What has Occupy Done

[Ocean Seal]

I was hoping that we could have a thread on the achievements of the occupy movement, both the tangible and the intangible, so that we could confront both the pessimistic leftists and the bootlicking liberals who say that Obama is so much bigger than #Occupy Wall St.

The Abstract:
Increases in Class Consciousness and the change in political language


The mainstream political focus was momentarily changed in the country. Before Occupy the discussion from the top was: how the economy had been fixed but was slow and sacrifices needed to be made, how Obama killed Bin Laden, and how greedy teachers and public sector union workers were. After occupy it was no longer fringe to talk about inequality and austerity and to a certain extent the lot of the working class during this recession. It gave expression to a lot of pent-up class anger (from the left) that had existed but had no vehicle or way to be expressed and so were supposedly non-existant in a country where you either loved Obama and were content or dissatisfied and a Libertarian racist Tea-Party nut. It re-legitimized protest further and re-legitimized protest from below rather than NGOs and liberal groups. Revitalized the idea of a General Strike, revitalized the idea and some credibility of radical politics.

The Tangible:
How many evictions we defended against, small changes in local law, protections of immigrants, workplaces organized, sizes of marches. No matter how small it sounds together I think that we have a case.

The Shortcomings:

The Future:

[x359594]

Moved to Occupy Wall Street and its Off Shoots.

[Red Joe]

I agree with your thoughts on OWS's abstract and tangible accomplishments. Shortcomings in my opinion...too much cop hatred. Cops may be flunkies, but they're part of the 99% too, and there should be much more outreach to them, especially by fellow union members, to make them more sympathetic to the OWS movement.

Everyone saw how the Tea Party was co-opted by the corporate right, deliberately made demonizable to the left (which stupidly obliged), and has become an ineffective critique of capitalism, which, arguably, it initially was.

When we focus anger on the police (and visit destruction on property), we alienate middle America, alienate the moderates in our own ranks, and simply create "riot porn" for Fox News. We marginalize ourselves.

This movement has to be peaceful, as broadly based as possible, and has to recognize that the police, for all their reactionary ways and shortcomings, have to be won over, or at least made sympathetic to the fight against the 1%.

[The Idler]

Occupy Gazette
http://nplusonemag.com/occupy

Occupied Times of London
http://theoccupiedtimes.co.uk/

Occupied Wall Street Journal
http://occupiedwallstjournal.com/

Occupy L.A. Times
http://occupylosangeles.org/?q=OLATimes1

Occupied Chicago Tribune
http://occupiedchicagotribune.org/

Boston Occupier
http://bostonoccupier.com/

DC Mic Check/Occupied Washington Times
http://www.dcmiccheck.org/

[Prometeo liberado]

Gone to sleep, thats what its done.

[Red Rabbit]

It increased the amount of Paultards and Lolbertarians. It gave conservatives more "hippies" to laugh at.

It made a couple people distrust the police.

[cynicles]

Revealed how inept the liberal political framework is at dealing with problems.

[Prometeo liberado]

Almost forgot, gave MoveOn.org a hell of a lot more people to email and get money from. Thats it.:)

[Book O'Dead]

Here's an idea!

If not doing so already, the Occupy people should focus their attention at recruiting among medical and hospice personel as well as among nurses and people that work in the medical field, support, etc. Even the janitorial workers in a hospital require special training to assist in the occupy strategy!

This strategy would be best applied in states wherein the local and state govs are not cooperating with the mandates of Obamacare.

At the very least, it will result in a feather in its cap. It won't be forgotten as the anomally of the Tea Party is sure to be.

Think of it as 'guerrilla medicine'.

[Ocean Seal]

It increased the amount of Paultards and Lolbertarians. It gave conservatives more "hippies" to laugh at.

It made a couple people distrust the police.
I actually have noted quite a decline in lolbertarians in the past few years, in fact I think that a large part of it is because of occupy.


Almost forgot, gave MoveOn.org a hell of a lot more people to email and get money from. Thats it.:)
I mean sure that's true, it did mobilize the liberal base, but I'm not sure why the left is so upset by this. I don't think that we should ever think that progressive movements are ever going to funnel more people into us than into the liberal movement. I might add that even if 80% of the people in #occupy get knocked back into the liberal movement, if a good number of them also adopt skepticism of the Democratic party and some direct action politics that should be a victory in my book.


Here's an idea!

