Occupy's May Day rebirth, forging a new alliance of activists and union members, was a historic moment of anti-capitalist struggleRead it at The Guardian (UK)
Occupy's liberation from liberalism: the real meaning of May Day
by David Graeber
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)
David Graeber is writing from the inside.
41 comments:
I'm coming to think David Graeber is both an asshole and a fool. He's a 14 year old in a man's body. I would strongly encourage the Occupy movement to ditch this self-indulgent narcissist instead of following him down the rabbit-hole into his pseudo-progressive adolescent fantasy world of destruction, violence and delusion. If they don't go another way, they are all headed for irrelevance at best and tragedy at worst.
His public posturings and protestations are in bad faith. He is a manipulator seeking to provoke violence while playing the victim card at each step of the way.
People have to make a choice: the way of peace and justice and courageous witness, or the way of destruction, violence and vindictive rebellion.
It's time for all of these young people to make some choices. Democracy and anarchism are incompatible. Democracy is a system of community self-government based on equality and universality. Anarchism is a repudiation of government. Anarchism as a political movement is also a long series of one self-destructive failure after another, punctuated by outbursts of vindictive savagery. It is necessarily so, since anarchism at its essential root is anti-social and egotistic. There is no formula for social reform down the path of anarchism. It attracts some of the young at the stage in life when they are breaking away from parental bonds and have yet to develop new ones. But it creates nothing enduring.
By the way, my understanding is that there is no "inside" the Occupy movement and there no "leaders".
And I love this business of the "Haymarket martyrs" Graeber throws out. So apt. At the Haymarket, the same stupid anarchists that Graeber represents sabotaged the progress of a worker's movement by using it as an excuse for murder in their never ending war against the police. No matter what the cause, anarchists will ultimately twist it into an excuse for aimless violence.
Dan it seems Graeber is in some sort of a leadership or PR position wrt Occupy... he shows up often talking about the movement and reports on their activities globally... I too think he is a bit misguided. (A Busdriver "working like a dog"? A nurse? Whaaaaaat? perhaps not enough pay (over taxed) but "a dog"? This seems like blatant manipulation)
But to get past Graeber's gig, young persons acting this way should be a tip-off to those of us of sound minds that there is something reeeeally wrong going on in society and I believe that we may not be able to really know what is going on if these young people dont bring it to our attention in this way.
"And fathers, do not be vexing your children, but be nurturing them..." Eph 6:4
"Vexing" here is "parorgizete" or "be making indignant". "Indignant" defined: 'Feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair treatment.'
This scripture sums it up pretty well. It is one of only two Greek scripture related to child-rearing and it is all of the doctrine needed.
Young people are facing a pretty raw deal right now. High student loans, no jobs to pay the loans, no medical coverage but big medical bills, insufficient income for marriage and household formation, bought a house, now under water, etc, etc..
Young people are exhibiting "vexation", and rightly so imo. This is probably the correct response from them and needed for we of sound minds to be able to detect the problems, the young ones are our "tell".
All we can do as non-morons is advocate against these insane economic policies implemented by our govt policy morons that lead to the vexation of our young.
Moron SOBs like Bloomberg want to send the goons in to crack skulls and the violence and destruction escalates and perhaps Graeber is then pleased. This can then become all about the tactics and we miss the bigger picture of what is really going on.
I have a hard time holding these young people responsible for anything.
We have failed authority of govt, I hold the failed authorities responsible.
Graeber is a 'carnival barker' in certain ways in this imo, bringing a lot of attention to just the low level tactics, and we shouldnt let him distract us from the strategic picture.
Resp,
Graeber is not that young Matt. He's 51. He's a pied piper not an outraged young debtor.
Eventually someone in this movement is going to do something violent, and when that happens those parts of the movement who have not already strongly deplored and disavowed the tactic of violence and those who practice it will be utterly discredited in the eyes of almost all but a small minority.
Graeber will go back to his academic job and write a book on the history of the tragedy, but millions of unemployed, indebted young people will be just as unemployed and indebted.
Dan, right I know DG is not young but I was focusing on the young that are the heart of the occupy movement.
Trying to point out that we should continue be focused on the honest indignation of the young rather than Graebers PR.
resp,
"Anarchism as a political movement is also a long series of one self-destructive failure after another, punctuated by outbursts of vindictive savagery. It is necessarily so, since anarchism at its essential root is anti-social and egotistic."
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
If I may make a recommendation: An Anarchist FAQ
Properly understood, anarchism rejects violence, even in revolution. Unfortunately, it is seldom properly understood. I imagine it's probably tough to get people with activist zeal to sit down and read Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, et al.
