Take back the Capital Movement attempting coup of the Occupy Movement

[Le Libérer]

Reports are coming in that the Take back the Capital group is in reality attempting to overthrow the Occupy Movement. If you have heard anything like this, please post here.

Miles will be returning with a first hand report, I spoke to him just now on the phone, but he is very troubled on the seriousness of the situation.

[The Douche]

Miles gave me a call as well to let me know that he wouldn't be able to meet me in in DC because he's going home early.

As COTR said, he's planning to write up a detailed report, but his comment was that there was going to be a "war" to keep occupy independent of the democrats/union bureaucracy.

[thefinalmarch]

Hold on, this is the first I'm hearing of 'Take Back The Capital'. Who are they, exactly?

[Comrade-Z]

When the clergy starts getting involved, you know it's a full-on effort at recuperation:
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/06/143202840/thousands-flood-d-c-for-take-back-the-capitol

Really, where the fuck did this "Take Back The Capitol" thing come from? This is the first I've heard of it, and all of the sudden they are talking about how they are just like OccupyDC, and the left-wing media is giving them all sorts of attention:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/unemployed-confront-congr_b_1132438.html

Disturbing stuff.

Edit: Actually, the NPR interviewer asks a very good question of the minister: isn't it corporations, rather than Washington, that creates jobs? (Which implies, if we are having problems with job creation, doesn't that mean we should take over corporations rather than focus on electoral politics? Why is it that we are so at the mercy of these corporations to have them create jobs for us in the first place? Is this a good system?) But the minister totally ignores the question and starts off on an unrelated tangent about income inequality.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Neither "corporations"/businesses nor governments create jobs. Under capitalism, the existence of labour markets is what creates jobs. Without these, all those "entrepreneurs" who need to hire for profit can't realize their products.

[Le Socialiste]

This is the first I'm even hearing of this 'Take Back the Capital' movement. What's happening, exactly? Is it an effort to co-opt OWS into the Democratic Party and unions?

[OHumanista]

Same thing here, never ever heard of this (apparently) bullshit. I will be eagerly awaiting the in depth explanation.

[Black Lesbian Anarchist]

Did anyone get attacked at Occupy Chicago? I had a rock thrown at my face, it narrowly missed my right eye.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I thought Take Back the Capital was some sort of right-populist or far-right backlash. :confused:

[Rusty Shackleford]

Did anyone get attacked at Occupy Chicago? I had a rock thrown at my face, it narrowly missed my right eye.
holy shit what happened?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

holy shit what happened?

Probably nothing.At my occupy people would randomly shout slurs at us so I would assume I others place some people are unfortunate enough to come across the maddened conservative who has a violence fetish.

[agnixie]

Out of curiosity - I only thought it was some sort of slogan, not a full fledged movement: are they active anywhere outside DC? I can't see mention of them in whatever the NYC docs tell me.

[Smyg]

All the splintering and interfractional warfare that's been going on is rather amusing.

[Chambered Word]

it'd be great if someone would explain a bit more about the Take Back The Capitol group, admittedly I haven't followed OWS very closely but this is the first time I've heard of it.

[Le Libérer]

This (http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/12/07)is all I can find on the group. But apparently they provocateurs and are assisting the CIA.

[Le Socialiste]

You describe the situation as dire and serious, but I'm still not sure as to why this is. No doubt this "Take Back the Capital" group has ill intentions, but aside from the OP I haven't seen or heard anything else about this. What were they attempting to do? Or will Miles provide us with a more in-depth report when he's able?

[marl]

Take back the Capital is supposed to end tomorrow.

[khad]

Where's Miles right now?

Any updates from the man himself?

[bricolage]

how can you have a coup of something that has no institutions or structures to take control of?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The "Take Back The Capital" movement appears to be an attempt to change the direction of the Occupy movement by channeling it into Congresional lobbying and support of the Dems.I am not super knowledgeable about this.It could be directly connected with Van Jones "Occupy Congress" movement

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/van-jones-says-watch-out-occupy-wall-street-and-leftists-will-eclipse-tea-party-2012

and, more importantly

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/van_jones_cant_occupy_us/

This may be connected to Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and other CIA sponsored efforts. It fits the standard operating procedure the CIA has used for decades to divert and distort popular movements worldwide.Its not surprising it would be used domestically.

