thread to be critical/skeptical of occupy wall street

i mean yeah that sucks but it's also pretty understandable

you guys, TRUST ME, we already had this entire discussion on the first occupy thread. i promise you that once ilx gets back up you will get to read this fascinating ilx discussion of race, so maybe we can hold off on the sequel for a few weeks?

are we sure dealwithit.gif isn't zachlyon taking the merry-go-round for one more spin?

― v-shasty, Thursday, December 1, 2011 5:50 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

I approve of the misdirection - goons lookin out for goons

if dealwithitgif.com was whiney, he would've made a cutting reference to how to dress well by now

and he would have posted in the rolling rap thread and the childish gambino thread

Thanksgiving night, driving home with my family and my sister, who is down from NY where she is very engaged with . My 7-year-old, from the backseat, asks to hear The Star Spangled Banner (we had been to visit Fort McHenry this summer and ever since, that song just keys him up). So I dial it up on the ipod. As the intro plays, my sister turns to me and says "I learned some new words to this up in Freedom Plaza" and to the tune of "O, say can you see", she sings "No-o war on the poooor!" I don't remember the rest of the lyrics, but the look I tried to give her was "are you fucking serious" and she dropped it after a few lines.

Occupy Wall Street, are you fucking serious?

Like, I honestly stand behind the mission of OWS and I love and respect my sister, but that was some clowny shit like when Christian rock bands rewrite the lyrics of regular rock songs for Young Life campfires.

where she is very engaged with OWS

p sure zachylon really wanted to start a 77 thread ~~~SANDBOX 77~~~

Magazine/website/record store BEST OF 2011 end-of-year list pile-up

do remember zachylon routinely shaking his head over indie rock favoritism in magazine best of lists

lol @ "tumblr whites"

I think we should just keep calling him whiney

If writing new, corny lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner (the old ones are corny enough - look carefully at that title) is the worst misstep of OWS, they are going to sweep the nation into a new era in a cakewalk.

1. Fuck you (from Francis Scott Key and everybody at the Battle of Baltimore.
2. Cakewalks not only twice as corny as spangles, but also maybe tied up with minstrel shows in an uncomfortable way?

finally some high-profile celebrities willing to speak out

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/adam-carolla-blames-occupy-wall-street-protests-culture-entitlement-article-1.985880

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.985874.1322850351!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_485/image.jpg

http://thumbnails.hulu.com/19/815/101177_512x288_generated__2xt+PpWGqk6WhIiNv+PUgQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ga9U9.jpg

rich people telling poor people they don't deserve shit is always funny

xp: was there an article in twitter or something?

so what was the point of whiney denying he was dealwithit? has he finally gotten to the point where even he's embarrassed about being who he is?

sonned by ilx's only sub-jon-via-chi poster

the evasive dodging continues

man, don't talk about jon like that.

My main problem with OWS has been the "traditional politics is broken so lets not engage with it at all" mentality. I mean, as broken as it is, there are still old-fashionied activist and lobbying groups out there getting shit done and getting legislation passed, and it just seems kind of lazy for a bunch of early-20-somethings who have never even tried that route to completely blow it off (I recognize that this doesn't describe everyone in the movement). I mean I'm all for all the direct action and new thinking, I just think that stuff should be couple with traditional political activism as well. Most great movements have included a variety of tactics and almost all have included political lobbying/letter-writing/bill-proposing/vote-out-getting etc.

Also I think the more you insist that politics no longer serves the people, the more true it becomes, because you're basically just encouraging everyone to give up on it. If your goal is "revolution" I suppose this is what you want. To the extent that that's anyone's goal, I haven't seen any real blueprints of what such a revolution would look like. I hear a lot of what the revolution would oppose, but not much of what a new system would look like.

invisible subway sandwich

So I'm not saying "don't camp out in public parks" or "don't mic check people" or whatever, because I think at least that stuff is injecting fresh energy into activism. I'm just saying take some of the more articulate campers and get them to board a bus to washington in support of some legislation, and do voter reg drives, and that sort of thing.

that's true to an extent but it's also undeniable the way that OWS has shaped media narratives and has amplified its message across the country in ways that traditional methods of lobbying/voter reg drives wouldn't have

Right but my whole point is do that stuff AND voter reg drives.

Because ultimately power doesn't make concessions just because it gets mic checked.

if anything 'blueprints for a new system' are one of the clearest things within the movement - decentralized concensus-based governing. you can argue about the feasibility and limits but the model is there and pretty well-defined.

i'm not whiney fwiw

― dealwithit.gif, Thursday, December 1, 2011 8:01 PM

HAHA COMIC SANS AMIRITE is p much Community fan internet 101, and at this point worse than OMG BACON OM NOM NOM

― one pug (dealwithit.gif), Friday, December 16, 2011 4:33 PM

decentralized concensus-based governing

uh if anything it's show just how dysfunctional this model can be, especially on a macro scale. like, this is a framework that works for small groups of people. it totally breaks down for larger ones.

shown

insisting on that framework completely fucked OccupySF, for example

(well among other things)

I guess I still find "de-centralized consensus-based governing" a little vague. The fact that it works on a small scale to make relatively simple decisions in an artificial situation (where the necessities of life are mostly coming from outside) for a short period of time is not exactly what I'd call the blueprint of a revolution.

