Battle for the Soul of Occupy
sinkers.org
As we prepare for the May uprising, two power centers of our movement have announced plans for a spectacular bi-coastal May 1st bridge blockade. On the West Coast, Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco are planning rush hour disruptions on the Golden Gate Bridge while in New York City, occupiers say they will block one or more Manhattan-bound bridges. These acts of nonviolent direct action will set the tactical tone for the next phase of Occupy: they signal the turn towards Strike actions aimed at disrupting the flow of money. And, on a deeper level, these blockades come at a pivotal moment for Occupy as the movement grapples with a battle for its soul.
The question many occupiers are debating is whether the spirit and voice of Occupy will stay with the new left horizontals who launched the uprising or whether it will move towards MoveOn’s 99% Spring, and their old left buddies at The Nation magazine, Ben & Jerry’s, et al.
For the first most spectacular days of Occupy – such as on September 24 when eighty Zuccottis were arrested and shocking footage of women getting maced was replayed on national television – MoveOn ignored our movement. They decided to jump on board much later when 700 nonviolent occupiers were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. They saw this mass arrest as an opportunity to fold Occupy into their electoral Rebuild the Dream campaign to bolster Obama. At a time when Occupy was inspiring hundreds of thousands of people across the nation to take the squares, set up leaderless encampments and reinvent democracy in people’s assemblies, MoveOn held an October 5 online “Virtual March on Wall Street” with their friends at Rebuild the Dream.
At the peak of Occupy, when the people’s movement had catalyzed a global day of action on October 15 that saw millions of us in 82 countries rally in financial districts and capital cities for real democracy, MoveOn tried to cash in on Occupy’s momentum with a donation pitch. “We have to capitalize on this momentum now,” wrote MoveOn in an email to its members. “Can you chip in $5?”
And now, MoveOn wants to hijack our movement with their 99% Spring.
MoveOn is an existential threat to our movement because they don’t have a revolutionary bone in their body … if we give these clicktivists any more room then they will pull off a managed cooling of our revolutionary fervor … they will neuter the kind of bold, militant nonviolent direct actions that are the key to the next phase of our movement. Don’t let them do it!
Jump, jump, jump over the dead body of the old left!
159 comments on the article “Battle for the Soul of Occupy”
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Anonymous
yes but those that buy into the phony system that got us here is the problem that must be stopped. We have been fooled by the two party scam of the moneyed elite for decades and now we have to stop it or live our lives as debt, war, work slaves living in poverty without end.
Anonymous
I'm totally with you guys on the MoveOn co-opting the movement. What I don't understand is why you are bothering to argue about it when you can just make good propaganda and uncool it.
I spoke with someone from MoveOn about a month ago who, in defense of MoveOn, said that "while MoveOn may eventually endorse Obama, they do alot of good things." For me, that is just the point, I don't want to ever support a group that is going to endorse Obama after he has proven himself to be to the right of G.W. Bush in many areas that are important to myself. I don't care who the republican's run, I refuse to give that man my vote and will find a third party candidate that I feel actually deserves it. Some would be liberals feel that it is a waste of a vote since there is no historical reason to believe a third party candidate will ever win and get upset with you for not being a team player, even if it's a team you don't really want to be on. But many people would be open to a third party candidate if they only knew other people would be with them.
When you uncool McDonald's, you don't argue with the people who like to eat there- you just make an advertisement that makes McDonald's seem like the evil profit seeking monsters they are and the people who eat there look like tools who mindlessly do whatever the clown tells them to. People don't want to seem like mindless idiots, so they start thinking about their eating habits when it comes to McDonald's. Many will seek out information on their own when they see these advertisements, and wonder just why McDonald's is evil. Then, having informed themselves, they start behaving differently and think critically about both their diet and what types of groups they are supporting when they spend their money. When they see they are poisoning themselves and paying a company who routinely busts unions and exploits the environment to do it, most will choose to not eat at McDonald's if it can be avoided. Which is what happened with myself when I was a teenager and first saw a re-branding of McDonald's. McDonald's has subsequently changed their menu to something slightly more responsible in response to the new consumer who prefers a menu where you don't have to eat 65 grams of saturated fat in one meal unless you want to.
