Photo by Neil Cummings, used under a Creative Commons license.
Praxis Makes Perfect
esteemed forums philosopher redfiesta posted:
ows is just the most recent example of the brand new politics in the 1st world that was brewing for sometime in spain and greece. it's radicalism does not come from how far the protestors willing to go to challenge the socio-economic system they are in, but rather from the way they conduct their political movement. the direct democracy and non-partisan, non-ideological inclusiveness of ows is born out of a deep distrust in liberal democracy and any other system of the 20th century. that's more radical and liberating than, say, anything a mtw worshipper came up with.
As we all know the Occupy movement, in both the US and the UK, originated with self-identified liberals who were driven to a radical act, rather than radicals themselves (notwithstanding a small but active anarchist set) — and that's very much still the case. When London's media working group rejects the 'anticapitalist' label, it's not a PR ploy - that's still an ongoing debate in the camp, and not one that's likely to get resolved anytime soon. Part of this ties in with the whole notion of the camps as a space for democratic discourse, which is a worthy principle. Self-organised groups like Tent City University, columnists in the paper and even the airy-fairy 'social dreaming' sessions are ostensibly working towards a cohesive anticapitalist line. But I get the feeling most radicalisation is actually happening through personal experience rather than the exchanges of views that are vaunted as the heart of the movement.
The very experience of living, day in, day out, in an ostensibly illegal encampment is itself a radicalising experience. For many privileged campers that first night on the steps of St Paul's was their first experience of being abused and intimidated by police - and while individual cops patrolling the square might seem nice enough, many campers who were there on the first night are no longer willing to buy the 'only doing their jobs' line. This has also arisen from the crackdown on allegedly unlawful public demonstrations planned at the camp and held elsewhere, notably a march on Parliament last fortnight. Many campers I spoke to at the time didn't even realise that it's been illegal since 2005 to hold any kind of protest within a square kilometre of Parliament without a week's notice and express police permission; nor did they know that police can set a limit on what can be brought (placards, banners, etc.), how long the protest can go on for and even how many people are allowed to turn up. This revelation, coupled with the realisation that it was ushered in by an ostensibly left-wing Labour government, was a profoundly upsetting experience for many of the people I spoke to - but such crises are bound to spur radicalisation in a movement that would otherwise atrophy into 'Fuck The Tories '11'. Likewise with campers learning from their new friends and through the paper of other groups' experiences with highly unethical police action: in recent weeks Squatters' Action For Secure Homes and the tax evasion activists UK Uncut. Little by little, even the most reactionary liberals in the camp and their friends outside are beginning to learn that The Police Are Not Your Friends.
Likewise many campers are learning for the first time that their experiences with homeless people have been deeply coloured by privilege. In the first few days of the camp I overheard several people fretting about homeless people somehow 'taking advantage' of the food kitchen and other amenities. But two factors appear to be significantly changing that. Firstly, several homeless people like James have become active members of the community, dispelling the notion that homeless people are somehow intrinsically lazy, selfish or antisocial while reclaiming their individual identities. When a homeless man is serving *you* in a soup kitchen, that's a humbling experience, and one which gives you pause for thought. It’s almost as if many people suffer under capitalism as a result of material conditions rather than personal failings! Secondly, many campers are realising that they themselves are being dismissed as non-entities by the establishment in an almost identical manner: the protesters are lazy, they are unclean, they are mentally ill and a menace to the public. Most fundamentally of all, they have no right to be here - or anywhere else for that matter.
Then there are other day-to-day issues: with donations & finance, there’s the question of how to manage their resources while maintaining purity of action in their protest against the financial industry. A co-operative? A credit union? A safe in an undisclosed location? And then there’s the question of how to appoint the fund’s managers, how to empower them to release funds and how to ensure the whole operation remains transparent and accountable - a kind of regulation, if you will. Security - or ‘tranquility team’ as they’re called around camp - has been struggling lately: on the one hand they’re massively overstretched due to a lack of volunteers, on the other hand what volunteers do come in the door are largely ‘GI Joes’. How do you stop a self-policing force from developing the same culture of privilege and abuse as the actual police?
