#OccupyWallStreet: reading the NYT debate

The NYT has a "debate" over OWS.  The openness of the movement/space invites this kind of debate as people and factions try to contain it or repurpose it to their own ends. The NYT debate participates in packaging the movement, in making it safe for readers of the NYT, many of whom are in the top 1%. Below, I don't mention all the contributions. Naomi Klein's is very good (I excerpted another version of it here on I Cite yesterday).

One question I have before I start: who can say "our movement" and who can say "we"? Is it necessary to have been sleeping in the park since day 1? to have slept in the park some times? to have participated in the f-2-f general assemblies? to have visited and marched? 

Some say that no one who hasn't been there has a right to judge, criticize, or analyze the movement. That's not my view. Since OWS has said since the September 17 Day or Rage, there are different ways to support and be part of the movement--setting up OWS in different cities, providing material support, and providing mediated support. In fact, it is crucial to the work of the movement that the movement be understood as exceeding the park and the marches, that the power of the occupation be understood as extending beyond a few blocks of lower Manhattan throughout the country. 

I would like to say "we," but I don't think I can, not yet anyway. I think that would be misleading. Yet I nonetheless think that it's important for the Marxist left to say "we" and to say "we" with OWS, especially as an expression of a sense of being comrades. Part of the difficulty, though, is with a certain emphasis coming out of the movement on the refusal of labels. The refusal makes sense and encourages more people to join. But join what? And contribute to what? To a dismantling of the state? To a new legitimation of processes that supplement current ones? To the overthrow of capitalism? These are different battles. 

Media coverage like that in the NYT debate is, for the most part, working on pacificying the movement, on making sure that it does not pose a radical threat to politics as usual.

Some of the strategies that do this emphasize democracy and a kind of fundamental American dedication to participatory governance.

Other strategies emphasize that the "success" of the movement depends on adaptation to the US two party system. Both of these are co-opting moves that exclude communism from the start.

So, below, Woroczuk righly emphasizes that support for Obama was deadly for the left. Yet his emphasis on complete dedication to democratic ideals and to nonviolence long the movement into a moral position, ultimately very much like the completely politically ineffective moral position that Michael Kazin advocates below. 

The problem with the Zunes' contribution is that it presumes an ongoing capitalism. It doesn't even question that as it urges the movement to speak to and include small business owners and small farmers. His position could have been written by the Chamber of Commerce, especially as it fetishizes small farmers, who are virtually non-existent in the US. Why not seize corporate agri-business, eliminate the mass feed lots, redistribute to the animals and land to people who are interested in and have experience in farming? Why not let a new agri-sector work with other sectors to set food production goals with an eye toward sustainability and healthier food? In the first year or two, shortages would likely occur. So, it would be important to seize corporations that make unhealthy snack foods, and that use food products in new plastics and other things, and dismantle them, basically to make sure that people didn't starve. No doubt this kind of project is more complicated than I can suggest in a couple of sentences--but if one begins from Zunes' assumptions, one never even thinks about it.

The NYT debate:

Anton Woronczuk emphasizes:

By remaining dedicated to completely democratic ideals, it insulates itself from co-option by any political party. It is strong because it remains unwilling to compromise itself as anything short of a nonviolent, existential threat to the symbol of power it has chosen as its opposition.

Occupy Wall Street is the antithesis of the passive political culture of the left that wasted much of its energy and resources to promote Barack Obama as the solution to the immediate and structural crises that our country faced in 2008. The movement continues to function with a revolving leadership at general assemblies, demonstrating that a social movement can remain viable without formal leadership.

Stephen Zunes:

The revolutionary pretensions of a youthful counter-culture aside, Occupy Wall Street must become genuinely representative of the vast majority of Americans now struggling as a result of inordinate corporate power and political influence, reflecting also the legitimate aspirations of small business owners, small farmers, and working families of the poor and middle-class majority whose voices in the established political process are too often drowned out by powerful corporate interests.

Michael Kazin:

Leftists in U.S. history have seldom mounted a serious challenge to those who held power in either the government or the economy. But they have often helped to transform the common sense of society – how Americans understand what is just and what is unjust in the conduct of public affairs. If protesters manage to direct the anger of a portion of the “99 percent” toward the freewheeling free-marketeers who got us into this mess, they will have done their job.

Comments

[Chris Ruth]

How can you be hesitant to say "we" when the movement bills itself as "the 99%"??

[Chris Ruth]

Sorry, I guess your point was that the vagueness of the thing is what makes you hesitant.

[Douglas Lain]

Seems like the only way to steer this in a radical direction is by saying "we" and working with other radicals to influence where this goes next.

[Hyphy_republic]

I agree with the person who commented on we and the 99%. I wouldn't analyze the dynamics of the movement, their strategies, etc. Its the emerging rhetoric that everyone can and should be looking at. When a group asks the media and public to define it as representative of everyone making less than 350k, then those whose message isn't being heard should be as vocal as possible. The problem is, they're not being vocal, not that they shouldn't be vocal. So far there's very little being picked up by the media that seems inclusive of poor people, working class and people of color. Sure, foreclosures and debt are a big issue, but one that affects working class people least. They're trying to pay for their apartment rent. To my knowledge, there's very little public commentary on how hard it is to stay in your apartment. That's been hard for decades now, but not on anyone's radar nationally.

[Alain]

Hi Jodi

I wanted to let you know I have attended the Occupy Minnesota gathering hear in Minneapolis. And though it is disorganized, chaotic and messy - it is inspiring. I have attended a general assembly and it was awesome. Of course, there were anarchists in attendance and they objected to the formation of committees which they considered hierarchical and authoritarian (I am not kidding)- but otherwise it was direct participatory democracy in action.

I am not sure if these folks have enough people committed to maintain an occupation long term like they do in other cities, but I will try and support them in the small ways I can. Even my 11 year old was inspired to march!

Keep up the good fight! All solidarity and love to the 99%.

[Jodi]

Thanks for the comments. The reluctance I voice in the post about saying "we" is just because I haven't been at one of the occupations yet. I agree that saying "we" and trying to push together with others in the direction I think we should go is the best way to think about it.

The point about expensive apartments is important--it also connects directly to the foreclosure crisis since high rents and no money ARM mortgages were one of the things that trapped people into debt. Had there been affordable apartments, that would not have happened. Likewise, the entire cult of property ownership pushes against apartments, locking folks into patterns of consumption and entrapment that could be somewhat avoided by renting. Someone (a politician? a mogul?) said something like folks with mortgages don't strike.

Alain--so exciting!! Given the years of our discussions here, your comment is the biggest glimmer of hope I've seen, an opportunity for change, collective agency, forming alternatives and seeing a common power being born is incredible!