"Occupy the Capital" appears to be an attempt to artificially plant a pre made leadership on to the Occupy movement, essentially a coup.The aim is to provide a "retarding lead" to the movement, recuperating it for the Dems.

I don't know the details but it sounds very clumsy and transparent,

[IndependentCitizen]

This (http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/12/07)is all I can find on the group. But apparently they provocateurs and are assisting the CIA.

Hmm, this group springs up after the NDAA 2012 is passed through senate. An attempt to find the radicals in the movement and incarcerate them?

[Ele'ill]

I don't believe they'll be getting much support from any occupy branches out here on the grey coast or anywhere on the west coast for that matter. I think people got a lengthy heads up about movement hijacking and we're pretty rad out here to begin with.

[Le Socialiste]

Yeah, it really looks like the whole thing backfired.

[Black Lesbian Anarchist]

holy shit what happened?

Got shot with a rubber bullet.

[Welshy]

This article has a video of what was going on http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/08/occupy-dc-members-disillusioned-by-union-overseers-tight-grip-video/

[A Marxist Historian]

how can you have a coup of something that has no institutions or structures to take control of?

Actually, that makes it easier. If the only structure is provided by the coupists, sooner or later they end up in control, by default.

-M.H.-

[Martin Blank]

Where's Miles right now?

Any updates from the man himself?

I am home now. I made it back and have a lot to report. Long story short: The fight is on. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Either #Occupy gets its collective shit together and becomes more of a unified movement, or we're going to get picked off one by one by the cops, politicians and union officials, until all that's left of #Occupy is a slogan co-opted by Obama 2012.

A longer report is forthcoming.

[workersadvocate]

I think Miles is exactly right. The Democrats must co-opt Occupy in part at least, and make it appear that they are heeding the disgruntled voters supporting Occupy, or they're doomed in the 2012 elections. We going to be seeing a lot of the "lesser evil" arguments rearing their head.
But where Miles most hits the mark is when he says that the Occupy status quo must be transformed soon, or its support will evaporate and unfortunately many occupiers will vote Obama 2012 out of disappointment and despair. Now is the time for the working class independent alternative, not in the bourgeois elections, but organizing in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools for our own kind of "vote" cast by our class struggle mass action. Shutting down seaports through workers' mass action does more for our class than a million votes for bourgeois politicians. Organizing our largely unorganized class could enable us to take action far beyond the best of Occupy so far, and then defend and maintain and extend beyond those gains we make.
Extension of this struggle and widening the ranks and deepening the reach throughout the layers of the working people is the necessary condition and greatest defense against co-optation, derailment by our class enemies and them despair sending parts of our class into the waiting arms of reaction.

[marl]

Take Back the Capitol was nothing but a lame Union-organized protest, and as soon as the police came, they left. Today, it's over, as I've previously stated.

[Comrade-Z]

Soo...now that the site is back up, how about a full report from Miles?

[Martin Blank]

Soo...now that the site is back up, how about a full report from Miles?

Working on it. Had a gout flare-up that aggravated my carpal tunnel issues really bad, so I missed about three days of typing. But I'm back on it now.

[agnixie]

If they're the group behind occupy congress too, yep, they're SEIU leadership.

[Decolonize The Left]

Here (http://www.99indc.org/)'s their website, but the actual action appears to be long since over. A quick note of interest: the address provided (http://www.99indc.org/about/) (bottom of page) as contact info is the SEIU mailing address. As this (http://www.theroot.com/views/take-back-capitol-and-ows-same-goals-different-style) relatively poorly written article makes clear, this group is highly organized and well-funded, which of course stands in direct opposition to OWS which is quite unorganized and poorly funded.

My bet is that with the widespread evictions of OWS protesters and the idea that the movement is waning, that we will see more groups adopting similar styles in order to capitalize on the public outrage for political purposes. This is probably just the beginning.

- August

[workersadvocate]

I bet this is related to the American Dream Movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_Movement

Beware. What SEIU did, and what Van Jones' group is up to, will be the way in for Dems to coopt and turn everything into "Re-elect Obama 2012".

There is an alternative, to expand Occupy throughout the working class and advance our side of the class struggle.
It's time for #[email protected]
Learn more about it at the website of the Workers Party in America:

http://www.workers-party.com

[Qayin]

Workers Party in America
lol no sorry

[workersadvocate]

lol no sorry

What's the matter?