In the next post, I guess I’ll be looking at some of the less healthy developments in the Occupy London movement. Stay tuned!
Edited by discipline ()
“High hopes! High energy!” the crowd repeated.
“This is going to take forever,” someone in front muttered.
Stamp ignored him. She began leading the general assembly in the song “Solidarity Forever.”
“Not everyone here is into your narrow union politics,” the voice in front said.
“It’s not a union song,” Stamp said. “It’s union like ‘unity.’ ”
The voice came from a man in his mid-twenties wearing a camouflage jacket. He was sitting on a concrete bench in front of the facilitation team, one boot resting on his knee, eating sweet-potato chips and drinking from a Starbucks cup. He had the haggard look of someone who had spent a few weeks sleeping outside in a city. Known to other occupiers as Sage, he had written “SAGE’S” on the brim of his baseball cap in marker. Sage continued speaking as Holmes presented the proposal. “These are all tourists,” he said. “You do not live here.” Every time he spoke, the people sitting next to him stiffened and frowned. Sage did not seem to notice.
During a twenty-minute breakout session to discuss the proposal, Lisa Fithian, a fifty-year-old organizer who works with Holmes, made her way to the bench in front and told Sage about her success with the Spokes Council model. She said that she had worked on the nineteen-seventies anti-nuclear campaign and the W.T.O. protests in Seattle, in 1999.
“This is not a fucking college dorm,” Sage said. “Until you can speak honestly with me, I’m not having a conversation.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Fithian said. “I don’t need this shit in my face.”
“Look, I was at Tompkins Square Park,” Sage said. “This whole thing has been hijacked by socialist students who have insinuated themselves into the square. These people don’t see me. They don’t think I comprehend. So I see everything.”
“I hear you,” Fithian said.
“Why should someone who lives here have to conform to a bunch of tourists?” Sage asked.
“Your energy is hurting my system,” Fithian replied.
“Look, sometimes you have to put your body on the machine,” Sage said.
“This is not the machine!” Fithian said, her voice rising.
A tall man with a stubbled face tried to calm Sage down. His name was Evan Wagner and he was wearing a red North Face jacket. Like Sage, he was one of the few people sleeping in the park who bothered with general assemblies. Unlike Sage, he seemed like someone who could find a job if he wanted one.
Sage waved Wagner off. “Dude, you are playing a homeless person,” he said. Soon Sage was quiet. It was as though Fithian had absorbed Sage’s rage so the rest of the meeting would not have to.
When everyone returned, each smaller group described its concerns about the Spokes Council proposal. There was a question about exactly how blocks would work, and worries about a “Spokes Council-ocracy.” The tall office buildings were funnelling a cold breeze in from the Hudson River. Around ten, a facilitator called for a vote. “Three people are frustrated,” she said. “Hundreds are getting frustrated. All those in favor, please raise one hand.” Sage raised his hand.
The facilitation team counted the votes and added them up on a cell phone. The proposal passed, two hundred and eighty-four to seventeen. Stamp jumped up and down. Her voice was hoarse from three hours of yelling. “Everyone is beautiful!” she shouted. “Everyone is awesome!”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_schwartz?currentPage=5
As for the rest, it's sort of obvious that experiencing reality will radicalize people, the problem is it's not informed by reason and as soon as the emotional appeal wears off status quo liberalism will replace it (at best) or fascism. That's why Eldridge Cleaver became a republican, Bobby Seale became an ad campaign for Ben and Jerrys, Jerry Rubin became a businessman and had embarrasing debates with Abbie Hoffman, and the 60s generation became the Reagan generation and sold themselves out. I have my own problems with the old left (what remains) but the blind rejection of any old theory and putting a label of new on infantile leftism always ends badly or in the republican party.
