sabotabby: raccoon anarchy symbol (commiebot)
[personal profile] sabotabby
I read the Occupy TO Twitter feed and immediately felt like an irrelevant old fogey.



Part of it is because I'm in an extraordinarily bad mood, compounded by the fact that sickness and circumstances are preventing me from participating as much as I'd like. But part of it is attributable to a hipster mindset of hearing things that I and fellow windmill-tilters have been saying for years. Today, for example, is the 10th anniversary of another Bay Street occupation in Toronto, after which we were derided as anarchists and terrorists for making the same critiques as Occupy Together is mostly lauded for.

And part of it is just that there's so much self-congratulation and so little analysis. For example, most of the Twitter feed is people talking about love, but then there's this:

For the first time in #CanadianHistory, the different cultures off this nation (incl. 1st nations ppl) found a common voice in #SOLIDARITY


O RLY? Because here's what a Metis activist on Facebook had to say:

I was disgusted 5 minutes after I showed up to Occupy. Some "marshall" walked up to a Native warrior group that had brought a flag and megaphone to speak and the fellow demanded that they do the "people's mic" nonsense. I have no idea what my cousins wanted to say but they had no chance to say it. I tried to catch up so I could film or ask them but I couldn't walk fast enough and they left before the march began. I suspect they wanted to talk about "de-colonizing" and what's wrong with occupying occupied land. I'm not impressed.


I'm almost positive that these were the guys that I mentioned in my public post about the march. (I saw very few First Nations people at the march and occupation; two small groups had flags, but the one guy had a megaphone.) They had valuable contributions that were shut down in the name of symbolism. So much love and multiculturalism!

Another exchange between long-time activists:

M: "its like every time new people join the movement they have to go through the same dumb stages. They seem to be learning fairly quickly ."

A: "why wouldn't you expect new people to go through the learning process?"

M: "I would expect them too. But reading a book or maybe talking to someone experienced would help them get through a lot quicker. or thinking for a second- 100% consensus is clearly never going to happen, which would be obvious is someone thought about it in detail for a few minutes"


Which was the problem, too, back when I used to be involved in anarchist groups. Like Occupy, we were primarily white, privileged, and young. We did a terrible job of engaging marginalized communities or supporting their frequently less glamorous struggle, even while we paid them lip service. We were students of history, emulating the methods and imagery of turn-of-the-century movements, but we had little connection with older generations of activists, who we tended to deride as sectarian and irrelevant. Now I feel like one of those old sectarians myself, though, of course, I will continue to participate, and my criticisms will be kept private to avoid detracting from the people actually putting their bodies on the line.

Don't get me wrong. I'm so glad Occupy is happening. Even if I have critiques, it's already so much more than I ever imagined I'd see in my lifetime. But if it's going to work, there has to be linkages made between existing social movements, especially the struggles of people of colour and immigrant communities, First Nations, and stodgy boring old labour. Until that happens, it might look like a revolution, but it's still a protest that stayed up past its bedtime.
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Date: 2011-10-17 02:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] terry-terrible.livejournal.com
People here at least are saying "the system is BROKEN" with the "because I didn't get my place in it" merely implied rather than stated.

And that's my take away on how this at least moving the dialogue a little more in big-picture terms. Aside from anarchists and other assorted commies and people written off as cranks*, people have been crititque things from the perspective that the system is okay, it's just policy that's problematic or a group with an agenda who is messed-up, ie. "This was is wrong", "we need more benefits for the poor" or "torture is wrong".

But now people are really taking the whole system to the task because emperor has no clothes once you have no job and you 401k is up in smoke, it's taken an economic catastrophe and people loosing their economic security bubble to see that, hopefully people will remember the lesson instead of ignore how broken everything if they see prosperity again. But until then it's good to see a systematic critique get in the news.

And the Ron Paul support!!!! It makes me want to scream, I saw photos of the event I couldn't attend yesterday and I guess there someone with a Gasden flag at the head of the march and people with anti-federal reserve/goldbug signs there to.

It shouldn't be surprising for here, Nevada has a very strong little l, "leave me alone", libertarian tradition and Ron Paul is very popular here, but still I don't think Occupy wants to out there flying Gasden flags because it is the de facto symbol of the tea party.


*and I am a proud crank ;)

Date: 2011-10-17 02:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] terry-terrible.livejournal.com
ugh, sorry for the grammer, today isn't a good day for me.

Date: 2011-10-16 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cannibal-x.livejournal.com
Yeah.
I went to the one in Vancouver, which was quite big, and I was happy to see it but only in form and not in content. It just came off as a crazy circus of people's causes--animal rights people, dancing hippies, zeitgeist/truthers/larouchers/anti-taxers(??), and so on..

They also let whoever wanted to speak come on and say whatever they came up with on the spot, so much of the stuff was brutally bad (the worst one which was almost so-bad-it's-good was a high school girl whose speech consisted of a vignette about Mother Theresa's conversion to charity, Gandhi telling someone to be the change they want to see, and the fact that MLK once said "I have a dream" in front of a lot of people)..

Anyways, I'm super glad there were tons of people out, but I would almost have rathered someone be a hardass and disallow any previous groups from promoting themselves in this new protest, even groups I agree with like Kurdish Workers Party, unions, NOII, etc.. Like, they banned smoking at the march, couldn't they have banned Bring-Your-Own-Cause(tm) in the name of creating something new and exciting? ;)

Date: 2011-10-16 04:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kadath.livejournal.com
You need someone who really, deeply gets intersectionality and solidarity, can explain it convincingly to their group, and is telegenic and quick enough on their verbal feet to give good soundbite when the media comes knocking, since if they can't get someone charismatic, they'll go for someone wacky.

