Occupy Wall Street 3: Now What?

so you can't even imagine that there might be another way of doing business that isn't the status quo? cuz that's what it sounds like and i think that's kind of sad.
xp

hey Spectrum:

The truth is that while almost everyone I know in Occupy Oakland (including myself) thinks that breaking windows is tactically the wrong thing to do and very stupid, many people do not agree with non-violent philosophy. If you kicked those folks out then you would have a body of folks that wouldn't have been radical enough to even call for a General Strike. Occupy Oakland, on the whole, has a radical analysis that leads us to campaigns that others wouldn't and which also capture people's imagination. For instance, as I've said before, Gandhi was vocally against strikes because physically stopping someone from what they want to do is violent. Occupy Oakland has called for a diversity of tactics- which is different than our New York comrades, however I don't think that is supposed to mean that you use every tactic every time. We are so large here precisely because our actions have teeth. If the police blockaded at the port- we would have had 2 choices. The first would have been to let them stop us from getting there- with them thereby calling a victory against OO. The second choice was for us to quietly push through them with the shields we had in the front of the march and using our power in numbers to get through. That would, technically, not fall into non-violent philosophy. I think it is the fact that police knew that we had tens of thousands and we would push through there if necessary, that caused them to stay away. Also, everyone here seems to be inspired by Arab Spring, Greek movements, and other similar movements in Europe. None of those were non-violent in nature. The Egyptian folks burned down a police station, for instance. Everyone I know thinks that tactics like that here would cause the movement to be crushed, so those tactics are not on the table- I'm just pointing out that people are saying that this is emulating a movement which was pretty violent. But, I think the discussion is about tactics, not about adopting non-violent philosophy. On November 2nd, a large group of people with many contradictions successfully shut down the city in the biggest action with an overt class analysis in 60 years. People all over the world, all over the country, all over Oakland- are excited by this. If you are threatening to leave because, in the midst of this mass action some people broke windows and we are all trying to figure out how to work together, then you're missing the point and you'll be missing out on history. Don't let the media frame the discussion. The average everyday person was empowered by what happened on November 2nd. Every movement has contradictions, we aren't told about them so we think this movement should be different- there was violence during the Civil Rights movement. The pastor that had MLK's job before him at Ebeneezer Baptist Church had just made all of his congregation buy shotguns. The NAACP had an ARMED chapter in North Carolina. You can wait 50 more years for your perfect movement, or you can realize that it's here.

that's by Boots Riley btw and it was upthread but seems relevant here.

boots otm.

Sounds like it's a mini-version of government apart from the larger government, except it's governed by force.

this is breathtakingly, awesomely stupid btw. the loonies dancing in the street are the boot, the armored police, a human face

so you can't even imagine that there might be another way of doing business that isn't the status quo? cuz that's what it sounds like and i think that's kind of sad.
xp

― wmlynch, Monday, January 30, 2012 7:55 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, of course there are other ways of doing things, but I don't think we're going to see a Federalist Papers coming out of these guys, not to be a jerk or anything.

this how loggin/mining/extracting resources works. and, like, congress but w/e

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Monday, January 30, 2012 7:54 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

And justifying a wrong by the wrong actions of others ... and it being the same wrong ... with the justification of fixing that wrong ... makes no sense!!!

Are these the general opinions re: occupy movement?

And justifying a wrong by the wrong actions of others ... and it being the same wrong ... with the justification of fixing that wrong ... makes no sense!!!

can you say this in another way?

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.

― Full Frontal Newtity (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:10 AM

I spent years dealing with the City of Oakland about a similar issue, and you are, unfortunately, very very wrong.

I don't think we're going to see a Federalist Papers coming out of these guys

am mostly staying out of this but just would like to note that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in thread #1 about occupy people were like WELL I DON'T THINK ANYONE'S GONNA BE DOWN THERE WITH "REINSTATE GLASS-STEAGALL" SIGNS and then lol whoops it was like every third sign; i guess people with energy aren't as stupid as we thought. occupy's foot soldiers might not be madisons or trotskys but like any other movement occupy would die without them, and i can pretty much guarantee you that every to-be-significant american political mind of this generation has spent more than a little time at their local GA.

(or in front of a livestream.)

and the to-be-significant myopic majority of this generation has spent more than a little time knee-jerking about it on the internet. xp

got a phone call this morning asking "can you go live on democracy now in one minute?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XadCmcuC8Tc&feature=youtu.be

yay hoos! Amy G is a big upgrade over Steve Balzburg.

I also admire yr white corded phone

<3 xp lol

whoa damn hoos live from the front line

hey hoos I am minutes away from airing that segment on FSRN, good job.

also on abt 20 mins sleep--

my mom sent me a text tonight--"any chance you put on a bandanna and ID'd as 'joe hill'?"

at the noon deadline we put a tent on a horse

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1014107!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/image.jpg

when the pd didn't take our bait, we decided to party instead. the eviction may still come tonight, so i'm on my way back shortly.