Your main responsibility right now is to criticize MoveOn for their corporate tenancies, ties to Obama, and everything else that makes them an ineffective force that helps to uphold the status quo. The response will most likely be the same as with McDonalds, people will look into MoveOn to see if this is the case. Some will make excuses for why they have to be on the winning team even if it is evil, but many others will question if they want to associate with MoveOn or question whether or not they might only be a clicktavist themselves. This could likely have the effect of forcing MoveOn to change it's policy of upholding the status quo, and making them into an organization that could actually be an ally. I would love to see MoveOn endorse a third party candidate. That would have democrats re-examining just how far to the right they might be as their base shifts from under them.
I might be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that most people writing here would be willing to agree with you if you just presented your argument as propaganda. Uncool MoveOn and people will start to think about it critically. You can keep arguing with people here in the blog if you are getting something out of it, but I really think you are at your best when you are making positive propaganda uncooling something. There is enough information out there about MoveOn already that shows their ties to the democratic party and the corporations that back them. Just make people want to look for it....
Anonymous
If you make it a meme war, you know you guys have the upper hand. Just re-brand MoveOn for what it actually is- that is what you do best.
dravazed
Very thoughtful and well written. Great contribution to the discussion.
Anonymous
Great points. I would like to add that most of those who are making negative comments about Occupy and its future are nothing more than Democratic party shills. I haven't seen any real arguments within the Occupy community about this subject, only by outsiders, who purposefully come here to disrupt and distract.
Anonymous
@"When you uncool McDonald's, you don't argue with the people who like to eat there- you just make an advertisement that makes McDonald's seem like the evil profit seeking monsters they are and the people who eat there look like tools who mindlessly do whatever the clown tells them to. People don't want to seem like mindless idiots, so they start thinking about their eating habits when it comes to McDonald's."
Is that why the NYGA allocated $1250 to McDonald "food fund"? Don't believe me? Just read this link: http://www.nycga.net/2012/03/19/accounting-discussion/
From the looks of it there seems to be some kind of kinship between Occupy members and McDonald's
“It’s radical finances,” Victoria Sobel, the 21-year-old Cooper Union art student who served for a few weeks as Occupy Wall Street’s unofficial CFO, told The Observer Sunday during an evening rendezvous at the protest’s off-site conference room and facilities, McDonald’s."
Maybe you should get around and 'uncool' it or something. First you should take the hypocrisy beam out of your own eye before focusing on MoveOn. Just saying.
Anonymous
“It’s radical finances,” Victoria Sobel, the 21-year-old Cooper Union art student who served for a few weeks as Occupy Wall Street’s unofficial CFO, told The Observer Sunday during an evening rendezvous at the protest’s off-site conference room and facilities, McDonald’s."
http://www.observer.com/2011/10/more-money-more-problems-how-occupy-wall-street-is-really-funded/
Anonymous
You should donate all your savings to the food fund, so they can eat at an establishment more to your liking. Yawn.
Anonymous
I believe Occupy is the soul of the movement. The others are it's tools to accomplish what needs to get done. I guess we might have a vanity problem. Occupy is the heart,mind , all the rest are behind the scenes doing the work that is envisioned by Occupy. You show the world the soul of the movement with the protests. I believe that most of the organizations are truly trying to help, of course some will be infiltrators, but I believe we wish to attract the hearts and minds of the many for such a great cause. I believe that your call to action resonated in the US by way of it's citizens wakening to the understanding of the corporate fascism that has taken over our govt. Our govt. was not intended to be controlled by a cabel of criminals plundering nations and it's citizens, not to mention their own citizens with manipulated. laws designed to extract everything it can for profit to itself and it"s allies. I believe that this call to action has impressed upon us citizens to repair the damage done to us and the world by regaining the Republic of the United States by gaining individual and state sovereignty from the United States Corporation. Once dione we can regain the military and bring them to justice. If you try hard enough, you can see the arrests have started in the corrupt banking firms. This is just the beginning and this has been the greatest financial corruption theft in the history of the world .. plotted around 1973 by what is sometimes called the 4th riech which, without occupy, might have completed it's goal.
So I see no reason to ever question Occupy being the Soul of mother earths cries.. ~gdf
Anonymous
All they want is to keep us out of the streets and behind our computers arguing. The attempt to water down, to divide and pit us against each other is as old as time.
The main thing is to keep up the disobedience and shut down the machinery of the 1%.
They can call it whatever they want in their propaganda rags as long as we keep throwing monkey wrenches in their cogs.
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