[Martin Blank]

What's the matter?

I figure it's two things:

1. He's in the PSL, and the PSL despises us, even though we harbor no ill will toward them. We have principled political differences, yes. But they seem to take political criticism personally. Go figure.

2. They have the classical "Marxist-Leninist" view on workers' control, which means none at all. They defend the de facto liquidation of the Factory-Shop Committees in Russia and their replacement by one-person management directed from state ministries, and see that as their goal in a future revolution led by them (not the working class itself, but the PSL). Given that, it's no surprise they would oppose something like #[email protected]

[The Douche]

lol no sorry

Don't post spam/one-liners, homie.

[manic expression]

He's in the PSL, and the PSL despises us,
The PSL really doesn't.


2. They have the classical "Marxist-Leninist" view on workers' control, which means none at all. They defend the de facto liquidation of the Factory-Shop Committees in Russia and their replacement by one-person management directed from state ministries, and see that as their goal in a future revolution led by them (not the working class itself, but the PSL). Given that, it's no surprise they would oppose something like #[email protected] PSL has been taking an active role in the occupy movement...one recent example is with the anti-foreclosure home occupations going on in NYC. This stems from our view of workers' control, which is that workers must control their own workplaces and their own communities and thus their own society. You object to state ministries but neglect the concept that the existence of a state or its ministries do not contradict the establishment of workers' control.

That said, I hope your health is better and that you'll be able to post your fuller impressions on occupy soon.

[workersadvocate]

Once we get rid of the capitalist bosses, why would we workers want to replace them with a new set of unaccountable 'red' bureaucrat bosses lording it over us, mostly drawn from the middle class?
Why would we workers want our organs of workers control (i.e., the very backbone of our own class self-rule in a workers' republic) to be subordinated and overruled 'from above' to an alien managerial class' state and their antagonistic irreconcilable interests?

Besides, do Stalinists anywhere even try to come to power through working class revolution? It seems through any means but that. We don't need another KKE to put the breaks on the working class during our rising, or to dress up some of the exploiter and bosses classes as 'progressive' in the hopes it will win them favor with corporatist capitalism and a few more spots in the bourgeois state.
At least the CPUSA was honest enough to basically liquidate into the US Democratic Party and thus follow the sellout line of Stalinism to its ultimate logical conclusion as merely a 'left' face of capital. We workers should be fooled into giving any left face of capital (or those aspiring to be such) even one inch of support. No 'red' bosses...they won't get us to genuine liberation and socialism. They won't even get us another Cuba at this decayed corporatist stage of capitalism. What we could hope to get from these 'red' bosses in bourgeois government today is austerity, concessions, bans on strikes and even union busting, further encroachment on civil liberties, and more police state terror to crush any rebellion or dissent to corporatist rule. Hey, that's precisely what's happening now, even when the 'left' has a sizable share of leading positions in the bourgeois state. In effect, this plays out like fascism in power, except without the fascists and their movement doing most of the governing or the dirty work (cappies sometimes bet that their 'left' will do a better more thorough job of serving their interests).

[Martin Blank]

The PSL really doesn't.

You're right. I should have been more clear: Many members of the PSL despise us; the PSL as an organization chooses to ignore us.


The PSL has been taking an active role in the occupy movement...one recent example is with the anti-foreclosure home occupations going on in NYC. This stems from our view of workers' control, which is that workers must control their own workplaces and their own communities and thus their own society.

Agreed, and kudos on the anti-foreclosure work.


You object to state ministries but neglect the concept that the existence of a state or its ministries do not contradict the establishment of workers' control.

Actually, I would say that state ministries are a bourgeois concept and are incompatible with genuine workers' control. One of the many problems with the early Soviet government was the fact that the People's Commissariats were run like the bourgeois ministries they were supposed to replace, and not as working groups in a commune-state. Some of this can be put down to treading in unknown territory, but much of it was also due to the influence and role of the "ex-tsarist" state bureaucracy that was revived by the Bolsheviks and handed the keys to the Kremlin under the banner of "specialists".