Anon,
" In California, there were blockades and walkouts. In Seattle, one band of protestors relived the famous Black Bloc actions of November 1999, smashing many of the same corporate windows – and even that didn't make national news!"
Perhaps I am misinterpreting but this reads like Graeber is disappointed the vandalism was not publicized ...
Resp,
Matt:
Could be! I don't know Graeber's mind, and I won't claim to speak for him. I'm just discussing anarchism in general, which remains tragically misunderstood - perhaps due to statements such as this.
Dan,
On the Haymarket Affair, the bomber was never caught.
The trial was really a show trial, because without finding the actual perpetrator, and the set of events leading to the event, a conspiracy charge should not be made. The PTB went after the leaders of the movement.
Howard Zinn, in A People's History of the United States stated that a provocateur, posing as an anarchist, threw the bomb so police would have a pretext to arrest leaders of Chicago's anarchist movement.
In the current environment, for example, many of the terrorism cases brought to trial by the DOJ, involve Muslim youth who have been entrapped by FBI provocateurs into breaking the law, when they would never have done so by themselves. The conspiracy then is at the DOJ, and not with the Muslim youth.
Anon, there are a lot of different kinds of anarchism, and a number of them support "transitional violence." If people wear masks and hoods and smash things, or throw dynamite at people, then they have no business claiming that they have been misunderstood. If other anarchists who do not support violence do not wish to be misunderstood, then they need to clearly and unambiguously repudiate the violence, as well as avoid participating in actions designed to foment it.
Clonal, I'm skeptical. It is a repeated trope of revolutionary rhetoric that every time someone does something malevolent and violent, it is always supposed to be the fault of an outside provocateur. There is a persistent self-indulgence in the anarchist mindset that sees the source of all evil as "them". It's always "them"; it is never "us".
I'm afraid these young people are poised to relive every foolish anarchist episode of the past 150 years. Anarchism is just the impulse for individual freedom and creative-self expression. It absurdly takes the culture of bohemian freedom - which can only manage to exist in the first place as a sub-culture within a prosperous and secure social order - as a possible model for all of human existence. Its understanding of human nature, history and political organization - as well as the sheer complexity and organizational challenge of prosperous human societies - is woefully impoverished. And that's why Anarchists have never succeeded, and have never built anything that endured for more than a few weeks.
Anarchists are good at self-gratifying romantic flameouts, but not much else.
On the other hand, sometimes movements that begin with little more than this kind of bohemian spirit of rebellion grow into something more durable as its activists mature and begin to come to grips with the challenges of creating a more just and robust social order. Something like that can happen here as well, but it won't unless those in the movement who are really serious about achieving social change pull themselves decisively away from the "black blocs" and the like.
Dan Kervick: "Democracy is a system of community self-government based on equality and universality. Anarchism is a repudiation of government."
No, anarchism is a repudiation of the state. It is not a repudiation of self-government. In fact, community self-government based on equality and liberty is the very basis of anarchism.
As for democracy, you mean, like, the United States? Is that a democracy? Where do these democracies you speak of exist?
Dan:
Anon, there are a lot of different kinds of anarchism, and a number of them support "transitional violence."
Could you elaborate on this? Seems like you're quoting someone. Is there a particular theorist you have in mind?
I see you criticizing "us vs. them" rhetoric, but then you go on to make all manner of generalizations about anarchists and young people and so on. If you really want to get away from divisive Othering, then the first order of business is to step away from categories and generalities and move into specifics. "Anarchists" didn't do X; John, Jack and Joe did. Etc.
To give a better example: "Anarchists are good at self-gratifying romantic flameouts, but not much else." This is not productive discourse. Nor would it be if I were to suggest that "MMT proponents complain about being misunderstood while hypocritically mischaracterizing others."
A clearer and more helpful statement would be "I believe Dan Kervick has misrepresented anarchism."
I hope this is helpful.
Since another anon poster has appeared, I will use the letter A. I'm the one who made the posts labeled 12:51 PM, as well as 9:57 and 10:48 AM.
A lot of these comments make abundantly clear why the movement is going in the direction that it is (which by the way, was hardly my idea. I'm just reporting here.)
It's just bizarre to see all these people screaming and yelling about protestor violence despite the fact that the amount of protestor violence in OWS has been very close to nil. In 500 occupations across a whole continent, over half a year, we've had like, what, four or five broken windows limited to one or two locations? (Maybe there's more in Seattle now, I don't really know what happened there.) This is far less than we would expect in one night of hockey rioting in Canada. The movement, which was created and sustained largely by anarchists, has been astoundingly non-violent. Yet it has been met with extraordinarily, unprecedented levels of violence from the state: illegal attacks, illegal arrests, broken bones, sexual assault used systematically as a weapon, military tactics deployed regularly against peaceful citizens. Where is the outrage? Instead, we get all these liberals screaming their heads off about "protestor violence" that largely doesn't exist but that, they think, _might_ occur in the future.
