The Coming War on the Occupy Movement

Repression Breeds Resistance

by GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER

As I begin to write this, Occupy Oakland circulates in a by-now familiar pattern: forced from the camp at the break of day, the occupiers reconvened as they have done before on the steps of the Public Library. Later, they will attempt to close a repeating circuit that stretches a short six blocks along 14th Street between City Hall and the Library.

This circuit, moreover, is one which draws its familiarity not only from recent weeks, but also from the early moments of what is a single cycle of struggle spanning years: it was down 14th Street that Oakland Police pursued us during the first rebellion, on January 7th of 2009, that greeted the murder of Oscar Grant. And it was in front of the same Public Library that I crouched behind a bush as an armored personnel carrier sped past, only to sprint off as heavily-clad militarized police-troops dismounted to chase myself and others on foot.

It has become all too apparent that the Occupy Movement is under attack, and that even my title is wholly insufficient: this war is not “coming,” this war has already begun.

Breaching the Limits of Tolerance

Writing from the perspective of a previous cycle of struggle, the radical Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse described the phenomenon of “repressive tolerance,” in which an ostensibly liberating concept and practice becomes distorted to suit the powerful and legitimate the status quo. According to the political theorist Wendy Brown, the discourse of tolerance serves to mark the powerful as normal while discrediting the “unruly” as somehow “deviant,” and thereby “legitimates the most illiberal actions of the state.” In other words, the repression that comes is not a distinct and corrupted form of tolerance, as for Marcuse, but instead embedded within the idea itself.

This lesson is of paramount importance to the Occupy Movement, but so is its opposite: even the most repressive of tolerance has its limits in the push-and-pull of forces vying for control, and Marcuse’s arguable pessimism on this point must be countered with the optimism of transgressing those limits.

This war began as most do, in the realm of hegemonic struggle where small shifts signal coming offensives. But walking the fine line of counterintelligence and counterinsurgency, the forces conspiring against the Occupy Movement have been anything but subtle. In a crude and thinly-veiled information war, lies are tossed about like the seeds they are, and the media duly parrots line put forth by police and city alike. This “chatter” (to turn the language of the counterinsurgents against them) begins to spread surreptitiously: that Occupy is unsanitary, now dangerously so, now downright violent.

By the time San Francisco Chronicle was citing “anonymous police sources” about the conditions of the camp (bearing in mind that the police were not even allowed into the camp), it was clear to many that a raid was imminent. For the second raid this morning, the warning was even clearer: another anonymous leak to the Chronicle, and a leaked email to parents at a local school about an “overwhelming use of force.”

The script is strikingly similar across the map, from Oakland to Portland, Atlanta to Philly: a Democratic mayor plays nice, claiming to represent “the 99%” and to support the Occupation’s crusade against big business. But at some point, as the chatter increases, the occupation goes badly wrong, becoming unacceptable and violent, unrecognizable to the Middle America for which it claims to speak. A murder, a suicide, a rape, and an overdose suddenly brim with political opportunity. With the stage set, all that remains is for the guardians of good order to step in to defend the common good.

The Students Step into the Fray

The Bay Area Occupy Movement received an unexpected shot in the arm last Wednesday when students protesting the creeping increase in fees in the UC system pitched a small number of tents on the grassy area in front of Sproul Hall. If Oakland Mayor Jean Quan drastically miscalculated when she unleashed the police in late October, the response by UCPD to this seemingly minor disturbance strays into the realm of the Epic Fail. Deploying overwhelming force, UCPD could be seen on video beating and spearing students with their batons, punching some in the face, and even dragging English Professor Celeste Langan down by her hair. Langan would later write about her experience, and another English Professor, Geoffrey O’Brien, was also injured by police on the day.

Such repressive tactics and blatant disconnect between the second-rate cops of the UCPD and the student body are nothing new. Amid the student upsurge of 2009, the UCPD came under heavy scrutiny for its handling of a wave of building occupations, and at least one lawsuit from a friend of mine whose fingers had been purposely broken by a sadistic officer outside the Wheeler Hall occupation. At the height of the repressive wave, I myself was one of many featured on the UCPD website in an openly McCarthyite attempt to foster a snitch culture on campus (website visitors were encouraged to send tips that would aid in identifying the dangerous student organizers). The website was eventually removed through legal action.

But repression breeds resistance, as we well know. As I write this, the November 15th system-wide student strike is but a few hours away, and the mass participation of students in the Occupy struggle promises, if they can successfully link with their counterparts to the south, to offer a much needed injection of energy and numbers.

The Indestructible Oakland Commune

The days following the Oakland General Strike and port shutdown were dominated by a debate that never should have been. Rather than crowing about an unprecedented and unexpected chain of victories, in which Occupiers forced the city to back down and re-took Oscar Grant Plaza only to then embark on a massive if not truly General Strike, which saw up to 25,000 people swarm and shut down the Port of Oakland, some within the metaphorical Occupy camp naively took the bait offered by the city and the police, and amplified by the media. The press talking points went something like this: an otherwise powerful day was sullied by the actions of a small few who broke windows at a bank and assailed the Whole Foods in my old neighborhood.

