Babble: What demands should the Occupy Canada movement focus on?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/what-demands-should-occupy-canada-movement-focus


What demands should the Occupy Canada Movement focus on? Please post your suggestions!


The most effective way to mobilize the greatest number of people for a protest is to pick a single issue that they can agree on, like "Make the rich pay for their own financial crisis, not the rest of us."

The more you try to turn it into a shopping list of grievances, the more you will restrict the range of people who will actively support it, for two main reasons: First, because not everyone agrees on every issue, and second, because foolish people will find excuses to stand on the sidelines and whine because their particular concern is not being placed front and centre by the organizers.

That's not to say that individuals and groups should be discouraged from bringing their own particular slogans and demands to the Occupy Canada protests - quite the contrary. But the focus and appeal of the Occupy Canada movement organizers (which is what I assume Krystalline is asking about) should be a single issue that has broad appeal among the working class.


I also agree with the main thrust of Spector's point about focusing on fewer issues, particularly a couple of issues that would isolate the 1% and unite the 99%. Shopping lists are great for educating people but how would one ever translate 30 or 40 demands into practical campaigns to reach the objectives? Are they building a "solidarity" movement - e.g. to advance First Nations or student interests or a broad movement with demands that affect the entire (or most of the) 99%?


The problem with that approach is that it has been tried again and again and has failed to make substantive change outside the single issue.

All that does is repeat the There Is No Alternative line.

I'm not suggesting that we should dump single-issue or better single-themed campaigns, but proper agitation stems in the first place from proper theoretical and policy education.

Discuss.

[Here's a good, brief, political platform (http://rabble.ca/comment/1286112).]

[blake 3:17]

Troops out of Afghanistan, free education, scrap the omnibus crime bill.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Did you check out the link at the end? :confused:

[blake 3:17]

Not sure that I follow all of them, and not really sure how some of them would be enforced in the near future. Number 8 makes the most sense at the moment.

[danyboy27]

Fuck the Queen would be proper for pretty much all canadian.

[Fawkes]

Try to think in terms of goals, not demands. What do you want to achieve on your own, not what concessions can you beg the state to give you.

A good goal as a starting point is just reclaiming a public space that can be used as a platform for debate, organization, and networking.

[¿Que?]

I think there is a time and place for single issue politics, and then there is a time and place for broader struggles and discussions. Right now, after the OWS victory, I feel there should definitely be one or maybe a small handful of demands made.

The problem as I see it is that the conditions for the demands are always going to be to pack up and go home. So while it is a good idea to march and protest on a single or a few issues, it is necessary to ask what good are demands if they will end the movement if they are met.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not sure that I follow all of them, and not really sure how some of them would be enforced in the near future. Number 8 makes the most sense at the moment.

Comrade, they're straight from the works I gave you. :confused:

[Die Neue Zeit]

The protest presence was quite diverse. Zeitgeist, the Pirate Party, union chapters, a Trot group, vegan contingents, etc. were among those present. There were also a few clear heads, though we were outnumbered by many headless chickens among the organizers.

[RED DAVE]

[Here's a good, brief, political platform (http://rabble.ca/comment/1286112).]
Partial list:

1) All political and related administrative offices, and also the ability to influence or participate in political decision-making, shall be free of any formal or de facto disqualifications due to non-ownership of non-possessive property or, more generally, of wealth.

2) All political and related administrative offices shall operate on the basis of occupants' standards of living being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers.

3) All political and related administrative offices shall be subject to immediate recall from any of multiple avenues, especially in cases of abuse of office.

4) There shall be full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of class-strugglist assembly and association for people of the dispossessed classes, even within the military, free especially from anti-employment reprisals, police interference such as from agents provocateurs, and formal political disenfranchisement.