Needless to say, you're lucky to get one of these per city, never mind per individual group in the city.
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Date: 2011-10-16 06:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cannibal-x.livejournal.com
It's not democracy if only a certain stripe of people are speaking.

Date: 2011-10-17 02:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] terry-terrible.livejournal.com
It could be worse, the meeting I went too was almost hijacked by a LaRouchie asshole who couldn't figure out that no one wanted to talk about the Dodd-Frank bill or how the Queen of England secrectly rules the world.

Date: 2011-10-17 09:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] queerasmoi.livejournal.com
Agreed. The truthers and the chemtrails banner were the first things I saw. And someone was ranting about chicken on the megaphone. I was not impressed.

Date: 2011-10-16 06:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] springheel-jack.livejournal.com
> But reading a book or maybe talking to someone experienced would help them get through a lot quicker.


This never happens for anything ever ever ever, with one single exception - guilds, which are organized to prevent access unless you've done this.

And it is absofuckinglutely what drives me crazy nutsest about the world. You could know, kid. It's in the books you won't read and the lectures you won't listen to and the elders you won't ask. As a consequence not only do you not know, you don't even know what you don't know, and even worse, you don't know what it is to know, so the first time some con man comes along with something that looks like something you believe that shit. Second order dunning-kruger - not only do you not know you're incompetent, you don't know what a 'competence' is.

Edited Date: 2011-10-16 06:28 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-10-16 06:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] springheel-jack.livejournal.com
As it happens, though, despite what I wrote up above, I think the message has a coherence. It's:

1) wealth concentration distorting the democracy, which makes it impossible to do anything about:
2) lack of economic opportunity, or economic uncertainty for those who have found opportunity, driven by:
- lack of jobs
- high costs of entry
- economic predation.

It's not about remaking society on a fundamentally more egalitarian or humane line. It's not going to be about those things, ever. It's not really going to be intersectional because it's so narrowly - or if not narrowly, essentially - economic.

It's about making bourgeois society "work" again. It's fundamentally unradical. But that's also the secret of its appeal. They - we - may even get something out of it - shift the great ship a few degrees to port.

And it's not like radicalism staying true to its radicalism has - at least in North America - gotten anyone anything except self-righteous.
Edited Date: 2011-10-16 06:36 pm (UTC)
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Date: 2011-10-17 10:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pofflewomp.livejournal.com
That explains really well what my brain was sort of tending towards thinking only in a mushy, vague, wordless way!

Here (London) someone on the news was saying it is about the lack of democracy due to corporate influence in politics, which I thought was a good place to start explaining what it was all abotu to my boyfriend (who is uneducated in these matters). But I got stuck after that. I just vaguely felt glad more and more people are protesting about crap, but convinced very little will come of it because the majority of the protesters will be appeased by small reforms.
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Date: 2011-10-18 11:14 am (UTC)
ironed_orchid: watercolour and pen style sketch of a brown tabby cat curl up with her head looking up at the viewer and her front paw stretched out on the left (Default)
From: [personal profile] ironed_orchid
Thanks. That's really great.

Date: 2011-10-17 01:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackspryte.livejournal.com
I know I'm white and have loads of privilege and such but I'm also really quiet and insular at times even at a rally with hundreds of people. I feel "blow over" and totally "bowled over" by the loud, hyper engaged and hyper "with it" groups that can't have the patience to let someone finish their words. It makes me wonder what dozens of other layers and levels of disadvantage/difference might look like if I had to live them and just how hard it is now to have my voice heard vs. what race or other things would add to that. To me it's almost inconceivable and yet...

I've been an activist for a long time (but also been out of it a long time and just started the process of getting back into being truly active in an activist and community organizing sense) but I can never truly get over the way that a kind of arrogance, impatience, impertinence and all around ableism affects our movement (did I just use the bloody phrase "our movement? Rly?)

I'm not sure I'm expressing it well Sabs but I know that a lot of mentally and emotionally diverse people I know have a lot to share. They have ideas of making a beautiful and just world but just communicate differently(which I'm told is also very true of a whole bunch of different cultural backgrounds and upbringings where communication happens so very differently and on different levels etc). It makes me wonder why and how (in a bad sense) all our cycles are so reinforcing.

Date: 2011-10-17 02:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 90pointmetaphor.livejournal.com
I'm travelling at the moment and was at Occupy Fredericton, which was actually pretty awesome once it got going. I had one person tell me that she aspires to be part of the 1%, and the event is full of 19 year old anarchists (you know the type), but on the whole the people there were getting it.

Date: 2011-10-17 01:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] northbard.livejournal.com
Those who forget the past are doomed to grow ugly mustaches and mistake diaper-pants for fashion.

Date: 2011-10-17 06:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pofflewomp.livejournal.com
I am still a bit taken aback that the 99% movement exists. I really didn't think many people CARED !

Date: 2011-10-17 10:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pofflewomp.livejournal.com
I think it is a Good Thing whatever its failings. I mean, people protesting a lot must be good (as long as they're nothing to do with tea parties, obviously), really.

Date: 2011-10-21 05:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] krinndnz.livejournal.com
Don't get me wrong. I'm so glad Occupy is happening. Even if I have critiques, it's already so much more than I ever imagined I'd see in my lifetime. But if it's going to work, there has to be linkages made between existing social movements, especially the struggles of people of colour and immigrant communities, First Nations, and stodgy boring old labour. Until that happens, it might look like a revolution, but it's still a protest that stayed up past its bedtime.

I repeated some of that on Twitter. So quotable! If this entry were public, I would've linked to it. Seriously, that is such a great talking point. Go Sabo. <3

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