"My Thoughts In Flux About Occupy Wall Street "

[Pirate Smile]

Long posts but a good discussion of why some people feel kind of nervous or conflicted about OWS regarding how it can result in a positive outcome:

Posted in full with permission of author:

My Thoughts In Flux About Occupy Wall Street

By Shoq, on October 9, 2011, at 2:41 am

I am not going to go into my entire history of thinking about the Occupy Wall street movement (OWS). It’s too painful and annoying, but I want to get this out. It’s late, I am tired, and this will probably be filled with really bad typos and worse grammar. It’s going to go out anyway. I’ll have the cat edit it in the morning.

After first being contemptuous of what I saw as an ill-conceived vanity protest movement, about ten days ago, I sensed a tipping point in public and global attitude toward the OWS “movement,” and feared it would sweep all of our hard work to rebuild the President’s stature away.

Uncertain of its origins, questioning of its founders, and entirely doubtful of its fundamentals, I was nonetheless disturbed by how dismissive the Progressive community was being toward an expression of anger at what has become, unquestionably, a dysfunctional society that is on the verge of total meltdown. Sure, the kids banging drums and holding up dog-earred signs were disheveled and disorganized, but… they were also quite right. The system our ancestors built for us has devolved into a vicious plutocratic fireswamp that is consuming almost everything and everyone, and they are damned right to be scared and angry about it. We should ALL be scared and angry about it. And at least they were doing what mainstream progressives should have done years ago: taken this fight to the streets.

But I was also conflicted. I know the value of organization and planning. I know the value of messaging. I know the value of inclusiveness and pluralism, and I also know that anarchist societal modeling is fun theory to talk about over coffee, but as a practical matter, its track record at governance is exactly nothing. After poking around for 10 days, I came to the realization that the structural deficiencies of this “organization” were enormous. Not the logistics of the protesting; that was actually being handled fairly well. But rather, they had no real collaborative scheme to craft any kind of substantive policy goals or legislative missions. There was just no there there. It was, in the words of @JAMeyerson, “all about creating the crisis” and “letting *them* solve the problem.” (Them, I assumed, being the very people who had destroyed our country in the first place. Just not my first choice of fixers.)

Whether it had any real chance of success or not, I felt there would be three primary outcomes. It would either peter out and die quickly, or reach a take-off point where it would be in a position to hurt or help Obama’s re-election effort. The latter was something that I feel must happen, or such protests may never be likely to happen again. Call that hyperbole if you wish, but I believe it. This right wing has virtually no respect for people or precedent, and they won’t give total voter suppression a second thought from here on out. A 2nd term Obama veto is the ONLY chance we have of mitigating what is almost certainly going to be a Republican Senate. We may not have solutions to anything yet, but losing control of that body to these insane Republicans, would be like trying to fix a hole in the hull of a sinking boat by first widening the hole.

And yes, while it was helping the President’s re-election, it might also popularize some really good policy ideas I’ve advocated for a long time, including campaign reform, financial reform, and a return to a more progressive income tax

Until Van Jones and Natalie Foster revealed the amount of planning that had gone into the Rebuild The Dream movement, I really had little faith in our fragmented Left doing much of anything by November of 2012, that could save the White House or the Senate. Ironically, just a few days before they did reveal it at the Takeback11 conference, I decided to get involved with #ows and see if this “movement” was really as open and pluralistic as they were suggesting it was, and whether we could channel all that anger and energy in a productive way toward re-electing the President and enough progressives to actually reboot the nation. Since I quickly learned that they needed server capacity at Occupywallst.org, I was able to get my friends at @alternet to underwrite it. Doing this, and other good deeds for them, let me see some of the inner workings a bit closer up, and try to approach things as any good faith supporter might.

And I did see some good things. I saw an interesting process of formless, leaderless organizing, that, as with the Open Source Software community from whence it came, achieve some pretty interesting results in some cases. But I also so endless layers of disorganization and fail, and a Pollyanna vision of the world that seemed to suggest that revolution would be as simple as a first session of Angry Birds on an Ipad. I knew better.