If not doing so already, the Occupy people should focus their attention at recruiting among medical and hospice personel as well as among nurses and people that work in the medical field, support, etc. Even the janitorial workers in a hospital require special training to assist in the occupy strategy!

This strategy would be best applied in states wherein the local and state govs are not cooperating with the mandates of Obamacare.

At the very least, it will result in a feather in its cap. It won't be forgotten as the anomally of the Tea Party is sure to be.

Think of it as 'guerrilla medicine'.
Its not a bad plan, but I don't see how that will get us out of the mandate. What are we going to get them to do, not treat people with healthcare?

[Comrade Trollface]

Everyone wants to make nice with the pigs until they see them in action. It is the pigs who, through their actions, have alienated themselves from the working class.

[Book O'Dead]

Its not a bad plan, but I don't see how that will get us out of the mandate. What are we going to get them to do, not treat people with healthcare?

You mean the individual mandate? It doesn't take a lawyer to figure that one out!

If you are mandated by the government to get health insurance and can't afford it you're automatically enrolled in Madicaid or Madicare. Simple as that. The government is providing funds for that in each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, etc. It's up to the state to accept those monies and to spend it within the guidelines set forth by the Affordable Care Act.

Understand this (and this is where Obama's legal astuteness comes to play in this law): The government cannot mandate a law unless it is prepared to help its citizens comply with it. IOW's, the government is obligated to assist those citizens who are too poor to comply with the mandate.

In my book it's a brilliant political sleigh of hand on the part of the Obama administration. Ironically, one that, at least in the short run may redound in substantial benefits to the working class of America.

With this law, Obama has managed to expand the welfare state in an underhanded way. That's why the Republicans are so fucking mad!

[Manic Impressive]

It's raised the issue of capitalism in the mainstream media. Before you couldn't even talk about capitalism now the very nature of the economic system is being widely discussed forcing political leaders to come out and say things like "there's nothing wrong with capitalism". The very fact that they've had to say things like that is a victory in itself.

It's also been a good trial run for a more (yes I hate the word too) "libertarian" form of working class organization. A rejection of the need for leaders and of hierarchy in general. It's a step forward for sure but a baby step.

[A Marxist Historian]

I agree with your thoughts on OWS's abstract and tangible accomplishments. Shortcomings in my opinion...too much cop hatred. Cops may be flunkies, but they're part of the 99% too, and there should be much more outreach to them, especially by fellow union members, to make them more sympathetic to the OWS movement.

Everyone saw how the Tea Party was co-opted by the corporate right, deliberately made demonizable to the left (which stupidly obliged), and has become an ineffective critique of capitalism, which, arguably, it initially was.

When we focus anger on the police (and visit destruction on property), we alienate middle America, alienate the moderates in our own ranks, and simply create "riot porn" for Fox News. We marginalize ourselves.

This movement has to be peaceful, as broadly based as possible, and has to recognize that the police, for all their reactionary ways and shortcomings, have to be won over, or at least made sympathetic to the fight against the 1%.

The worst possible lesson from Occupy. And hopefully a minority view.

The Occupy people who have had their heads bashed in and sent to the hospital by cops surely have a better understanding of cops than this poster.

One of the biggest problems of Occupy is that in too many places it was all white. The kind of thinking of this poster helps explain why.

-M.H.-

[shinjuku dori]

It's also been a good trial run for a more (yes I hate the word too) "libertarian" form of working class organization.

Where was "working class" during Occupy Wallstreet? Sleeping in tents??

[citizen of industry]

Where was "working class" during Occupy Wallstreet? Sleeping in tents??

Good point. The working class is working, and can't occupy 24/7. Hence the value in the homeless in maintaining occupy sights. Workers can drop-by. That's the value in more permanent forms of organization like parties and unions.

Interesting to note that after the crack-downs on the parks, many occupies have rented office space, put up websites, etc.

[Tim Finnegan]

When we focus anger on the police (and visit destruction on property), we alienate middle America, alienate the moderates in our own ranks[...]
Eh, fuck 'em.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I was hoping that we could have a thread on the achievements of the occupy movement, both the tangible and the intangible, so that we could confront both the pessimistic leftists and the bootlicking liberals who say that Obama is so much bigger than #Occupy Wall St.

