Occupy Wall Street 3: Now What?

'campaigners' as in people seeking elected office or as in people pursuing a goal

Campaigners as in folks who'll get out and make some noise if their library is closing etc.

yeah ime the 1% meme in particular actually seems more widely used than 99%, and i wonder about to what degree that's a reflection of the awareness of heterogeneity within the 99% among the POC & working class people who lead a lot of the fights here in DC.

between the popularization of the ideas and the people i know from occupy who've gone from say "waiter" to "communications guy for restaurant worker advocacy group" and the like who continue to use these ideas in their work, i'd say campaigners still get plenty of use out of them.

democratic socialism (influencing democratic party from the left by running candidates in primaries)

did we all read the "rise of the new new left" article

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/12/the-rise-of-the-new-new-left.html

It’s impossible to know whether the protest against inequality will be such a movement. But the forces that drove it are unlikely to subside. Many young Americans feel that economic unfairness is costing them a shot at a decent life. Such sentiments have long been widespread among the poor. What’s new is their prevalence among people who saw their parents achieve—and expected for themselves—some measure of prosperity, the people Chris Hayes calls the “newly radicalized upper-middle class.”

If history is any guide, the sentiments behind Occupy will find their way into the political process, just as the anti-Vietnam movement helped create Eugene McCarthy’s presidential bid in 1968, and the civil-rights movement bred politicians like Andrew Young, Tom Bradley, and Jesse Jackson. That’s especially likely because Occupy’s message enjoys significant support among the young. A November 2011 Public Policy Polling survey found that while Americans over 30 opposed Occupy’s goals by close to 20 points, Millennials supported them by 12.

trying to craft a national narrative out of a nyc primary election with 20% turnout is dumb for a lot of reasons

trying to suggest that the millenial vote won de blasio the election is dumb when youth turnout was ~11% and people across age groups voted almost identically

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/elections/2013/nyc-primary/mayor/exit-polls.html

youth turnout was 11% of the total, rather, idk what the actual turnout number is, probably even lower

it's a news hook for a thinkpiece about demographics and ideology nationwide, not a suggestion that Blas & the Kids are gonna save democracy

read past paragraph 1

if a hillary clinton hack can reinvent himself by saying 'tale of two cities' a few times I am pretty sure clinton will be the ows candidate if it's in the political winds

What if, in other words, the harbinger election didn’t take place in New York but in Colorado—where a hyper-ideological, insurrectionist, corporate-money-soaked minority, as I pointed out the other day, recalled two progressive legislatures for daring to favor background checks for gun purchases even though Coloradans want background checks by a margin of 68 to 27 percent.

Beinart wants to think big. So let’s think big. Given a precedent like that, the result of our current trends might not be more socialism, but once more a stark showdown between socialism and barbarism. Apathy and social misery might make fertile ground for some charismatic demagogue, preaching scapegoating and a narrative of violent redemption…

But that’s a big, big prediction—and again, as a historian, I don’t like big predictions. Let’s stay close to the ground, and the near-term, instead. Beinart has amassed some very convincing poll numbers about the mood of young voters. He has written, “If Hillary Clinton is shrewd, she will embrace it, and thus narrow the path for a populist challenger.” Hillary Clinton surely reads Peter Beinart. Let’s hope she reads and heeds this. That would be a very nice start. What will come next, frankly, nobody knows.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/176267/peter-beinart-right-about-new-new-left#

If that is so, another scenario looks like this: young citizens motivated by left-leaning passions run into a brick wall again and again and again trying to turn their convictions into power. The defining story of our next political era becomes not a New New Left but a corrosive disillusionment that drives the country into ever deeper sloughs of apathy.

gonna be putting my money here

civil disobedience + provoking the state to change or shed blood is the way to go

what about comics on doubleyou doubleu doubleyou dot blogger dot com will those help?