Then came the John Lewis video. I had made many apologies thus far, but how in the fuck could anyone with any capacity to forge solutions or coalitions, not get that John Lewis wasn’t just another politician they could mute with their “no top down hierarchical leadership icons ever” dictum. He was the closet thing to a role model living today when it comes to organizing and protesting for change. What the hell were they thinking?

And the disrespect of Lewis wasn’t even as hard to take as the uncomfortable squirminess I felt at the chanting and pop-psychobabble cum empowerment training seminar gooblygook I was hearing in this “General assembly.” While watching it, I was struck by just how unscalable the model really was. I mean, if it took six minutes to decide if one man should speak, what if there had been 50? And what if all of Atlanta wanted to be at this assembly? That couldn’t work, right? So they’d need “representatives.” And that would be like… like… a legislature! OMG! A “Congress.”

While all this is going on, my trusted “liberal friends” were abandoning me, because they felt I betrayed them by “cheerleading” for an angst-ridden, pro-left-pimped fantasy revolution without a chance in hell of doing anything but firing up the Paulites, the Fedbusters, and the general cadre of anti-government types who might completely undermine Obama and the chances of saving a Democratic senate with their amorphous concepts of a sleep-over rebellion.

Perhaps my friends were right all along. But I don’t do group think, and I could not know more unless I looked further. That’s just the way I approach everything. I am loathe to condemn things which I don’t understand. So I did look, and what I saw was not completely weak, but that is not the same as being very strong. Most disturbing? While quite cordial and pleasant, the people were not particularly open, nor eager to explore alternative ideas for approaching our problems. They were mostly… well.. anarchists. And they do what most anarchists do: they aspire, while sounding as if all human problems can be solved with enough seminars, high-minded theories which are not open to debate, a lot of personal self-actualization, and far too much economic hooey.

Long story short? I am now of the opinion that while I sympathize with the anger and frustration of the protesters, their chances of success are so spotty, that I am just going to wish them luck, and move on to what I feel are more productive interests, such as trying to get the President’s Jobs Act past, pushing to interest progressive billionaires in rebuilding our infrastructure, and preventing these insane Republicans form gobbling up what is left of my country.

I will focus my energies on the political process I still have some faith in. I will continue to support the 99%, as I always have, but do it by helping Van Jones and the more conventional players who are working tirelessly to change the system from within the system.

I have spent my life feeling that such change is possible without first completely burning down the house. I am not going to sell out that conviction, nor lose all my friends, over an intriguing, but ultimately romantic effort that seems to only capture anger in a bottle, but does not yet, and may never have a message to cap it with. I will not oppose them, but nor will I endorse them. I will simply watch them, cheer for my country, and defend anyone’s right to be heard in what remains of this fetid Democracy.

I am sorry this journey has been so unpleasant for my friends who may not always understand my process, and whom I may have been less than diplomatic with, as my views and insights fluctuated with my experience. I hope we can all get past it and be friends again.

If things change, I will do what I have done all of my life: change my mind once again to fit the practical or moral dictates of the moment, as it happens, or as my conscience insists.

Thank you all for the support so many have shown me. I can only hope to repay you half as much in time.

Shoq

Read more: http://shoqvalue.com/my-thoughts-in-flux-about-occupy-wall-street#ixzz1aISKKTvP

A reply to the post above:

@KaraAlesandra: @shoq My thoughts is a nutshell http://www.twitlonger.com/show/dhp1l7

Occupy Wall Street #OWS, now it's Occupy America, is as dangerous as the electorate's apathy in voting. Even during presidential elections, it's only 60%. Otherwise it's 30-40%. Therein those statistics is the main problem. Politicians don't fear the will of the people at all. They don't. Whatever the will happens to be. Americans shirk their responsibility to exercise their right to vote and it shows. The group protesting, mostly college students and recent graduates, vote rarely or not at all. The slackers, as Jon Stewart calls them, is as much to blame as anyone. Civic duties are an afterthought to them. Or no thought at all. Vote for the celebrity and we're done.