While this iteration of the “nonviolence” debate was won on many fronts by those promoting nuance and diversity of tactics, this was nevertheless a powerful foothold for those seeking to oust the Occupation once again. Within a matter of days the chatter had increased once again, City Council was almost unanimously urging its removal, and the formerly remorseful Jean Quan, fresh from a visit to Scott Olson’s bedside, was once again urging the Occupiers to vacate. Councilwoman Desley Brooks, whose opportunism apparently knows no bounds, went from sleeping at the occupation (or at least publicly emerging from a tent) to condemning the occupiers in a matter of mere weeks. (Such stage-managed populism is something of a forte: Brooks had previously unleashing her goons on myself and others for apparently undermining her carefully crafted image of sympathy with the people.)

As City Council turned against the Occupiers, and as the City Administrator threatened to go around the Mayor to approve a raid, Quan was apparently disconnected and feigned impotence: as a leaked email from her husband put it, “she does not set policy for the city… council does.” The very same Mayor who had approved the devastatingly brutal raid a week prior finally signed on to allow the same police, under the same police chief, with the same participating agencies, to move in and clear the camp.

This was too much for some within the Quan administration to handle. At 2am, Quan’s chief legal advisor Dan Siegel resigned via a twitter message. Siegel, who I am proud to count as a friend and a comrade, and whose civil rights law firm has tirelessly defended protestors in the past, has been for years fighting the struggle within the Quan administration against all odds. He has chosen to take a principled stand at exactly the right moment.

As Occupiers massed at the Public Library, only to march once again up 14th Street to again seize Oscar Grant Plaza with no resistance from police, the same Plaza the Mayor had just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear, it is clear that she has been defeated once again, and decisively so. One wonders what could possibly be next for Quan.

Occupy Philly’s “Wrong Turn”

On the opposite coast, the same script plays out. After initially expressing support for Occupy Philly, and evidently fooling many Occupiers in the process, Mayor Nutter was re-elected by a wide margin last Tuesday, freeing his hand for a radical change in course. The previous week, the Radical Caucus of Occupy Philly had brought forth a proposal to the General Assembly which simply stated that the Occupy camp would not voluntarily leave in preparation for a scheduled construction project in Dilworth Plaza, and would resist eviction. The proposal seemed to shock many who had been lulled into the false sense of security that liberal tolerance provides, but after extending discussion of a modified proposal for an entire week, a four-hour General Assembly decided almost unanimously (150 to 3) to remain in Dilworth Plaza and make preparations for nonviolent civil disobedience in the event of a raid.

Nutter’s first move came in a Sunday press conference, in which he announced his intentions to the world in so many words. “Occupy Philly has changed,” he insisted, and so to must the city’s relation with it change. Conditions had deteriorated, fire codes had been violated, and communication, according to the Mayor, had been unilaterally severed. The shadowy force behind this subtle and unwelcome change, according to Nutter, was the Radical Caucus, a frightening group that had taken over and is “bent on civil disobedience” (I only wonder why he didn’t follow suit with other cities in referring to “violence”). If the central pretext for eviction in other cities has been murder, suicide, and overdoses, in Philly it is rape: Nutter highlighted a sexual assault at the camp as an indication of just how far the movement had fallen.

If the repetition of this same strategy, discredit then evict, across the country were not enough to doubt the Mayor’s words, Occupy Philly itself was quick to respond. At a counter-press conference yesterday, speaker after speaker dismantled Nutter’s claim, piece by piece. The most shocking revelation came from the Women’s Caucus, which was quick to highlight the opportunism and hypocrisy of focusing in on the sexual assault as a pretext to attack the Occupation. As a representative of the Women’s Caucus told the press, “We asked police for help with the eviction of a sexual predator. The police said, ‘It’s not our problem. Get your men to handle it.’”

If anything, the Mayor’s slander has strengthened the resolve of those who will defend the camp from eviction, and here’s to hoping it will open the eyes of some who have claimed that the Mayor was on the side of the Occupation from day one. (The so-called “Reasonable Solutions Committee,” which had spearheaded efforts to hand the Plaza back to the city, appears to be beyond all limits of reason. Its members are now both circulating a petition to repeal the GA’s decision to remain, deemed a “Petition for the Logical” with characteristic condescension, while simultaneously betraying the Occupation as a whole by unilaterally applying for alternative permits from the city).

The Politics of War

From the messy dialectic of the spreading Occupy Movement emerge some expected developments. Solidarity develops among the occupiers, who draw strength from the successes and rage from the repression of their comrades, learning crucial and radicalizing lessons from both. Police and city administrators similarly close ranks (sometimes together, sometimes against one another) gripped with the fear that their power is splintering, that the movements have become ungovernable, that they are slipping the yoke and refusing the straitjacket. A climate of mutual polarization, radicalization, and warfare sets in.

But other unexpected dynamics surface as well, some of which play into the hands of the Occupiers. As Occupations spread from Oakland to Berkeley, the sheer number of available police becomes a question, as individual forces rely on mutual aid programs for costly, large-scale eviction efforts. Word emerges that Oakland’s efforts to remove the camp were sped-up due to the constraints imposed by the impending student strike tomorrow. Here the fallout from the brutality of the first Oakland eviction blows back on the police forces themselves: citing the excessive force in Oakland, Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to block mutual aid assistance between the Berkeley PD and UCPD.

And even those more than willing to participate in brutality have begun to demand more booty and protection: in the run-up to the second Oakland eviction this morning, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department demanded not only $1,000 per officer per day, and the City of Alameda also demanded increased legal protection in the case of a repeat of the brutality that left Iraq veteran Scott Olson critically injured at the hands of an ACSD officer. This increasing legal scrutiny, financial strain, and sheer numerical limitations bode well for the future of Bay Area occupations and those across the nation.

I use the language of war consciously, not out of some desire for violent conclusion but out of a recognition that violence is already there. As our Egyptian comrades made clear in a statement in solidarity with Oakland, “It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose.” Despite the asymmetrical nature of the war that confronts us, the implements are the same: few can deny the shocking militarization of police departments in recent years, or that this heavy weaponry has been all but openly deployed against the Occupiers. If Clausewitz famously argued that war is politics by other means, a formulation which Foucault slyly reversed, the practical reality of the Occupy Movement is that the two are much more difficult to disentangle from one another. Every word from the mouth of these Democratic Mayors, every leak whispered from a cop to a reporter is a rubber bullet in potentia.

I use the language of war because we will not back down, and because as a result, the war will be brought to us.

But more importantly, I speak of war because this is not a one-sided affair, and we should not allow our opponents to strip us of our status as equals simply because we do not respond in kind. Our power is nothing to scoff at, although it circulates in a manner largely distinct from that which we oppose. Just two nights ago, Occupy Portland swelled into the thousands to defend Chapman and Lownsdale squares, facing down riot police, forcing their retreat, and winning the night in the most absolute of terms. Last night, the plaza was cleared and campers removed, but traces of such a stunning initial victory remain in the confidence and compromise of the occupiers as they regroup and go once more into the breach.

And as I finish, I receive late word from Oakland that the occupiers have re-taken Oscar Grant Plaza without more than a symbolic police presence, and even later word of a massive crackdown of Zucotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Another skirmish lost, another battle won, but the long war stretches out before us like an interminable horizon.

George Ciccariello-Maher is an exiled Oaklander who lives in Philadelphia and teaches political theory at Drexel University. He can be reached at gjcm(at)drexel.edu. 

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OWS at the crossroads—the first amendment on the ropes, but all’s well in lalaland

PATRICE GREANVILLE

Kelsey De Santis and Justin Timberlake at the Marine Corps Ball.  Disgraceful that the make-believe syndrome in America has reached such grotesque proportions. Is this what our Marines are fighting for? 

BEEN ABSENT A WHILE, swamped with those inevitable “other” things we must attend to while keeping the dialog going.  I missed the exchanges here. Anyhow, let’s get to business. 

Don’t you all feel great this morning to live in this great and free republic-er, democracy-the very best in the world, and to see, also, that the American Dream is alive and well?

Yes, folks, fairy tales still happen in America. Where else could a lower middle class kid in a Marine uniform get a date with a Galactic-class celeb like Justin Timberlake, just by “asking”…? Only in America, folks.  That’s why the media are giving this important story saturation coverage.  Those willing to die to protect “our freedoms” can literally have anything in America—anything. Which is bunk, of course. Both subject and predicate. In a companion article on this site, my colleague Phil Rockstroh puts his finger on this scandalous pretense with his usual perspicacity: 

Freedom rises despite cops and soldiers not because of them. And that is exactly why those who despise freedom propagate military hagiography and fetishize those wearing uniforms–so they can give the idea of liberty lip service as all the while they order it crushed. (See The Police State Makes Its Move: Retaining one’s humanity in the face of tyranny)

So while an innocent Marine has her dearest wish fulfilled, to the expected chorus of oohs and aahs by the prestitutes, our democracy keeps setting new standards of insubstantiality, with the vital First Amendment essentially voided by the creeping practice of “permissioning”—the custom of giving the authorities the “right” to grant permits to protest or congregate for political reasons, which is plainly absurd. Why should people need to ask permission to protest from those they’re precisely protesting against? 

Now any Mayor, not to mention someone higher up in the plutocratic structure, a governor like a Scott Walker, or a Kasich, or an Andy Cuomo (a bastard and a phony positioning himself as the tip of the spear of a new Kennedyesque dynasty—or so they hope) can posture as a constitutional scholar and determine whether the First Amendment is operational or not. At this writing, no courts have refereed the issue  (and we know how they may tilt at the very top, even if lower courts find the practice unconstitutional). 

In any case, imperious bastards like NYC’s Bloomberg have been seeking excuses to shut down OWS ever since it started, and began to show its subversive promise. The usual character assassination script was promptly rolled out—

  • OWS was a “nuisance” (complaining neighbors were trotted out on cue by the obedient media, when in reality they are few and distant from the spot);
  • unsanitary conditions (a bald-faced lie) were a public health risk to one and all;
  • the occupiers prevented a MacDonalds (?) and similar establishments from carrying on its God-given right to do business (private property trumps citizens rights again);
  • criminals were seeking harbor in the sprawling “disorder”;
  • plus other picayune “reasons” that could be marshaled to justify forcible eviction—the burgos believing that by erasing a physical symbol the movement and the grievances would be decapitated. 

Maybe the burgos decided to clamp down because things are getting out of control in burgoland: the Eurozone is unravelling, the unwashed are waking up to their plight, and there’s been a mutually reinforcing dynamic between protest groups in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere.

The two main options available to gloved tyrannies in the more developed world have always been low to moderate repression, and cooptation. They’re deploying both. Plus selective media omissions and distortions. But the protests will come and go for a while because the real progenitor is the burgo system itself, capitalism and its antisocial, anti-nature dynamic, which is now in its final and most pernicious phase, and spanning the globe, hence provoking global responses. Although uneven development has been the rule of economic history for centuries if not millennia, now the differences seem to have collapsed—as far as the masses are concerned—because the level of exploitation, criminality, illegitimacy and toxicity has reached simply unconscionable levels. A cancerous mafia has been running the world, and now the mask is finally melting away, with the heat self-applied. 

What next for the burgos? The Winter may give them a respite, at least in the US, and a few reforms may also dampen the ardor of those who remain in the fold of Democratic party reformism (on this topic, see Shamus Cooke’s excellent,  THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT NEEDS A GOOD FIGHT).   And they will be tempted to devise ways of shutting down the Internet’s “seditious” capabilities. That’s why a resolute defense of the Internet and social media, in general, is critical to the success of this phase of the evolving movement.  

In the Spring and Summer, new uprisings will likely take place, and if the movement has cogitated its tactical and strategic options well, sorted out the lessons of the first phase, a new level of more organized militancy may enter the stage. Concrete demands that can galvanize the workers are critical to the strengthening of the movement; otherwise labor will remain in the Democrats’ orbit. And, sooner rather than later, some sort of more disciplined formation must congeal. As I mentioned in a prior, what we need now is a national assembly to discuss a unity program, such delegates’ convention being the prelim to a people’s new charter of rights and governance. 

The historic moment is there to be grabbed, but the window of opportunity is narrow, and, like a barrage, moving away from us.

Patrice Greanville is TGP’s founding editor. 

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Can the Occupy Movement Civilize the USA?

by BOB SIMPSON

–Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor- 1915

I would love to live in a civilized country in a civilized world. Really. But  truth be told, we’re not there yet. Not even close. Some of us may live in places that have the trappings of civilization: modern plumbing, government, electricity, heating and cooling, houses, rapid transit, taxes, libraries, schools and the like. But don’t be fooled. Civilization is more than some of us flushing a toilet or visiting an art gallery.

Folks, it’s time to raise the bar on what the word civilized really means.

When I  walk along State Street in the Chicago Loop, I see the gravely wounded from America’s class war lining the sidewalks. They beg for chump change, styrofoam cups in hand, hoping to find a place to lay their heads at night without getting them bashed in by some knucklehead. Civilized society would never tolerate this kind of neglect.

If I cross the bridge over the Chicago River on Michigan Ave and walk north by the glittering consumer palaces of the Miracle Mile, I can see the gorgeous outfits that just scream power and money. Much of the labor that goes into them comes from 3rd World sweatshops where working conditions would gag a maggot. These objects of sartorial splendor may scream money and power, but they can’t even whisper the word civilization. Sweatshops would not exist in a civilized world. Period.

If you want to live in a civilized society, it takes a labor movement.

Today we have an inspiring new labor uprising  that is busy rejuvenating the traditional labor movement as it forges a path of its own. Occupy Wall Street and its many off shoots are the latest in a series of labor revolts that have been necessary steps toward a genuine American civilization. Hopefully Occupy will take us a closer to that goal. It is certainly in a fine American tradition.

In the days of the American Revolution sailors, mechanics, artisans and small farmers banded together to teach King George III a lesson in economics— that colonialism is a really…really bad investment if it takes red coats to manage it.  But the aspirations of this revolutionary working class were more than simply monetary gain.

Reading and sharing Tom Paine’s popular revolutionary pamphlets in taverns and public squares, the working class dove into advanced political philosophy, discovering that low and behold, they were smart enough to govern themselves. Goodbye to kings and queens, lords and ladies and the whole sorry lot. Brains and ability don’t necessarily travel down the inbred bloodlines of people weighed down by powdered wigs. Genuine civilization demanded much more than that.

“We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

–Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

How on god’s green earth did the Founding fathers forget to include a Bill of Rights?

Despite the sacrifices made by America’s working class on the battlefields of the Revolution, the wealthy authors of 1787 Constitution then conveniently “forgot” to include a Bill of Rights. Our Founding Fathers wanted folks with calloused hands to stick  to their chores and stay away from political philosophy. Those with the calloused hands responded with a series of rude noisy protests.

The result was the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Everyone would have saved a lot of time if they had been included in the first place, but oh well. The 1st Amendment contains some of the most hallowed ideas of civilization: freedom of religion, speech, the press and assembly. What could be more important to the advance of civilization than the right to create, share and discuss ideas?

Of course these sacred rights weren’t worth the parchment they were printed on if they weren’t respected. When workers  first organized labor unions, respect was not what they got. Instead it was mass firings, blacklisting, arrests, and uncomfortable days and nights in the slammer. Eventually it was the enthusiastic deployment of police truncheons, revolvers and rifles. The term “class war”  was not a metaphor back in the day.

Besides the obvious demand for higher wages, early unions demanded a reduction in work hours plus free public education and public libraries. How could anyone have a decent family life and enjoy cultural or intellectual activities without time and education? Was civilization only for the top hat and carriage crowd?

“Let oppression shrug her shoulders,
And a haughty tyrant frown,
And little upstart Ignorance,
In mockery look down.
Yet I value not the feeble threats
Of Tories in disguise,
While the flag of Independence
O’er our noble nation flies.”

– poem from  a Lowell Women Workers’ 1834 Petition

But how did the working class people who won us the Bill of Rights  forget to include the abolition of slavery?

Slavery was the most terrible abuse of labor in the Early Republic. The racism that accompanied it  was a deep stain on our nation and even penetrated the early labor movement which was often ambivalent or even hostile to abolitionists, fearing economic competition from freed black labor.

For the slaveowners, civilization meant a thin veneer of manners, a smile worthy of a Nile crocodile, whips, chains and a totalitarian hostility toward freedom that made the Bill of Rights a bad joke. Slaves could be severely punished for learning to read and write. So could anyone who taught them. A burning desire for education arose in the hearts of many who endured this labor nightmare.

A small despised minority throughout most of their existence, abolitionists stepped onto center stage during the Civil War when thousands of black people rose up against their masters, refusing to work the Confederate plantations in what became a massive general strike. This combined with former slaves taking up arms, turned a Civil War into a war of liberation and a Second American Revolution.

And when peace finally came, what was one of the first things that freed slaves asked for? Teachers. Teachers and books. The more the better. Freed slaves wanted to do their part in bringing civilization to a nation that so desperately needed it.

The abolition of child labor, the women’s equality movement, the Native American movement to reclaim their lands and the civil rights movement all further extended and deepened the ideals of civilization.

What chance did a young child working in a damp dark coal mine or a dusty dangerous textile mill have to enjoy the pleasure of reading or the joy of  creating art or music?

How many women were worn down with toil or trapped in loveless even brutal marriages, imprisoned by custom or law and unable to let their imaginations wander free?

How many Native American young people have been lost to unemployment, poverty and to the constant insults to their traditions, traditions that offer the wisdom of thousands of years of experience on this continent?

When Dr. King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech, it was at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom initiated by A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL-CIO.

The civil rights movement was also a labor movement, a movement to open up economic opportunities on an equal basis, to end the terrible racial divisions that were tearing America’s working class apart and to unshackle minds from the mental chains left behind by racism and oppression.

A labor movement is about much more than just wages, hours and work rules.

A labor movement is  fundamentally part of the civilizing process itself, which in the USA, is still in its infancy. It is freeing working class minds so that people may achieve their authentic human potential. It’s like what that old rascal Karl Marx said, ”The traditions of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living.”

Just look around at our evolution deniers, our climate change deniers, our racism deniers, our gender equality deniers, our poverty deniers, our labor haters, our war makers and our surreal TV reality shows? Ask yourself, “Why are so many minds chained to such folly?”

And who exactly benefits from this willful and militant ignorance? Good thing I’m not a conspiracy theorist or else I’d start thinking this was deliberate— an attempt to keep us just trained enough to turn a profit for some soulless global corporation, but not smart enough to ask why.

Why does our society put so many obstacles in front of people trying to educate themselves? We know that poverty is the single biggest obstacle to education. So why does our society make its poverty even worse? Why does our society demand a new indentured servitude of student debt for our college students? Is society trying limit the talent pool of smart creative people to the affluent and well born? Didn’t we have an American Revolution to deep six that kind of “thinking?”

Our 1%, with their vast financial resources and finely tailored Brooks Brothers/Ann Taylor sartorial splendor, could help us remove that dead weight from our minds and from our culture. But they prefer to sit on their piles of cash, play Wall Street casino or buy up entire governments as their hobby. From them we can expect little help and much opposition. Draw your own conclusions.

But a new labor movement with a new vocabulary has emerged.

This starling and unexpected labor movement  comes from what is now called the 99%. The Occupy Movement has drawn support from the plumbers who keep our toilets flushing to the art students who passionately want to reshape our culture as media workers. Enduring bad weather, bad media coverage,  mass arrests, rubber bullets and tear gas, they seek to fix our broken economy through  national discussion and national civil disobedience such as this nation has not seen in generations–and at such a speed, thanks to the Internet. It is labor carrying out its  civilizing mission in our best American tradition. Occupy is now part of a global labor movement, necessary in today’s  faster-than-light-speed globalized economy.

It would be a mistake to think that the Occupy Movement can be reduced down to a set of bullet points or “demands” that its enemies can chew over. It is an exploration of possibilities and the creation of the new. The new will always have rough edges and mistakes, both large and small. Any scientist will tell you that most experiments fail, but that those failures help illuminate the road to eventual success.

It is also a movement propelled by the young: noisy, boisterous, exuberant and exceedingly rude at times. The young apprentices who gathered in the streets of Boston and Philadephia before the American Revolution would recognize them. So would a young Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. The young Susan B. Anthony or Alice Paul would too, as would the young radical sit-down strikers of the 1930’s labor uprising.

The idealistic college students who populated the freedom rides, sit-ins, voter registration drives and anti-war protests of the Sixties would know them too. With their gray hair and bi-focals, some of these same people now sit-in next to kids young enough to be their grandchildren. I saw this with my own eyes in late October in Grant Park in Chicago and more recently in the middle of the intersection of Van Buren and Clark near the Chicago Federal Building in early November.

The Occupy Movement is trying to be the voice of a diverse working class which has divisions that stretch back to before there was a United States of America. It is a labor movement trying to take another step toward a society worthy of being called civilized. The Occupy Movement knows from its brief existence that this will be not be an easy road. A labor organizer by the name of Eugene Debs said this in the early 20th century:

“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.”

All I can say in the 21st century is, “Keep on keepin’ on.”

Bob Simpson with his partner Estelle Carol make up Carol Simpson CartoonWork. They have been contributing cartoons to the labor movement for over 25 years.

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OpEds: The Occupy movement, identity politics and the International Socialist Organization

By David Walsh, cultural and political analyst, WSWS.ORG 

The Occupy Wall Street and associated protests represent the re-emergence of social struggle at the center of American political life after an absence of thirty years or more.

With all its inevitable heterogeneity and confusion, the ongoing movement has raised the question of questions in American and global life, social inequality, and tapped into deep popular anger toward both big business parties in the US and their corporate backers. Polls indicate wide support for the slogans and general aims of the protests.

The appearance of the Occupy movement can only fill the political and business establishment with the greatest unease, not so much for what it is at present, but for what it prefigures: a movement of the great mass of the working population against increasingly unbearable social conditions.

One of the most disturbing features of the anti-Wall Street protests, from the point of view of the powers that be, is that they address themselves to major social questions, and not to the small change of petty bourgeois “identity politics.” The latter has become a mainstay of American political life, and the various “identity” constituencies, layers of better-off African Americans, Latinos, women, gays and others, have been central to the functioning of the Democratic Party in particular in the last several decades. A small minority has benefitted from affirmative action and other policies, even as the working class as a whole has suffered a devastating collapse in living standards.

In fact, “leftism” in the US in recent years has been almost exclusively identified with the operations of these privileged groupings, characterized by a profound hostility to any political movement of the working class that might get out from under their suffocating control.

Now, under conditions of the manifest failure of global capitalism as a social system, the hold of these retrograde “identity” movements is weakening. Large numbers of youth in particular are turning in a different, healthier direction.

This, in turn, evokes anxiety in the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and other pseudo-left tendencies, which have promoted and lived off gender and ethnic politics for decades. This is not merely an ideological question. This brand of social activity is an industry, with its associated university departments, publishing firms, magazines and other publications, think tanks and research, etc. Many millions of dollars are at stake.

The ISO’s embrace of the Occupy movement has amounted from the beginning to attempting in a relentless manner to turn the protests toward the reactionary trade union officialdom and the identity politics milieu, in the name of “reaching out” and “broadening” the protests. The conscious aim is either to see the movement suppressed or transformed into an extension of these various wings of the Democratic Party.

This is the essential meaning of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s “Building a multiracial Occupy movement” (November 3, 2011) at socialistworker.org, the ISO’s online publication.

After paying empty tribute to the Occupy Wall Street protests against economic inequality, Taylor asserts (and she returns to this theme several times) that this inequality “often overlaps with racial and ethnic inequality and injustice as well.” The aim of this argument is to present racial and class divisions as equal and co-existing social realities, to divide the working class and to justify the existence of a distinct constellation of minority-based organizations to represent (supposedly) the interests of blacks, Latinos and other minority groups.

This is the logic of the “race, class, gender” lens so fashionable in universities. But this lens dramatically distorts reality. Racism and other forms of discrimination and social backwardness emerge from class society and its attendant social inequality, and function to perpetuate the rule of the capitalists. Socialists fight with all their strength to unite all sections of the working class, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, while the ruling elite,and its agencies continually attempt to pit workers against one another on ethnic and national lines especially. The only progressive method of fighting racism and other ideological poisons lies in the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. This is not the conception with which the ISO operates.

After reading Farrow’s article, one is entitled to ask, “a much wider hearing” from whom? His piece is extremely right-wing and antagonistic toward the emerging popular opposition to social inequality. Farrow slanderously compares the anti-Wall Street protesters to arch-conservative Rush Limbaugh and denounces them for daring to term the enormous economic burdens of the working population a form of “slavery.” (Has he ever heard of “wage slavery,” first identified in the late 18th century?) The American Prospect, in which Farrow publishes his essay, is a thoroughly establishment, Democratic Party publication, launched in 1990. Two of its co-founders, Robert Kuttner and Robert Reich, have long associations with the Democratic Party (and Democratic administrations) or the mainstream media, or both.

Taylor, although she makes criticisms, lends Farrow’s foul piece credibility, proceeding as though it were a legitimate contribution to a “left” debate. She doesn’t reject his arguments out of hand, but simply counters defensively that his comments are “pretty unfair to a movement that has just existed for over a month.”

And in response to the claim that the movement is “too white,” Taylor scrambles to assert that the movement is “actively grappling with how to include all of the 99 percent.” She promotes the “Occupy the Hood” movement, a black nationalist and pro-capitalist group whose mission statement complains that “The questionable, unethical activities downtown Manhattan … and in Corporate America directly effects our economic struggles and the future of all business and personal endeavors.”

She touts the efforts of the Occupy Movement to collaborate with “organized labor,” and notes that “Black and Latino workers are disproportionately more likely to be union members—especially in public-sector unions that are under particular attack right now.” In reality, Taylor and the ISO are worried about the fate of various black and Latino union officials, with whom they have unprincipled dealings.

Finally, Taylor gets around to advancing what she presents as issues that are “crushing communities of color.” She proposes marches on institutions “that are responsible for the conditions in Black and brown neighborhoods.” Along with marches on police precincts, she suggests marches “on the local Board of Education if it is planning … to close more schools in Black neighborhoods, on the many banks responsible for the rash of home foreclosures in Black communities, or on the main post office in your city to protest the planned mass layoffs of postal workers, large numbers of whom are Blacks or other minorities.”

And what about everybody else? To hell with them, apparently. Or should “white” organizations propose marches on companies or institutions planning to lay off large numbers of “whites”? The logic is sinister, leading in the direction of inter-communal warfare. What if the main post office or local board of education in question were actually to heed the proposed protests and choose to lay off workers of a different ethnicity or race, or close schools in another community? What would Taylor propose then?

This is putrid, divisive stuff, carried in a publication calling itself “socialist.” Taylor writes further that the movement “should call attention to the way that economic and racial injustice and inequality overlap by calling for affirmative action and prioritization of African American and Latino placement in higher education, jobs and housing programs.”

Not for Taylor and the ISO the notion of decent jobs and education and housing for all, as social rights, regardless of skin color or ethnicity! Again, this is a recipe for social disaster under the conditions of economic crisis. This organization doesn’t oppose capitalism, it wants more comfortable conditions for its own constituencies and plays with fire in the course of doing so.

When Taylor gets around to lambasting the Occupation movement for the fact that “Too often, the core organizers in many cities … are young white men,” one simply wants to avert one’s eyes.

This is the politics of “haggling for privileges,” as Lenin described it, the effort by elite layers in the various ethnic and gender constituencies to grab a larger share of the available wealth at the expense of other groups.

Certain key words are entirely absent from Taylor’s article: Barack Obama, Democratic Party, socialism, capitalism. The omission is not accidental. Taylor and the ISO navigate within the existing political framework, in and around the Democrats and the Obama re-election campaign. Taylor pretends to be a socialist, but rejects the entire socialist tradition, as well as its principles. Her pretensions and those of the ISO as a whole need to be debunked.