It is because of people like this that everyone in America seems to know about one broken window in Oakland in November, which may or may not have been by an OWS person who may or may not have been in Black Bloc, but no one seems to know that the only incident of window-breaking we've seen in New York, on March 17, was actually by police - using a non-violent protestors' head.
This hysteria over possible future "violence" at exactly the moment when police unleashed massive and very real violence at peaceful activists is an act of historical betrayal. There's obviously no way to ensure that in 500 occupations. and continual harassment and attack and provocation from the authorities, nobody ever damages something that doesn't belong to them. Nonetheless it's hardly happened. It was the responsibility of our allies to make an issue of the actual violence. Instead they utterly ignored it, and acted in such a way as to justify it, effectively saying that unless we formed some sort of police that could completely prevent anyone anywhere associated us from even damaging a pane of glass, we deserved to have our heads bashed in.
Such behavior is, itself, effective advocacy of violence. Neither me nor anyone else associated with Occupy that I know of endorses doing anything that actually harms another human being, but apologists for the police are doing exactly that.
In fact, community self-government based on equality and liberty is the very basis of anarchism.
If the acts of self-government in question involve the making of laws and their enforcement, then anarchists repudiate them. The enforcement of law requires coercion, which is rejected by anarchists, just as it is rejected by their libertarian cousins (except the latter make an exception for the enforcement of property right). Democracy enshrines majority rule; anarchists are unwilling to be ruled by anyone, whether a democratic community or a non-democratic community.
There is no sharp distinction between political communities that are "states" and those that are not. Anarchists just call governments "states" when they are trying to lay down a justification for repudiating the rule of law.
Thanks for that, David.
It's clear from this thread that the propaganda against "anarchism" is working.
As point out above, anarchism is a libertarian movement of the left whose goal is resolve the trifecta of liberty, equality, and community based on the principle of subsidiarity, that is, decision-making as close to the level of these affected by the decision as possible.
The demonization of "anarchist" tactics is similar to the demonization of "terrorist" tactics. As David asks above, and as Osama bin Laden also asked, "who is the perpetrator of violence here?" Is it those resisting the overwhelming power of a state captured by privilege and attempting to preserve and extend privilege, or by those resisting this exploitation?
The only means of resisting a powerful state is asymmetrical strategy and tactics, which those in power claim is hitting below the belt, when they are deploying much more destructive technology much more lethally on a much wider scale.
Let's get come perspective here. I am sure that the British redcoats were saying the same thing about the colonists shooting at them from ambush behind trees, and the colonists themselves were saying about the "cruel" Native Americans who were resisting the stealing of their ancestral territory.
Let's be real.
David Graeber,
Your complaint about the mainstream media's obvious neglect of the May 1st protests definitely has merit.
My concern is that since an extremely promising start Occupy seems to have drifted in the direction of exclusion, bridge-burning and narrowing, choosing forms of engagement in which only a relatively small percentage of people are ever going to be willing to participate, and showcasing a set of vague social and political attitudes that also resonate with only a relatively small percentage of Americans. They have also lost the thread, I believe, of the broad public disaffection over issues of economic injustice and plutocratic domination, and have wandered off into a fragmented, confused and unfocused potpourri of gripes against any and all manifestations of "the state". The basic message being sent is that these are utterly naive people who are woefully unprepared to begin taking steps toward assuming responsibility for actually governing their society in a better way. That is very unfortunate, because I have encountered some very intelligent and well-meaning folks associated with the Occupy movement. But their faces are not the faces people are seeing.
Consider this: every American who runs a small business - and there are legions of them, just as disgusted and outraged by social injustice as you - will be dismayed, if not revolted, by images of people smashing the property and damaging the livelihoods of small business people. Americans are struggling to find a way to keep their heads above water, to meet their obligations to their loved ones and to claim back their share of the prosperity that has been stolen from them by the plutocracy. Street thugs burning and smashing things do not give promise of making that struggle easier, but only of presenting further obstacles for them to deal with.
Tom Hickey, on this site, has tried to convince me that the scattershot messaging of Occupy is all a very clever tactic that makes it hard for the opposition to know what to target. But I just see it as outright confusion - that's the message that is delivered to me.