The other problem is the group or groups communicate no demands. Hard to find a fix with no demands. Get money out of politics (end corporatism), give all people a voice, the 99% and save the whales ae the buzzwords. Well, not save the whales. Where is the problem in all of that? Lack of responsibility is it. Hey, we're only in this politics thing because we can't find a job. If they had jobs, they wouldn't be protesting. They wouldn't.

Young people today are obsessed with leisure activities and the Internet. Fragmented demands and thoughts and anger sounds more like a spoiled brat that didn't get everything he/she wanted for Christmas. We want jobs. Now. Yesterday. We don't want handouts. Just jobs. Yeah, sure, since you're demanding and all. We also want equality and all voices heard. Okay. Vote and we'll listen. What? Yeah, get off your self-centered collective asses and vote. If ya don't vote, don't bitch. Votes are equal. Ask Al Gore and Bush if your vote counts. Bush only won by a small few.

They're excuse to enjoying the freedoms of America and failing to register their voice is easily explained. We followed all the rules and... What? Really? You followed YOUR rules and now you want it handed to you. Democracy can't work if you aren't in it. If some of you weren't so self-obsessed in 2000, you could have defeated Bush thusly defeating the Supreme Court that allowed corporate money to flow into politics easily. No recriminations. Did you attempt to educate other voters since you're so smart? No. You were too busy doing whatever as to avoid your civic responsibilities. Getting into college was great, right? Spent all that time and effort to get educated and forgot about voicing your concerns in running the country. The rich you so despise did their civil duties. You didn't talk so how could they listen. Oh, and without the rich, there are no jobs for anybody. Now some of you need to learn the sin of omission was the problem. Get involved, stop bitching, and make the time for change. You have no problem wanting everyone to feel like you've accomplished something "protesting" by sitting in a park. Get to work or shut the hell up.

If it pisses you off, it's true. It's damn true.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/dhp1l7

[Harmony Blue]

1. Not buying it

Sorry.

Unrec.

I will bluntly say, that, people have a right to voice their frustration anyway they desire in a democracy.

[flamingdem]

2. Rec for bringing up some uncomfortable points in an otherwise

bright spot of sunshine.

I think it's great that OWS is taking hold. No one can predict where it will end up. That is somewhat unnerving considering what we're up against. I hope, or project upon the demonstrators, the knowledge that Obama is ultimately a friend to youth and that it is critical that we reduce Republican power. This is the binary we live with and it cannot be wished away.

As someone who lived through turbulent times of protest before .. I believe just like everything else ... success depends on the talents of those involved. We just don't know the capacity yet.

As someone who worked in a collective where all had an equal voice, good luck with that. It is time consuming and ultimately gives way to the strong voices who eventually get additional power.

As someone who tried to GOTV at a local college ... it was so pathetic to see in the midterms that almost no students planned to vote or knew the stakes.

As an Obama supporter who also supports OWS I hope that sense prevails. Of course when one is young ideals and principles are foremost .. as we age it's clear that politics is a different animal from consensus thinking and the system has its rules, human nature has its rules as well.

PS I was studying anarchism way back when too... it's attractive on paper, we shall see.

[Pirate Smile]

3. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I didn't know if this was going to turn into a flame war or

actually start some discussion re achievable goals.

[flamingdem]

4. One thing I do not remember from the "old days"

is petulance.

Maybe that's a DU thing, but I hear it in the voices of the OWS representatives sometimes.
That was not there in the 60s radicals. There was more respect and a quicker understanding
of who was the enemy. Granted the Vietnam war made that pretty black and white. Obama
would have been a godsend back then. Here on DU and elsewhere there is a danger for a split
between generations and pro / anti Obama supporters for example. People don't get that it
hurts us and the enemy ---- same as back then --- is the right wing.

There's a youthful desire for things to be simple. Things are not so simple. Change doesn't
happen so quickly. But it's a start.

Somehow people have to care about the process. Then they have to develop a passion for
engagement. Maybe then they can balance the correct impulses for action with the
necessary requirements for impact on a society.

Or something like that!
:hi: