THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT NEEDS A GOOD FIGHT

Power concedes nothing without a fight.” – Frederick Douglass 

In a movement based on general anger about inequality and the domination of big banks, it becomes difficult to focus the rage into something concrete. For many Occupiers, being concrete is a mere distraction, meant to shift the movement into something “less radical,” since their targets — big banks and inequality — are at the root of the problem. Why mess with the tree when you could go for the roots? 

But, as any tree-removal worker will tell you, the tree comes first, then the roots. The roots cannot be the immediate goal of the Occupy Movement because pulling them out would require tens of millions of hands, and the vast majority of working people are not yet directly involved in the movement, though many of them are giving approving nods from a distance. Bringing these more distant people into the movement requires they be given a good reason to join. And although a general anti-1% sentiment sounds appealing to the 99%, a struggle to win worker-friendly demands can help pull these people into the streets.

Action in this case means the dirty work of organizing working people, based on the issues that they care most about. Organizing a new union is a perfect example — on a smaller scale — of what needs to happen in the Occupy Movement nationwide. When organizers come to a work site to form a union, they do not simply pass out pro-union propaganda in the parking lot until workers decide to join up. Instead, organizers use agitation based on the key problems of the work site — low wages, no rights, etc. — to spur the workplace to action. Only when workers are motivated in this way and united to achieve their common demands do they feel empowered enough to take on the boss and form a union, transforming themselves and their workplaces in the process.

This is what Occupy is missing. There is plenty of good anti-1% propaganda about inequality and against the banks, but so far there has not been a serious effort to agitate for the majority of working people to wage a united fight over specific issues. Only the most progressive 5% is directly fighting for Occupy now, the rest of the population will be won over or turned away by how the Occupy Movement relates to them.

The two political parties would reel under this pressure and would either make concessions or be quickly pushed aside. During the struggle, working people would be transformed by their experience, learning firsthand who their friends and enemies are while also being won over to more radical ideas in the process. Fighting for demands and winning them in a united fashion pushes the movement forward and hardens it, because each victory serves to embolden the movement and encourages it to reach for even more. This society-wide process of mass radicalization and action would be a real revolutionary movement.

SHAMUS COOKE is a worker/union activist and tactician living in Portland, Oregon.  

 

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