Perhaps some of you old professional radicals - veterans of decades of left-wing futility that have only succeeded in bringing us an ascendancy of right-wing, corporatocratic domination and neoliberal economics - need to step aside and let more of the young people emerge from your shadows?
As you can see, I have little sympathy for anarchism, because it seems to me the young anarchists of an early generation of protest grew up first into slightly older anarcho-capitalists, and then eventually plain old laissez faire capitalists. This is no coincidence, because they all spring from the same radical individualist roots: an orientation toward personal freedom, expression and liberation as opposed to social solidarity and bound mutual obligation in a community of equals under a democratic rule of law.
Well, I replied to David Graeber's post, but I guess is was not appreciated.
Well yes they did say those things about Native Americans and colonists, but again, the irony is, and I want to emphasize, we're not even advocating violence! Most anarchists involved in Occupy oppose even targeted symbolic property damage, which isn't violence at all (it's just a more militant form of non-violence, as practiced by numerous ministers and nuns like Berrigans or Ploughshares 9) - not because they think it's intrinsically wrong but because they don't think it's a very good idea right now. No one is suggesting attacking human beings. That's what the cops do.
This is what is so ugly and nasty about the reaction to police violence. There was a coordinated national campaign of illegal violence - and here I mean real violence, smashing people's heads on the ground, systematically breaking bones, that sort of thing - against peaceful protestors trying to exercise exactly those First Amendment rights that liberals claim are their most sacred principles. What was their reaction? Try to come up with some convoluted reason why really its protestors who are to blame - if a guy's head was smashed through the window in New York, a city where we have avoided any tactics that can remotely be described as violent even against property, the person really to blame was some guy in Oakland months before who damaged a cafe. It's as if these guys _want_ us to be violent. After all, if people are beating the shit out of you and those you love, and the people you thought were your friends and allies all look the other way or say it's somehow your own fault, and you know you're basically on your own - well, does that make you more likely to just give up and hit back, or less? The funny thing is, despite the Kervicks of the world trying their best to make us turn violent by saying we already are and turning a blind eye to the actual breaking of bones going on, we're still resisting the temptation. We don't like violence. We want to eliminate the systematic threat of violence from the world and you don't do that by turning yourself into an army. But eventually, unless so many liberals stop acting like complete hypocrites, things will become more militant and it will be entirely their fault.
The funny thing is, despite the Kervicks of the world trying their best to make us turn violent by saying we already are and turning a blind eye to the actual breaking of bones going on, we're still resisting the temptation.
I have not turned a blind eye to the violence. I do not have the kind of voice and forum that allows me to do much about it. But I do what I can, following most of the major cities occupy threads and re-tweeting reports of violence, posting similar messages on Facebook. I did the same with your article on Pragmatic Capitalism last week, and read it with great interest. I'm just extremely frustrated by what I see as the lack of focus by Occupy and the incoherence of its social and economic agenda.
I think part of the issue for me is that I want to go to political battle against the capitalists, the rich, corporatocratic elite, while Occupy increasingly seems to want to go to battle against police officers. Now I know you're going to say that the police are the agents and enforcers of state power, the power of ownership, etc. But I believe a lot of Americans like me do not regard police officers as their enemy. They see police officers as other ordinary, middle class Americans with a tough job to do. The Kochs on the other hand? Goldman Sachs? They are not like you and me. They should be the focus.
I'm sort of curious about Dan's response to David. Can we see it, Tom?
David Graeber,
Your complaint about the mainstream media's obvious neglect of the May 1st protests definitely has merit.
My concern is that since an extremely promising start Occupy seems to have drifted in the direction of exclusion, bridge-burning and narrowing, choosing forms of engagement in which only a relatively small percentage of people are ever going to be willing to participate, and showcasing a set of vague social and political attitudes that also resonate with only a relatively small percentage of Americans. They have also lost the thread, I believe, of the broad public disaffection over issues of economic injustice and plutocratic domination, and have wandered off into a fragmented, confused and unfocused potpourri of gripes against any and all manifestations of "the state". The basic message being sent is that these are utterly naive people who are woefully unprepared to begin taking steps toward assuming responsibility for actually governing their society in a better way. That is very unfortunate, because I have encountered some very intelligent and well-meaning folks associated with the Occupy movement. But their faces are not the faces people are seeing.
Consider this: every American who runs a small business - and there are legions of them, just as disgusted and outraged by social injustice as you - will be dismayed, if not revolted, by images of people smashing the property and damaging the livelihoods of small business people. Americans are struggling to find a way to keep their heads above water, to meet their obligations to their loved ones and to claim back their share of the prosperity that has been stolen from them by the plutocracy.