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Praying with our Feet at Occupy Oakland

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

EDITOR’S NOTE: We neither endorse nor abide religions, but we believe Michael Lerner, a left-liberal, is well intentioned enough to merit reposting in our pages. That said, we’re not sold on the notion that nonviolence, per se, will win the day and that, tactically or strategically, it is an absolute truth.  Very hard moments await OWS and the American people, as the criminal “1%” —in full control of a gargantuan state machinery of repression—probes and intrigues to disrupt, tarnish, and eventually successfully destroy the OWS phenomenon. —PG

WHEN MY TEACHER AND MENTOR at the Jewish Theological Seminary Abraham Joshua Heschel told me and others that he had been “praying with his feet” when he participated in the Selma Freedom march in 1965, he confirmed for many a way of overcoming the dichotomy between my religious practice and my radical politics. In many ways, the antiwar movements of the 60s and early 70s of the last century felt like that kind of community prayer.I had that experience again at my various visits to Occupy Oakland, most intensely this past Wednesday, November 2, 2011. It was a strong protest of the class war that has been waged by the most wealthy 1% of the population and their hired guns in the media, the political world, and the educational institutions against the 99% of the population who have suffered both materially and spiritually in the past 4 decades. But it was also and simultaneously a powerful reaffirmation, celebration and manifestation of the life and love energy of the universe that we in the religious community call God, Spirit, Unity of All Being, Source, Creator, Allah, YHVH, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mother, Father, Elohim, Yah, Goddess, and much more.

The tens of thousands of people who streamed through the various parts of the day were there to affirm life, to manifest love, and to challenge the injustice and unrighteousness of our economic and political system. And they did so with remarkable energy, creativity, beauty, and intelligence. 

Some of the scenes I liked best:

*Two pre-teen girls sitting with several pieces of poster board trying to decide which of the many slogans they had created should go their posters and how best to decorate them

*200 children plus their parents who staged a children’s march to the Oakland library whose services have been radically cut as a result of the national assault on the public sector

*Twenty children of color who performed a series of dances to songs articulating the visions of a just and caring world.

*Thousands of people marching to the downtown main branches of Bank of America and Wells Fargo and other banks that benefitted from our tax money. They held signs saying “You got bailed out—we got thrown out” (a reference to the banks opposition to lowering interest rates on home mortgages).

*A crowning moment, when what seemed to grow to over ten thousand people marched to the Port of Oakland and the management of the Port announced that it had been shut down.

*Our Jewish contingent and our Interfaith Clergy both set up tents and provided quiet space, prayer, meditation, and teachings from our traditions to hundreds of people who wanted that energy as well as the more overt protest energy.

And, like the 60s, there were also problems.

*In the name of “inclusion” and “non-judgmentalism” the vast majority of non-violence oriented people felt unable to stop the 50-60 self-described anarchists from breaking windows and introducing a feel of violence that gave the corporate media their pretext for making “violence” the center of the story they reported to the world.

*In a spirit of anti-leadership parading other the misleading banner that “we are all leaders and have no leaders” it has become impossible to develop a coherent vision of what we are for (full revelation: I’ve been pushing for the Occupy movement to call for 1. a New New Deal providing full employment rebuilding the US infrastructure and repairing the environment  2. A freeze on home expulsions for anyone who owns only one home and whose mortgage rates are now higher than originally contracted and a mandatory return to those lower rates for everyone 3. A single payer national health plan for all  4. Free college or university education for all  5. A Global Marshall Plan 6. Banning all money from elections except that provided by the government and requiring free and equal time to all major candidates from the media 7. An environmental and social responsibility Amendment ot the U.S. ConstitutionP.

*A fetishization of the occupied spaces, as though that were the center of what we are about, rather than about seeking justice for the 99% and rejecting the ethos of materialism and selfishness of global capitalism and replacing it with an ethos of love, kindness, generosity and environmental responsibility (in short, “the Caring Society—Caring for Each Other, Caring for the Earth”).

Ok, no movement is perfect, and we have our problems and distortions. But the key is to have compassion for our distortions, compassion for everyone including those who right now don’t support us, and use this moment to thank the universe for the opportunity to overcome cynicism and fight for the world most people really want but don’t yet realize that they are not alone, and that their highest vision may be utopian, but utopian plans are far more “realistic” than the mush being generated by the realists in the media and in Washington, D.C. 

www.tikkun.org, national chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of 11 books including the forthcoming (at the end of November) Embracing Israel/Palestine.

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IF YOU THINK THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA ARE A DISGRACE AND A HUGE OBSTACLE
to real change in America why haven’t you sent at least a few dollars to The Greanville Post (or a similar anti-corporate citizen’s media?). Think about it.  Without educating and organizing our ranks our cause is DOA. That’s why our new citizens’ media need your support. Send your badly needed check to “TGP, P.O. Box 1028, Brewster, NY 10509-1028.” Make checks out to “P. Greanville/ TGP”.  (A contribution of any amount can also be made via Paypal and MC or VISA.)

THANK YOU.
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