by the by, and this is unrelated, but people always tend to mistake the uncertainty of the future for the novelty of the present moment. we need to stop doing that
babyhueypnewton posted:
A brand new politics lol. Anarchists have been doing the exact same thing since before marx and the "intellectuals" of the movement like naomi klein, michael moore, cornel west, and noam chomsky are just repeating propaganda of the deed, anti-realism, and the energizing myth of the general strike with a new label and even less radicalism. The so called economic observations made by the OWS were made by Marx 150 years ago in a much clearer and more systematic manner, and even though David Harvey has done an excellent job analyzing the current crisis his speech to the OWS, like Zizek, was just pandering and vague sloganeering. Everyone starts off at 0, and I have no problem with people discovering how the system works themselves, but all they're doing is repeating the mistakes of the past. Praxis is fine but without being informed by theory and history it's just jerking off. MTW is somewhat new and kooky mostly for the clownish aspects of it like the dumb spelling but third worldism, known in academia as dependency theory, is undisputed. That quote is horrible and for a forum obsessed with MTW and leftism (LF I mean) no one seems to actually know anything about it. I remember you being a bougie liberal though .
As for the rest, it's sort of obvious that experiencing reality will radicalize people, the problem is it's not informed by reason and as soon as the emotional appeal wears off status quo liberalism will replace it (at best) or fascism. That's why Eldridge Cleaver became a republican, Bobby Seale became an ad campaign for Ben and Jerrys, Jerry Rubin became a businessman and had embarrasing debates with Abbie Hoffman, and the 60s generation became the Reagan generation and sold themselves out. I have my own problems with the old left (what remains) but the blind rejection of any old theory and putting a label of new on infantile leftism always ends badly or in the republican party.
yeah i meant my new=ish thoughts *on* occupy, not new-ish thoughts *in* it. i completely agree about them reinventing the wheel, but then i see the occupations as basically radicalising bougie liberals in a way that makes them receptive to more coherent critiques of capitalism and anticapitalist doctrines in general; thus laying the groundwork for a socialist uprising when the material conditions converge (as in greece, italy and spain are trending towards). i don't for a moment think they're building anything unique themselves.
as for me being a bougie liberal i dunno dude, if you say so
babyhueypnewton posted:
third worldism, known in academia as dependency theory
what are the major academic works on dependency theory
gyrofry posted:babyhueypnewton posted:
third worldism, known in academia as dependency theorywhat are the major academic works on dependency theory
i am not an expert in this field by any means but i would suggest immanuel wallerstein's "World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction" and samir amin's "Law of Worldwide Value"
discipline posted:blinkandwheeze posted:
gyrofry posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
third worldism, known in academia as dependency theory
what are the major academic works on dependency theory
i am not an expert in this field by any means but i would suggest immanuel wallerstein's "World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction" and samir amin's "Law of Worldwide Value"those guys are world systems theory iirc which is different than dependency theory
i'd say it's accurate to understand world systems analysis as an expansion of & frequently interchangeable with dependency theory tho
gyrofry posted:babyhueypnewton posted:
third worldism, known in academia as dependency theorywhat are the major academic works on dependency theory
The ones I know, besides Wallerstein (and yeah I consider world systems theory as almost the same as dependency theory even though that would make some people very angry) and his buddy Arrighi are Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (the ex-president of Brazil) but academia is boring. Edward Galeano, Che Guevara, Paulo Friere, Amircal Cabral, Frantz Fanon, Thomas Sankara, read any of them and it becomes obvious where the wealth of the first world came and comes from, how racism created not just divisions in the proletariat but genuine material divisions and exploitation by the exploited, and what a genuine revolutionary movement looks and sounds like instead of the decadent remains of the left in the first world.
Impper posted:
is there an american version of the bnp that i can join?
democratic party
discipline posted:
wheres the wedding ring