Street thugs burning and smashing things do not give promise of making that struggle easier, but only of presenting further obstacles for them to deal with.
Tom Hickey, on this site, has tried to convince me that the scattershot messaging of Occupy is all a very clever tactic that makes it hard for the opposition to know what to target. But I just see it as outright confusion - that's the message that is delivered to me.
Perhaps some of you old professional radicals - veterans of decades of left-wing futility that have only succeeded in bringing us an ascendancy of right-wing, corporatocratic domination and neoliberal economics - need to step aside and let more of the young people emerge from your shadows?
As you can see, I have little sympathy for anarchism, because it seems to me the young anarchists of an early generation of protest grew up first into slightly older anarcho-capitalists, and then eventually plain old laissez faire capitalists. This is no coincidence, because they all spring from the same radical individualist roots: an orientation toward personal freedom, expression and liberation as opposed to social solidarity and bound mutual obligation in a community of equals under a democratic rule of law.
I'm sorry I lost my temper, but as you can see, I have grown extremely frustrated about the absence of a progressive alternative on the scene, and what I see as missed opportunities.
Well Dan, I think you are being short-sighted here.
Corporate power is nothing without a coercive machine to back them up. Absolutely nothing. If the police and the military go back to work for the people instead of working for the wealthy and corporations it will matter a lot, specially in the future.
The domination "the machine" has over individuals working in these jobs has to be broken, rationalization and approval of unfairness because 'they have a nasty job they have to do' can keep rolling the situation for the worse when fear is the underlying motivator (the fear of these individuals receiving orders).
This a constant during history and you should appreciate that that fight is AS important as any other. Because when things get worse (and they will), you want the police and the military at your side. Otherwise just expect a descent into fascism, which USA is already involved in and only getting worse.
If denouncing nepotism right now, when you are in time, helps with it, as social pressure has an effect through society, then it's welcome.
And about the Ocuppy movement, and its agenda, organized politics is where policy has to move on; here is where facts get things done faster than anything else. And getting MMT in the spotlight as an alternative when the status quo fails is important because you could end up with a contest between nazis and stalinists with failed ideologies and worse policies like in Greece. I doubt this is the work of Occupy, though some help in educating about economic matters and practical solutions so at least they don't have a 'void' discourse would help probably.
(Disclaimer: my knowledge of the Occupy movement in USA is limited, so probably my opinion is wrong in some aspects. I'm basing it on similar movements in Europe and previous past experience and knowledge)
'Blogger' usually swallows posts if they have some length (or maybe is a filter), I don't think Tom deleted anything.
I know because I've experienced this before (though posting without a registered account may not be helpful lol), posting something and then disappearing within seconds of being posted.
My mistake then Anon. Thanks for clarifying and I apologize to Tom for misguided insinuations.
I'll just try a shorter version of my overly-long previous post.
David Graeber,
Your complaint about the mainstream media's obvious neglect of the May 1st protests definitely has merit.
My concern is that since an extremely promising start Occupy seems to have drifted in the direction of exclusion, bridge-burning and narrowing, choosing forms of engagement in which only a relatively small percentage of people are ever going to be willing to participate, and showcasing a set of vague social and political attitudes that also resonate with only a relatively small percentage of Americans. They have also lost the thread, I believe, of the broad public disaffection over issues of economic injustice and plutocratic domination, and have wandered off into a fragmented, confused and unfocused potpourri of gripes against any and all manifestations of "the state". The basic message being sent is that these are utterly naive people who are woefully unprepared to begin taking steps toward assuming responsibility for actually governing their society in a better way. That is very unfortunate, because I have encountered some very intelligent and well-meaning folks associated with the Occupy movement. But their faces are not the faces people are seeing.
Consider this: every American who runs a small business - and there are legions of them, just as disgusted and outraged by social injustice as you - will be dismayed, if not revolted, by images of people smashing the property and damaging the livelihoods of small business people. Americans are struggling to find a way to keep their heads above water, to meet their obligations to their loved ones and to claim back their share of the prosperity that has been stolen from them by the plutocracy. Street thugs burning and smashing things do not give promise of making that struggle easier, but only of presenting further obstacles for them to deal with.
As you can see, I have little sympathy for anarchism, because it seems to me the young anarchists of an earlier generation of protest grew up first into slightly older anarcho-capitalists, and then eventually plain old laissez faire capitalists. This is no coincidence, as I see it, because they all spring from the same radical individualist roots: an excessive orientation toward personal freedom, expression and liberation as opposed to social solidarity and bound mutual obligation in a community of equals under a democratic rule of law.
