Submitted by danps on Sat, 01/19/2013 - 5:34am
Last year I worked on a series of posts1 with a loose collection of bloggers, mostly from Corrente. The general theme was arguing against the "diversity of tactics" approach being introduced at numerous Occupy encampments, Occupy Oakland in particular. During this process one of our co-authors - jaspergregory - referenced "The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America" by Richard J. Ellis as providing a good examination of authoritarian impulses among progressives since roughly the 1830s. Read below the fold...
Submitted by letsgetitdone on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 12:02am
A report on protests at the Tampa convention appearing in the Hill (h/t Lambertstrether) partly focused on views about our economy and financial system of an Occupy protestor named Andrew Speirs. The report says:
“Protesters with the Occupy movement were also in full force with calls to dismantle the United States’ economic and political system.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 5:00pm
UPDATE: Two of the links in this post have been criticized for being misleading. I have changed them in order to clear up any confusion, and moved one of the original links to later in the piece for context. None of the text has been altered. Thanks to commenter anons for the feedback.
This was published with considerable feedback from affinis, Jasper, JuliaWilliams and lambert. My sincere thanks to them for their help.
A few weeks ago Occupy Oakland (OO) began to emphasize secrecy (or security culture) over transparency, which resulted in livestreamers being attacked as snitches or quasi-authorities. In addition, large group of transparency advocates have been ostracized as racists with little or no due process. Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sun, 03/11/2012 - 5:00pm
Submitted by lambert on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 10:22pm
This is a generalization of the suggestions made in email, which were two-fold:
1. Past and inappropriate cargo cult 60s figures
2. Informers and agent provocateurs
That got me thinking about information flows in general and so I started listing them. This is important, I would think, if you want to think about either coverage or public relations.
3. Occupy sites eg minutes (inventory of sites at FDL but how know complete?)
4. Occupy deliverables eg announcements, videos.
5. Independent streamers
6. Mainstream media very, very light, slow, and not especially accurate. (a) print (b) television. Local weeklies and tabs often very good at OWS.
7. Twitter. Curation. Lack of archiving. Authenticiation. Internet triumphalism.
8. Facebook Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 6:34pm
Working title: Provocateur tactics and the subversion of Occupy
This was published with considerable feedback from affinis and lambert. My sincere thanks to both of them for their help. Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 5:00pm
This was published with considerable feedback from several bloggers at Corrente: DCblogger, affinis, lambert and okanogen. My sincere thanks to all of them for their help.
Occupy has seemed to be in a bit of a winter hibernation. There are still encampments, meetings, decisions, protests, and so on, but it seems like there has been a relative lull in its activity level. This is fine; you can't stay cranked all the way up to 10 all the time. A little pause to regroup, rethink and recharge is a good thing. There is a chance that the some occupations that emerge might have a very different character than the one that began to recede from public consciousness towards the end of last year, though. Read below the fold...
Submitted by Heather on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 11:07am
Yesterday at the 99% Knowledge Share in Oakland I tried something new, Occupy Listening. I asked people their thoughts on the Occupy movement and took notes. The notes are here and pasted below. People had so much to say! I plan to do this many more times.
***************************************************************
Person 1. Top priorities: Economic Justice -Occupy not focused enough; too many groups becoming multi-issued to the point of losing economic focus Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:22am
Occupy has seemed to be in a bit of a winter hibernation. There are still encampments, meetings, decisions, protests, and so on, but it seems like there has been a relative lull in its activity level. This is fine; you can't stay cranked all the way up to 10 all the time. A little pause to regroup, rethink and recharge is a good thing. There is a chance that the some occupations that emerge might have a very different character than the one that began to recede from public consciousness towards the end of last year, though. Read below the fold...
Submitted by Heather on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 9:11pm
This is a free and public event. Every one is encouraged to attend, whether you are a veteran activist or new to the Occupy movement.
There will be workshops, discussion groups, info tables, and film screening. We will talk about the Occupy movement, the social issues it addresses, and various solutions to those issues.
When: 1-5pm, March 3rd, 2012
Where: Alameda County Public Health Building, Rooms 500 A & B, 1000 Broadway, Oakland, CA
Here's a preview of some workshops:
- Intro to the Occupy movement: Group discussion on frequently asked questions and responses about Occupy
- Media Training
- Facilitation and General Assembly Skills Training
- Healthcare justice / Universal healthcare
- Corporate control of the food system
- Factory farming
- Berkeley Activism History Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sun, 02/19/2012 - 5:00pm
This was published with considerable feedback from several bloggers: DCblogger, affinis, lambert and okanogen. My sincere thanks to all of them for their help. Note: this post was updated shortly after publication.
When writing about violence at Occupy there seems to be a great deal of controversy over what the word itself means, so I'll lead this post with what I hope is an unobjectionable definition. Since it comes from Google (via) it may well be the most-read definition of violence in the English speaking world: Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sat, 02/11/2012 - 6:00am
Economics is a closed system; internally it is perfectly logical, operating according to a consistent set of principles. Unfortunately, the same could be said of psychosis. What's more, once having entered the closed system of the economist, you, like the psychotic, may have a hard time getting out.
- Judy Jones and William Wilson
The Occupy movement has largely been relegated to the margins of mainstream coverage lately - big outlets may mention something in a news capsule but generally have ignored it beyond that. It is still very much alive though, and one aspect of it has become the subject of intense debate recently: The use of violence, or what proponents call diversity of tactics. Read below the fold...
Submitted by jumpjet on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 3:55pm
Things are getting even uglier in Syria. Bashar is brooking no challenge to his reign, and what started as nonviolent protests have broken down into a very bloody and deadly tumult.
It's giving me cause to ponder what might happen to protests of a similar scale with similar demands in the United States. In talking about Occupy's eventual fate, the specter of heavy military reaction has been raised before, but what I have never seen, or perhaps what has eluded me, is a frank discussion of how to proceed in the aftermath of a violent response to large nonviolent demonstrations. Read below the fold...
Submitted by Alcuin on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 7:51pm
I'm still processing Hedges' rant on TruthDig - I was so struck by his endorsement of violence in Greece and his condemnation of violence her in this country. I found an interesting essay at Viewpointmag.com via a comment on SMBIVA and this passage struck me as something that we should all chew on: Read below the fold...
Submitted by ChePasa on Wed, 02/01/2012 - 1:02pm
Pages