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

^^ footage of the moments when the cops had surrounded several hundred people in the lot on Telegraph next to Fox Theatre. The fence goes down at around 5:30 in. unbelievable footage.

Haven't seen any footage of the earlier fences that were taken down at Kaiser yet, but this is video evidence of how this fence was only 'violently' torn down after a huge crowd was surrounded by cops on all other sides while being intermittently beaten by them.

corrected for brightness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pnjDSfwkPY

the way this 'looked' is obviously very important but with each new youtube that goes up I am reminded of the fact that I was not there

http://i43.tinypic.com/e62f50.jpg

lol

p impressed that within the 60 seconds i was on hold they were able to get my twitter profile pic for the graphic and tweet out the livelink with me tagged

hoos you're awesome

http://i.imgur.com/MpaBn.jpg

lols

ha!

good words hoos

http://www.anarchistnews.org/node/21556

^^ this post takes a lot of wide shots for its first half but then really settles down into some painful constructive criticism in the last stretch

But the appeal of Occupy was that the inherent crises of capitalism are finally affecting almost everyone (save the mythical 1%); it was beginning to look like critically -- even radically! -- examining capitalism itself in a more mainstream context was no longer taboo; it was beginning to look like a class-based critique was becoming acceptable discourse. With the usual professional Leftist intelligentsia more firmly in control of the content and direction of Occupy Oakland tactics and strategies, however, the likelihood of a return to that initial wide appeal -- based on the workable and attractive principles (although not without their unique problems) of non-hierarchical decision making and the refusal to issue demands -- seems practically non-existent. The potential gateway that Occupy offered for truly radical critiques and ruptures -- especially and specifically those offered by avoiding the usual Leftist trajectory of becoming bogged down in the sectarian squabbling and false opposition to capitalism of Party Marxism -- is now more remote than ever.

The militant posturing that raised the stakes of confrontation at last week's press conference was one more example of how out of touch the self-appointed grandstanding leadership has become. What were Oakland's Mayor and Police Department supposed to do to save face? Was there any other response anticipated by OO's leadership than the usual brutality we've come to expect from OPD? Whatever happened to the strategies of those who know they are less powerful, like ridicule, like picking battles we can occasionally win? We already know who will lose in those frontal confrontations, but apparently the Occupy bureaucrats can't be bothered to remember something so mundane as the history of radical movements.

lool

hoos if u use the osama pic as yr twitter profile next time yr on w/democracy now this could be reality not just a wonderful photoshop, think abt it

well done hoos.

now receiving random troll comments on my twitter, blog & random blog comment responses i've littered around the internet

lol

Good job!

Loving how everything, even (especially!) disorganized running confrontations with the OPD can be chalked up to nefarious "professional Leftist intellectuals," apparently repeating "failed strategies and tactics" which crippled, among other things, the anti-nukes movement. I don't even.

yeah, that doesn't seem to be what's at work here.

oh man i could've been listening to a HOOS this morning when i walked into work and not even known it!

i'm a little flabbergasted at what some people are saying on here, but i think that most of it is simply ideological differences coming to the fore. and tbh, i don't really have time to argue with state apologists and those who support the state's fascist foot soldiers. too many of my friends are sent up shit creek right now (last count was something like 50+ people i know personally and somewhat intimately) for me to care what some douchebag thinks about squatting and notions of private v. public property.

a few things, though:
- sarahell right on above: it is extraordinarily difficult and shitty to try to get a community center started in Oakland.

- the panthers did get shot at and did accomplish a lot. one of the differences between them and OO folks is that we can't carry AKs onto the streets.

- some interesting words on kettling: "There’s something to be said about the fact that kettling, as a counter-tactic of control and policing within crowd dynamics, has not yet forced greater innovation and experimentation in the tactical realms of communication and insurrectionary strategy. The Paris Commune of 1871 functioned according to a defensive strategy which viewed the metropolis as a series of blocked out buildings and structures which could only be entered and exited via the streets, alleyways, and boulevards which effectively acted as the only arteries in and out of the metropolis – the only way to traverse the city. Thus, the logic followed, that if you barricaded enough positions within these metropolitan arteries you could effectively hold the spaces you were in. What famously brought about such logic to an end was the innovative practice by government/Army of Versailles troops to quite literally “move through walls.” Blasting through buildings and creating holes in walls to allow for anti-communard troop movement behind communard barricades, proved to be a major innovation in urban warfare."

- City Hall didn't get broken into— this is the City saying this. the doors were actually unlocked, as they often were until around 8 pm most nights for meetings, etc. no more, obviously.