The Abstract:
"Increases in Class Consciousness and the change in political language" To expand on that I'd add that the mainstream political focus was momentarily changed in the country. Before Occupy the discussion from the top was: how the economy had been fixed but was slow and sacrifices needed to be made, how Obama killed Bin Laden, and how greedy teachers and public sector union workers were. After occupy it was no longer fringe to talk about inequality and austerity and to a certain extent the lot of the working class during this recession. It gave expression to a lot of pent-up class anger (from the left) that had existed but had no vehicle or way to be expressed and so were supposedly non-existant in a country where you either loved Obama and were content or dissatisfied and a Libertarian racist Tea-Party nut.

It re-legitimized protest further and re-legitimized protest from below rather than NGOs and liberal groups. Revitalized the idea of a General Strike, revitalized the idea and some credibility of radical politics.

The Tangible:
How many evictions we defended against, small changes in local law, protections of immigrants, workplaces organized, sizes of marches. No matter how small it sounds together I think that we have a case.

Brought various popular forces together creating networks and the potential for action among different groups from different areas of struggle. Created a sort of center of gravity for organizers and activists to come together. Exposed hundreds if not thousands to radical politics and radical arguments.


The Shortcomings:

Organizationally it was a double-edged affair IMO. On the one hand the "horozontalism" was good in the sense of emphasizing the "from below" nature of the movement and in wanting everyone to have a say. I don't think it ened up working all the time though and ended up being a hindrance once the raids began and a more organized method of democratic decision-making was needed IMO. Diversity of tactics isn't a very effective way to deal with repression when the goal of the cops tactics is to break up our large groups and break people down into small manageable ones - in effect sometimes diversity of tactics plays right into the hands of the cops.

It also hindered democratic and organic development in decision-making in my experience. In Oakland, people just began breaking off from Occupy when they lost a vote - many of them would have won by a democratic vote and while I didn't support changing the name to "de-colonize Oakland" it would have been better for the name to change and for the supporters of the name change to stay in the movement. I think there also needed to be more transparency in decision-making because the "no leaders" thing just became an unelected leadership as decisions were made by necessity at the movement, but there was no accountability or clear sense of what people were calling the shots. This created tensions and led to people splitting off from the movement.

Lack of emphasis on "base-building" and putting roots in communities. Oakland got better at this as time went on and people questioned why the larger numbers weren't turning out to things anymore. There needed to be more of this from the beginning. Really trying to reach out and involve people in their own community struggles.

The Future: the tensions and contradictions that created the movement as well as all the people radicalized by the movement aren't going to go away in the short-term. There will be something else regardless of it having the "occupy" tag or not. In Oakland there's a school being occupied now to protest the school's closure - this is a positive way for Occupy to go. It's occupy not in the idealistic sense of "taking this space is the point" to "taking this space" as a tactic to try and build something better - to have "demands" and to confront what the city is trying to do to the population here.

[Ocean Seal]

The Abstract:
"Increases in Class Consciousness and the change in political language" To expand on that I'd add that the mainstream political focus was momentarily changed in the country. Before Occupy the discussion from the top was: how the economy had been fixed but was slow and sacrifices needed to be made, how Obama killed Bin Laden, and how greedy teachers and public sector union workers were. After occupy it was no longer fringe to talk about inequality and austerity and to a certain extent the lot of the working class during this recession. It gave expression to a lot of pent-up class anger (from the left) that had existed but had no vehicle or way to be expressed and so were supposedly non-existant in a country where you either loved Obama and were content or dissatisfied and a Libertarian racist Tea-Party nut.

It re-legitimized protest further and re-legitimized protest from below rather than NGOs and liberal groups. Revitalized the idea of a General Strike, revitalized the idea and some credibility of radical politics.



I'll add that to the top and credit you with it.



The Tangible:
How many evictions we defended against, small changes in local law, protections of immigrants, workplaces organized, sizes of marches. No matter how small it sounds together I think that we have a case.

[QUOTE=Jimmie Higgins;2473132] Brought various popular forces together creating networks and the potential for action among different groups from different areas of struggle. Created a sort of center of gravity for organizers and activists to come together. Exposed hundreds if not thousands to radical politics and radical arguments.
This seems hard to quantify.



The Shortcomings:

Organizationally it was a double-edged affair IMO. On the one hand the "horozontalism" was good in the sense of emphasizing the "from below" nature of the movement and in wanting everyone to have a say. I don't think it ened up working all the time though and ended up being a hindrance once the raids began and a more organized method of democratic decision-making was needed IMO. Diversity of tactics isn't a very effective way to deal with repression when the goal of the cops tactics is to break up our large groups and break people down into small manageable ones - in effect sometimes diversity of tactics plays right into the hands of the cops.
You know for what its worth, I actually think that the consensus thing actually did do quite a bit of good, it made it such that the movement couldn't get co-opted by the Democratic Party.

