Attempted Coup BY occupywallst.org Thwarted

[khad]

As some of you may know, there has been an OWS Demands Working Group, which has been attempting to draft a set of demands for the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Among other things, this set of demands was expected to include a jobs platform, a full employment jobs platform. (http://lbo-news.com/2011/10/20/ows-demands-working-group-jobs-for-all/) I hope you all understand what it means for the movement to directly take on the immediate problems facing the working class.

On 21 October, the www.occupywallst.org (http://www.occupywallst.org) site reported that the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly officially disavows (http://occupywallst.org/article/so-called-demands-working-group/) any relationship it has to the Demands Working Group and that all demands, including demands by and for the working class, are off the table. It looked official. People were duped. I was duped.

THIS WAS A LIE!

Occupywallst.org is run by unscrupulous opportunists who seek to exploit their position as the "official" news outlet of the movement to commandeer the movement for their own selfish ends. They have banned the accounts of those working in the Demands Working Group in an attempt to silence all dissent to their media coup. This rogue faction of wreckers has been trying to poison public opinion, both in OWS and in the various sister occupations around the country, against the Demands Working Group. For days activists have been unable to get the truth out because their accounts have been banned.

The Demands Working Group is continuing to hold teach-ins and is talking with other working groups and community groups. Work is moving forward as I speak.

DO NOT trust occupywallst.org
DO NOT let occupywallst.org speak for the movement.

http://lbo-news.com/2011/10/24/the-ows-demands-group-meets/


Last night, I went to the meeting of the OWS Demands Working Group, held in historic Tompkins Square Park, scene of many a riot and other kind of uprising in its 161-year history. There were about 75 people there, to discuss what to do with the draft set of demands that the group had passed past week.

On Friday, I wrongly reported that the OWS General Assembly had rejected the draft and disavowed the working group. In fact, the GA hasn’t even discussed the issue. According to people at last night’s meeting, whoever controls the website issued the statement of disavowal and deleted the accounts of some participants, making it impossible for them to participate in online discussions of the issue. The “whoever” is accurate: no one seems to know the identity of the website’s controllers, who nonetheless purport to speak for the organization. With such a freewheeling organization, if that’s the right word, lines of responsibility and accountability are very murky.

That statement of disavowal claimed that the Demands group does not work by consensus. From what I saw, it certainly does. Everything was extensively processed, and with hand signals as complex as those that used to prevail in the (now largely deserted) trading pits of the major futures exchanges. Perhaps the controllers of the website are scandalized that the Demands group works by “modified” consensus, meaning a 75% vote is necessary for something to pass (though as Michael Pollak reports below, they’re not alone in this). But what in this life—even the beauty of a clear blue sky on a crisp October day—could get 100% approval?

I must admit that I am not cut out for these sorts of meetings. When it started, at 6 PM, there was a discussion of whether to go to midnight, when the park closes, or try to cut it off at 9. The thought of standing outside for three hours filled me with fear, and so I left at 7:30. But my good friend Michael Pollak had the—well you can’t call it Sitzfleisch, so, Stehenfleisch maybe?—to stick it out. I admire people like that, and wish I could be more like them. Here’s Michael’s report:


There seems to be some misconception that the Demands Group is a bunch of outsiders. It is not. This is a argument within the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Demands Group is a working group just like any other working group. Yesterday evening I spent three hours in the park taking part in their meeting, and I can attest, it was run scrupulously according to consensus procedures under experienced facilitators. And frankly it was one of the most satisfying consensus meetings I’ve taken part in. There were (a changing average of) 60 people, there were heated disagreements, and the proposals and counterproposals were modified so that they visibly came closer together while retaining what emerged as their respective most crucial points. And while each individual proposal was defeated or unable to get off the ground by itself, the final joint/modified proposal passed by a modified consensus, i.e., 75%. And it was a consensus in the real sense of the term. It was strongly supported. The opposed sides had come together. The final product was only possible because both sides had convinced each other that they would carry out their side of the bargain in good faith. And you could feel that everyone involved was palpably chuffed at the end. Tired, wired and cold, but chuffed.

The basic upshot is that there will be tons of liasing in the next few days with other occupation working groups and with community groups; there will also be teach-ins at Zuccotti Park and canvassing there; we will encourage representatives of all these groups to join us for our meeting on Thursday with their proposed amendments or concerns or questions (or support for the proposal at it stands — also an option); everyone present at the Thursday meeting will vote on amendments to the proposal that grow out of this liasing; and we will present the amended proposal to the general assembly on Sunday at 7pm, where it will be argued at length, amended as the GA sees fit, and voted on, according to consensus rules. (Important aside: switching to modified consensus when you can’t attain full consensus, and having this identified as three quarters approval—and not a person less—seems to be already SOP in many OWS working groups. It is not a new innovation invented by the Demands Group.)

The OWS General Assembly has never been made up simply of people who sleep in the park. The General Assembly has always explicitly been made out of whoever shows up for the meeting that day. This is part of its anarchist nature, and part of the whole idea of a prefigurative experience: anyone is free to take part and be transformed through transforming. (And it is just as much a part of working groups. In the Demands Group tonight, three quarters of the people there hadn’t been to prior meetings, but everyone had full talking, blocking and voting rights.) The Demands Group meeting today contained a spectrum of people from 24/7 occupiers; though people who sleep at home but participate daily; up through people who were energized to participate for the first time tonight precisely because the ideas of demands in general or these particular demands excited them.

So this isn’t an outsider group operating by principles foreign to OWS. This is the occupation operating by its own principles. It is a discussion and argument within the occupation.

And BTW, if anyone feels like a visit to OWS anytime soon, Sunday at 7pm would be a great time.

Background info for anyone wanting to get involved in the Demands Group:

The Demands Group has a listserv on Yahoo Groups: OWS Demands Working Group. (If you don’t already have a Yahoo account, you need to open one to join. You can, however, adjust it to send the messages to your normal email. It looks like there is option to do it without that step by logging in using Google or Facebook, but that is just a cruel trick. It has an acknowledged bug that leads to an endless loop. But that’s the way Yahoo works.)

The Demands Group has been meeting bi-weekly on Tue at 7 at Sun at 6 at Tompkins Square Park. Both those meetings have been changed for this week to meet the demands of liasing and presenting. The Tuesday meeting will be on Thursday this week, and it will be at 60 Wall Street, an indoor Atrium where many working groups meet. It is a similar private/public space to Zuccotti, except this one closes at 10pm, so the meeting has to end then. (This BTW, can be a great help to consensus. The meeting last night had an agreed ending time of 3hrs after starting too, and it really focussed minds at the end and helped in forging consensus.)

The Plan B meeting point for Thursday (if we can’t get the Atrium) will be Washington Square Park, not Tompkins. I’m not sure under what conditions we’d need to go to Plan B.

Washington Square Park may possibly replace Tompkins in the future.

The Sunday meeting this week that would normally happen on Oct 30 will be replaced by showing up to the General Asssembly.

For the record, a delegation from the Demands Committee will be meeting with the Facilitation Committee on Tuesday about getting on the Agenda for the General Assembly for Sunday (just in case you see that referred to in the listserv.)

[black magick hustla]

isnt that group a frso front group lol

[cynicles]

That site is incredibly depressing, one can only take so much reactionary politics before you're forced to give your brain a good revolutionary cleansing.

[RedTrackWorker]

http://www.nycga.net/groups/demands/
The demands group site is back up.

[RED DAVE]

Thanx for the update. Things are happening very fast.

You need to date events. When did the meeting of the OWS Demands Working Group in Tompkins Square Park take place?

By the way, there is a meeting of the Labor Outreach Working Group Friday, October 28, at 6:30 PM, at DC 37 Headquarters, 125 Barclay Street.

RED DAVE

[khad]

Thanx for the update. Things are happening very fast.

You need to date events. When did the meeting of the OWS Demands Working Group in Tompkins Square Park take place?

By the way, there is a meeting of the Labor Outreach Working Group Friday, October 28, at 6:30 PM, at DC 37 Headquarters, 125 Barclay Street.

RED DAVE
The meeting was on October 23rd. It seems that few outside of NY knew about it due to the information blackout imposed by occupywallst.org.

Meetings are Tue at 7 at Sun at 6 at Tompkins Square Park.

[agnixie]

Opportunists? Fuck you, worthless stalinist shit. The demands working group was not operating on consensus, two GA facilitators left in disgust. 3 blocks on a proposal when your commmittee is only 15 people IS NOT consensus.

The occupywallst.org team has been organized since July, we've been involved from the beginning. The demands working group was organized by a johnny come lately who broke process to have some sort of leadership position. They were founded LAST WEEK and had fuck all GA support. Their call for a national general assembly had no GA mandate, and their operations were puzzling to everyone on the september17 mailing list.

That's what the demands working group did. You, I suspect, know shit fuck all about what happened on the ground, so fuck off, you and the armchair you rode on.

The reports we've been getting about the demands working group was that it was by and large full of shit. WE WILL NOT HUMOR YOUR AUTHORITY FETISH, YOU FUCKING FOLLOW THE CONSENSUS PROCESS, IF 20% of your committee is putting down blocks you don't have consensus.

Occupywallst.org is working closely with the main working groups, has been working since the very beginning.