- some more footage of what went on during the evening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wTum1mSpkK8

and tbh, i don't really have time to argue with state apologists and those who support the state's fascist foot soldiers.

i don't recall anyone explicitly or really even implicity "supporting... fascist foot soldiers." that's a straw man. if your goal is to correct misimpressions or persuade anyone, insulting those who disagree with you on tactics is probably not going to be very effective. in fact i'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that any argument that begins with one party calling the other fascist sympathizers is unlikely to lead anywhere productive.

it's also not going to do much good for your cause(s).

the paragraph on kettling confuses me. it sounds like what the cops in oakland were doing is not the same as what the french army was doing in 1848. i thought "kettling" basically meant essentially hemming protestors in and then moving them to a place where they can be easily arrested.

http://www.cheapflights.com/flights-to-vichy/oakland/

also you're probably going to tell me to fuck off but honestly i'm thirsty for knowledge about what went down and am really interested in hearing a variety of perspectives. it seems like the police broke the law as well as their own rulebook and this should be well advertised and hopefully pursued in the courts. so we have a lot of common ground. unfortunately by calling anyone skeptical of occupy oakland's tactics fascist sympathizers you seem hell-bent on destroying that common ground.

sorry for long posts but i'm driven to write because i appreciate your fervor as much as i resent your name-calling.

xpost

?

lol dumb charges of fascism made me think of vichy, oakland

dumb question but:

under what law(s) do police arrest people marching on city streets?

- some more footage of what went on during the evening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wTum1mSpkK8

this description on that video seems very sensitive and even-handed:

Second of all, I'd like to say I am extremely dismayed by the violence that occurred on Saturday. There may be a time and place for violent resistance, but we are nowhere near it. The violent and provocative actions of a small group have seriously marred, perhaps irreparably, what little credibility Occupy Oakland had left. The attempt to forcibly seize buildings, even if unused, is misguided and unhelpful.

Unaware of the nature of Saturday's protest and the violence that had happened earlier in the day, I poked my head out after getting home in the evening to see what the ruckus downtown was about. I found the evening march at 27th and Broadway, just a few blocks from where the mass arrests occurred. There were few police visible along my route there (about two minutes by bike), other than some unmarked police vans driving recklessly fast through crowded Saturday night streets. I didn't see police on foot until we were kettled, and only through very good luck was I able to avoid being arrested. After walking three blocks through my home town!

Disturbed by that incident, I returned home by about 9:00 PM, after riding past another disappointing scene at City Hall. At home I stumbled across OakFoSho's live stream, which, along with other live streamers, youtube contributors, and a little first hand experience, provide a comprehensive perspective on what had happened. While some truly lamentable crimes were committed, there is still no justification for the police tactics that were used. I believe that after the eventful morning clashes, they purposely came down hard to send a signal and get retribution. I edited this video to show the movements of protesters and police tactics in the 30 minutes leading up to the mass arrests. Check OakFoSho's Ustream for the unedited footage of the entire evening, and consider spreading this video if you agree that these arrests were unjust.

amateurist, a great many of the people i know in Oakland, whether with OO or not, think of cops as fascists and foot-soldiers for the wealthy and privileged. that language isn't anything new to me, so i'm sorry if it turned you off. but that's the truth. the OPD is being put under the feds b/c of the Riders scandal along with many other instances of institutional corruption. what has happened in the past few months is just adding onto the heap, tbh.

in the end, what i am saying is that their laws mean nothing to them, so why should they mean shit to anyone else?

i think the common ground is that we both agree about the nature of corruption as well as the law-breaking. what we don't agree on is that doing anything in any court will help. i don't really believe in a court system that serves to protect its own (ie cops, politicians, etc) rather than its citizenry.

'violence,' eh. i didn't really see much violence except when a fucking tear gas canister exploded next to my head, so whatever.

if taking unused properties is violence, then i say let's go violence.

also, not to be the stereotype here, but i haven't showered since the morning of the 28th, so i'm going to do that and go to bed.

finally, hey to anyone here whom i know (the gays, sarahell). i'm kind of not doing this anymore. but i thought i'd check out what people were saying about OO. anyway, good luck to all of you.

but you expressly accused people ON THIS THREAD of "sympathizing" with "fascists". you made two sleights of hand: you asserted but did not argue that OPD are "fascists" and then you accused us of "sympathizing" with them which nobody above appears to actually be doing. (also, like the world is a complex place and people have all kinds of motives and stuff and it's possible to "sympathize" with people who are doing things you think are horrible and want to stop. just sayin.)

so you've ruled out courts, talking to city council members, etc. etc. so we should just stage street protests day after day until... what? what do you think will happen? serious question.

i mean if you're preparing for armed insurrection, good luck with that.

but if you aren't laying groundwork for specific changes to take place, getting and tailoring your message to those with a chance of making things happen, etc. you're not going to get anywhere. i know this sounds condescending. i apologize for that. but i've worked on campaigns (not political campaigns in the electoral sense), actions, organizing -- and occupy oakland is not looking substantively like any of those things in the way some of its advocates position it.

btw here's the oakland tribune's take on what's been happening: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-tribune/ci_19855703

I think tabes would agree you ppl who are making a 'hold your nose and vote for him in a swing state argument' about Obama are apologists for our most provably fascist president since Woodrow Wilson. So, his language is just direct and accurate. The system is broken; it doesn't need to be respected, just tactically fucked with.

As far as "tailoring a message" goes, I think the mountain has and will come to Mohammed in this case, to a degree that would've been unimaginable before the 2008 depression.