]

5. +1 They've gone into the communities

but that's not useful to the MSM

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. Still here, still working, just ignored because they do fit into anybody's box.

They are doing so much more direct good than most are aware of. I was just writing about this to another member this morning.
& R

[bowens43]

7. theyre very active here in North Carolina

[WorseBeforeBetter]

23. Yes, indeed.

And they sounded the alarm back in 2010... not many listened. They're listening now.

[kentuck]

8. You can't get in the game if you don't have any chips.

OWS wanted to play the game but they didn't want to put any chips on the table. They mistakingly thought they could be non-political. It is not possible to get the change they want without being political. They can start their own Party or they can join one of the established Parties but they cannot be non-partisan.

[leftstreet]

11. Um...it's actually the opposite

When they stopped being political, they became effective. Should also add to that - when politicians and the MSM stopped finding them useful.

Now they're actually in their communities helping people

[kentuck]

16. Can they change the political reality without voting?

Don't they have to choose some side or other or create their own?

[starroute]

37. “If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”

Emma Goldman.

[LanternWaste]

43. The Suffragettes did.

"Can they change the political reality without voting?"

The Suffragettes did.
(Insert distinction without a difference here...)

[customerserviceguy]

29. You say they've been effective

I must have missed their accomplishments, please enlighten me as to what they were.

[Downtown Hound]

12. That's such a bullshit memo that's been pushed by the powers that be regarding Occupy

All that would have happened if Occupy went "political" and had leaders is that they would have been way easier to discredit and water down. As it was, they forced the powers that be to remove them at gunpoint rather than buy them off. And now they continue to work and do good behind the scenes, whereas if they had gone political all that would be happening now is they would be wasting endless time debating Edward Snowden like DU does instead of trying to save people's homes from foreclosure (which is just one of the things they have been doing).

What happened by putting Obama in office and working within the system? So far, all I'd say we got is a weak economic recovery and a watered down health care bill that still leaves insurance companies in charge. What has changed on Wall Street? Nothing. What has been done about climate change? Nothing. What has been done to close Guantanamo? Nothing. What has been done about NSA spying? Nothing.

I'll take Occupy's community based action over getting sand kicked in my face by elected Democrats promising "change" any day of the week.

[kentuck]

17. What "community based action"?

Do you have examples?

[smokey nj]

19. Occupy Sandy, Strike Debt, and Occupy Our Homes.

http://occupysandy.net/

http://strikedebt.org/

http://occupyourhomes.org/

[Downtown Hound]

22. Smoky nj has already nicely answered that question

And all of those examples are a hell of a lot more than Obama has done "within the system."

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. I'm not seeing the logic of that.

If the PTB would desire anything it is that their sitting stooges NOT be publicly challenged or replaced by someone not under their control. Keeping OWS out of office keeps their toadies in office by default.

[Downtown Hound]

41. You ever hear the saying, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?"

If TPTB are going to have resistance, they'd much rather have it watered down and working "within they system" than outside of it. As long as they're working within the system they can be at least partially controlled.

[HardTimes99]

20. Even its nominal 'non-political' stance was itself highly politicized, as politics abhors

a vacuum. Thus, at Occupy Los Angeles, the General Assemblies utilized a form of direct democracy, aka '100% Consensus'. What this meant in practice was that any one person who happened to be in attendance at a given GA could, by simple use of a 'hard block,' cause any measure under consideration to be tabled for further consideration.

Gave a whole new meaning to the idea of the 'filibuster' (and the notion of 'tyranny of the minority' for that matter). Pretty off-putting when OLA refused to get behind any municipal races, even the ones against the City Attorney Carmen Trutanich who was trying to throw the book at them after the raid on the camp on November 30, 2011. N.B. Trutanich bit the dust anyway and it couldn't happen to a 'nicer' fellow but, AFAICT, OLA had very little or nothing to do with Trutanich's flameout.