[TheYoungCommie]

Nothing all they did was protest then they got cold or the police beat them and they left sorry it was unsuccessful.

[cyu]

All http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Parsons managed to do was get himself hanged... or... ?

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/140/3/1/ideas_by_autogestion-d50fccr.jpg

[Ele'ill]

well, we'll certainly need more than silence, voices, and meme's.

[MarxArchist]

You mean the individual mandate? It doesn't take a lawyer to figure that one out!

If you are mandated by the government to get health insurance and can't afford it you're automatically enrolled in Madicaid or Madicare. Simple as that. The government is providing funds for that in each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, etc. It's up to the state to accept those monies and to spend it within the guidelines set forth by the Affordable Care Act.

Understand this (and this is where Obama's legal astuteness comes to play in this law): The government cannot mandate a law unless it is prepared to help its citizens comply with it. IOW's, the government is obligated to assist those citizens who are too poor to comply with the mandate.

In my book it's a brilliant political sleigh of hand on the part of the Obama administration. Ironically, one that, at least in the short run may redound in substantial benefits to the working class of America.

With this law, Obama has managed to expand the welfare state in an underhanded way. That's why the Republicans are so fucking mad!

Although it would be somewhat mean I think this site should have a "best post ever" and "worst post ever" section where the best and worst posts are voted on and the person gets to be forever remembered by the post. I would nominate the post above for the worst post ever.

[DaringMehring]

Here are some of my unfinished thoughts on Occupy:

Historical context

* The several-decades domination of neo-liberalism
* Capital increasingly squeezing labor
* The decline of the labor movement
* The collapse of the degenerated workers’ states and the socialist movement in general

In general, at present

-- exploitation by capital has increased
-- a necessary corollary: the State’s activity in enforcing the rule of the capitalist class has increased, eg bailouts, military spending, suppression of dissent, etc.
-- alternatives to the rule of capital have suffered setbacks
-- class consciousness is low
-- downward mobility of middle class/privileged (children of college graduates with college debt but no middle class job)

Conditions that ultimately derive from

^ the triumph of the bourgeoisie in recent rounds of the class struggle
^ the laws of the functioning of capitalism (increasing concentration of capital, tendency of the rate of profit to fall)

Occupy: role and successes

Occupy’s role was a left-oriented reaction to the bailout and other vicissitudes of the financial collapse. The Tea Party was a right-wing pseudo-mirror in terms of impetus, though in terms of functioning it was completely different.

Occupy had a tremendous slogan “banks got bailed out, we got sold out.” This slogan was concise, powerful, and resonated across broad strata of the population. The “we are the 99%” slogan had short-comings (percentage is not sociologically useful) but at least contained the idea that there is a parasitic exploiter-class.

Occupy reached its zenith in direct actions like marches. In San Diego, actions at City Council and the Port Board had the City apparatus scrambling, uncertain and afraid.

Occupy succeeded in showing that vast swathes of the population feel exploited and angry. Despite idiosyncrasies like hand signaling, despite the realities of life in a street camp, and despite the media’s biased and slanderous coverage, Occupy always had a certain level of passive support based on its message.

It succeeded in showing that neoliberalism is not universally accepted.

It succeeded in providing a vehicle to radicalization for activists.

Occupy resisted being overtaken by outside forces, particularly, the Democratic Party, which is expert at subsuming activist movements.

In being suppressed, it succeeded in demonstrating once again that the State is an instrument of the capitalists.

In short, Occupy, as part of a broader historical trajectory:

* raised class consciousness – there was indisputably a basic class-content, if only crudely expressed
* disrupted the ideological domination of neoliberalism – something appeared on the radar, even if it was only a blip

Occupy: failures and collapse

Occupy disintegrated due to internal centripetal force and external suppression.

The greatest weakness of Occupy was that it failed to make an organic link with the working class. Workers did not see encampments as something to join. Encampments did not orient themselves toward the working class. They saw themselves as isolated “free zones.”

Even within the context of an encampment-oriented movement, it could have been different. The first and fundamental work of an encampment could have been to bring its message to the community. Teams of canvassers door-knocking with flyers in working class neighborhoods would have been one way to start.

Working class solidarity would have provided the one real weighty and potent counter to State suppression.

