Adbusters

TACTICAL BRIEFING #19

Our Existential Moment.

This article is available in:

Hey jammers, dreamers, believers,

Here is a testimony from the streets of New York:

Lost my stuff, including power cord for my laptop, in the raid, something or someone cleared out my bank account, and it's raining. I could just write a country song. I'll tell you this: the resolve is still here. People I talk to are a healthy mixture of rage, comedy, resolve, and excitement. Also exhaustion. Maybe the raid was the best thing that could happen? I worry about the inevitable suffering that will occur in the cold now, and how it will be used to clear any encampment again. But there must be something like a people's library and kitchen. A physical heart. More soon. Must find money and charge my phone. Winning at last, winning at last, thank God Almighty, we are winning at last…

Our movement is living through an existential, make-or-break moment.

This is a tactical way of looking at it:

When Tunisia rose up, Ben Ali scoffed … when young people occupied Tahrir Square, Mubarak resorted to paternalism and then mob violence … in Syria, Assad's troops fire daily into the crowds. And on Tuesday, a military style assault on Zuccotti Park – news blackouts, tear gas, closed airspace, an LRAD "sound cannon" – was carried out in the dead of night to take out our movement's spiritual home.

For many weeks we had a kind of magic going for us … we held the high ground … we stuck doggedly to our Gandhian ways and blindsided the cynical world with our optimism, our camaraderie, our nonviolence, our determination to forge a different kind of future. With nothing more than twinkling fingers, mic checks, mutual respect, and hope for the future, we sparked a global democracy moment the likes of which the world had not seen since 1968.

But New York's billionaire Mayor decided to snuff us out. We wanted a Tahrir Moment, an American Spring, and he attacked us in the middle of the night while we slept. These kinds of attacks on peaceful protestors did not work in Tunisia, not in Egypt, they are not working in Syria right now, and – wake up Bloomberg & Co! – they are not going to work in America either.

This assault has stiffened our resolve. Now begins the second, visceral, canny, militant phase of our nonviolent march to real democracy. We regroup, lick our wounds and begin our counterattack as early as tomorrow.

We will turn this winter into a training ground for precision disruptions – flashmobs, stink bombs, edgy theatrics – against the megacorps and the unrepentant 1%, a festival of resistance in the snow with, or without, an encampment that'll lay the tactical foundation for our Spring Offensive.

The bottom line is this … you cannot attack your young and get away with it!

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

404 comments on the article “TACTICAL BRIEFING #19”

Displaying 351 - 360 of 404

Page 36 of 41

Jeronimous

Dear adbusters, you forget to say that in Syria the opposition that wants to change regime is violent and has killed policemen and army personnel, has the economical and tactical support of the western governments and specially by the arab league ( a collection of monarchs and dictators) and Turkey ,not specially known for its respect for individual and collective rights, and for the repression to the kurdish people. The ethnic and religious minorities are being attacked by the opposition
As last days events in Egypt have shown, those who raised into power after the old regime failed are not very concern with freedom of choice for individuals and collectivities and they have killed 2 demonstrators yesterday,
What is the reason you and the occupy movement carry on mentioning these conflicts as inspiring? are those the model of societies which you want to achieve?
there are a few reasons why i can't support the occupy movement and the constant reference to the recent north african conflicts and the way those are seeing is one of them, the message i get from this is that NATO, Israel and the Occupy movement have something very important in common, the overthrown of old structures of power to replace them for new ones without bringing structural changes based on ideals of human development and social justice

Jeronimous

Dear adbusters, you forget to say that in Syria the opposition that wants to change regime is violent and has killed policemen and army personnel, has the economical and tactical support of the western governments and specially by the arab league ( a collection of monarchs and dictators) and Turkey ,not specially known for its respect for individual and collective rights, and for the repression to the kurdish people. The ethnic and religious minorities are being attacked by the opposition
As last days events in Egypt have shown, those who raised into power after the old regime failed are not very concern with freedom of choice for individuals and collectivities and they have killed 2 demonstrators yesterday,
What is the reason you and the occupy movement carry on mentioning these conflicts as inspiring? are those the model of societies which you want to achieve?
there are a few reasons why i can't support the occupy movement and the constant reference to the recent north african conflicts and the way those are seeing is one of them, the message i get from this is that NATO, Israel and the Occupy movement have something very important in common, the overthrown of old structures of power to replace them for new ones without bringing structural changes based on ideals of human development and social justice

Anonymous

Bravo Jeronimous for seeing things the way they are. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only with even more power.

Anonymous

Bravo Jeronimous for seeing things the way they are. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only with even more power.

Anonymous

There is a lot to be learnt from the recent uprisings in Egypt. The way that the people mobilized and created national and global awareness of the injustices is a big one. These are the lessons that the Occupy Movement have adopted. Even if just used as a means of creating global awareness for what the 1% are currently doing to the 99% then it will have achieved something great.

I do agree with you that we shouldn't be simply emulating what has been done in the Middle East and North Africa but don't condemn the movements altogether.

OWS you have my support and I am doing as much as I can to make people aware of what you're doing.

Anonymous

There is a lot to be learnt from the recent uprisings in Egypt. The way that the people mobilized and created national and global awareness of the injustices is a big one. These are the lessons that the Occupy Movement have adopted. Even if just used as a means of creating global awareness for what the 1% are currently doing to the 99% then it will have achieved something great.

I do agree with you that we shouldn't be simply emulating what has been done in the Middle East and North Africa but don't condemn the movements altogether.

OWS you have my support and I am doing as much as I can to make people aware of what you're doing.

Anonymous

IT IS TIME TO CONVERT DEMONSTRATION INTO CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION:

The world is listening, waiting, and hoping.

It is time to demand that each potential candidate for public office, in any jurisdiction, makes a public declaration of his/her position on a brief commonly agreed set of OWS issues, such as:

Tax reform, particularly in reference to corporations and wealthy individuals.

Laws and enforcement to regulate the financial industry.

Laws and enforcement to remove corporate political influence by campaign contributions and the lobby industry.

Candidate responses to, or avoidance of, each issue will be exposed to public view in the media and backed up by internet web sites.

Anonymous

IT IS TIME TO CONVERT DEMONSTRATION INTO CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION:

The world is listening, waiting, and hoping.

It is time to demand that each potential candidate for public office, in any jurisdiction, makes a public declaration of his/her position on a brief commonly agreed set of OWS issues, such as:

Tax reform, particularly in reference to corporations and wealthy individuals.

Laws and enforcement to regulate the financial industry.

Laws and enforcement to remove corporate political influence by campaign contributions and the lobby industry.

Candidate responses to, or avoidance of, each issue will be exposed to public view in the media and backed up by internet web sites.

Pages

Add a new comment

Comments are closed.