I'm sorry I lost my temper, but as you can see, I have grown extremely frustrated about the absence of a progressive, egalitarian alternative on the scene, and what I see as missed opportunities.
Stephanie asks, "I'm sort of curious about Dan's response to David. Can we see it, Tom?"
Dan K did not respond to David in the comments at The Guardian, so I am assuming that it is all in the comments above in this thread.
Thanks again for the clarification, David
I want to clarify my remarks above, too. They should not be construed as either encouraging or condoning violence, but rather they should be taken to mean that counter-violence should not be surprising when other redress is either not available or has been exhausted. Sometimes the only way that resistance can be expressed by non-state actors against a state is "asymmetrically," since they obviously cannot declare war and don't have a formal military organization. No anarchistic group has control over all of those associated with it.
We also have to be careful about attributing violence when it occurs to non-state actors, since states have shown in the past they will resort to agent provocateurs and false flag operations as propaganda tools. It's all part of "black ops," which are regularly practiced by states but never admitted, even when exposed.
Who threw that bomb in Haymarket has never been established, for example, and Occupy has produced pretty convincing evidence that agents provocateurs were used in NYC. Examples are multiple of security forces framing suspects.
Moreover, the underlying premise of anarchism is that the states employ their monopoly on the legal use of violence to advance the goals of the state, which are not necessarily the goals of the people, and in many cases are antithetical to the aspirations and goals of those who aren't privileged in terms of whatever counts as privilege at the time, be it birth, wealth, or naked power. Philosophically, anarchism is based on an abhorrence of violence to accomplish ends.
The majority of anarchists espouse non-violence, and a minority espouse symbolic violence against property but not people. Generally, when it comes to violence involving people we are talking about the breakdown of society and the breakout of civil war, and that is an extreme case of social protest.
For an analysis of the issues, see Meher Baba, Discourses, "Violence and Non-Violence." The sixth edition is available online. Here is a link to the beginning of the discourse in two sections, p. 100-111. The subject is nuanced, and it depends on the level of consciousness involved.
To Dan Kervick,
First of all I'm really glad you were being so active against police repression and apologize for anything I said in that regard that assumed you weren't. I just wish more people had.
I can understand your larger concerns but you have to understand the dynamic that occurred, which I describe however briefly in the piece (and it's interesting that no commentator ever really addresses about that part of the piece). What OWS found was that the liberal allies that flocked to us at first pretty much refused to cooperate with us on anything but their own terms. All we insisted was that we maintain our directly democratic organization, and that people who give money cannot dictate how it's used; we're a movement _against_ the buying of political influence so we're obviously not going to let anybody buy influence over us. These terms were pretty much explicitly rejected. All the MoveOns and Van Jones types moved in and assumed they'd be running the show, and that eventually, we'd effectively become an extension of the Democratic party left as much as the Tea Party became part of the Republican right. We were not interested. Therefore, when extreme police violence began - under the aegis of a Democratic administration and largely also Democratic mayors - they simply shrugged their shoulders and did little or nothing. They're the ones who fucked us. So we turned to other sorts of allies - unions, community groups, immigrant rights groups... Grassroots activist groups with a largely working class orientation. Again, people never seem to pick up on this part of the piece, but I noted that we were willing to step back even from non-violent civil disobedience in New York as a gesture of solidarity to help build those alliances.
(cont.)
(cont)
This means a movement away from a media-oriented attempt at intervention in "policy" debates and more a grass-roots building of new institutions, organizations, efforts on the ground. There has been a lot of that. We have 8 different farms now and are trying to create new food distribution systems. We have neighborhood assemblies. We have all sorts of mutual aid efforts. We are setting up a summer school where union people and occupiers will have seminars on how to run a city democratically.
By the way the idea that most left anarchists are now anarcho-capitalists is just untrue. Believe me, I know a lot of anarchists.
As for the cops - well, the point is not what cops are as individuals, many are lovely people yes with a hard job, others are sadistic assholes and everything in between, but the police as an institution. Because the whole point of being in an organization like that is that it doesn't matter what you think personally, as police regularly tell us, you're just there to follow orders. The question is what kind of orders they're given and why. I suggest you consult this to get a sense of what sort of things they're being ordered to do recently
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/david-graeber-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors.html
So you see? We don't really have a choice to make an issue of such things if women can't even go to a peaceful demo without being sexually attacked.