Lack of focus on the working class is a symptom of the obliteration of socialist ideology and practice in the second half of the twentieth century. Occupiers in general did not see themselves as workers. To some degree they were not, as petty-bourgeoisie were heavily represented. Even on the Labor Solidarity Committee, in San Diego, there were few workers. Even if not workers, occupiers could have adopted strategies designed to build strength among the working class, had they seen that as an important objective.

The converse was that Occupy oriented in unfortunate ways toward the petty bourgeoisie, alienating workers. For example, the intellectual or pseudo-intellectual jargon used by many occupiers, including in the eventual Occupy Manifesto – “example“ This was the opposite of brilliant slogans like “banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Another problem was the lack of a program or plan. Popular mobilization is hard to sustain without a plan. Three logics were commonly offered as to why there was no program... [goes on]

[MarxArchist]

Here are some of my unfinished thoughts on Occupy:


Occupy: failures and collapse

Occupy disintegrated due to internal centripetal force and external suppression.

The greatest weakness of Occupy was that it failed to make an organic link with the working class. Workers did not see encampments as something to join. Encampments did not orient themselves toward the working class. They saw themselves as isolated “free zones.”

Even within the context of an encampment-oriented movement, it could have been different. The first and fundamental work of an encampment could have been to bring its message to the community. Teams of canvassers door-knocking with flyers in working class neighborhoods would have been one way to start.

Working class solidarity would have provided the one real weighty and potent counter to State suppression.

Lack of focus on the working class is a symptom of the obliteration of socialist ideology and practice in the second half of the twentieth century. Occupiers in general did not see themselves as workers. To some degree they were not, as petty-bourgeoisie were heavily represented. Even on the Labor Solidarity Committee, in San Diego, there were few workers. Even if not workers, occupiers could have adopted strategies designed to build strength among the working class, had they seen that as an important objective.

The converse was that Occupy oriented in unfortunate ways toward the petty bourgeoisie, alienating workers. For example, the intellectual or pseudo-intellectual jargon used by many occupiers, including in the eventual Occupy Manifesto – “example“ This was the opposite of brilliant slogans like “banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Another problem was the lack of a program or plan. Popular mobilization is hard to sustain without a plan. Three logics were commonly offered as to why there was no program... [goes on]

It's rare, EXTREMELY rare that Americans open themselves up to actual class struggle, as in, our fellow working class becoming open to having the conflict between labor/capital exposed. We failed to focus on exposing the conflict between labor/capital and failed to focus on the systemic causes of crisis. We also failed to connect with the population at large via focusing soley on peoples economic material conditions. It was an unorganized hodgepodge of millions of different complaints and a lot of really bad ideas.

[Rooiakker]

Really not much other than perpetuate the idea of feel-good consumerism, and that taxes are socialism.

[Ele'ill]

even on the west coast among radicals it seemed to just rehash a bunch of old actions

[cyu]

Trying to avoid too much "American Occupy is real Occupy" thinking here :D but I see it as part of a global contagion and source of "I inspire you, then you inspire me" which includes what has happened in Arab countries.

There's a reason http://occupygezi.org/en has the word "occupy" in it and I wouldn't call it random chance.

Taken in a wider context, governments have already been overthrown. Though the work has not finished, even in the countries where reformists have tried to quickly co-opt the movements, whether you still want to call it "Occupy" or something else, I wouldn't call it a part of past history, but a part of the historic times we're currently living in.

The 1960s were seen as a decade of social upheaval. I daresay the period we are in now will make the 60s pale by comparison.

[DaringMehring]

To rookieadder, Mari3l, etc. who only see the failure of Occupy -- yes, it did go down to defeat, yes there was stupid stuff, but... the cadres of a revolutionary Party do not emerge fully formed without a period of struggles to steel and teach them. For instance, the Bolsheviks emerged out of the long period of failed Narodnik struggles, figuring out better methods. Lenin is a case in point.

Ask the simple question, was it better that there was Occupy than not? Yes. Duh.

Did Occupy activate new people to struggle? Yes. Even if the Dems or the loony-tunes anarchists made some gains, so did socialists.

If you don't meet people where they are, you won't be that great of an educator/agitator. Occupy had a lot of stirred up people and by engaging and giving some suggestions, you could build up credibility. It was not a perfect venue, or even a good venue, but it was better than nothing.

Dissing the stirred up people, and dismissing them, is stuff for socialist role-players or weirdos like Khad who seem to go against any popular movement (Brazil has been hijacked by fascists!) instead of meeting the people where they are and fighting for the socialist viewpoint and methods.