How do you feel about the St Paul principles?

[Broletariat]

1. our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the
plans of other groups.
2. the actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of
time or space.
3. any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any
public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.
4. we oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance,
infiltration, disruption and violence. we agree not to assist law enforcement
actions against activists and others.

Seems like a fair enough framework eh? My local occupy group has proposed them and I'm still not sure how I feel about them entirely.

[Mr. Natural]

Broletariat, I'm a big picture sort of thinker and am not good on organizational details, despite their importance. The principles of your group seem to be positive and workable, although I'm not sure about "any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement." I agree, though, that "avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events" is desirable, although it is also problematic, as OWS is open to right-wing infiltration. How would Democratic Party/Obama supporters be handled?

I do have major difficulties with the apparent lack of any OWS strategy and goals. Yet, the occupations continue and even grow despite weather and police problems and the lack of strategy and purpose. Obviously, there is a poorly articulated but pervasive social discontent underlying the protests. So far, though, OWS has been a major missed opportunity for the left to accurately focus this social unrest.

The many issues being raised by OWS all have their origin in the capitalist system. Capitalism's production for profit is the enemy of all forms of life. Nature generates a sustainable surplus (ecological profit) in order to create and maintain its living communities; capitalism destroys human and natural community as it manufactures its runaway profit.

Therefore it seems obvious to me that the immediate goal of the left in these protests is to expose capitalism as the root of all the problems OWS is exposing. People must come to understand capitalism as their mortal enemy. People must come to understand and hate The System.

At present, though, it appears that the protesters do not even identify Wall Street as an integral, evil capitalist institution. OWS is thus repeating the effete liberalism of the anti-corporation movement, which targets corporate misdeeds without mentioning that these evils inevitably arise from the corporations' capitalist nature.

[ellipsis]

I think the OWS movement would do well to adopt them.