[khad]

Opportunists? Fuck you, worthless stalinist shit. The demands working group was not operating on consensus, two GA facilitators left pissed off. 3 blocks on a proposal when your commmittee is only 15 people IS NOT consensus.

The occupywallst.org team has been organized since July, we've been involved from the beginning. The demands working group was organized by a johnny come lately who broke process to have some sort of leadership position. They were founded LAST WEEK and had fuck all GA support. Their call for a national general assembly had no GA mandate, and their operations were puzzling to everyone on the september17 mailing list.

That's what the demands working group did. You, I suspect, know shit fuck all about what happened on the ground, so fuck off, you and the armchair you rode on.

The reports we've been getting about the demands working group was that it was by and large full of shit.
Yet another example of the pedantic anarchism that is holding the movement back. If there is no move to organize a broader GA or articulate a working class agenda, then what is this all for?

The clock is ticking. In a month, cold weather will mean that no one is going to be on the street.

And, btw, the Demands group is operating on consensus, you piece of shit. I see what you posted as just another attempt to slander and shut out the real left at OWS.

[agnixie]

Yet another example of the pedantic anarchism that is holding the movement back. If there is no move to organize a broader GA or articulate a working class agenda, then what is this all for?

The clock is ticking. In a month, cold weather will mean that no one is going to be on the street.

And btw, the Demands group is operating on consensus, you piece of shit. I see what you posted as just another attempt to slander and shut out the real left at OWS.

Fucking joke, we had people watching that meeting. There was no consensus. There was a chair who decided what consensus was against a 20% block. Parliamentary bullshit can go to hell.

The clock is ticking and we've got people working on where to expand the occupation.

The real left? You're a fucking third worldist troll. You're only left wing in your fucking delusions.

[khad]

The reports we've been getting about the demands working group was that it was by and large full of shit. WE WILL NOT HUMOR YOUR AUTHORITY FETISH, YOU FUCKING FOLLOW THE CONSENSUS PROCESS, IF 20% of your committee is putting down blocks you don't have consensus.

So a modified consensus of 75% if AUTHORITARIAN to you.

I hope everyone can see the ineffective bureaucratic mess that people like this poster introduce into any movement setting. You can judge for yourselves.


The Demands Group is a working group just like any other working group. Yesterday evening I spent three hours in the park taking part in their meeting, and I can attest, it was run scrupulously according to consensus procedures under experienced facilitators. And frankly it was one of the most satisfying consensus meetings I’ve taken part in. There were (a changing average of) 60 people, there were heated disagreements, and the proposals and counterproposals were modified so that they visibly came closer together while retaining what emerged as their respective most crucial points. And while each individual proposal was defeated or unable to get off the ground by itself, the final joint/modified proposal passed by a modified consensus, i.e., 75%. And it was a consensus in the real sense of the term. It was strongly supported. The opposed sides had come together. The final product was only possible because both sides had convinced each other that they would carry out their side of the bargain in good faith. And you could feel that everyone involved was palpably chuffed at the end. Tired, wired and cold, but chuffed.

[agnixie]

"Strong support" is not consensus. If there are blocks, you deal with the blocks first.

But you're reporting shit you have fuck all clue on from an armchair for all I know, like always.

[thesadmafioso]

Opportunists? Fuck you, worthless stalinist shit. The demands working group was not operating on consensus, two GA facilitators left in disgust. 3 blocks on a proposal when your commmittee is only 15 people IS NOT consensus.

The occupywallst.org team has been organized since July, we've been involved from the beginning. The demands working group was organized by a johnny come lately who broke process to have some sort of leadership position. They were founded LAST WEEK and had fuck all GA support. Their call for a national general assembly had no GA mandate, and their operations were puzzling to everyone on the september17 mailing list.

That's what the demands working group did. You, I suspect, know shit fuck all about what happened on the ground, so fuck off, you and the armchair you rode on.

The reports we've been getting about the demands working group was that it was by and large full of shit. WE WILL NOT HUMOR YOUR AUTHORITY FETISH, YOU FUCKING FOLLOW THE CONSENSUS PROCESS, IF 20% of your committee is putting down blocks you don't have consensus.

Occupywallst.org is working closely with the main working groups, has been working since the very beginning.

Oh, I wasn't aware that a handful of anarchist youth were given the wherewithal to make a revolution of internal consensus by the current material conditions of the movement. Someone should hurry along and tell the working class that they are not needed, we have power crazed youths masquerading around under the false banner of the authority-less collective to handle their liberation for them.

So three petty bourgeois anarchist types 'blocked' a motion which would lend the movement a wider degree of support from the working class, who cares? The workers are not going to build their revolution on the foundation of anarchistic consensus, they are going to do it through approaches selected for the ability to actually work.

[agnixie]

Oh, I wasn't aware that a handful of anarchist youth were given the wherewithal to make a revolution of internal consensus by the current material conditions of the movement. Someone should hurry along and tell the working class that they are not need, we have power crazed youths pretending that they are a leaderless group to handle their liberation for them.

So three petty bourgeois anarchist types 'blocked' a motion which would lend the movement a wider degree of support from the working class, who cares? The workers are not going to build their revolution on the foundation of anarchistic consensus, they are going to do it through approaches selected for the ability to actually work.

I will only grace your drippings thus
- Ad hominem
- Affirming the consequent (regarding anarchist class positions)
- Huge fucking strawman.

[khad]

"Strong support" is not consensus. If there are blocks, you deal with the blocks first.

But you're reporting shit you have fuck all clue on from an armchair for all I know, like always.
And like always, politics is a game and image to you people. You care about semantics and bureaucracy more than pushing forward a real working class agenda, and you have been exposed before all of revleft and all of the internet.

You have a fuck all clue about anything to do with real working class issues.

[agnixie]

I remember your working class agenda involved support for the national bourgeoisie. You might want to reconsider that.

Additionally, after checking with the other mods, if anyone from the demands working group was banned, we aren't aware of it, most bans have been reported neonazis and an extremist zionist, kindly give usernames.

And a last point: the head of the demands working group was going over every working group and the assembly to the media, pushing a list of demands that the various working groups AND THE GA had never seen beforehand. I'd be very quiet if I were you, not screaming about coups.

[khad]

I remember your working class agenda involved support for the national bourgeoisie. You might want to reconsider that.
Tendency baiting. What does Stalin have to do with OWS? Looks your bag of tricks has long run out.

How does it feel now that your stand against the working class has been exposed?

[Commissar Rykov]

This is an interesting development though I am amused by the Anarchists saying no to a working class agenda. Guess it isn't trendy enough.

[agnixie]

Answer my actual fucking points. Who was banned. The people who told us to push that rejection of the demands working group were from people involved in the public relations, finances and media working groups.

[agnixie]

This is an interesting development though I am amused by the Anarchists saying no to a working class agenda. Guess it isn't trendy enough.

Yeah, damnit, I guess there is nothing working class about our movement now that we're trying to get shit through process.

BTW, when guys from PR and Internet tried to get the information about whether they were mandated by the GA, the committee chair hung up on both.

[Ocean Seal]

A group claiming to be affiliated with the General Assembly of Liberty Square and #ows has been speaking to the media on behalf of our movement.
This group is not empowered by the NYC General Assembly.
This group is not open-source and does not act by consensus.
This group only represents themselves.
While we encourage the participation of autonomous working groups, no single person or group has the authority to make demands on behalf of general assemblies around the world.
We are our demands. This #ows movement is about empowering communities to form their own general assemblies, to fight back against the tyranny of the 1%. Our collective struggles cannot be co-opted.


Who is occupy Wall St. org? And what relation does it have to occupy Wall St.?

[khad]

Who is occupy Wall St. org? And what relation does it have to occupy Wall St.?
Opportunists who only represent themselves and want to silence any attempt to take the occupy movements to the next stage by articulating demands.

This has been amply demonstrated in this very thread.

[agnixie]

Who is occupy Wall St. org? And what relation does it have to occupy Wall St.?

The website is run by people who have been involved in the organization from the beginning, including a number of the original PR, internet and a few on the media working groups, we're coordinating, as I said, with every working group, and we have been working with the occupytogether group. Unless you have specific questions this is all I can say.


Opportunists who only represent themselves and want to silence any attempt to take the occupy movements to the next stage by articulating demands.

Names of people who have been banned. Because right now the only opportunists are the demands working group leadership.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Consensus is not the most egalitarian decision making process. Its riddled with flaws. One of the most glaring and obvious flaws is that one person or 1% could block a decision or vote for whatever reason they want.

You can spend an hour just trying to process a re-vote. Seriously, i saw on Occupy Sac livestream that they were voting on whether or not to vote on an issue!

That person may then get ostracized if they keep doing it but then they just had their rights taken away for voting!

It promotes unhealthy groupthink and generally the loudest are the most respected in situations like the occupations.

[khad]

You can spend an hour just trying to process a re-vote. Seriously, i saw on Occupy Sac livestream that they were voting on whether or not to vote on an issue!

That person may then get ostracized if they keep doing it but then they just had their rights taken away for voting!
The real story of anarchist consensus - silence all disagreement by ostracism and slander.

"hey look, everyone agrees!"

The truth is already getting out.


I attended the DWG meeting yesterday evening. I had not been to the previous meetings that were by all accounts pretty contentious, but I must say that I find Owen’s and Rose’s condemnations of the DWG’s practices hard to square with what I witnessed last night. The meeting was orderly, respectful and even solicitous of the participation of a small number of people who had no interest in constructive participation and were openly hostile to the group’s existence. Three or four people spent most of the meeting talking amongst themselves about 20 feet away, only to appear periodically to condemn the group in general, then wander back to their mini-meeting from afar. At no point were even these people excluded or prevented from speaking. In fact, someone even helpfully fetched them to let them know when we were voting – even though they had ceased all participation at that point and wouldn’t have known otherwise! – so that they could return and freely block the motion at hand. I wasn’t at the other meetings, but after last night all of these lurid descriptions of the group as exclusionary, intolerant, etc. sound Orwellian in the extreme. What I saw was a group committed to being participatory and open almost to a fault, and nevertheless able to conduct its affairs, have a genuine discussion centered around the concerns people raised against the proposal, and as a result of lengthy deliberations successfully vote on an amended proposal that was expanded to include concerns that were initially in opposition. In this context, I cannot help reading James Owen’s post in particular as presenting a distorted, unfair (and rather self-serving) picture of the group’s operations.

Bullying, intimidation, slander - the hallmarks of this this so-called "anarchist" and the "consensus" process. As you can see from firsthand accounts, there are people at every DWG meeting whose only purpose and interest in showing up is to disagree. You heard it straight from the horse's mouth. This user agnixie is in contact with opportunists who run occupywallst.org. You have to wonder if they were in fact the ones who sent these 3 or 4 wreckers, just so they could have a pretext for dismissing the group as undemocratic.

And guess what? The DWG accepted them for what they were, unlike the opportunists who cynically declare consensus after silencing dissent.

[agnixie]

Consensus is not the most egalitarian decision making process. Its riddled with flaws. One of the most glaring and obvious flaws is that one person or 1% could block a decision or vote for whatever reason they want.

You can spend an hour just trying to process a re-vote. Seriously, i saw on Occupy Sac livestream that they were voting on whether or not to vote on an issue!

That person may then get ostracized if they keep doing it but then they just had their rights taken away for voting!

It promotes unhealthy groupthink and generally the loudest are the most respected in situations like the occupations.

I'm aware of the problems there are with consensus but every system has trade offs and we decided on consensus early on. That was not a decision from ows.org, it was a GA decision we merely relayed.

We still have the fact that the groups that asked for information were hung up on. We disavowed relationship because of the piling up of issues. The decision was taken by people from other working groups which have already been mentioned.

Khad, answer my fucking questions instead of spamming.

[GatesofLenin]

Khad, answer my fucking questions instead of spamming.

Hi Agnixie, you know you'll get more people answering you if you stop swearing.

[agnixie]

Hi Agnixie, you know you'll get more people answering you if you stop swearing.

Fine, I hate tone arguments, but let's try.

Khad: questions I expect answers to before you go on with your regular trolling
- I need a list of the nicknames which are claimed to have been banned in relation to the demands committee.
- We want to know whether the Demands working group is empowered by the general assembly
- We want to know whether the demands working group is aware that the GA decided there would be no demands working group on week 2
- We want to know why they set their meetings at Tompkins square just one hour before the general assembly

Oh yeah, and we want to know when the demands working group started (date).

[danyboy27]

why are you guys voting on consensus? wouldnt be more simple to just vote with a lets say 60% majority or a 70% majority.

sound more simple and practical to me.

[agnixie]

why are you guys voting on consensus? wouldnt be more simple to just vote with a lets say 60% majority or a 70% majority.

sound more simple and practical to me.

Honestly I wasn't at the assembly that decided on consensus, I know there are issues with consensus. We also know there's a point where blocks are extreme, but at least we think they should be addressed, not merely ignored and sweeped under, which is what the reports of DWG told me.

[khad]

Fine, I hate tone arguments, but let's try.

Khad: questions I expect answers to before you go on with your regular trolling
- I need a list of the nicknames which are claimed to have been banned in relation to the demands committee.
- We want to know whether the Demands working group is empowered by the general assembly
- We want to know whether the demands working group is aware that the GA decided there would be no demands working group on week 2
- We want to know why they set their meetings at Tompkins square just one hour before the general assembly

Oh yeah, and we want to know when the demands working group started (date).

Oh, I was thinking of giving you a response, but very last item on your little list betrays your intentions and the same bullshit tactics that you have been using to slander, disrupt, and discredit the DWG from the very start.


I want to emphasize to all that false statements are being circulated about us and in particular about specific participants in this group. This did not start when we passed out the flier this afternoon (which was AFTER, by the way, the Demands Forum was removed from the OWS website and the attack on us posted at 3 PM). This began on last Sunday, October 16, when someone(not identified in the minutes) falsely stated to the GA that members of the Demands Working Group had given to the New York Times a statement IN THE NAME OF OWS. This is flatly false and nothing published in the media implies that any reporter incorrectly took our demand to be anything but a proposal. The individual also falsely said to the GA that we had expelled four people from our meeting, which never occurred. Also, this individual falsely stated that our next meeting would be at 5PM on Monday instead of, as we decided, 6 PM on Tuesday. So, it is clear that this undemocratic campaign against us started long before any leaflet was circulated.

Jay was trying, at last report, to make a clear statement of the facts at the GA tonight. I don't know if he succeeded. I did hear from him that there was a lot of positive response to the flier. I think the teach-in panel tomorrow is a terrific opportunity to air the whole issue in an open and democratic way. So I hope everyone who can, goes.

We will have to figure out how to deal with this undemocratic and false campaign against us. I do not think everyone invovled in adminstering the website is involved in it and that is why the Demands Group was intially put onthe website on Thursday and then removed on Friday. I believe we are dealing with a very small clique of people who are arrogating to themselves power that no one gave them. Who gave them the authority to post that attack on us on the website? That type of bureaucratic behavior is a threat not just to our work but to this whole Occupation.

[agnixie]

Oh, I was thinking of giving you a response, but very last item on your little list betrays your intentions and the same bullshit tactics that you have been using to slander, disrupt, and discredit the DWG from the very start.

I merely gave the questions that were in the phone call that had been hung up on. Now the questions that are unanswered. Are you empowered as a group by the GA, we need this information, and I need to know on what basis. I'm also not impressed by your passive aggressive crap: answer or we're not going to be able to fix the issue..

[ВАЛТЕР]

The GA as far as I can tell has been compromised and redirected in a manner that which it will get little done.
If it operates on consensus then nothing will get done by the time cold winter months come in and the group disbands due to the weather.

I am beginning to suspect this is the aim of those within the GA is to stall and waste time, making no demands and expect the movement to fall apart due to a mixture of frustration and cold.

The DWG needs to be the one calling the shots as they seem to have an actual goal, which is to put together some demands and not organize marches and waltz around the city. (Not that this isn't needed, but it shouldn't be the primary goal.)

The GA is trying to prevent demands from being made. This is obvious betrayal of the movement and to the working class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The real story of anarchist consensus - silence all disagreement by ostracism and slander.

Consensus has nothing to do with anarchism historically, it comes from the Quakers and was popularized out of social and environmental movements in the 1970s.

...and weren't you just complaining about tendency baiting?

Anyway I think this whole argument and situation here shows many of the problems with the process that has been adopted in these protests.

1. Consensus: like I said this comes from the Quakers, the no nukes movement, and then adopted by some anarchists in the 1980s. A common thread in all of these is a desire for theological/ideological "purity" for small groups of people surrounded by a larger culture they find hostile to their views. This is not a slam against anarchist groups being small, all left-groups were/are small and we've all been operating in a hostile and barren environment when it comes to our views. Many socialists responded to a lack of connection to any working class movements with dogmatism, and fetishizing certain political formulations or tactics. On the other hand, many anarchist tendencies responded to the same political atmosphere with affinity groups (dogmatism from the bottom up:lol:) and consensus decision making as an attempt to maintain purity.

These forms worked in a period of isolation and low struggle, but are not effective for a more dynamic time where many more people are becoming radicalized and want to get involved.

2. Lack of transparency. What's the hell with the authoritarianism of the people "there from the beginning"? Don't the original people in the GA want to attract new people and have a open political space - or do they want to write the rules and have everyone play their game and pretend that it's egalitarian? So all people are equal, but the people who got there first are more equal? How is this leaderless when some elite of first-there's makes all the decisions about process and what counts and doesn't count? This cuts both ways too if some group not popularly approved at the GA can just jump in and pretend to represent the movement.

But in the big picture these problems (at least as I see it) are just growing pains. The US hasn't seen sustained radicalization much in the last generation and so just as non-radicals just beginning to develop some political consciousness have to learn some lessons through practice about not trusting cops or the Democrats, radicals right now have to learn how to deal with an upturn in popular and working class struggles.

[khad]

Consensus has nothing to do with anarchism historically, it comes from the Quakers and was popularized out of social and environmental movements in the 1970s.

...and weren't you just complaining about tendency baiting?
Not a christian - don't play that turn the other cheek stuff. Especially when someone who is connected to the occupywallst.org clique is continuing to spread disinfo for his/her superiors.

The statements recorded in this thread speak for themselves.

[ВАЛТЕР]

The whoever is behind the occupywallstreet.org site is trying to get its sway into the GA and steer this thing into the ground, by eliminating dissent.

This attempted coup should make it obvious.

[Jimmie Higgins]

why are you guys voting on consensus? wouldnt be more simple to just vote with a lets say 60% majority or a 70% majority.

sound more simple and practical to me.And to most other people. It's working right now because these occupations are exciting and a breath of fresh independent air. Also the desire to include everyone is fantastic and necessary. While I have issues with the effectiveness and fairness of some of the particular forms that are being used to try and achieve this, it's coming from a great place and I want that attitude to spread everywhere - imagine the effect when this mood of popular decision-making and involvement and ownership of movements spreads to the labor movement.... people start talking and organizing independent of their union's bureaucracies, start organizing in a more grassroots and democratic way... now that would be a huge turning point for the working class.


Not a christian - don't play that turn the other cheek stuff :D OK, I understand, just want you both to cool it down so that the political issues don't get lost in the internetness of the discussion.

[agnixie]

Not a christian - don't play that turn the other cheek stuff. Especially when someone who is connected to the occupywallst.org clique is continuing to spread disinfo for his/her superiors.

The statements recorded in this thread speak for themselves.

Okay, details, let me reiterate
- The PR working group and the internet working group tried to get information and were hung up on, after being asked if they were "the ga police", rather than, you know, actually answer questions.
- The internet working group, which works on the nycga website, which is not the same group as ows.org but has some overlap, similarly, the site where the demands working group page was pulled is not ows.org, but the GA's own website.
- The only material we have regarding a demands working group is that there was not supposed to be one.
- Nothing in assembly minutes for october 16th actually says anything about a demands working group.

[danyboy27]

And to most other people. It's working right now because these occupations are exciting and a breath of fresh independent air. Also the desire to include everyone is fantastic and necessary. While I have issues with the effectiveness and fairness of some of the particular forms that are being used to try and achieve this, it's coming from a great place and I want that attitude to spread everywhere - imagine the effect when this mood of popular decision-making and involvement and ownership of movements spreads to the labor movement.... people start talking and organizing independent of their union's bureaucracies, start organizing in a more grassroots and democratic way... now that would be a huge turning point for the working class.

:D OK, I understand, just want you both to cool it down so that the political issues don't get lost in the internetness of the discussion.
i think its possible to vote and ignore bureaucracy. The way i see it, concensus seem to be something too much complicated on a massive scale.

i mean, i am all for concensus in a group of lets say, 10 peoples, but beyond that, its just ridiculous.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Consensus is useless on a large scale, and by using it the GA is hindering the movement and may very well be causing moral to dip due to a lack of getting things done.

[RadioRaheem84]

I am completely confused about this whole situation considering I know next to nothing about the inner politics of OWS.

So the OWS.org is trying to silence a group out there with some actual working class demands??!!

All the name of some GA consensus; no demands make for a better movement?

I've been waiting for this movement to get out of the silly no demands phase, and here comes a group with some solid demands and it's getting the shaft?

[agnixie]

I finally found mention of the demands working group, in the GA minutes regarding the DWG debacle, and a request for comment by the internet committee during this morning's coordination meeting, but nothing prior, and I went back through every GA minutes since the beginning: the ows.org group has no control whatsoever over the minutes.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This all sounds like a big confusion and both Khad and Angxie were too quick to lay in to sectarian bullshit instead of clearing things up.

It's funny however, Khad once trashed a thread i started because of starting tendency wars or what he calls "troll baits", but he seems happy to pursue them with vigor here, or at least a serious message is being presented here in the clothing of a "troll" or "flame bait".

Anyhow, I noticed that the decisions on the decisionmaking group seemed insufficient. What about nationalizing banks which are "too big to fail" and restructuring their management, as well as all industrial firms with large "financial divisions" like GE? That would be a pretty solid step towards breaking the power of Capital.


Expand education: cut class sizes and provide free university for all; -Expand healthcare and provide free healthcare for all (single payer system);
-Build housing, guarantee decent housing for all;
-Expand mass transit, provided for free;
-Rebuild the infrastructure—bridges, flood control, roads;
-Research and implement clean energy alternatives; and
-Clean up the environment.
Those are some pretty limited or vague demands if that's the actual list.


I'm all for having some kind of demands list at some point, but IMO it should be a dynamic thing and any decision made regarding it should go through the GA, and there's no rush to put something out if people aren't ready. If there is confusion about the management of the decision-making committee then it should be discussed and cleared up in the GA, not on an internet forum, and people who are fist-hand witnesses to what happened should speak about it.

[RadioRaheem84]

Vague demands are a start. Better than this "we are the demands", "end corruption" line the current OWS is touting

[khad]

This all sounds like a big confusion and both Khad and Angxie were too quick to lay in to sectarian bullshit instead of clearing things up.

It's funny however, Khad once told me to treat other posters like "adults" and not start tendency wars or whatever.

Anyhow, I noticed that the decisions on the decisionmaking group seemed insufficient. What about nationalizing banks which are "too big to fail" and restructuring their management, as well as all industrial firms with large "financial divisions" like GE? That would be a pretty solid step towards breaking the power of Capital.
Let me ask you, have you even participated at a single Occupy event in any major city?

The occupy movement has to deal with plenty of people who are not leftists, who are concerned about "sounding like socialism," and who are deathly scared about the "gubmint" coming in and expropriating private property.

The reason why the demands have been so vague is because, contrary to what slanderers claim, the DWG respects the _consensus_ process. If leftists could have pushed further, believe me, it already would have happened. Just because you or I think expropriating corporate capital is a fantastic idea doesn't mean that the population at large or even the working class is ready to accept that at this point in time.

But it is a step forward, a step forward that certain rogue elements are attempting to disrupt and suppress.

[ellipsis]

Let's all calm down. This thread isn't about the merits of the consensus process in general. Keep things civil and not on fire please, m'kay.

[RED DAVE]

1. Consensus: like I said this comes from the Quakers, the no nukes movement, and then adopted by some anarchists in the 1980s.Jimmie, get your history straight. The Quaker origin is probably right, but it was used by all kinds of groups during the 60s. I remember local anti-war groups using it prior to 1964. Only part of the Ban the Bomb movement used it. It was only began to be used on a mass scale by feminists in the early 70s.

In my arrogant opinion, consensus is a petty-bourgeois method that is designed on the one had to avoid authoritarian leadership and on the other to thwart politization of a movement that some people in a group don't want politicized. Any group inclined to action eventually has to drop it or fade away in frustration.

RED DAVE

[Jose Gracchus]

I don't know what's more laughable, the pedantic and vulgar anarchist obsessions with consensus and no-leader leadership trying to block any developing of effect group decision-making techniques as 'authoritarian', or the eager populist crowd who thinks if they can stick some reformist demands which are completely implausible--and everyone knows it--in the modern period (like a full employment program) then maybe it will suddenly be 'proletarian' and maybe the workers will show up (goes to show their conception of all events is an opportunity to press their agenda and visibility, and rake in potential recruits; Spart to Third Worldist--all the same).

That said, I do accept the goal of trying to overcome the organizational straitjacket and propose some kind of continuum to OWS that can expand its social base and start involving itself in everyday struggles.

And those demands sound straight out of a Democratic Party sop to the Kunicich-lover crowd. Paul Krugman meets Al Gore.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Let me ask you, have you even participated at a single Occupy event in any major city?


Of course, numerous times.



The occupy movement has to deal with plenty of people who are not leftists, who are concerned about "sounding like socialism," and who are deathly scared about the "gubmint" coming in and expropriating private property.
True but George W Bush already purchased large shares in many of these banks. It's not like there aren't already massive amounts of publicly owned shares in these firms. I'm not talking about nationalizing the banking system or private capital, I'm talking about firms which begged for a bailout when they failed (the next crisis could happen soon and they might need another after all). Most attendees are not "socialist" but they are all critical of the financial system and the bailout. Even if nationalization is too "radical", a more explicit demand regarding the power of financial institutions in our society should really be a must for OWS (this is OWS after all)



The reason why the demands have been so vague is because, contrary to what slanderers claim, the DWG respects the _consensus_ process. If leftists could have pushed further, believe me, it already would have happened. Just because you or I think expropriating corporate capital is a fantastic idea doesn't mean that the population at large or even the working class is ready to accept at this point in time.

But it is a step forward, a step forward that certain rogue elements are attempting to disrupt and suppress.I really can't speak to the politics of the decisionmaking group and occupyws.org, but as I said I think the GA and personal discussions between those involved would be better than flaming on a public internet forum where everyone is shouting past everyone else.

You are right that more radical demands might scare people away, i don't disagree with that, although some of the demands are particularly vague like free public transit ... are we talking trains? buses? airplanes? All three? I agree I would love an expanded public transit network but a little more clarity would be nice.

Also, other very specific demands like protect the post office from attempts to shut it down are hardly very "radical" or "marxist"

[kurr]

It seems to me like those who have been there from the beginning have almost dictatorial control over who gets to say what. Why was the OWS website blocking and lying about this group? What do they have to lose?I thought this was supposed to be about participatory democracy and letting everyone have a say. As far as I know, the Ron Paul enthusiasts get to operate unfettered but a center-left group gets shafted. Are there libertarians (the capitalist kind) running the OWS website?I'm frankly shocked that more anarchists aren't upset at this violation of democracy. Whenever Stalinists do it, they are (rightfully) showered with hate and disgust. These Anarchists are behaving like Stalinists!

[agnixie]

It seems to me like those who have been there from the beginning have almost dictatorial control over who gets to say what. Why was the OWS website blocking and lying about this group? What do they have to lose?I thought this was supposed to be about participatory democracy and letting everyone have a say. As far as I know, the Ron Paul enthusiasts get to operate unfettered but a center-left group gets shafted. Are there libertarians (the capitalist kind) running the OWS website?I'm frankly shocked that more anarchists aren't upset at this violation of democracy. Whenever Stalinists do it, they are (rightfully) showered with hate and disgust. These Anarchists are behaving like Stalinists!

Unfettered? Red baiting is a bannable offense whenever we catch it and we set up a word filter for Ron Paul (it becomes Ron Lawl), on top of removing as many election threads as we find.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm glad that at least a couple people in this thread (Jimmie Higgins and RED DAVE) have made comments about the supposed "anarchist" consensus method. Historically there isn't anything "anarchist" about it...the larger anarchist groups who were involved in labor issues operated on with democratic procedures not unlike any Marxist-Leninist group. People like David Graeber didn't get their inspiration for consensus from the historical anarchism movement (in fact, I don't even think that people like the French or American individualist anarchists/Egoists endorsed the method), he got it from anthropological studies. Get your facts straight.

Consensus can be OK...for example, if you and two of your friends are arguing about what to have for lunch, pizza or tacos. Get into larger groups of people, though, and you have huge problems. One of the limitations that I haven't seen mentioned here (that I saw mentioned in an Economist article) is that the people who participate in consensus in OWS are people who already agree with the founding values and ideals of OWS. OWS needs to spread or it's gonna die, it's as simple as that. Majoritarian democracy isn't perfect (FAR from it), but when you interact with other people in pursuit of common goals, you face hard choices.

[Lucretia]

Opportunists? Fuck you, worthless stalinist shit. The demands working group was not operating on consensus, two GA facilitators left in disgust. 3 blocks on a proposal when your commmittee is only 15 people IS NOT consensus.

The occupywallst.org team has been organized since July, we've been involved from the beginning. The demands working group was organized by a johnny come lately who broke process to have some sort of leadership position. They were founded LAST WEEK and had fuck all GA support. Their call for a national general assembly had no GA mandate, and their operations were puzzling to everyone on the september17 mailing list.

That's what the demands working group did. You, I suspect, know shit fuck all about what happened on the ground, so fuck off, you and the armchair you rode on.

The reports we've been getting about the demands working group was that it was by and large full of shit. WE WILL NOT HUMOR YOUR AUTHORITY FETISH, YOU FUCKING FOLLOW THE CONSENSUS PROCESS, IF 20% of your committee is putting down blocks you don't have consensus.

Occupywallst.org is working closely with the main working groups, has been working since the very beginning.

So 20% can block what 80% want. Sounds more like you're mirroring the way the bourgeoisie operates than the way a democratic movement of workers is supposed to operate. Giving three the power to veto the wishes of the other 12 is giving each of them four times as much power as everybody else in the group.

[Blackscare]

First of all, having spent about a week at OWS recently and having observed the DWG and the GA, I have to say I think agnixie is full of shit in regards to the size and scope of DWG, at least. There were a lot more than 15 people present, it seems like the 60-75 person figure is much more accurate. I didn't participate but I observed and discussed with participants. Agnixie seems to be either parroting other people's unfounded claims or purposefully lying about the size and nature of the DWG.

Also, this constant reference to "having been there first" and "johnny come latelys" is at best unproductive, at worst childish and destructive. Since does having "been there first" give you some sort of authority to dictate events? How is that in any way consistent with anarchism in the first place? Seems more like the kind of thing a kid might say about his treehouse or something. The whole point, as far as I can gather, at this stage is to incorporate more people and broaden participation in the movement. Then again, given the nature of agnixie's anti-demands tirade, it would seem he/she isn't all that interested in expanding and deepening the movement in the first place.

[Lucretia]

Jimmie, get your history straight. The Quaker origin is probably right, but it was used by all kinds of groups during the 60s. I remember local anti-war groups using it prior to 1964. Only part of the Ban the Bomb movement used it. It was only began to be used on a mass scale by feminists in the early 70s.

In my arrogant opinion, consensus is a petty-bourgeois method that is designed on the one had to avoid authoritarian leadership and on the other to thwart politization of a movement that some people in a group don't want politicized. Any group inclined to action eventually has to drop it or fade away in frustration.

RED DAVE

Early SDS was also about consensus decision making because they thought it prevented people from being "alienated" from others in their community, and from the process of building a community.

[The Man]

Anarchist bashing...

What brings Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists together... ;)

[Martin Blank]

In the Occupy group where I am, we rejected the Kabuki theater of "consensus" before our first GA was even held. We seek consensus as much as possible, but don't rely on it for everything. If there is a strong division among participants, we will hold a vote. (We haven't really had any strong divisions yet, in terms of practical organization. For the moment, there is a lot of "agreeing to disagree" on political questions.)

[Die Neue Zeit]

eager populist crowd who thinks if they can stick some reformist demands which are completely implausible--and everyone knows it--in the modern period (like a full employment program)

It depends on how substantive the reform or "reform" demands are.

Jules "I am a Marxist" Guesde and The Anatomy of Revolution had things to say about the value of structural, radical, pro-labour reform demands before a revolutionary period.

As for Henwood's site, a posted comment:


This plank is slippery. Is this a repeat of Bastard Keynesianism’s “full employment” sops? Or is this actually aimed at ending structural and cyclical unemployment? If the latter, then the proper terms are zero structural unemployment and zero cyclical unemployment (all the way from Hyman Minsky to L. Randall Wray).

If the latter, other services should be considered, such as child care services, and indeed the public service component should take precedence over the “public works” one, being that the US is predominantly a service-based economy these days.

[danyboy27]

Anarchist bashing...

What brings Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists together... ;)

i dont think refusing to support the concensus mean being against the anarchists.

[agnixie]

Anarchist bashing...

What brings Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists together... ;)

Do you have anything to contribute? Like at all? Go the fuck away.

I never said consensus was anarchist principles, I said we were stuck with it for the time being because the GA decided to go with it.

Also I will still maintain that even after further digging the shit that went to the media came out of the DWG, maybe not officially the DWG, but the National Congress thing was linked to someone who was at the very least attending the DWG which is why we tried to get in touch and decided to play it safe when nobody replied to questions - there would have been none of this had the DWG formed as an affinity group and had there not be this issue with people at the GA having no idea where it came from and whether it was empowered by the GA - call it bureaucratic all you want, I don't give a damn, we're trying to keep things running and random idiots saying what we're about to the press cannot go, especially when the Paultards and the democrats have been itching to do the same (and have, in the case of the Paul team, tried to do the same already); there's such a thing as not having a show of weakness and right now all we got is an opening of the floodgates of everyone from Paul to Warren claiming the movement as theirs since it happened. I still haven't had a single name that was supposedly banned for being part of the DWG, and we have no way whatsoever to know whose nicknames on the site is involved with the fucking committee.

Let me reiterate this: nycga.net and occupywallst.org are two entirely different sites, and the only relative overlap in the teams is a single admin who is on both tech teams. I am not that admin.

You want to do this? Make an affinity group, and try to get it validated in assembly (something we'd have had no problem about), don't try to sneak in and claim it was validated by the assembly when the shit hits the fan, which is how the process of this drama ended up. What more, you don't do the bullshit Khad did if you want to be paid attention to outside of our far left bubble in here.

[Rusty Shackleford]

What is the structure like at OWS? I hope it isnt full of hierarchophobia to the sense that having tiered committees is forbidden.

[thesadmafioso]

What is the structure like at OWS? I hope it isnt full of hierarchophobia to the sense that having tiered committees is forbidden.

Oh but it is organized along those precise lines, with working groups being staffed by invisible leaders not elected by anyone but yet still excluding people at their whims and with these committees all being treated, nominally at least, as equals.

I was actually barred from attendance at one particular meeting of a 'facilitation' group for not having been a member already, a member of a group which was not elected and which purported itself to be without a leadership.

[A Marxist Historian]

Answer my actual fucking points. Who was banned. The people who told us to push that rejection of the demands working group were from people involved in the public relations, finances and media working groups.

The finance group? Follow the money I always say!

There was that Romney-supporting financier who funded the whole thing in the first place. Hmmm...

I understand Jeffrey Sachs and his man in Poland, Lech Walesa, were invited to speak by NY OWS. Perhaps by the public relations group?

And of course the media group would not want to have OWS do anything that the media wouldn't like...

-M.H.-

[Rusty Shackleford]

Oh but it is organized along those precise lines, with working groups being staffed by invisible leaders not elected by anyone but yet still excluding people at their whims and with these committees all being treated, nominally at least, as equals.

I was actually barred from attendance at one particular meeting of a 'facilitation' group for not having been a member already, a member of a group which was not elected and which purported itself to be without a leadership.
of course, the declaration of leaderlessness leads to invisible leaders and 'non-leader leaders' that cant be voted in or out.

[A Marxist Historian]

This all sounds like a big confusion and both Khad and Angxie were too quick to lay in to sectarian bullshit instead of clearing things up.

It's funny however, Khad once trashed a thread i started because of starting tendency wars or what he calls "troll baits", but he seems happy to pursue them with vigor here, or at least a serious message is being presented here in the clothing of a "troll" or "flame bait".

Anyhow, I noticed that the decisions on the decisionmaking group seemed insufficient. What about nationalizing banks which are "too big to fail" and restructuring their management, as well as all industrial firms with large "financial divisions" like GE? That would be a pretty solid step towards breaking the power of Capital.

Those are some pretty limited or vague demands if that's the actual list.


I'm all for having some kind of demands list at some point, but IMO it should be a dynamic thing and any decision made regarding it should go through the GA, and there's no rush to put something out if people aren't ready. If there is confusion about the management of the decision-making committee then it should be discussed and cleared up in the GA, not on an internet forum, and people who are fist-hand witnesses to what happened should speak about it.

Well, being as OWS doesnt have the social weight to actually enforce any demands it adopts, I'm not sure if focusing on the right demands (and those of the demand group are indeed rather limited) is quite the right approach.

Basically, people are out there as a cry of rage against Wall Street domination of America, the 99% by the 1%. But what's the answer?

One wing of the movement thinks the answer is to reform capitalism, to have a "new FDR," like a sign I saw at "occupy Berkeley."

The other wing understands that capitalism is the problem not the solution, and that the solution is socialism, although too often they are afraid to say so.

One wing of the movement basically wants the Democrats to clean up their act and fly right.

The other wing understands that the Democrats are just one of the twin parties of Wall Street, the "gold dust twins" as Debs called them so many years ago.

One wing of the movement thinks that police are part of the 99%.

The other wing understands that the police are the tools of the 1% against the 99%.

Rather than quibbling over exact demands, or even whether to have demands at all, what we need is a direct polarization between these two camps.

With or without "consensus," as long as these two fundamentally counterposed approaches are shoved artificially together in one movement, neither the revolutionaries, or, for that matter, the reformers can really get anything accomplished.

The stage of one united amorphous mass movement with no demands and, allegedly, no leaders is over. It may have been useful in getting a movement offthe ground, but its usefulness is over, now you just have paralysis.

If this dispute is a step in the direction of polarization and a split, that is the best thing that can happen.

-M.H.-

[khad]

I can show you an email sent to the Demands Group that is typical of the persistent hostility displayed towards the DWG by the so-called OWS establishment.

This comes from one of the few "dissenters" in the demands group that agnixie latches on to in order to claim that the DWG is anti-democratic and does not follow consensus.

Contrary to what this person from the ows.org clique, redbaiting is rife in the movement. That they would support (if they did not orchestrate it in the first place) redbaiting as legitimate dissent shows just what kind of people they are.


The "Jobs for All" demand is infantile. I have read a lot of demands
from a lot of very bright creative minds, and this one is just retarded.

It smacks of old-school socialism; it empowers the ruling class by demanding
that they provide things for us. exactly the wrong thing to do.

it completely ignores the sentiments of the OWS movement, which focus on banks
and corporate greed.

what we (the people) need to do is break the power structure, not beg for crumbs
off their table. We need to end the federal reserve and reclaim our
constitution. No mention whatsoever of this in the groups proposed demand. Why
not?

All kinds of brilliant creative minds have come up with some great ideas. but
from day 1 of this group I was INFORMED that WE were going to go ahead with the
"Jobs for All" demand and that no further creative input was welcome. Huh?

and now the group is obsessed with their own agenda rather than giving a shit
about what is good for humanity.

I have spoken out again and again and was dismissed and ignored. [My note: So
the Paulite couldn't mobilize more than a handful of people to block shit, boo hoo.]
For all these reasons I and others have left. it is for good reason that this group
fell out of favor with the GA.I'll just go ahead and finish the letter:

Ron Paul for president! :rolleyes:

[A Marxist Historian]

Jimmie, get your history straight. The Quaker origin is probably right, but it was used by all kinds of groups during the 60s. I remember local anti-war groups using it prior to 1964. Only part of the Ban the Bomb movement used it. It was only began to be used on a mass scale by feminists in the early 70s.

In my arrogant opinion, consensus is a petty-bourgeois method that is designed on the one had to avoid authoritarian leadership and on the other to thwart politization of a movement that some people in a group don't want politicized. Any group inclined to action eventually has to drop it or fade away in frustration.

RED DAVE

The classic model was the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, which operated on the basis of 100% consensus.

And it had to, being as it spanned all the way from communists to Youth For Goldwater.

This was possible because and only because *everybody* on campus except the administration thought the First Amendment was a good idea.

However,, now the issue isn't free speech, but Wall Street domination. In other words, the issue is capitalism itself.

Khad's idea of a movement encompassing everybody from communists to Tea Party people who hate socialism but also hated the bank bailout is just silly. Can't be done, can only be a brief initial stage. A split along class lines is necessary.

OWS is not a union, which automatically encompasses all workers in the shop because they work there. It is a political phenomenon, like it or not, of people demonstrating against the way things are going in America. So it will have to split along political lines, or just sputter out into paralysis like its original model in Spain. Cold weather is coming soon.

Or in Greece. Remember the popular assemblies on the Spanish model in Greece last summer? Which impressed everybody here on Revleft so much, me included? A far, far stronger movement than OWS. Apparently they have simply vanished from the face of the earth, or at least that is what the Greek posters are saying in the "Greek situation" forum.

If OWS simply continues exactly as it is going now, that will happen here too, probably as soon as the snow starts to fly.

-M.H.-

[khad]

Khad's idea of a movement encompassing everybody from communists to Tea Party people who hate socialism but also hated the bank bailout is just silly. Can't be done, can only be a brief initial stage. A split along class lines is necessary.
When did I ever say that? Are you daft?

The ows.org clique is accusing the DWG of being anti-democratic because it chose to work by 75% modified consensus.

Why? Because of stupid redbaiting pricks like the guy I just quoted who are supported by the OWS establishment on grounds of "legitimate dissent."

[A Marxist Historian]

When did I ever say that? Are you daft?

The ows.org clique is accusing the DWG of being anti-democratic because it chose to work by 75% modified consensus.

Why? Because of stupid redbaiting pricks like the guy I just quoted who are supported by the OWS establishment on grounds of "legitimate dissent."

Khad, you said that the demands had to formulated so as not to alienate people who hate the idea of socialism.

Who are these people? Tea Party people.

Most concretely of course the Ron Paul people, who are indeed Tea Party people even if they feel it convenient to say otherwise at DWG and OWS meetings. After all Rand Paul, Ron's son, is a Tea Party hero.

According to Gallup polls, some 30-40% of the American people think that socialism is a better idea than capitalism. If this vague movement of "the 99%" could turn into a concrete movement of that 30-40%, who right now have no political expresson whatsoever, that would be the best possible thing that could come out of OWS.

-M.H.-

[khad]

Khad, you said that the demands had to formulated so as not to alienate people who hate the idea of socialism.

Who are these people? Tea Party people.
No, many of those people are left liberals who could be pushed further along given time. Socialists are a small minority within OWS, and tactical considerations have to be made.


Most concretely of course the Ron Paul people, who are indeed Tea Party people even if they feel it convenient to say otherwise at DWG and OWS meetings. After all Rand Paul, Ron's son, is a Tea Party hero.Did you even read the email I quoted?

The 75% modified consensus was adopted precisely to marginalize right-wing assholes that have been trying to disrupt the group from the beginning.

[khad]

Another email just sent to the group:


This exchange shows how the Jobs for All would clearly fail if any attempt were ever implemented. What is being advocated is a massive control economy, not simply a massive works projects.

The reason why a capitalist economy works and controlled economies do not (think Stalin's Russia and Mao China) is that resources are wasted unproductively and there is little left for distribution to all.

No redbaiting, agnixie, you say? Here's your fucking dissent. Glory to your 100% consensus.

[Jose Gracchus]

1.) The guy is red-baiting. Fuck this guy. How can you work with 'consensus' including these people? What will you ever get done?

2.) How could Jobs For All possibly be implemented without seizure of power by the working-class? There is a reason it smacks of socialism--it is implicit. Socialism in through the backdoor is not going to work without a split in #occupy. Whether one is for this or not for this can be debated, perhaps, but perhaps it is inevitable should the movement attempt to meaningfully tackle political questions.

[Dunk]

Losing the participation or support of Paulistas and people who are too focused on tactics rather than strategy is a strengthening of the movement, not a weakening of the movement. We must always have the interests of our class in mind, and not the interests of maintaining the support of people who are responsible for obfuscating or obstructing the development of what is a class movement.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Its funny that OWS functionaries are claming the stalin and mao eras were eras of massive wasted productivity while in reality the 'mao era' in china saw an avearge of 11.2% industrial output growth annually and the 'stalin era' soviet union saw similar industrial growth while in any era of capitalism there is growth but massive waste when things cannot be sold at a profit.

[Jose Gracchus]

There were systemic 'command economy' problems, though. The Soviet production was spasmodic and plagued by shortages, very poor quality control, and insensitivity to consumer demand. The Soviet workforce had very low productivity, and the economy primarily found itself able to grow mostly via raw material consumption and extensive growth in production. The real policy alternatives for planning an modern economy have not been adequately developed, though perhaps the time is approaching when it may be politically and socially relevant.

[danyboy27]

Its funny that OWS functionaries are claming the stalin and mao eras were eras of massive wasted productivity while in reality the 'mao era' in china saw an avearge of 11.2% industrial output growth annually and the 'stalin era' soviet union saw similar industrial growth while in any era of capitalism there is growth but massive waste when things cannot be sold at a profit.


those kind of statistic dosnt mean a damn thing without the details of what was produced.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Vague demands are a start. Better than this "we are the demands", "end corruption" line the current OWS is touting

To throw in my two cents about vagueness, in my occupy's Points of Unity we simply have "Equality" as a point without any expansion on what it means.

Ah,consensus!

I think a lot of enthusiasm was taken out after that one three hour meeting where shit (as in nothing) got done.

Currently we are unsure on whether or not we will have a list of demands because of the emotional charges which will inevitable happen.

[Rusty Shackleford]

those kind of statistic dosnt mean a damn thing without the details of what was produced.
Steel, tools, machinery and so on. Most of the industrial five year plans were geared towards making 'mother industry' or heavy industry so that out of that can come light industry and more useful daily things.

[RedGrunt]

Steel, tools, machinery and so on. Most of the industrial five year plans were geared towards making 'mother industry' or heavy industry so that out of that can come light industry and more useful daily things.

Also, since when has capitalism not been wasteful..? The USSR may have had shortages and economic problems but I don't think they wasted materials on crap that capitalism does absolutely for profit.

[agnixie]

Another email just sent to the group:



No redbaiting, agnixie, you say? Here's your fucking dissent. Glory to your 100% consensus.

I can't ban a fucking email, I said on the forums. Which site did you get that on, goddamnit, I also can't do shit on the ga website, only ows.org, a mistake you are still doing, so give names and I'll see what I have the power to do, that would be less useless than your aimless gesticulating as though we were running the occupation's entire infrastructure down to the ISPs. Is this just because of the ego bruise you got from the fact that the only thing you attended was that fucking working group at all. Revolutionary efforts indeed. I have since extended an open hand to Henwood, as an aside.

[agnixie]

What is the structure like at OWS? I hope it isnt full of hierarchophobia to the sense that having tiered committees is forbidden.

The General Assembly authorizes working groups, however it accepts the formation of unofficial affinity groups in solidarity with it. Which in this case is all the DWG could consider itself to be, as it lacked GA authorization. From what I gather, Doug Henwood didn't even bother to check this very simple minimum, and in fact described it as byzantine bureaucracy: I doubt very much that an experienced old school leftist has too little experience with "byzantine bureaucracy" to handle something that fucking simple beforehand, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt sometimes.

There are a number of working groups (my organigram had 16 last I checked but I don't think I have them all listed) and their composition is on a volunteer basis, there is no set number on the size of a WG, there are mostly no established leaders, although, yes, it's probable that people who spend more time working on a WG will know what the fuck is going on.

Also these demands are fantastically reformist; Bismarck could have enacted them.

[Commissar Rykov]

The General Assembly authorizes working groups, however it accepts the formation of unofficial affinity groups in solidarity with it. Which in this case is all the DWG could consider itself to be, as it lacked GA authorization. From what I gather, Doug Henwood didn't even bother to check this very simple minimum, and in fact described it as byzantine bureaucracy: I doubt very much that an experienced old school leftist has too little experience with "byzantine bureaucracy" to handle something that fucking simple beforehand, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt sometimes.

There are a number of working groups (my organigram had 16 last I checked but I don't think I have them all listed) and their composition is on a volunteer basis, there is no set number on the size of a WG, there are mostly no established leaders, although, yes, it's probable that people who spend more time working on a WG will know what the fuck is going on.

Also these demands are fantastically reformist; Bismarck could have enacted them.
Before it was too revolutionary now it is too reactionary? Make up your mind.

[khad]

So, the DWG is too reactionary? Let's see the GA put its money (ostensibly from Romney supporters and adbusters) where its mouth is and issue your TRUE LEFTIST proclamation for the immediate dissolution of all capitalism and the disbanding of the US Armed Forces.

I'm sure you'll then have the "consensus" that you whine about all the time.

99%!!!!!

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000647887/polls_ohyeah_3127_396185_answer_1_xlarge.jpeg

On a serious note, I hope you've all read the emails I've posted on the previous page. They explain why the DWG's Jobs For All demand is so vague and reformist-sounding. It's because they're being REDBAITED ALL THE TIME by right-wing shitbags whom agnixie and his/her faction endorse as "legitimate dissent."

[Decolonize The Left]

From browsing both the websites in question (occupy.org and demandsgroup website) I can say the following. It appears as though the main occupy website is best served as a news bulletin and important info storage page, while the demandsgroup offers much more for individual participation in planning/dialogue/discussion.

I believe it would be wise for both groups to agree to partition the movement's overall web presence into these two sites respectively. They both should link to one another on the top of their page and make it clear that they exist for distinct and important purposes.

Less fighting - more cooperation. This sort of sectarian bullshit and absurd mudslinging will only drive our possibilities down as winter approaches.

- August

[danyboy27]

Steel, tools, machinery and so on. Most of the industrial five year plans were geared towards making 'mother industry' or heavy industry so that out of that can come light industry and more useful daily things.

has i said, the details of what this heavy industry produced is verry important
if you build 10 000 more tractor that will never be used just to fill the quota for the 5 year plan you have indeed increased the production of a certain good, but those things are just sitting there and of no good for nobody.
that why details are important.

[Rusty Shackleford]

has i said, the details of what this heavy industry produced is verry important
if you build 10 000 more tractor that will never be used just to fill the quota for the 5 year plan you have indeed increased the production of a certain good, but those things are just sitting there and of no good for nobody.
that why details are important.
Well, the heavy industrialization went along in a planned manner and sure there may have been miscalculations but overall they ended famine as well in both instances after time.

[danyboy27]

Well, the heavy industrialization went along in a planned manner and sure there may have been miscalculations but overall they ended famine as well in both instances after time.

all i was saying was that we must be extremely careful about statistics, especially when its about production beccause its verry often extremely misleading.

[A Marxist Historian]

No, many of those people are left liberals who could be pushed further along given time. Socialists are a small minority within OWS, and tactical considerations have to be made.


Did you even read the email I quoted?

The 75% modified consensus was adopted precisely to marginalize right-wing assholes that have been trying to disrupt the group from the beginning.

Now remove me from your post or I'll do it for you.

Sure I read the E-mail. I agree with your evaluation that this guy is a Ron Paulite, whether or not he wants to say so.

And a Ron Paulite is a Tea Party man. Anyone who doubts this should just watch the Republican debates, where Paul says what he really stands for, as opposed to radical sounding rhetoric you hear from Paulistas at OWS.

Hey, here I am supporting you vs. the OWS leadership, and you want to censor my posts? This is foolish on your part, and will help our mutual enemies in portraying you and your group as dictators.

Are explicit, organized socialists a small minority within OWS? Perhaps, but there are plenty of people who hate capitalism there. The thing to do is to argue for socialism in terms people can understand, without using too much oldstyle left wing rhetoric. Valuable in its place of course, but can be confusing to the uninitiated.

What will push left liberals to the left--or not--is the capitalist repression descending on OWS in Oakland, Atlanta and many other places. Hiding one's socialist politics under a bushel won't help at all, just makes you look dishonest and manipulative.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

There were systemic 'command economy' problems, though. The Soviet production was spasmodic and plagued by shortages, very poor quality control, and insensitivity to consumer demand. The Soviet workforce had very low productivity, and the economy primarily found itself able to grow mostly via raw material consumption and extensive growth in production. The real policy alternatives for planning an modern economy have not been adequately developed, though perhaps the time is approaching when it may be politically and socially relevant.

Right.

For me and Gracchus to agree on anything lately is rare, and perhaps not to be repeated.

It reflects the fact that theoretical/historical differences, even ones as sharp as those between myself and Gracchus, can be subordinate when people are in the street and the feces hits the fan and we are talking about Right Now.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

has i said, the details of what this heavy industry produced is verry important
if you build 10 000 more tractor that will never be used just to fill the quota for the 5 year plan you have indeed increased the production of a certain good, but those things are just sitting there and of no good for nobody.
that why details are important.

This discussion is of course quite off topic and should be elsewhere.

But I'll throw my two cents in--hopefully only once.

I will note that lots of tractors was exactly what the Soviet Union needed to avert famine. The whole trouble with forced collectivization and the tragic Ukrainian famine is that it was pushed through *before* the USSR had enough tractors to make it work.

And, of course, a lot of the first tractors cranked out under the Five Year Plan were crap.

Fixed later of course, the net result of collectivization was in fact a huge increase in food production, making the industrialization of the USSR practical. But given the incredibly bad way it was done, millions of people starved to death in the process. Stalinism at its worst.

That's what you get when it's run by an unaccountable bureaucracy instead of workers democracy. Doesn't mean it's "capitalism," but it's still highly fucked up.

-M.H.-

[Decolonize The Left]

AMH and danyboy, could you two leave the tractor discussion out of an OWS thread? If a mod could split it it'd probably be helpful.

- August

[Die Neue Zeit]

How could Jobs For All possibly be implemented without seizure of power by the working-class? There is a reason it smacks of socialism--it is implicit. Socialism in through the backdoor is not going to work without a split in #occupy. Whether one is for this or not for this can be debated, perhaps, but perhaps it is inevitable should the movement attempt to meaningfully tackle political questions.

Again, look at the Post-Keynesian School and its Employer of Last Resort policy plank. The theses of "capitalist decadence" and "late capitalism," irrespective of being objectively accurate or not, are politically overrated. The comment I quoted criticizing Doug Henwood's platform shows the point.

Another comment:


Neither Hyman Minsky nor L. Randall Wray were/are Marxists. The Post-Keynesian School is of the position that zero structural unemployment and zero cyclical unemployment are indeed possible under current capitalist relations, all the while avoiding Kalecki’s spectre of fascism as the only means of achieving those goals.

Now:


Its funny that OWS functionaries are claming the stalin and mao eras were eras of massive wasted productivity while in reality the 'mao era' in china saw an avearge of 11.2% industrial output growth annually and the 'stalin era' soviet union saw similar industrial growth while in any era of capitalism there is growth but massive waste when things cannot be sold at a profit.

I doubt the claims for Maoist China, since they explicitly stated they wanted less growth than the Soviet development under Stalin, whose own annual industrial growth was quite higher than 11.2% (upwards of 20%).


I will note that lots of tractors was exactly what the Soviet Union needed to avert famine. The whole trouble with forced collectivization and the tragic Ukrainian famine is that it was pushed through *before* the USSR had enough tractors to make it work.

And, of course, a lot of the first tractors cranked out under the Five Year Plan were crap.

Chicken or egg? The Soviet Union imported tractors during the course of early economic development in the First Five Year Plan.


The real policy alternatives for planning an modern economy have not been adequately developed, though perhaps the time is approaching when it may be politically and socially relevant.

I thought you dismissed such policymaking as "out of touch" with reality. :confused:

All we need to know is that the implementation of Economy-Wide Indicative Planning based on extensive mathematical optimization is a far better start to that question than Trotskyist slogans for "workers control" and "schools of planned economy."

[Jose Gracchus]

I mean virtually all such policy-making under the bourgeois state is fantasy. We do need to anticipate some of the frameworks of a program for the seizure of political power by the proletariat though.

For instance, some idea how the dictatorship of the proletariat will begin dissolving value-production, setting up an economic framework that plans labor and consumption according to use-values. A 'planned economy' and not the Soviet one. One that actually plans production for actual use-values, and rather than glorifying and perpetuating the features and residues of value and class [like production-for-production's sake, the enterprise, wage, money, labor, and the 'economy' itself as an alienated sphere of life] instead actively dissolve them continuously. We cannot anticipate almost any of it. But we need to start to anticipate what the revolution would aim to do the day after power is assumed.

As for something like full employment as a policy would be something that I think could only be accomplished after the working-class has seized power. And even then, would be less like 1930s slogans of generalizing the proletarian condition, rather more like, farming out existing productive work [i.e., not paper-pushing for the bourgeois FIRE sector] among the able body population, whose powers right now incidentally are being wasted by unemployment, underemployment, unproductive employment, not to mention austerity and deprivation. That's just one idea. We might end up only needing a working day of a couple hours. Credit to Loren Goldner for that idea.

In any case, I do not think a full employment slogan for OWS is plausible for the opposite reason of the Paulists. That said, some kind of split will probably be necessary if anything #occupy had to offer to the class struggle, even indirectly, will come to be. Dogmatic consensus and the tyranny of structurelessness, combined with right-wing entrists, will doom #occupy to flailing and impotence in the face of attrition of the elements and time, not to mention police provocation and repression. I think the DWG should be supported just because a group should not get blacklisted just for violating the consensus dogma set down by 'non-leaders' and 'people who have been since the beginning [!] of OWS'.

Of course it would also be nice to have better information. Has anyone else who has been down there who knows anything more about demand discussions and details?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I mean virtually all such policy-making under the bourgeois state is fantasy.

Rhetorically speaking: Why?


We do need to anticipate some of the frameworks of a program for the seizure of political power by the proletariat though.

[...]

As for something like full employment as a policy would be something that I think could only be accomplished after the working-class has seized power.

Such policy-making under the bourgeois state would be fantasy without emphasizing the necessity of genuine class struggle / class-oriented political struggle, but the latter does not equal "seizure of political power"/"revolution."


And even then, would be less like 1930s slogans of generalizing the proletarian condition, rather more like, farming out existing productive work [i.e., not paper-pushing for the bourgeois FIRE sector] among the able body population, whose powers right now incidentally are being wasted by unemployment, underemployment, unproductive employment, not to mention austerity and deprivation. That's just one idea. We might end up only needing a working day of a couple hours. Credit to Loren Goldner for that idea.

The policy discussions surrounding zero unemployment structurally and cyclically revolve around creating productive work, not merely farming out existing productive work. :confused:

I have yet to discuss things like a Fully Socialized Labour Market, but that policy umbrella isn't dedicated entirely to the unemployment problem.

[Jose Gracchus]

I don't care about your post-Keynesian crap. I don't want to derail this thread.

[A Marxist Historian]

AMH and danyboy, could you two leave the tractor discussion out of an OWS thread? If a mod could split it it'd probably be helpful.

- August

Yep. Sorry.

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't care about your post-Keynesian crap. I don't want to derail this thread.

The majority of Occupy activists don't share the view of "capitalist decadence" or "late capitalism," despite being aware of "financialization." OTOH, the reformists have little political education beyond Bastard Keynesianism.


I believe it would be wise for both groups to agree to partition the movement's overall web presence into these two sites respectively. They both should link to one another on the top of their page and make it clear that they exist for distinct and important purposes.

Less fighting - more cooperation. This sort of sectarian bullshit and absurd mudslinging will only drive our possibilities down as winter approaches.

- August

It looks like neither site looks web-savvy enough.

[agnixie]

After this comment I won't be paying attention to this thread anymore: I was very clear from the beginning that I found the demands of the DWG to be reactionary reformist bullshit. I never found it to be too revolutionary, and I would have had to be drunk, stoned and... no, I am in fact currently drunk and stoned and I still think it's reformist bullshit.

That said my personal opinion has nothing to do with how things went in this thing, as it was about an affinity group claiming to be a working group.

[KurtFF8]

isnt that group a frso front group lol

I don't think so, but even if it is, why would that matter?

[khad]

I am in fact currently drunk and stoned and I still think it's reformist bullshit.

That said my personal opinion has nothing to do with how things went in this thing, as it was about an affinity group claiming to be a working group.
See, this is the latest lie in the campaign against the DWG from the OWS establishment. The reason why agnixie knows this specific terminology underscores the fact that this user has been aiding in a campaign to discredit the DWG from its inception and had likely attended the recent "facilitation" meeting where this charge of being merely an "affinity" group was leveled.

Don't you see how this works, folks? Beware the dirty tactics of the degenerates of the OWS establishment. So far in this thread the clique that runs OWS.org (apparently those in the finance and PR sections) has claimed:

1) The DWG was "burn noticed" (aww, the kiddies wanna be the SEE EYE AY) because it was speaking for OWS (which is false. No such statement on behalf of Occupy Wall Street was ever sent to the NYT).
2) The DWG is too radical because Ron Paul fans have been mounting opposition; no consensus because a handful of right wingers find the program offensive.
3) The DWG is reformist because it doesn't radically overthrow capitalism and impose a stateless, classless society overnight.
4) The Demands Working Group isn't a working group but an "affinity" group. In this anarcho-newspeak, what this means is that the DWG never happened; it was never involved in the movement and can be safely ignored and forgotten while the OWS.org goons celebrate by getting themselves fucked up on drugs and alcohol.

Talking about jobs, people. What are you trendy anarchists so afraid of?

[KurtFF8]

^Exactly. I went to one of the DWG meetings (I believe the third one) to see it completley derailed by certain folks I won't name or point fingers at.

The process was abused quite thoroughly in the name of preserving the process.

And at that point, the rumor that the DWG had gone to the media was debunked with multiple folks from the facilitation group present.

Also, when I was at DWG meeting, the only proposal that was discussed (after ~45 minutes of debating on which version of modified consensus [75% or 90%] to use to pass resolutions) was simply on a timetable for when to propose the demand to the GA. The demand itself wasn't up for debate (it had already been unanimously adopted by the group at a previous meeting), and it was only a matter of when to present the demand. This proposal was blocked, and one (libertarian) who blocked it, explicitly said that it was being blocked because he didn't agree with the demand (aka he shouldn't really have been there). Some of the other blocks seem to have been also not related to the actual proposal that was being discussed. It was a classic derailing of a meeting.

This was a week (maybe even more?) before the post at OWS.org! How that rumor continued and eventually made its way onto the OWS website was either a series of miscommunication or (and more likely) an attempt by certain folks who don't want demands to discredit the group who they feel shouldn't exist.

The worst part of this is that each group is supposed to be autonomous from OWS groups like facilitation, apparently unless they disagree.

[Yazman]

Answer my actual fucking points. Who was banned. The people who told us to push that rejection of the demands working group were from people involved in the public relations, finances and media working groups.

I can't tell you who was banned, but what I can tell you is who will be banned if they keep up incessant flaming of other users in this thread. In multiple posts, multiple times, you have flamed over and over.

You're getting infracted if I see even one more instance of it. Don't do it again!