Occupy Wall Street 3: Now What?

i wonder why the 'one bold piece of action' strategy doesn't work.

taking over the Kaiser building was doomed to fail from its inception, the occupy leaders had to know they weren't going to be allowed to stay. it was a pretty good pick symbolically, but if they really wanted to make it work they probably could have picked a dozen other buildings and made a fair go of it, at least for a little while.

march turned into a 'riot' when the cops started firing projectiles into crowds AGAINST THEIR OWN INTERNAL POLICIES and like two days after a federal judge told them (yet again) to cut it the fuck out. don't recall all the uproar about that but ok.

― wmlynch, Monday, January 30, 2012 5:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is true. but it's also true that the police (over)response was prompted (if not justified) by the stated purpose of the Occupy action.

i'm not sure how. violating internal procedures controlling how they use violence is justified because protesters wanted to enter an empty building?

sparkle motion otm.

i'm not sure how. violating internal procedures controlling how they use violence is justified because protesters wanted to enter an empty building?

― wmlynch, Monday, January 30, 2012 5:12 PM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did you read the part just above your comment where i use the word UNJUSTIFIED?

ha actually i DON'T use that word (heh) but i do say that the police tactics were "not justified"

the police's job is to uphold the law not break it

my point is just that the police were responding to a threat of criminal trespass on private property, which you can see is likely a more severe breach than marching on a public right of way.

that doesn't mean that the tactics the police were using are "justified," but it does mean that a harsh police response could have been predicted. indeed sometimes i think certain actions are taken precisely to prompt a harsh police response. which isn't ALWAYS a bad tactic in every context, but seems like a bad one in this time and place.

cops were totally wrong (as usual) AND ALSO totally predictable

not just trespass but occupation, and not of a traditionally public space either.

now this may be a good idea in the best of worlds (make productive use of vacant buildings) but this particular instance had no chance of succeeding, especially undertaken the way it was. so either the organizers are incompetent or they were seeking an asymmetric police response.

xpost yes

like omg the OPD didn't follow their own policies/the law call the feds oh wait

xp

but yeah I don't really understand what's so irretrievably broken with the City of Oakland's process for establishing community centers/designating unused property that the only acceptable/feasible response is a riot.

Yeah, it would help to know the history behind this.

yeah amateurist i misread (or misunderstood) your comment above. and shakey is right the police tactics were entirely predictable, but still completely unjustified.

the nlg and aclu already have a lawsuit pending regarding opd's violation of their internal policies and their federal overseer has said no more but opd can't stop won't stop.

this is a police department that is set to be taken over by the Justice Dept because of their ineptitude/institutional assholism iirc

frankly I consider it a small miracle that the OPD hasn't killed any Occupy Oakland people yet

can't say they haven't tried.

sparkle motion otm.

this.

the problem w/occupy's tactics insofar as i see them is that a lot of what i'm reading is breathless recitations of events taking place on the street, like they're talking about physical action and the geography of battle, for lack of a better term, and to me all it's doing is showing me something i already know, which is that cops can often act like complete assholes (to put it mildly) when given a single sliver of opportunity to do so. and i'm not sure street confrontations do much good anyway other than prove those already proven points.

i agree 100% with occupy's opinions on shit, generally speaking.

yeah that's pretty much how I feel. that the movement's public image has been reduced to fighting about their right to protest is unfortunate

not that occupy isn't working behind closed doors on other things but i think the execution might in some cases distract from the message, and that doesn't make it right but....i dunno.

it would be a good tactic to have a somewhat comprehensive plan to start up the community center — volunteer days for cleaning, getting admin folks together, program outlines, etc. i've always been pretty meh on marches — walking around for a bit doesn't do much without some planning to carry through the momentum of getting a couple hundred/thousand people together and creating something tangible.

nonetheless, an ultimately failed march still has the benefit of putting the ugly of statism into an easy conceptual framework. which isn't to say it gets through to the majority of people, but it does for me and i'm sure i'm not alone there and that'll still something when thinking long-term.

i'm open to the possibility that the occupy folks did have a better plan. but i'm sort of doubting it.

if they wanted to "take over" a vacant building and turn it into a community center, why not appeal to mayor/aldermen/etc. to do so? draw up a plan, one that seems reasonable to most non-gov't folks. and submit it to those in power.

and if/ when they respond indifferently, then you can publicize that recalcitrance, and make the indifference of gov't to the impoverished the purpose of a march, with the community center issue at front and center.

again, poor planning doesn't "justify" police violence or lawbreaking.

but you can plan in ways that minimize the chance for violence, and that doesn't mean you're necessarily capitulating to the man.

that's kinda the thing though. deigning to the powers that be to humbly ask them to please okay a community center is one way of doing it. but why can't it also be the vague outline in my xpost with the gov't riding shotgun?

deigning to the powers that be to humbly ask them

oh come on these people aren't royalty. these are elected officials, some of whom may have even been community organizers themselves.

well part of the "problem" is that occupy's tactics are (or purport to be) tied very tightly to its opinions, for lack of a better word. that is, the decision to commandeer a building instead of going through the usual channels isn't made because ppl are lazy/greedy/stupid, it's made as an explicit rejection/indictment of "the usual channels."

similarly, the outsized police response isn't just because some cops are assholes, it's inevitable, and itself an expression of the same power structures that set "the usual channels" into place.

so when ppl say shit like "well of course the cops are gonna act like that you goons" or "god why don't you just do it the normal way," it's a pretty clear indication that ppl have missed the point entirely.

xps see shaane's idea is otm. there's no doubt that the occupiers could have done a better job of this, but poor execution of (as judith pointed out) a pretty common tactic doesn't mean the tactic itself is a bad one

xp some, yes, but the general occupy idea is gov't just hasn't been actually making shit happen over the past few years/decades. a gov position seems to have has a tempering effect on obama. can't really speak to those in municipal positions, but i'd expect those with the values of community organization to get behind or lead their occupy movement.

a gov position seems to have has a tempering effect on obama

a gov position has a tempering effect on 99.5% of change-the-system candidates

gbx otm

the fact is, nobody is against community centers

Have they tried working through the usual channels? Because it does work sometimes. I've worked with campaigners who got legislation passed that's helped millions of disadvantaged people. But it involves lots of work, organization, and know-how, and I suppose isn't accessible to everyone.