[caseymoz]

44. No, you misunderstand.

They knew if they were straightforward and gave their agenda, they would be arrested and brutalized wholesale. Or they might even be declared domestic terrorist and disappear. Don't think those concerns weren't on their minds. As it was, only 8,000 of them were arrested. Many more lost property without due process, wholesale. That is, their computers and phones were seized and destroyed. Civil disobedience has a different meaning now that we have a for-profit prison system. If you want to throw yourself into that for civil disobedience, the prison corporations are only too happy.

In the back of their, there had to be the unthinkable: detention and possible death without due process.

These were people who knew the government had turned fascist. They knew that the opposition could guess what the wanted and be 90 percent correct.

Occupy isn't gone, they're just licking their wounds, doing community outreach, such as helping after hurricane Sandy, and trying to figure out their next tactic.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. A weeky free clinic in my city-Occupy Medical

http://occupymedics.wordpress.com/

[bluestate10]

18. One group raises money to buy mortgages to save people's homes.

I, for one like concrete action over street protests. Concrete action ends up getting much, much more good accomplished.

[jollyreaper2112]

10. That's good

Since its pretty much impossible to work within the national system, abdication from the economy might work well. We have the computers to manage a credit economy between friends and neihbors, no need for the king's coin or at least not as much of it.

[Cleita]

13. I don't care for how they are being depicted in "The Newsroom"

especially the scene where the spokeswoman for them punches the news guy in the stomach. It made them look violent.

[jollyreaper2112]

14. I'm mixed on it

I do know people who are on the right side of the issue for the wrong reasons or can't properly put how they feel into words. Been there myself at times. But what really impressed me with OWS is that there were people in the park who could start talking sense the moment a camera was shoved in their faces. I hope they show some of that, too.

[Cleita]

32. That was another problem. They made her seem somewhat inarticulate when she

was interviewed on the TV by the anchor. I didn't see any of that with the real Occupy people. Those who did in real life speak on camera, spoke very well and very convincingly. I think Sorkin was dissing Occupy IMHO. I hope future shows prove me wrong, however, I feel this will be the last time Occupy is mentioned this season and they will move on.

[PoliticAverse]

15. Imagine if the sexes had been reversed for that punch. n/t

[jollyreaper2112]

25. Yeah I have a problem with that

I am for equality. Some women still like the idea of being pampered and treated special while disliking the male right to use them as a punching bag. My girlfriend accuses me of saying I act like I'm hanging out with the guys instead of being extra romantic like her prior boyfriends and I say so they were romantic, how did that work out? A guy sucker punched me like that, I would tear his head off. A woman did that, I would not punch back but try to wrestle her to a stop. I wonder, would a feminist see it as sexist to not punch back? Lol

We all make things too complicated.

[Cleita]

33. If Sorkin wanted to show violence, why didn't he show those girls being pepper sprayed

by the police instead? That actually happened.

The Occupy people were not the ones who were violent. They also could have shown them taking care of the homeless, also something that did in fact happen.

[jollyreaper2112]

34. Maybe he will, maybe he won't

We won't be able to talk about what he did or didn't do until the season ends. I think he's building it up along the lines of what the media assumed it was about and then will show them learning otherwise. Certainly it would be a more interesting angle than just running with "stupid hippies don't know what they're doing and won't change anything." We shall see.

[Zorra]

21. Aug 7-9: Three Days of Action to Shut Down ALEC in Chicago #noALEC

http://occupywallst.org/

We're all still here, waiting for you. Promise to come out and play with us next time we engage in mass direct actions?

We need you to be us in order to make it all work.



The Occupy Money Cooperative

Some of us are engaged in, and or/supporting, humanitarian direct action.

[Rex]

27. +1

nt.

[marions ghost]

26. Occupy Wall St

--they went to the locus of power and pointed the finger literally at Wall St. They identified the source of a large number of problems plaguing this country = corporate greed and corruption. They came together. They took a public stance against it.

I like your mushroom analogy. No, nothing has been cured or fixed. Just kicked down the road. And we're still asking the questions that OWS framed. What is it going to take to get our country back? What is it going to take to get real democracy here?

