Occupy cannot employ a strategy similar to that of the civil rights movement for a number of reasons. To begin with, the focus of the Occupy movement is corporate power – the economic, political, and social inequality it creates, as well as the destruction of the environment it perpetrates. Supreme Court decisions in recent years increasingly favor corporations over individual citizens. The most egregious of these is the 2010 Citizens United decision asserting first amendment rights for corporations and thereby banning limits on their campaign contributions.
Indeed, the Supreme Court increasingly appears unwilling to uphold even basic civil rights. Witness the recent decision allowing police to strip search citizens arrested for any offense, no matter how minor – a practice banned by international human rights treaties. The Court has also signaled that it may uphold portions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law; in particular, the requirement that police officers check the immigration status of anybody who looks like they might be an illegal immigrant.
With or without favorable court decisions, it’s a pretty safe bet that the Obama administration will not be sending in the 101st Airborne to protect us from corporate malfeasance anytime soon – or even to protect Occupiers against the violence of local police. A more likely scenario is that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and federal law enforcement worked with local officials and law enforcement, suggesting tactics and offering advice that resulted in a semi-coordinated and brutal crackdown on encampments late last year.
Even if the contemporary political climate was favorable to a legislative agenda enforced by the federal government, it is unlikely that Occupy would pursue that strategy. Appealing for concessions from a higher authority is not consistent with the overlapping values and goals of horizontalism and anarchism that shape the Occupy movement. Horizontalism, as Marina Sitrin explains, involves a concept of power as “something we create together… It’s not about asking, or demanding of a government or an institutional power.” It’s a way of relating to one another, as equals, rather than according to positions in a social hierarchy
Horizontalism, or horizontalidad, emerged in Argentina, after that country’s 2001 economic crisis. People gathered in the streets, at first banging pots and pans and generally registering protest. Eventually, taking their cue from the landless movement in Brazil, which organized around the slogan, Occupy, Resist, Produce, Argentineans “recuperated,” or reclaimed workplaces such as factories, schools, and clinics and collectively managed them. Similarly, anarchism envisions an ideal society organized voluntarily and cooperatively, with no one having power over another. The bottom-up organizing principle of Occupy, then, is inconsistent with appeals to a higher power.
In their classic text, Poor People’s Movements (1977), Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argue that opportunities for insurgencies to emerge are not available most of the time, and when they are, those insurgencies are shaped by contemporary social conditions. In this view, both the civil rights movement and Occupy were and are shaped by the historical moment in which they appeared. I admire the veterans of the civil rights movement and what they were able to achieve. Contemporary economic and political conditions preclude that strategy for Occupy, but at the same time present different, and in my view, more exciting opportunities, for social change. The possibility of relating to one another in a more egalitarian way, of empowering people rather than seeking relief from a higher power, and of, as Noam Chomsky says, working toward a different way of living “not based on maximizing consumer goods, but on maximizing values that are important for life,” is deeply appealing. Occupy is the movement for our time – and I am deeply grateful to all of those on the front lines.
Read it at FireDogLake
By: UndisciplinedPhD
(h/t Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)
(h/t Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)
For those wondering where Occupy is going and what it's demands are.
5 comments:
Or we follow the SYRIZA model and actually do something.
Occupy refuses actually political engagement and will not suggest policy and without a policy program you cannot be a real political force.
I'm tired of these new leftist professors losers telling us what a success political movement is.
Every successful political has had a political program and I'm afraid this ahistorical revision is simply false.
Occupy is going nowhere unless it tells the public what they are going to do for it. Until then I'm joining the California Pirate Party as I know what they are actually about (i.e. anticensorship,antispying, direct democracy, and BIG/JG).
Septaeus7, there is a contingent in Occupy that favors a third party of the left that could do what the TP did to the GOP. However, the problem is that people on the left have a difficult time unifying enough to get behind a single party and what is likely to happen is a number of small parties that never muster the numbers needed to get on the ballot. Then there's the funding conundrum. The left is opposing the people that have the money. The TP was espousing their ideals.
The only way that real change will come about politically is that the left mounts successful primary challenges to the DINO's and that isn't happening yet to any significant degree.
I don't think that a move leftward globally is not going to come from the developed countries but rather the emerging ones. The South is already moving leftward, and Asian values are traditionally left-leaning, emphasizing community instead of individualism.
As the South gains power, it will move to shut the North out. This will move in the direction of conflict if neoliberalism continues to dominate the North. I suspect that the Northern and Southern militaries see this as pretty much baked in aleady.
California now has an open primary system - on June 5th. The top two vote getters meet in a November showdown. We have a occupy candidate running on the Green ticket in the local primary CA-14 in a heavily Democratic (70%-22% last election) district. This is the best chance we have had in a long time of getting alternative party candidates elected.
Carol Brouillet (the Green candidate) is well versed on money issues, having been involved with Zarlenga's AMI, and with Ellen Brown's group - she has met with Michael Hudson and Bill Black at AMI. She has also been active with the SF Bay Area occupiers.
BTW
Warren Mosler just reconfirmed that he's coming to Occupy Dallas June 23rd.
We're going to be protesting Paul Ryan's speech to North Texas Republicans in June with MMT signs.
There's a burgeoning on-the-ground MMT revolution within the Occupy movement. It might help matters if you folks at Mike's blog give us a post to show the world what we are up to.
The true conservatives are the ones fighting for the restoration of the rule of law and the return of public purpose.
Charles, you are the authority on this. Work it up, and we'll post it. This is definitely something that people interested in MMT will be interested in knowing about also. You can email it to me at tom dot hickey at yahoo dot com.
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