[OccupyComms] [Squares] [Occupy London] Two Short Articles

Sun Feb 19 12:32:51 GMT 2012

There is indeed a recipe for breaking popular movements, and it may be "apparently" like those familiar patterns Chris sees.

But I think that if the movement were to be on a wrong track already... the easiest thing to do would be to harass it so that it would, on his own initiative, dig himself more in on this wrong track. The powers would only push a little, and the movement itself would do all the rest for them.

There are but two ways to bring change to the system:

1) An uprising strong enough to wipe away the present Constitutional Framework and reboot with a cleaner model.

2) An electoral victory within the present Constitutional Framework able to form a majority big enough to be able to modify core legislation.

I beg you to find some other effective way to show me.

If the movement would for whatever reason (most sociological) take forever to bring enough people behind 1), and categorically refuses 2) for whatever "idealistic" reasons or lack of understanding...

... it would be a nice "placeholder" going nowhere... any established power would be glad to nurture, as it leaves no room, nor people, for other more efficient organizations.

Here in Spain, Indignados lost the occasion to be of any influence in last novembers general elections, and the winner will have 4 years to make sure they won't be of any influence in the next one either. 4 years they will spend defending from the insidious attacks of the government, with nothing but wishing well to show as results, lamenting that they were right to fear it, and incapable of doing whatever might have been really effective to stop it.

The horizontal assembly model, while it would be the perfect form of governance in an ideal world, demands from each member equal responsability and knowledgeability, as the only way not to have to say to anybody that he is wrong or doing wrong is that the person himself be trustworthy to arrive to such conclusions himself and preventively rectify.

The problems we have with the "productivity" of the assemblies are not the models fault... but the lack of insight of too many of those who abuse the model without tuning their mindset to the collective wellbeing. All we try to do is find ways to "nullify" the effect of bad behaviour... without recognising bad behaviour is the problem.

Talking about models... the capitalist vs. anticapitalist one that too many of us cherish is a DEAD END.

As long as we go for it, the left will be utterly pleased and find reasons to infiltrate us even more, and ALL THAT FEEL THREATHENED IN THEIR SURVIVAL by this left's final aims and violent endgame WILL UNEVITABLY GATHER AS A FRONT. We won't be any closer to a solution than we have been since communism was instrumentalized to get rid of Tzar Nicolas in Russia... 49,5% reds vs. 49,5% blues, fighting an extenuation battle among them while the 1% watches the sillyness of things.

Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:16:50 +0000
From: anna at shsh.co.uk
To: squares at lists.takethesquare.net
CC: realdemocracynow at groupspaces.com; occupylondon at groupspaces.com; occupycomms at email-lists.org; shurim at live.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Squares] [Occupy London] Two Short Articles

Please give contact for Nicole Denby  +1

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com> wrote:

+1 Chris / Mark !

On 18 February 2012 20:58, mark weaver <shurim at live.co.uk> wrote:

          Chris Hedges -

"There is a recipe for breaking popular movements. I watched it play 
out over five years in the war in El Salvador. I now see these familiar 
patterns in the assault against the Occupy movement. It goes like this. 
Physically eradicate the insurgents’ logistical base of operations to 
disrupt communication and organization. Dry up financial and material 
support. Create rival organizations—the group Stand for Oakland seems to
 be one of these attempts—to discredit and purge the rebel leadership. 
Infiltrate the movement to foster internal divisions and rivalries, a 
tactic carried out consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, by an 
anonymous West Coast group known as OLAASM—Occupy Los Angeles Anti 
Social Media. Provoke the movement—or front groups acting in the name of
 the movement—to carry out actions such as vandalism and physical 
confrontations with the police that alienate the wider populace from the
 insurgency. Invent atrocities and repugnant acts supposedly carried out
 by the movement and plant these stories in the media. Finally, offer up
 a political alternative. In the war in El Salvador it was Jose Napoleon
 Duarte. For the Occupy movement it is someone like Van Jones. And use 
this “reformist” to co-opt the language of the movement and promise to 
promote the movement’s core aims through the electoral process."