[sigmasix]

28. I understand the reasoning

behind remaining outside of the political system, but i wish the Occupy movement would have translated into local political positions being won by progressives. The direct actions are positive accomplishments that should be continued, but the real victories need to be at the ballot box to assure continued success in challenging the criminally wealthy elite.
I attended several local occupy rallies in and around michigan in the early days of the movement and found myself stymied by the reluctance to use every tool available to affect change. A good number of those that were against electoral activism also spoke of the need to completely dismantle America's democracy and economy and rebuild it as a marxist-socialist state.(not all of them, but at least 50% of those i spoke to) I do not beleive this notion is neccessary or useful.
.
We have the ability to regulate our economy and pragmatically choose the system best equipped for the job- capitalism is a powerful economic model for ensuring the reinforcement of a cultural work ethic and rewarding those that work hard and honestly. Capitalism must be regulated however, to assure equal opportunity and to reduce the incidence of abuse. Capitalism is a horrible model to use in supplying humanitarian needs and liberties (healthcare and civil rights)- the most pragmatic solution to humanitarian concerns like healthcare funding and access is a single-payer social contract arrangement that would be called "socialism" by some.
The mistake being made over and over again is the notion that America is a capitalist country that utilizes a democratic political system to acheive it's aims- this is backwards; America is a Democracy that utilizes capitalism as an economic model to acheive it's aims. Sometimes those aims aren't acheivable in an equitable way through regulated capitalism and we must erect social contracts that supercede market forces to maintain America's promise of a free society with garranteed basic civil rights.
This fact of American history and philosophy will not be swept aside in favor of a european-style system. The Occupy people that I have discussed this with all seem to favor a complete re-negotiation or interpretation of the American economic system. thay also seem to have the same sort of notion about participating in the electoral system. I find the intractability on these issues dissappointing.
I remain ever hopeful that the Occupy movement continues to do the very important work that they do and remain convinced that they would be more capable of effecting change if they would use some of their considerable power to back real people working to get elected. That's the beauty of a free society- we can disagree without cutting each other's head off.

[jollyreaper2112]

30. Where's the love?

The inhumanity of the system cuts both ways.

Business owners will proclaim they run a business, not a charity. There is no room for sentiment.

In this case, mercenary attitudes will beget mercenary attitudes. What do people hate about the stereotypical union? The stubborn obstinacy and refusal to be reasonable. But who do we have to thank for that? Employers. We wouldn't have had unions without the incentive of their abuse of power. And unions abused power in turn because humans are corruptible.

A little charity, a little decency goes a long way. You treat someone poorly, they will return the favor.

[jollyreaper2112]

31. One more thing

Conservatives will complain about big government and liberals will complain about big business. I think the fundamental problem is big anything. Size begets unaccountability.

We all hate Walmart here. We will be more inclined to great government programs charitably and yet they can be pretty miserable efforts. There are some legitimate criticisms to be leavied even as we disagree with the premise of the criticism. Liberals want welfare reformed because they think a better job could be done helping people and conservatives think it should be eliminated so the poor can die.

I think it's pretty astounding how its common in America for children to move far from their homes and for their parents to age and die in nursing homes. We pay strangers to care for our children and our aging parents in turn. The predatory economy leaves no stage of life uncorrupted.

I have a feeling that be better solution involves more direct control of resources but we can only have that when the capital is available locally. So much of what ruins our local planning is the reliance on state and national funding for programs. Rather than fitting local needs, we are beholden to string pullers in various capitals. This is why we are stuck with car culture and suburbia.

The big weakness with decentralization is that it leaves us vulnerable to centralized powers. Several dozen city-states with appropriate militias can keep things civil between themselves but are hardly equipped to fight off a foreign enemy with armies worthy of an empire. Such small powers invite defeat in detail.

I don't have the answers. I'm not even upset that others don't have the answer, either. I'm furious that we can't have a decent public debate about the problem in the first place.

[Sotf]

35. Anyone can claim the title, as we saw during the heyday

Effective? That's another story...

[Zorra]

39. Heard it before, off to ignore. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

36. The US government engaged in prolonged domestic terrorism against us.

The use and threat of force (which includes arrests into the prison-industrial complex and courts system) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population for political or social purposes.