As for the question of the proletarian state -- the workers' republic -- it is only a state insofar as there is a need to defend the transition from capitalism to communism from counterrevolution and maintain the safety of working people. Let's not forget what both Marx and Lenin emphasized in their writings on the workers' republic: we communists are the original advocates of cheap and small government. Thus, as much as possible should be taken by workers into their own hands as early and quickly as possible.

For us, the RIU strategy is the key to making this possible. The workplace committees administer production (working together with other workplace committees through local, regional, national and, ultimately, international industrial congresses, as opposed to one-person management and state ministries), the union becomes the workers' inspectorate (as opposed to creating a "special" state ministry), and the workers' councils administer public services (again, by working together with their counterparts on a local, regional, national and, ultimately, international scale). Taken together, the local bodies of the RIU, under direct workers' control, administer every industry and service in the transitional society.

And the proletarian state? With the alleviation of the administration of all industries and services, its only real tasks are akin to those described in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution: establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure "the blessings of liberty". That is, the workers' republic, as a commune-state, establishes laws that work for working people, insures they are enforced for the sake of public safety and peace, defends society against internal and external threats, works to develop the needed tools and methods to make the transition to communism more efficient, and, finally, defend the liberation of the exploited and oppressed by securing the victory of the transition.

I think it's very necessary for both of us to define in detail our meanings of terms like "state" and "workers' control", and how they apply to the real world.


That said, I hope your health is better and that you'll be able to post your fuller impressions on occupy soon.

Thanks for that. I've been doing my best to get it done. The outside research I've had to do, mainly to confirm bits of information I have in my notes from the week, has been incredibly time consuming, which is why it's not completely done yet.

[A Marxist Historian]

...
Actually, I would say that state ministries are a bourgeois concept and are incompatible with genuine workers' control. One of the many problems with the early Soviet government was the fact that the People's Commissariats were run like the bourgeois ministries they were supposed to replace, and not as working groups in a commune-state. Some of this can be put down to treading in unknown territory, but much of it was also due to the influence and role of the "ex-tsarist" state bureaucracy that was revived by the Bolsheviks and handed the keys to the Kremlin under the banner of "specialists".

As for the question of the proletarian state -- the workers' republic -- it is only a state insofar as there is a need to defend the transition from capitalism to communism from counterrevolution and maintain the safety of working people. Let's not forget what both Marx and Lenin emphasized in their writings on the workers' republic: we communists are the original advocates of cheap and small government. Thus, as much as possible should be taken by workers into their own hands as early and quickly as possible.

For us, the RIU strategy is the key to making this possible. The workplace committees administer production (working together with other workplace committees through local, regional, national and, ultimately, international industrial congresses, as opposed to one-person management and state ministries), the union becomes the workers' inspectorate (as opposed to creating a "special" state ministry), and the workers' councils administer public services (again, by working together with their counterparts on a local, regional, national and, ultimately, international scale). Taken together, the local bodies of the RIU, under direct workers' control, administer every industry and service in the transitional society.

And the proletarian state? With the alleviation of the administration of all industries and services, its only real tasks are akin to those described in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution: establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure "the blessings of liberty". That is, the workers' republic, as a commune-state, establishes laws that work for working people, insures they are enforced for the sake of public safety and peace, defends society against internal and external threats, works to develop the needed tools and methods to make the transition to communism more efficient, and, finally, defend the liberation of the exploited and oppressed by securing the victory of the transition.

I think it's very necessary for both of us to define in detail our meanings of terms like "state" and "workers' control", and how they apply to the real world...
.

An interesting posting, though off the forum topic of course. Maybe this could be moved to a new thread under History?

Preliminarily, I'll just comment that these concepts are very similar to those of the Workers Opposition group led by Kollontai and Shlyapnikov. The problems with it are manifold, especially the practical ones. Whether one likes it or not, running a factory requires technical expertise that the average worker in a factory does not have, due to the division between mental and manual labor that is one of the many bad features of capitalism. It cannot be overcome overnight, as the Bolsheviks discovered.

In practice, the syndicalist ideas of the Workers Opposition, which Cthulhu is echoing, would simply have led to replacing state bureaucrats with trade union bureaucrats in command. And indeed the basis of the Workers Opposition was revolutionary Bolshevik trade union officialdom.