5) There shall be full independence of the mass media from concentrated private ownership and management by first means of workplace democracy over mandated balance of content in news and media production, heavy appropriation of economic rent in the broadcast spectrum, unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for independent mass media cooperative startups - especially at more local levels, for purposes of media decentralization - and anti-inheritance transformation of all the relevant mass media properties under private ownership into cooperative property.

6) There shall be an ecological reduction of the normal workweek even for working multiple jobs - including time for workplace democracy, workers' self-management, broader industrial democracy, etc. through workplace committees and assemblies - to a participatory-democratic maximum of 32 hours or less without loss of pay or benefits but with further reductions corresponding to increased labour productivity, the minimum provision of double-time pay or salary/contract equivalent for all hours worked over the normal workweek and over 8 hours a day, and the prohibition of compulsory overtime.

7) All predatory financial practices towards the working class, legal or otherwise, shall be precluded by first means of establishing, on a permanent and either national or multinational basis, a financial monopoly without any private ownership or private management whatsoever - at purchase prices based especially on the market capitalization values of insolvent yet publicly underwritten banks - with such a public monopoly on money supply management inclusive of the general provision of commercial and consumer credit, and with the application of "equity not usury" towards such activity.

8) There shall be overt, subtle, and covert enactment of explicitly confiscatory, despotic measures against all capital flight of wealth, investment strikes, and other elitist economic blackmail, whether the related wealth belongs to economic rebels on the domestic front or to foreign profiteers.

Others off the top of my head:

1) The abolition of legal personhood, most notably with respect to corporations, and the prohibition of legally defined political contributions made by non-government entities other than eligible voters.

2) The combating of residential gentrification and speculation by first means of expanding resident association guarantees beyond the privilege of homeowners and towards the formation of separate tenant associations, limiting all residential writs of possession and eviction for the benefit of private parties to cases of tenant neglect, and establishing comprehensive tax and other financial preferences for renting over hom ownership.

3) The institution of affirmative action policies based either on income and other socioeconomic factors or preferrably on class, especially in the sphere of education.Remember, this is what DNZ calls a "good, brief, political program ... off the top of his head."

I'm sure that somewhere I've seen something more turgid and ridiculous, but I can't remember where.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

Those exact words weren't uttered during the stay there. :rolleyes:

I know when to educate, when to go with the agitation flow, and when to correct flawed agitation.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think I might make my new title 'headless chicken'. I recommend you mere labor strugglists do the same.

So wait, you actually went to Occupy Toronto or something? Did you spread any leaflets? What did you do? I'm genuinely fascinated.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Not in Toronto.


I think I might make my new title 'headless chicken'. I recommend you mere labor strugglists do the same.

I chatted with union members sloganeering about politicians needing pay cuts, first saying that it's underrated. I talked about proposing that politicians, senior bureaucrats, etc. be on some national average wage and have full-time commitment to their main line of work as opposed to moonlighting (but I didn't mention that this was also as opposed to delegate democracy's emphasis on going back to the workplace). I also suggested that they be recallable. In short, I channeled Engels without mentioning him or ideological stuff.

One of the clear heads whom I chatted with, whose visual presentation was for a shorter workweek, knows the Post-Keynesian line on zero unemployment and is somewhat critical of L. Randall Wray's narrow focus and centrist orientation (in terms of the mainstream political spectrum).

The "People's Mic" thing was unnecessary, since the main speakers had microphone permits. I ignored what little they had to say, and found the in-crowd interaction much more livening.

[RED DAVE]

Let us all note that the revolution must be near as DNZ has actually participated in a poliitical action.


Not in Toronto.Where then? Moose Bay?


I chatted with union members sloganeering about politicians needing pay cuts, first saying that it's underrated. I talked about proposing that politicians, senior bureaucrats, etc. be on some national average wage and have full-time commitment to their main line of work as opposed to moonlighting (and also as opposed to delegate democracy's emphasis on going back to the workplace). I also suggested that they be recallable.I love the fact that you counterpose your demand to those of the union members and called their demand "underrated." You then go on to propose a piece of bureaucratic gobbledy-gook.


