Occupy – Conflict, Dysfunction, Resolution?
April 13, 2012 § 12 Comments
If you’re signed up to Adbusters Magazine (culture-jamming, radical politics, the magazine that called for Occupy Wall Street last year) – you would have received an email with this text and image yesterday.
“Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes on our Spring Offensive and turn our struggle into a “99% Spring” reelection campaign for President Obama?”
Read the full story of the movement dysfunction here. A true masterclass in lack of trust, movement-strategy and collaboration.
Friends, please let’s never let this happen to us.
So what do you think is the right course of action Occupy movement? Forgive me, I’m a little unsure as to where you stand on this, and what you feel this means for the Occupy movement in the UK. Occupy London was very willing to support the 30th November strike action last year.
Yep, UK and US are very different stories – as US mainstream NGOs really got behind the meme/movement, while UK NGOs/unions didn’t.
Right course, in my humble opinion, is to keep flanking, shifting debate, move mainstream NGOs towards the 99% Spring work that’s being done – (and of course keep a Democrat in office) while articulating a paradigm shift using radical direct action tactics. The two streams don’t have to agree to work together (most of the time), but this direct attack on some really progressive players doesn’t help anyone.
What do you think?
Taking a quick scan at the organisations signed onto the ’99% spring’ call out, many of them are pretty grassroots & radical. In my opinion, no way that Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus Society or Global Exchange are touting for Obama – these are organisations that genuinely want to see a paradigm shift. I don’t know the details about the politics behind this but it seems a pretty antagonistic move by AdBusters. Surely there’s space for a spectrum of actions without taking pot shots at each other?
Here they go again. 99% Spring reminds me of the AAEI coalition, another MoveOn front coordinated by Tom Matzzie that worked with Nancy Pelosi in 2007 to see to it that the Iraq war was funded and used as a political stick to beat Republicans in 2008. Or the massively funded Health Care for America Now coalition backed by MoveOn in 2009 which made sure that single payer health care was ignored while the White House pushed its pro-insurance industry legislation derided as ‘Obamacare’. In this latest case, the so-called 99 Spring, MoveOn is enlisting other NGOs to create the appearance of a populist uprising from the Left, when it’s all about keeping the rabble in line and aimed at the Republicans to re-elect Obama.
Want current evidence of the coordination among Obama and 99% Spring? The major campaign hook for Obama this week is “tax justice.” And MoveOn is urging the trainers of the 99 Spring to focus on tax justice demonstrations as their first action. It couldn’t be any more obvious.
This is just Democratic Party manipulation of the so-called “movement” to re-elect Obama, a failed President for the 1%.
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/jump.html#comment-45952
I’m sure there’s coordination between the WH and 99 Spring – it would be weird if there weren’t conversations happening there.
Let’s turn it around – what’s the alternative to having some collaboration? Splintered, tiny actions (Occupy Camp David?!) that have next to no impact. The memes of Occupy have struck a chord – and have already pulled large NGOs and the WH way to the left from where we were a year ago.
I guess where you see manipulation, I see strategic collaboration. Time will tell!
I just think it’s dangerous to not be uber-wary of how unequal the power is in this new relationship http://tipsforradicals.tumblr.com/post/21083137843/this-is-not-primarily-about-tactics-it-is-about
This is a great commentary from the first ‘Occupy candidate’ for Congress – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=77gXGJ10Ylk
Doesn’t want to align Occupy with any part of the political spectrum? I call bullshit. I don’t really care if people wanna run for elections – diversity of tactics, whatever, but I dunno if I trust this guy to not be co-opted.
What does coopted in this situation mean? That he votes with progressive legislation?
I mean that what he’s saying indicates to me he may be lacking in the structural analysis necessary to be able to run the Political race without losing sight of the wider objectives of Occupy (i.e. a total retooling of how power works in our society)
Best blog I’ve seen on this question: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/04/ask-not-whos-co-opting-you-ask-whom-you-can-co-opt
Who is co-opting who? : )
@Sami – that I totally understand and can agree on! : )