And one man management is inherently a good thing, for the simple reason that, as everyone knows who has ever tried to run anything, the worst way to run anything important is by a committee. Of course, there have to be democratic controls over whoever is appointed as manager, and he or she has to be replaceable at the will of the workers. Which is easier if you are dealing with a single manager who can't pass the buck and blame the rest of the committee when things go wrong and he or she is called to account.

-M.H.-

[Martin Blank]

An interesting posting, though off the forum topic of course. Maybe this could be moved to a new thread under History?

Maybe. We'll see what the moderator here thinks.


Preliminarily, I'll just comment that these concepts are very similar to those of the Workers Opposition group led by Kollontai and Shlyapnikov. The problems with it are manifold, especially the practical ones. Whether one likes it or not, running a factory requires technical expertise that the average worker in a factory does not have, due to the division between mental and manual labor that is one of the many bad features of capitalism. It cannot be overcome overnight, as the Bolsheviks discovered.

In practice, the syndicalist ideas of the Workers Opposition, which Cthulhu is echoing, would simply have led to replacing state bureaucrats with trade union bureaucrats in command. And indeed the basis of the Workers Opposition was revolutionary Bolshevik trade union officialdom.

Ah, the old standby for "Marxist-Leninists": Whenever someone raises criticism of how the Soviet economy was organized, hold high the specter of the Workers Opposition. Sorry, comrade, but you're looking in the wrong direction on this one. It's not the Workers Opposition that I support, but the Workers' Group of the RCP(b). It's not Kollontai and Shlyapnikov, but Myasnikov, Moiseyev and Kuznetsov.

Unlike the Workers Opposition, who indeed saw the union officials as the basis for "workers' control", the Workers' Group saw the Soviets and the revival of the Factory-Shop Committees as the basis, with the old unions transformed into a "workers' inspectorate". In other words, while it is indeed true that the Workers Opposition saw the trade union officialdom as the rightful controllers of the Soviet economy, the Workers' Group saw the workers themselves as the rightful controllers.


And one man management is inherently a good thing, for the simple reason that, as everyone knows who has ever tried to run anything, the worst way to run anything important is by a committee. Of course, there have to be democratic controls over whoever is appointed as manager, and he or she has to be replaceable at the will of the workers. Which is easier if you are dealing with a single manager who can't pass the buck and blame the rest of the committee when things go wrong and he or she is called to account.

By this logic, what is the point of having workers' councils, workplace committees or even labor unions? For that matter, why have a democratically-elected and accountable collective leadership for the party or the workers' state, when all that's needed is a single manager who is ostensibly subject to replacement "at the will of the workers" (which, BTW, was not the case in Soviet Russia; the managers were only recallable by the state ministry)?

I have to ask: Isn't this how Stalinism began?

P.S.: I read Seymour's article on "workers' control", too. I found it to be a sickening but predictable statement worthy of a shameless bureaucrat.

[workersadvocate]

Dayum! I think we all just got schooled! I'm taking notes, looking for further reading...

Edit: Reading the Manifesto of the Workers' Group of the RCP(B) which I found.
en.internationalism.org/ir/142/workers-group-manifesto-1
There is an introduction by the ICC before you get to the actual Manifesto of the Workers' Group.

This is a side of history I knew nothing about before.

[Martin Blank]

Dayum! I think we all just got schooled! I'm taking notes, looking for further reading...

Edit: Reading the Manifesto of the Workers' Group of the RCP(B) which I found.
en.internationalism.org/ir/142/workers-group-manifesto-1 (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/142/workers-group-manifesto-1)
There is an introduction by the ICC before you get to the actual Manifesto of the Workers' Group.

This is a side of history I knew nothing about before.

Don't forget, though, that the first two sections of the Manifesto, "The Character of the Proletarian Class Struggle" and "The Dialectic of the Class Struggle" are not included in the ICC's most recent translation (they are in their previous one, though, which is in their book on the Russian Communist Left).

Yes, the Russian Communist Left was fundamentally different from the Dutch, German and Italian Lefts. They had the advantage of making a proletarian revolution, which meant that their view of society was not limited to the confines set under capitalism. Thus, they did not suffer from the woodenness and myopia of their western European comrades.

Anyway, I would also recommend Paul Avrich's article on the Workers' Group and Myasnikov: http://libcom.org/library/bolshevik-opposition-lenin-paul-avrich/. It offers a very good telling of the history of the Workers' Group.