If that is so, another scenario looks like this: young citizens motivated by left-leaning passions run into a brick wall again and again and again trying to turn their convictions into power. The defining story of our next political era becomes not a New New Left but a corrosive disillusionment that drives the country into ever deeper sloughs of apathy.

gonna be putting my money here

― iatee, Friday, September 20, 2013 7:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cynicism's an easy way out and fixing shit is hard, sure--but corrosive political disillusionment & apathy is what we've already had for most of the last decade. People will get off the wagon frustrated with the challenges ahead, obviously, but I suspect that moments like global justice, Occupy, and whatever comes next will press lots them to pivot to finding ways around--or through--that brick wall.

iatee it is so sad that you have already turned into a disillusioned cynic, aren't you like 23?

here in Eugene the Occupy folks have metastasized into an Occupy Medical free clinic, a bunch of people working against illegal foreclosures, and a homeless activist splinter group called SLEEPS (Safe and LEgally Entitled Places to Sleep), they have a permanent demonstration going on downtown with two perfect signs:

LEGALIZE SLEEP

HOW DO YOU SLEEP?

in terms of good potential memes, I think "LEGALIZE SLEEP" has serious potential.

i like it

i've just been reminded of the weird and funny final days of ODC, where a group of guys decided to go on 'sleep strike' until the 'no sleeping in parks' enforcement was lifted

"i think maybe there's something lacking here guys, strategically"

what are we talking about?

oh wait, when i loaded the page it hid the last 20+ posts. so confused.

lol

hmmm

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/owss-rolling-jubilee-refuses-to-explain-what-theyve-done-with-590000-despite-promises-of-full-transparency.html

well that's unfortunate.

eh, article is overwritten and sensationalistic. buries the lede about the communications and what's forthcoming.

full transparency never means 'everything, as it happens'.

not saying everything is great or not, but yeah nov is 'around the corner' from late sept, and the article is stupid to pretend otherwise.

agree. even so, it's being run up the flagpole by insurrectionists clowns yelling 'SEE WE SHOULD HAVE BURNED THE MONEY'

reminds me of the old R.A.W. gag with one group working to undermine the economy by burning all the money and causing deflation, and another working to counterfeit it and undermine the economy by causing inflation.

http://strikedebt.org/an-update-on-the-rolling-jubilee-2/

We have reviewed the September 23 Naked Capitalism blog post by Susan Webber (who writes under the pseudonym Yves Smith) and frankly are dismayed by the apparent effort to discredit one of the most practical, potentially high-impact, constructive initiatives to have emerged from the Occupy movement.

The Rolling Jubilee Fund has a perfectly standard and unremarkable structure for its corporate governance. What is remarkable is the transparency that has been demonstrated. Minutes of board meetings as well as The Rolling Jubilee Fund financial policies have been posted on the website. Details of debt buys and purchase agreements are also available for download directly from the website. The names of the individual board members are in boldface. The Fund’s decision to engage in a structured roll-out is based upon legal and public relations considerations that have been fully vetted.

The Board has a horizontal structure, in keeping with the non-hierarchical principles of the Occupy movement. No actions are taken, nor are any funds expended, without the approval of the Board. The Rolling Jubilee Fund board members consult with the Rolling Jubilee Working Group, which in turn works closely with the OWS Strike Debt collective. As a result of its completely voluntary transparency, The Rolling Jubilee Fund has welcomed the scrutiny of the entire blogosphere.

Yves Smith recently posted a critique of the Rolling Jubilee operations on her website, Naked Capitalism. When we developed our financial policy we sought to follow best practices and looked to some of the most respected nonprofits as examples. Smith raises some concerns about our Financial and Control Policies. Smith says that “individual board members have the power to spend significant amounts of Rolling Jubilee funds and make binding commitments,” which is simply not true. She also implies that board members can bind Rolling Jubilee to contracts that the entire board hasn’t approved. That’s not true either. The entire board of directors of Rolling Jubilee has always approved and will continue to approve all expenses and all contracts before they are signed. No board member has authority to approve an expense, write a check, or enter into a contract on his or her own authority without board approval, and no board member ever has. Given that many organizations authorize their executive director to sign all checks (even those over $10,000) without requiring a second officer to also countersign the check, our check signature policies are actually conservative. However, it is important to note that our controls are even tighter than the information on our website suggests, because only two board members are authorized on the Fund’s bank account. To reiterate: board members simply do not have the power to unilaterally spend Rolling Jubilee’s money. Nobody writes a check or spends money, even for a dollar, without the input and approval of the entire group.