One of the clear headsAs opposed to the "headless chickens.


whom I chatted with, whose visual presentation was for a shorter workweek, knows the Post-Keynesian line on zero unemployment and is somewhat critical of L. Randall Wray.Wow! Has he read Cockshott? Does he have a signed photo of Kautsky?


The "People's Mic" thing was unnecessary, since the main speakers had microphone permits.Too bad. It's a rather good tool for deflating "clear heads."


I know when to educate, when to go with the agitation flow, and when to correct flawed agitation.:rolleyes:

You are so full of shit it's coming out of your ears. If that program you posted is an example of your work, you need to find a left-wing daycare center and restart your education from the beginning.

Start here: http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/th/The_Communist_Manifesto

RED DAVE

[Ocean Seal]

Remember, this is what DNZ calls a "good, brief, political program ... off the top of his head."

I'm sure that somewhere I've seen something more turgid and ridiculous, but I can't remember where.

RED DAVE
To be fair it was a link and he didn't say it was off the top of his head. Its not particularly ridiculous, I agree with part of the program.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Let us all note that the revolution must be near as DNZ has actually participated in a poliitical action.

More ad hominems.


I love the fact that you counterpose your demand to those of the union members and called their demand "underrated." You then go on to propose a piece of bureaucratic gobbledy-gook.

First, I didn't use the technical jargon used in the quoted platform above. Second, again I channeled Engels on the core political measures of the Paris Commune. He wrote of those two measures being the central ones, and I merely mentioned those in response to the union member slogans against the politicians.


Wow! Has he read Cockshott?

I don't know, but I intend to find out, given that he has a record of electoral activity.

[Teacher]

At our local Occupy Wall Street protest I heard surprisingly little about CLASS. They read a list of grievances or something that supposedly came from the New York movement and it was the typical laundry list of leftist causes and identity politics. Even had a line in there about animal cruelty..

Lots of anarchist kids playing drums, smoking pot, and wearing those stupid V for Vendetta masks. It was sad.

[blake 3:17]

RD & DNZ, I respect you both.

DNZ -- I really can't remember all the details of program and platform. Your list has many very good ideas and ones I'd endorse in spirit. Unless a policy or platform is of very specific interest I'm just not going to absorb it. Between Left politics and working in social services, I have read thousands upon thousands of policies etc that often resemble each other and are good and I lose track. At OccupyTO rally today a friend & I agreed we just couldn't go in extreme detail, we were there with everyone else to demand economic equality and democratic rights.

I can hairsplit on certain issues in Marxism, in activism, in pop music, in poetry and painting, but I can't recall what lines everyone else draws.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Hey, I didn't go into the kind of detail I did when writing that stuff. ;)

[Salyut]

The protest presence was quite diverse. Zeitgeist, the Pirate Party, union chapters, a Trot group, vegan contingents, etc. were among those present. There were also a few clear heads, though we were outnumbered by many headless chickens among the organizers.

It was a mix between NDPers and anarchists here. Some Trot presence, and the CPC people took off right at the start for some reason. :unsure: There was a LaRouchite. I was tempted to go and troll him but that prob. would have ended badly...

We managed to shut down downtown temporarily with a sit-down though. That was awesome.

[blake 3:17]

^^^ Hey, I didn't go into the kind of detail I did when writing that stuff.

You do go into a lot of detail. That's not a bad thing.

Interesting piece from Stephanie Luce questioning the immediate need for OWS to make demands: http://solidarity-us.org/current/node/3421

[Die Neue Zeit]

You do go into a lot of detail. That's not a bad thing.

Interesting piece from Stephanie Luce questioning the immediate need for OWS to make demands: http://solidarity-us.org/current/node/3421

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I go into detail when writing program and platforms. The 11 or so planks written on Babble don't stack up to my Draft Program or preceding commentary, though.