Nicole Demby -

While #OWS still encompasses
 within it a multiplicity of tactics, opinions, and degrees of political
 radicalism, the evidence is all too clear that the soul of Occupy is 
anticapitalist, and the desire for a different system is a desire for a 
protest movement whose grasp on our lives is more holistic. There has 
already been inspiring work done to organize in different communities, 
and one can envision the emergence of a dispersed network not only of 
general assemblies but of communes and cooperatives as well. 

The old pessimism of theory beats at our backs, telling us that any 
developed and sustained form of communal organization can only exist as 
an autonomous pocket whose threat to capitalism is nil. Yet sustaining 
autonomous, communal forms of care is not a shift away from direct, 
active forms of resistance. The positive and the negative aspects of the
 fight against capitalism must work in conjunction with one another to 
mutually reinforce each other. Communes, cooperatives and other 
structures of social support provide a material safety net that 
facilitates more radical action, enabling people to strike from work and
 from debt obligations with the assurance that their material needs will
 be met when they do. Moreover, such forms of organization can begin the
 incredibly difficult process of building trust between those with 
radically different backgrounds and experiences, providing support for 
whoever needs it, especially those who have borne the brunt of the 
economic collapse.

These forms of organization will enervate the status quo by drawing 
participants’ time and energy away from their roles as wage laborers, 
salaried workers, and consumers. Of course, #OWS has already begun to do
 this; many of us without the luxury of highly flexible (read 
precarious) employment, or who haven’t already committed ourselves as 
full-time occupiers (and are now sleeping in churches, synagogues and 
generously offered private homes – and organizing during the day) 
already spend our office hours surreptitiously reading working group 
emails or occupy-related articles. Yet we aim to achieve a less 
schizophrenic mode of existence in which the totalizing effect of Occupy
 on our thoughts is reflected in the degree to which it predominates our
 actions, one in which our politics accords with the way in which we 
support ourselves. For those against capitalism this will mean testing 
our own boldness and examining our own perceived futures. As Daniel 
Marcus observed: “There can be no movement of communes if 
protest is merely an extracurricular activity of wage-earners: workers 
will have to choose whether they stand with the communes or with the 
bosses and administrators.”

The need for new structures of care is emotional as well as material.
 Many of us are beginning to realize the extent of our own 
dissatisfaction. We spend time with friends and lovers, but these 
encounters are transitory counterpoints to the anomie induced by a 
culture of individualism. We work towards success, but what constitutes 
success seems increasingly empty. Perhaps it’s unfashionable to speak of
 “alienation,” naïve to make claims about what forms of work or 
activities might begin to overcome it, utopian to believe that we could 
create a society in which a better life is possible. And yet we already 
see the possibility of these things in the near future of this movement 
and are already beginning to build the necessary infrastructure. 

Affect isn’t just an effect, but a decisive tool of revolution. Just 
as the catharsis of resistance we experienced in the fall bolstered 
community and emboldened us to go further, more communal, 
self-sustaining and holistic instantiations of Occupy will further 
entrench and strengthen the movement. We are strongest when our 
resistance draws on our outrage but also harnesses our vital forces, 
extending to the very material and psychological basis of our lives. 

In the spring we must rediscover together that there are militant kinds of community and insurrectionary forms of care.

-- 

Friendly reminder: please keep these mailing list discussions to a minimum as they reach a lot of people. Instead you can email working groups and individuals directly, or use the Occupy London forum at occupylondon . info

You receive this email as a member of the Occupy London Groupspace. Manage your group membership or unsubscribe.

-- 
Apathy is Dead ! http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/

_______________________________________________

n-1 working group: https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international/

Squares mailing list

Squares at lists.takethesquare.net

for unsubscribe/etc: https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/squares or Squares-owner at lists.takethesquare.net

_______________________________________________

n-1 working group: https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international/

Squares mailing list
Squares at lists.takethesquare.net
for unsubscribe/etc: https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/squares or Squares-owner at lists.takethesquare.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.email-lists.org/pipermail/occupycomms/attachments/20120219/ad5b0f82/attachment-0001.html>