MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Daily Kos: The 7 Sins of Occupy by clenchner
By EmmaZahn on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 1:45pm |
The abandonment of reality based politics in favor of individualist utopianism matches quite well to some occupiers personal utopia: small groups doing what they like to feel good about themselves. For those of us still aiming at Wall St., that utopian vision is a nightmare. It is "an opiate of the masses". Activists smoke it in a way that distracts them from the here and now. From winning.
Crazily, I think Occupy Wall Street was and should be about winning.
URL:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/20/1134321/-The-7-Sins-of-Occupy
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Comments
Some here would not be surprised that I found it to be a particularly insightful analysis by someone who is from within the movement. Also insightful are the comments, which indicate how people cannot understand that in order for something to improve, one has to look at the blemishes.
by Elusive Trope on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 5:35pm
I think the sad fact is that a large number of people in Occupy never had any real intention of trying to change their society. They just want to be in a club that organizes "actions". Participation and acting out is enough for them.
by Dan Kervick on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 7:32pm
For a moment there, I was all excited about being able to say "I don't agree with Dan Kervick." But then I thought it through and could only get as far as "I wouldn't say it quite in the same way as Dan Kervick." Which is pretty good, really, as expressions of independent thinking go.*
I think the Occupiers had good intentions about changing things. But they thought it would be way easier than it turned out to be. And, as is pointed out in the article, the choice of a profoundly frustrating method of getting things done and the rejection of all forms of commerce as illegitimate pretty much killed it for them. Remember how the early Marxists thought that once their method caught on, the infrastructure of the state would fall away? I think that's what the Occupiers thought would happen, but instead they wandered away from their own meetings, because most people just can't be that bored for that long.
In fairness, Occupation isn't easy. I think some of the NeoCons genuinely thought they'd be greeted with flowers in Iraq. Not so much. And this summer's "Koch-upation" of the voting rolls for Romney failed because it turns out Americans are not, after all, as dumb as they seem, at least not once they start paying attention, especially if they don't like the guy they're being told to like, and particularly when it's obvious that the guys paying for the ads don't like the candidate either.
*My Dad, noted in another comment as quite a character, once said "I raised my children to be independent thinkers, just like I am." To this day I do not know whether he understood the irony in his remark.
by erica20 on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 8:23pm
And I was raked across the coals around here because I had the audacity to say that maybe good intentions makes an effective movement not. I was accused of being a downer, etc. What? actually have a leadership structure to funnel the energy toward actual goals? crazy talk.
If the hardcore progressives want to actually persuade a significant number of people in this country to be an actual force to change policy, then you have to talk their langauge.
by Elusive Trope on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 10:24pm
Occupy is an extremely young movement. Successful movements need the energy and participation of young people, but they can't be led by them. Even saying they have good intentions is giving too much credit. It's often hard to find anything at all in the mashup of OWS thinking that even qualifies as an intention. Basically these are very young people who have no jobs and/or too much student debt, and who know that the economic leaders of society must have something to do with it, but who have no idea what kind of society they want in its place, if they even want a society of any kind. Nor do they understand the existing system and its power structures well enough to formulate any plan for bringing about any change they might take a fancy to. I'm painting with a broad brush, and you can find some well-informed intellects among the Occupy folks, but on the whole the movement in the US has an extremely immature and half-baked center of emotional and intellectual gravity right now.
The only grownups associated with the movement are David Graeber, who is sort of a big 20 yr old himself, and Chris Hedges, who is an emotionally damaged and apocalyptic depressive.
What is interesting is that the Quebecois movement has actually succeeded in achieving something by focusing on a target; and I have a feeling that the Spanish movement might soon consolidate its energies into something effective. Sadly, I think decades of ideological indoctrination, collapsing opportunity and incomes for the bottom 50% and dumbed-down pseudo-education in the US means that a large number of disaffected young people are currently dumb as shit. It's going to take a while for the knowledge resources, emotional discipline and experienced social awareness to catch up with the spark of discontent and the healthy desire for activism. I do expect there will be a more successful successor movement, or a second incarnation of Occupy, because the social contract and economic order are crumbling and turning toxic, and the degeneration of America into neo-feudalism will continue to grow intolerable.
by Dan Kervick on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 12:06am
Occupy is roughly equivalent to Dean's campaign crew back in 2004 - nice energy for a while, peaked and died. Might be recycled into something useful, might not.
The needed a Julian Assange, among other things. It's nice to wear Guy Fawkes masks, but people follow personalities in the end, not organizations. Too impersonal.
Will think about the "dumb as shit" line. Are universities really so 2nd rate now? Or you mean non-college grads, or just the level in grade school/high school?