So what are they talking about re: usual channels? I'm totally confused now about what the goal is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrdcLuXtZ8

like there is not some nefarious corporate scheme to keep Occupy people from opening a community center, nobody would oppose it. there might be fights about where and what kind of services could be offered, but welcome to community organizing.

xp

Park51 is open btw, because the law is on their side and everybody involved knows it

opened in September

how many riots do you think it'd take to open a community center? I'd guess about 5, with at least a dozen flag burnings, and at least one storefront exploding.

i mean, the london riots. were they a good thing? well, no, inasmuch as looting and violence are not Good Things. but were they expressions of actual, systemic Bad Things (terrible police/community relationships, poverty, etc)? yes.

i'd agree that oakland has focused maybe too much (unintentionally) on showcasing police confrontation, just because, sadly, for a lot of ppl in america, heavy-handed statist rebukes of protest elicits opinions more like "she was asking for it, dressed like that" and less like "rape is just fucking awful."

the question becomes: should the movement in general shy away from actions like squatting or w/e just because they don't play well on TV or in the court of public opinion (despite being rooted in, and consistent with, the same thinking as say occupying a public square), and provoke cartoonishly rendered examples of What's Wrong (the militarization of the police, the curtailment of free speech)? or should they accept the fact that by-and-large most ppl are gonna misread something like squatting, and try something else?

many xps

They should stay away from it, imo, because it doesn't accomplish anything. Goal: open community center. What's the best way to make this happen? "POLICE FIGHT!!!!"

Don't know why the court of public opinion is the goal, it's only a tool to be used in accomplishing the end result. Say: getting the public on the side of opening the center using publicity, community outreach, etc. Why's protesting figuring into this automatically? That's like a last resort.

the fact is, nobody is against community centers

― Full Frontal Newtity (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, January 30, 2012 5:52 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

right, just like no one is against "education." it is, as my very awesome 9th grade civics put it, a "valence issue." no one likes crime, everyone likes health---as long as we define those things in broad strokes, and agree to disagree on the nuts and bolts of how to achieve them. but, even someone who likes, in theory, the idea of a community center on every block, might end up putting policies into place that do not explicitly forbid, or degrade the notion of, community centers, but still make the actual realization of one impossible, or at least very difficult

They should stay away from it, imo, because it doesn't accomplish anything. Goal: open community center. What's the best way to make this happen? "POLICE FIGHT!!!!"

Don't know why the court of public opinion is the goal, it's only a tool to be used in accomplishing the end result. Say: getting the public on the side of opening the center using publicity, community outreach, etc. Why's protesting figuring into this automatically? That's like a last resort.

― Spectrum, Monday, January 30, 2012 6:02 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did you even read anything

i can't speak to any specific occupy community but i'm sure a lot of people are there bc they feel disempowered. so

Why's protesting figuring into this automatically? That's like a last resort.

is the point.

as long as we define those things in broad strokes, and agree to disagree on the nuts and bolts of how to achieve them.

fwiw, this is the rotten core of politics in america.

there are totally people in this country who are against public education fyi

I don't think there's a ton of nuts-and-bolts obstacles to building community centers in Oakland. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

did you even read anything

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Monday, January 30, 2012 7:06 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes, between the lines. What I got from it there was an inherent assumption that the first line of resort was protest/confrontation, and if that's ineffective, try something else. Which I think is the wrong perspective to start out with and is doomed to failure, imo.

I'm not aware of any inherent assumption, and agreed that that one-off strategy is doomed.

i would hazard that occupy oakland did not, as shaane wisely suggested, come up with a plan or draft or w/e for their community center, and that the POLICE FIGHT may have, unconsciously, been the point.

that being said, had they done that, and then gone ahead and taken over a different less conspicuous, and maybe even privately-owned vacant building (scrupulously researched and known to have nothing planned for its immediate future), what would your* opinion have been then? and what if they had been forcibly evicted?

*"your" here being a catch-all for skeptics, not necessarily anyone itt

there are totally people in this country who are against public education fyi

right, but they're not against "education," the state or action or w/e of ppl gettin' learnin'

they just think it should be left to whatever-isn't-the-public to do it

as you yourself said, no one is sitting around with steepled fingers thinking "yessssss...let's trash the environment on purpose." and even right-wing candidates are "environmentalists" inasmuch as they say stuff like "hey i'm in favor of clean water as much as the next guy!"

xps

What I got from it there was an inherent assumption that the first line of resort was protest/confrontation, and if that's ineffective, try something else. Which I think is the wrong perspective to start out with and is doomed to failure, imo.

― Spectrum, Monday, January 30, 2012 6:10 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this response is indicative of why i asked you that question. like, i kinda agree that maybe in this case confrontation may have been expected or even hoped for. but you haven't engaged the point i've been making pretty tiresomely (and explicitly, and not between the lines): if you think that "trying something else" = do it like every other jerk trying to open a community center, and not squatting in a building that isn't yours, then you have missed the point by a very wide margin. which, i freely admit, may speak to some weaknesses in how occupy is getting its point across.

like, Goal: isn't just open a community center, it's open a community center right now, with these people, in that thing over there that isn't being used, and without asking permission from anyone except the ppl it will serve.