Finally, once you are making these kind of grass-roots community ties, tactics will change to fit the community's sense of what's appropriate. In New York, we agreed to be less militant on Mayday for the sake of our allies. Where are the most militant actions that everybody goes on about? Mostly in Oakland. Do you think that's a coincidence? Oakland is whether the Panthers came from. There's been a war between the working class - largely African American - neighborhoods in Oakland and the (incredibly violent) Oakland police for more than half a century. If OWS in Oakland is more militant it's not because they're out of touch with local people but just the opposite; in fact they're way ahead of us in New York in community relations, preparing for every action with canvasing and lots of local barbecues and the like in poorer neighborhoods to get a sense of what people want and don't want.
I'm not saying some people don't use stupid tactics in some cases but overall, that's the reason for the pattern you see.
As for anarchism in the movement - well, the movement was always anarchist inspired in that we are trying to create institutions that _could_ exist in a free society. We can all differ on how far we can go in creating such a society, that's fine, but the core of OWS folk, the ones who are committed enough to be willing to take what the cops have been dishing out at them, are doing so because they think it would be possible to create a genuinely democratic culture and eventually, a new kind of society.
David,
On one level the things you describe sound inspiring. On the other hand, they seem all too similar to a lot of countercultural alternative community approaches in the past that seem more about dropping out of the existing society than changing it. If the point is just to build alternative communities, then what is the point of protesting Wall Street or anything else? Why not just drop out?
And all those indebted students? Won't they still be just as indebted? At some point doesn't someone have to pass some actual laws or something? I understand not wanting to work within existing party structures, but are you just giving up on the republic completely?
And what about all of the millions of people for whom following unencumbered young people into alternative communities is not a viable option? Have they sinned because they are not pure enough?
I understand that the 99% rhetoric was always a bit overly ambitious. But right now it looks like we have a 98% situation: the 1$ at the top of the plutocracy and the 1% in the tragically dwindling and stubbornly alienated Occupy movement.
What will be the legacy of this movement? A few cooperative farms and community schools struggling to coexist inside an unchanged plutocratic empire?
What OWS found was that the liberal allies that flocked to us at first pretty much refused to cooperate with us on anything but their own terms. All we insisted was that we maintain our directly democratic organization, and that people who give money cannot dictate how it's used; we're a movement _against_ the buying of political influence so we're obviously not going to let anybody buy influence over us.
David,
I'm very sympathetic to that kind of concern. I have refused to get involved in any of the efforts of co-opting and re-labeling, and understand the fears about being used and exploited as just some new branding and hype for conventional political organizations. I ignore all those MoveOn emails just like I do the Obama campaign emails. I have been contacted 6 times over the past several months by local Obama volunteers trying to get me to participate, and I just say no. (I do, however, send out tweets in the general direction of the Obama forces to encourage them to turn the campaign away from neoliberalism.)
However - and perhaps I was not following as closely as I should have - I believe there was some effort a few months ago to get you and others to repudiate those who were supporting either violent or destructive tactics in the movement, and help define Occupy as explicitly dedicated to non-violent change, and you declined. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was my impression.
This is important. I try to follow some of the Occupy actions on the livestreams and from other sources - because as you say the conventional media won't cover them - and of course it is disturbing if one of the occupiers/reporters on screen says, "That cop just hit that guy with a baton for no reason." And I am completely prepared to believe police are engaging in provocation and random brutality to provoke and discredit the movement. But the problem is, if I do not have any reason to believe that Occupy is a disciplined non-violent movement, and if there are militant members of the movement going around engaging in provocation themselves, and these members have not been openly deplored and repudiated by the most prominent members of the movement, then how am I to know what happened? How do I know the police officer wasn't struck first, or bated in some way?
So anyway, you probably have a better idea where I'm coming from now.
Dan K "But I believe a lot of Americans like me do not regard police officers as their enemy."
Depends on where you live. For example, in the early Sixties I moved to a large city that will remain nameless from another city were the police were benign. On arriving a vist some former neighbors and they warned me that the police there were Gestapo. These were middle-aged fine and standing citizens, and we were not members of a minority. I soon learned that they were correct. This ams been true of several places I have lived and completely different in others.
"On the other hand, they seem all too similar to a lot of countercultural alternative community approaches in the past that seem more about dropping out of the existing society than changing it. If the point is just to build alternative communities, then what is the point of protesting Wall Street or anything else? Why not just drop out?"
Why not do both? I did, and it worked out fine for me.
Get with your own kind, actualize your shared vision and create models, and pass on the torch.