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover ""domestic,"" as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ""dangerous to human life"" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-domestic-terrorism

We revealed the true power in the country which is the Plutonomy/Plutocracy/Corporatocracy. And that the government is devoted to protecting it at the expense of US citizens. That the US government does not represent the citizens of this country.

Some 7700 of us were arrested. The DHS and FBI spied upon us from day one and shared the information across agencies (such sharing is specifically redacted in FOIA documents) =as well as with the very corporations and institutions we protested=.

We revealed the death of "the commons" in major cities, of "privately-owned public space". We revealed that "democratic" mayors across the nation were even more aggressive and bloodthirsty in their response to the marches and encampments as republican (Quan, Villariagosa, etc.) We revealed that the media outright lied about us to preserve the agenda of the five or six corporations who own the mainstream media (including Mitt Romney's Bain Capital).

We revealed that debt is their business model.

We helped reveal the revolving door in the White House providing for corporate bailouts and interests.

We revealed the massive, long-term and blatantly illegal foreclosure engine being applied against the people of this country. Google "double-tracking". And that Wall Street (Blackstone Group) are behind buying up the foreclosures banks then put up for auction every quarter or so. It's a land grab to turn us into a nation of renters. Michael Moore leaked the Citigroup "Plutonomy" memos which revealed among other things that the main asset of the bottom 80% of US income earners is their home. Note the attacks upon our homes and the transfer to Wall Street.

We revealed that civil disobedience is now very dangerous to say the least, and that the 1st Amendment is basically gone. Even the Supreme Court legislated that protest is illegal on their grounds, using terms directly from the 1st Amendment. It's not democracy if they don't listen.

We revealed that when the people get together from all walks of life, across all financial and social boundaries, the results are unstable but are synergistic. That we have a common love for each other and a common cause of fairness and basic rights. We brought together Main Street and Skid Row (and revealed the forces acting against both for personal profit). We revealed that the people can sometimes respond more quickly than government systems to begin providing relief to disaster-struck areas. Not gloating, merely doing what must be done.

We revealed that together, we are a true power with positive goals and great hope and positivity. That in gathering together, we CAN change the world for the better. We revealed that we must create new systems obsoleting the old.

We revealed that the powers that be must end any gathering of the people into their own power so that we remain dependent upon THEM. To show us WHY WE NEED THEM, to paraphrase "V for Vendetta".

We thank Anonymous and others who fight the good fight and who provided massive assistance and support. We thank Michael Moore who in "Capitalism: A Love Story" asked the people to DO SOMETHING, who is an endless truth-teller and patriot.

We are still here. We are in the new wave of worker's rights and wage rights strikes in warehouses, anti-union companies such as Walmart, in strikes for a living wage in fast food and any other area. We are still here when you remember the vast, unchanged income inequality present in this country. We are here when you hear about corporate legislation (ALEC, such as "stand your ground&quot . We are here when you learn of appointments of billionaires and corporate executives to government positions, of representatives' investments in such things as the tar sands and KeystoneXL pipeline. We are here when you note the militarization of police departments under the lie of the surveillance state. We are here when you note that representatives who voted to continue the NSA as-is were granted lots of donations and rewards by lobbyists. We are there as you note the Halliburton-like, Iraq pig's trough of start-up companies sucking up both our data and tax dollars under the lie of the surveillance state.

We are there as you realize the government's message to protesters, whistle-blowers, journalists, and more, is "Do what we say or else."

We are there as you rise against this to fight for our Constitutional values.

We are you. You are the 99%. You are the true power and hope in this country. Together, we CAN build a better world.


I am with Occupy but no single member represents the movement.

[AZ Progressive]

38. I knew this would happen to OWS. Poking the bull, the bull will fight back

The 1% don't let laws and anything else get in the way, they directed their minions to get rid of the "threat" once OWS started looking like a serious threat.

[AZ Progressive]

40. Also, OWS revealed how the Govt really sees the Constitution as toilet paper

They hunted OWS with wanton disregard of any laws including the Constitution's bill of rights. The police and cities showed how much they hate the constitution.

[Fire Walk With Me]

42. I agree with your points in both replies... n/t