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 2:24am
The Julian Assange business was just one of many distractions that frittered away a golden opportunity.
The OWS folks seems unaware of what brought them attention in the first place. It was the 99% business. For a brief time they were speaking to a broad, multigenerational cross-section of Americans on an economic level: people who are worried about their own debts, about their jobs, about the general lack of jobs, about bankruptcy, about their lost homes, about their futures, about their childrens' and grandchildren's futures, about our declining standard standard of living, and about the outrageous profiteering of a privileged gang of parasites in the financial sector. These were deep issues, but they were also pocketbook issues affecting most Americans.
But then OWS decided to turn the movement into just another antiauthoritarian, anarchist street drama. People might or might not give a shit about Julian Assange, but for a guy or gal who lost a house to robosigning, or is waiting in an unemployment office, or just had to pull a kid out of college because they can't afford it, or had to eat a pay cut while his CEO went on a vacation to Aspen and Europe, Julian Assange means nothing.
by Dan Kervick on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 8:03am
I simply meant someone to provide a face to the movement, keep a direction on organization. Keep the members from going off to soup kitchens or choir practice to perfect their "hey ho, hey ho, _____ has got to go" shouts.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 8:15am
Yeah, for some reason they didn't understand what they had when a large portion of the US population was watching them in rapt attention and coming to terms with what it meant to be part of the 99%. And then suddenly the OWS people were off being "the other 1%." It was a real waste of a huge opportunity.
If they just wanted to do demonstrations and slogans, that's what they should have done. (I remember somebody saying back when that the best thing for OWS to do was nothing at all, that it should remain an idea and not try to invent itself. Was that you, Aunt Sam?) But they needed to let the 99% own the 99% idea, and they seemed really unwilling to let it go. The needed to either genuinely organize, or they needed to say "We're here being the 99% in our way. We support you in yours." But all that anti-capitalism stuff was never gonna fly.
The total failure of the Democratic party to take up their cause didn't help them, either.
Really we ARE lucky that the Romnicans are in such bad shape right now. We had a lot of chances to lose this thing. And after the (hopefully victorious) election, as Wattree pointed out, we are going to need to make a coherent plan about what to do about poor people, instead of sticking with "well, we're better at it than the Republicans would be," which, to be honest is working pretty well as a campaign but is not actual governing......
by erica20 on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 12:13pm
It's hard to take up someone's cause when they won't be specific about what exactly that cause is. Something Romney is finding out. When reporters would ask them what their agenda was (as opposed to what the problem was), the response was some variation of 'we're working on that and we'll get back to you." Those times there was a list, it was the complete list from undoing wall street to the environment to every social justice cause. Pretty much nothing on the list was an unworthy cause, but you can't fight all of the battles with one movement.
I would also add the added anarchist slant that was always present, represented by the Guy Fawkes masks (an individual that advocated the use of terrorist actions) ensured that no mainstream politician or insider from the Democratic Party would align the brand with the movement - if not for what was done in some actions, then for some potential violence that might take place (see the Oakland demonstrators that took over a building after a very successful and peaceful march earlier that day).
by Elusive Trope on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 3:22pm
As much as I like dumping on the Democratic Party, I have to agree. You can't back people who can't articulate a clear message or formulate clear goals.
In Spain, the protesters seem to have much clearer ideas about what they are fighting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19712203
by Dan Kervick on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 4:36pm
Fair enough. I hereby amend my description to ""the abject failure of the democratic party to be more encouraging." ......or nurturing, or something.
i see what you guys are saying--it just felt like the dems could have done more to keep the focus on the 99%. Hindsight being 20/20, somebody should have organized something like "fans of ows" with the idea being that they would go, look on, be supportive, but if the weather turned or the cops showed up they'd run like hell. That group could have seized the communications opportunity to be the kinder, gentler ows.
Something like cows...cowards occupying wall street. Damn. Wish I'd thought of it at the time.
by erica20 on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 11:55pm
Well it's definitely true that the Obama administration and Dems in Congress have done virtually nothing to keep pressure on Wall Street, help homeowners, help debtors, etc. The non-performance of the Holder Justice Dept. has been criminal and shamelessly corrupt. Holder should be impeached, and I hope somebody makes a move to do so following the stupid election.
by Dan Kervick on Wed, 09/26/2012 - 12:10am
I think OWS is indicative of the state of "Liberalism" in this country.
Yeppers. Ten degrees left of center when times are good,
tentwenty degrees right of center when it effects them personally.Liberalism - The new Reactionary.
by cmaukonen on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 10:59am
by look here (not verified) on Fri, 09/28/2012 - 2:54am