Oh I don't think we're alienated drop-outs. Again, look at the original piece. We're working with labor unions in New York, which represent a huge share of the work-force, community groups, etc etc. The problem with NYC is that huge proportions of the 1% live here but we're working with most everyone else. And what I emphasized in the piece was that all these groups are now embracing a much more radical agenda - at least in the sense of their ultimate horizons - because of the alliance. Furthermore, the existence of this sort of movement has and does empower progressives who work within the system as well. OWS is never going to be a policy group in its own right. That would make no sense considering our form of organization and everything that has made us effective. What OWS can do is to give voice to the sense that so many Americans have that the entire political system is corrupt and has basically delegitimated itself. A delegitimization campaign can be incredibly effective in forcing politicians to do something radical (it worked in Argentina, now it's working in Greece) - particularly about debt questions, actually. And I know that many in the elite are indeed considering very radical things right now as a result of the combination of looming crisis and the way we shifted the discourse to the left.
I agree that delegitimation can be effective. I have seen that phenomenon at work in other forums. I am also heartened by the fact that the scope of ideas that are accepted as legitimate is, slowly, expanding.
By the way, on the subject of police, I assume you've seen this:
http://www.pixiq.com/article/shocking-video-of-kelly-thomas-released-watch-with-caution
I don't know where my own kind are Tom. I think I'm from Mars :)
Just reminder that just about all significant change comes through "alienated drop-outs." Unless one is willing to cut oneself loose and risk it all for one's vision, it ain't going to happen, whether one is an artist, an entrepreneur, an activist, or whatever. Were the prophets and holy ones of the various religions "alienated drop outs"? Certainly, in terms of the prevailing worldview at the time.
Yet, these are giants on whose shoulders all that come after stand.
One need not necessarily be recognized as doing great things to be "great." Everyone that has the courage of one's convictions and cuts oneself loose from the mold contributes to the force of change. We think primarily of Gandhi or MLK now, but there was an army of anonymous faces marching along with them whose work was just as significant bringing about political change.
Being alienated can have two results, either depression and escapism or else a commitment to transcend what one is rejecting. And dropping out also has two manifestations, the first being giving up and retreating, and the second, striking out in a new direction and blazing new trails.
The game is loaded toward getting people to play the game and get hooked into it. Debt plays as big role in the mechanics of this dynamic presently. Relatively few are able to resist, but at turning points the numbers multiply.
The mainstream would like to characterize the "alienated dropouts" as DFH's, but for the most part, nothing could be further from the truth. Many of these people make up the avantgarde and intelligentsia of the generation. Is Noam Chomsky a "dropout." A lot of his Harvard colleagues and other like them think so. Was Howard Zinn "alienated," as he is portrayed in the mainstream. Was Karl Marx a bomb-throwing anarchist?
What about Jesus and Buddha? Were they alienated drop outs, too, leaving home, living a day-to-day on bare subsistence and teaching what was nothing short of revolutionary at the time, something that only "fools" would pay attention to.
The charges for which Socrates was condemned to death in the democratic assembly of Athens were spreading impiety and corrupting the youth. One day Mother Teresa walked out of her convent without permission and started caring for those dying on the streets because she felt impelled to do so. Neither were deterred by the establishment.
We pay lip service to our cultural heroes and heroines, but God help us if we emulate them.
Tom, "living a day-to-day on bare subsistence"
"37 Yet He, answering, said to them, "You give them to eat." And they are saying to Him, "Coming away, should we buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them to eat?.... 44 And those eating the cakes of bread were five thousand men." Mark 6
Sounds like the 12 of them had enough "walking around money" to buy a prepared meal out for 5,000+ people (200 denarii = 16 denarius per Desciple), not bad....
Looks like our non-moron Roman ancestors knew how to run a monetary economy and allow high enough deficits to facilitate settlements, satisfy savings desires, and ran a price control regime so that a day wage available to a common person (1 denarius) had respectable purchasing power in real terms...
Resp,
And another thing, while we're on the topic of police brutality, it looked like being a citizen back then really meant something:
"24 the captain orders him to be led into the citadel, telling them to interrogate him by scourging, that he may recognize for what cause they retorted thus at him.
25 Now, as they stretch him before them with the thongs, Paul said to the centurion standing by, "Is it allowed you to scourge a Roman man, and uncondemned?"
26 Now, hearing it, the centurion, coming to the captain, reports, saying, "What are you about to be doing? For this man is a Roman."
27 Now, approaching, the captain said to him, "Tell me, are you a Roman?" Now he averred, "Yes."
28 Now the captain answered, "I with a vast sum acquire this citizenship." Yet Paul averred, "Yet I have been so born also."
29 Immediately then, those about to be interrogating him withdraw from him. Now the captain also WAS AFRAID, recognizing that he is a Roman and that he was bound by him." Acts 22
My how far we have fallen....
Resp,
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