In addition to this internal oversight we have an independent professional bookkeeper who volunteers her services and have hired a third-party CPA to produce quarterly reports and thorough audits. Please know that our legal and accounting teams have assisted us in developing our organizational structure and continue to advise us every step of the way. We are always open to adapting and improving our system.

hahahahahaha

http://betabeat.com/2013/09/googler-wants-to-kickstart-a-nonviolent-occupy-wall-street-militia/

hahahahahaha

for the benefit of those who don't click through, this is the creator of @OccupyWallSt & occupywallst.org (also now a Google employee) proposing fundraising for body armor & paychecks for a rapid response direct action team that could physically withstand assaults by the NYPD

when other members of the team that run @OccupyWallSt argued with her about the idea, she locked them out of the account

i entertained an idea along these lines at one point, mainly inspired by the likes of Tute Bianche, and bandied it around with friends for a few minutes before they rightfully punched all kinds of holes in it

it's so naive that it'd sort of be cute if it wasn't stupidly dangerous with the potential to put well meaning people in jail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanti_Sena These folks too. I think a trained non-violent presence could be useful at protests, but I don't know enough about the context there to begin to imagine how one could function.

“I got cancer and I decided, ‘Okay, I can’t do this whole being a homeless couch surfing activist anymore,” she said. “I gotta get a job. I gotta sell out. So I figured I might as well sell out to the one corporation I don’t hate and that’s Google. I believe that even though they operate within a capitalist system, they still do the most good throughout the world. I respect Google and I’m not just trying to fuck it up from the inside, I don’t believe in that.”

google does the most good throughout the world

Dicey ‏@DiceyTroop 11h

@jackolas @PoweredByCats Well, in the s17 thread she makes super clear tht she wants either to run it as a 501c4 or pay via bitcoin "dark $"
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Dicey ‏@DiceyTroop 11h

@jackolas @PoweredByCats She states that it would be expressly hierarchical like any military and under her control.
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Jack ‏@jackolas 11h

@jackolas @PoweredByCats This idea is about handing Justine the money to build a personal army.
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Dicey ‏@DiceyTroop 11h

@jackolas @PoweredByCats
This idea is about hiring a group of people to engage in confrontations with the police. With bounties. That's the meat of this idea.
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Dicey ‏@DiceyTroop 11h

@jackolas @PoweredByCats She says she intends to pay payroll taxes and believes that will satisfy any state concerns about this operation.
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Dicey ‏@DiceyTroop 11h

@DiceyTroop @jackolas Also Justine explicitly says militia will NOT have an ideology. So they're her personal soldiers of fortune. Fucked.
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Brett G ‏@PoweredByCats 3h

@DiceyTroop @jackolas What happens when Golden Dawn decides to pay them higher stipends?

all the soldiers will be wearing google glass

goog throughout the world

DEVO's world vision becomes more imaginable every day

the person who says 'we'll just wear padding and gas masks, no nightsticks or pepper spray will do any good' has never stood at the front of the line where those items come into play

all that having been said fuck betabeat putting ~"transgender anarchist"~ in scare quotes

air quotes, w/e

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/46192.html

officially grossed out atm

ahahah Graeber, Kramer, Savanarola.

list still needs david berger, doug henwood, doctors of the racist masculinist medical-industrial complex, manarchists, richard rorty, and "dudebros" to really round it out

henwood jumped in on graeber's side on twitter

Got news this week that my radio show is getting honored with an Activist Award from the Washington Peace Center--they typically award people doing really effective work in communities or doing stellar service to the activist universe in DC, so it's really humbling company to be in, I'm very stoked.

congradulations hoos!

is that the same one there's an ilx thread about?

creativity & mental illness

nah, this is "voices of the 99%"--the 'creativity & mental illness' show kinda grew out of me feeling like vof99 was taking up all my creative energy without any payoff, so this award is sort of the ideal payoff.

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