Civil disobedience is a tactic, but it is also a statement, like singing “We Shall Overcome” with a bunch of strangers a block from the New York Stock Exchange. Protests and marches bring attention to our movement, but also define what our movement is fighting for: an economic order built on equality, not profits; a political order built on popular justice, not private self-interest; a fuller and freer democracy, not only in the political process itself but over the economic resources that we all depend upon to live. The law-and-order regimes that encircle our protests and cordon off our marches are saying, in effect, that these are not possible; we say they are. When we get arrested, we are saying, in effect, that the law is not sacred. And as our movement grows, in the face of ever intensifying efforts to contain us, the opportunities to define and to demonstrate again and again what it is we are resisting will only increase. We do not have to knock down barricades to overflow them.
Why I Got Arrested at Occupy Wall Street | The Nation
21 NovThe roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying – Salon.com
20 NovThe protest movement is driving the proliferation of new forms of activism, citizen passion and courage, and — most important of all — a sense of possibility. For the first time in a long time, the use of force and other forms of state intimidation are not achieving their intended outcome of deterring meaningful (i.e., unsanctioned and unwanted) citizen activism, but are, instead, spurring it even more. The state reactions to these protests are both highlighting pervasive abuses of power and generating the antidote: citizen resolve to no longer accept and tolerate it.
On the March
20 NovI’ve got another case to add to those in my earlier post on intuition and the sense of reality. This case arose in a long, and often interesting, discussion of the recent evictions of Occupy Wall Street encampments. The discussion has been taking place at Crooked Timber and has involved, among other things, a fairly extensive conversation between one Adrian Kelleher, about whom I know nothing, and Rich Puchalsky, whom I know from The Valve and CT.
Kelleher has been making long, detailed comments saying, more or less, “you’re doing it wrong, you can’t possibly succeed.” Puchalsky, who’s been working with the Occupy group in his neighborhood somewhere in in not-Boston Massachusetts, has been saying, “you don’t at all understand the Occupy movement.” In particular, Kelleher made two long comments, 333 and, particularly 334, which is about how OWS is swimming against “the tide of history.” Puchalsky responds in 341.
Here’s my reply to Puchalsky:
Puchalsky: It’s possible for someone to have quite conventional political views and yet act quite differently within a social situation that is different.
BB: Bingo!
Puchalsky: When that failure happens, people in OWS will have friends that they can trust, people who they’ve worked with at a very elemental level.
BB: Bingo! Bingo!BB: Let me invoke Marley’s Theorem, named after my old buddy Jason Marley: “If you want to know what it’s like to drive a car, you’ve got to sit in the driver’s set and drive the car.” Sitting in the passenger’s seat watching the driver won’t do it, nor will sitting in the back seat, and certainly not sitting at home in your den imagining what driving a car is like. You’ve got to be IN the car, making decisions about traffic, the road, and pedestrians. It’s that elemental.
That last paragraph is where we get the intersection with my earlier remarks about intuition. Puchalsky is IN the OWS movement and so understands it from the inside; he’s in the driver’s seat. Kelleher, apparently, is not. Continue reading
Occupy the Agenda – NYTimes.com
19 NovA reporter for Politico found that use of the words “income inequality” quintupled in a news database after the Occupy protests began. That’s a significant achievement, for this is an issue that goes to our country’s values and our opportunities for growth — and yet we in the news business have rarely given it the attention it deserves.
Occupy Wall Street Protesters, Even in Churches, Can’t Escape Watch of Police – NYTimes.com
19 NovSeveral area churches have been sheltering protesters in the days since the city banned sleeping in Zuccotti Park, and church officials said they were alarmed by the idea that the police might be monitoring their conduct.
“It is disconcerting that they would actually enter the sanctuary,” said the Rev. James Karpen, known as Reverend K, senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, on West 86th Street. “Here we had offered hospitality and safety, which is our business as a church; it just felt invasive.”
via Occupy Wall Street Protesters, Even in Churches, Can’t Escape Watch of Police – NYTimes.com.
OCCUPY NOTE 11/17/11 Contagion #ows – Global Guerrillas
17 NovOccupy is an open source protest. That means it doesn’t have a specific message. It is a container for may groups/motivations/passions held together by simplest of ideas: it is possible to permanently occupy of places of power. Anyone that tells you it needs to have a specific policy agenda is a) not an expert and b) still living in the 20th Century.
The Occupy approach, a permanent 24x7x365 geographically ubiquitous protest movement, may be about to zoom. Reinforcements are coming.
via OCCUPY NOTE 11/17/11 Contagion #ows – Global Guerrillas.
The GOP’s third party nightmare scenario – Opening Shot – Salon.com
17 NovAn NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last week showed the libertarian congressman receiving 18 percent of the vote in a race against Barack Obama and Mitt Romney — a number that came mainly at Romney’s expense. In a two-way trial heat, Obama led Romney by six points, 49 to 43 percent. But that margin doubled when Paul was tossed in, with Obama opening a 44 to 32 advantage over Romney. Notably, Paul fared much better than another potential third party candidate, Michael Bloomberg, who netted only 13 percent.
via The GOP’s third party nightmare scenario – Opening Shot – Salon.com.
As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement
17 NovAnd one of the things that I found most fascinating was a woman named Marisa Holmes, who I think has been on the show before and said, you know, at those early meetings, a lot of the traditional left groups walked out, and they weren’t there, and it left artists and media makers and writers and people who just were sort of thinking in terms of imagination rather than kind of very strict, you know, policy 10-point programs. And I think that’s key to what happened, is that imagination.
via As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement.
Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns
16 NovBut it’s also now confirmed that it’s now, as some Justice Department official screwed up and admitted that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated the riot-cop raids on a dozen major #Occupy Wall Street demonstration camps nationwide yesterday and today.
via Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns.
Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com
16 NovOWS is like the little boy who said “the emperor has no clothes.” Everyone knew it, that the 1% were running away with a rigged game, but everyone didn’t know that everyone knew. Now we do. What do we do with that knowledge?
Still, some acknowledged that the crackdowns by the authorities in New York and other cities might ultimately benefit the movement, which may have become too fixated on retaining the territorial footholds, they said.
“We poured a tremendous amount of resources into defending a park that was nearly symbolic,” said Han Shan, an Occupy Wall Street activist in New York. “I think the movement has shown it transcends geography.” …
Marina Sitrin, a postdoctoral fellow at the City University of New York who is involved in the movement, said its influence would continue to ripple out. People are already assembling to address local issues in Harlem and Brooklyn, she said. “There’s so much more than Zuccotti Park,” she said.
Indeed, with winter looming, it seemed possible that Occupy Wall Street’s encampment would end on its own as the cold drove people away.
Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., said New York City officials might have done Occupy Wall Street a favor “by providing a dramatic ending.”
Still, the encampments were an effective way of generating coverage, both in mainstream media and in the rest. Thus think of the 100s of thousands of photos and videos people have taken and posted to their blogs. How do we generate that coverage now?
via Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com.
Truth and Traditions 