I also think you have to look at ows outside of 'normal politics' - I participate in ows stuff I also participate in knocking on door politics and I don't think there needs to be explicit overlap. people who volunteer or the democratic party have to accept a certain cynicism w/r/t the political process and 'the game' and ows is about changing our overall worldview and is a fight against that aforementioned cynicism that you otherwise accept.

have they started talking about bribing congressmen with yachts yet? that really needs to be the goal right there.

u care about flags and anthems

hurting you should look up and read stuff by david graeber

I don't believe that consensus decision making can replace our national-level institutions but I believe it's something that could have potential for local level politics

btw this is pretty interesting/awesome:
http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-outsmarts-police-creating-blueprint-for-other-occupations/

(although it's more on the "how to protest" tip than the "how to govern/organize society" tip)

just had an hourlong discussion/argument with a friend about occupy, which pretty much ruined the get together because she started raising her voice and pointing a lot, despite the fact that i was being exceedingly conciliatory and calm, perhaps overly so.

her main objections were that there was no coherent message that she could discern (despite my efforts) and also the general argument that things are worse elsewhere in the world. i tried and failed to correct that but was consistently interrupted by her.

so, so frustrating, because her heart's in the right place in general and yet she seems to be spending most of her "activist" time in opposing occupy.

i kept going back to the civil rights movement in the US, both as an example of something that was clearly worth doing despite things being "worse" elsewhere in the world (as will always be the case) and also by saying that for an apples to apples argument, we'd be comparing occupy to, say, Dec 1955 - Mar 1956. both movements were at the infancy stage, despite decades of background work. to complain that 3 months into occupy there's not a clear endpoint is just ludicrous and naive (though i didn't say that)

While we're at it, what is the coherent message behind the Democratic party?

One thing I do definitely try to say to doubters is "at least these guys are innovating -- why don't you give them a chance and see what they come up with." I mean a lot of people who later became big in politics cut their teeth in SDS, the civil rights movement, vietnam war protesting, etc., often having no idea what they were doing in the beginning. This sort of activism is very fertile for developing a more sophisticated understanding of organizing, and for developing new tactics. There are good Emma Goldman quotes about this sort of thing that I will try to find.

OWS also good at keeping our jobless state on the hot plate for the voting season

The 99% discussion should be good for the democratic party. Yet Newt Gingrich wants to make things much better for the 1% and worse for the 99% (throwing fuel into the fire, hurting our economy) and somehow he has the most support. I don't think Americans are smart enough to revolutionize our government even if it was as simple as voting yes to revolution on a ballot. The amount of problems in our system in staggering and with the way our system is set up it's practically futile to even try to stab at the root of these problems. /pessimism

What I'd say to OWS doubters - watch the Big Picture with Thom Hartman (and if I had some specific youtube links that would help too).

I would avoid trying to have an OWS discussion with any friends or family that vote republican because they are too far gone and you might as well avoid blood and tears so to keep things civil

I guess the fundamental problem I don't know whether OWS can solve is this: on one hand, yeah, they're right. Any revolutionary movement that uses hierarchy and coercion is likely to set up a new unjust system to replace the old one. But revolutionary movements that are free of hierarchy and coercion don't tend to be as good at displacing entrenched power. Or at least I can't think of an example of such a movement that has displaced entrenched power. An alternative is to just set up small-scale mini-societies that operate outside of/in spite of entrenched power. Of course this has been done many times before, with all kinds of communes and commune-like structures, with varying degrees of success. I don't know enough about OWS or the history of communes to know how the principles of the current movement might differ from those.

Anyway, my overarching take on the whole thing is that I don't really feel like I'm at a place in my life where I can really "join" the movement right now, but I'd like to see where it goes and I don't want to detract from it. And people who only talk about why it can't work based solely on what they see on the news are depressing and frustrating and kind of a waste of time.

And people who only talk about why it can't work based solely on what they see on the news are depressing and frustrating and kind of a waste of time.
And people who only talk about why it can't work based solely on what they see on the news are depressing and frustrating and kind of a waste of time.
And people who only talk about why it can't work based solely on what they see on the news are depressing and frustrating and kind of a waste of time.

absolutely

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/390788_338374726188045_108038612554992_1352391_671758301_n.jpg

"FOLKS IN THIRD-WORLD COUNTRIES ARE EVEN POORER, SO POOR PEOPLE IN AMERICA SHOULD BE GRATEFUL AND SHUT UP!!"

this, almost verbatim, was the argument my friend was making last night, repeatedly, with righteous anger. i couldn't believe it. at one point about 10 minutes into her rant she finally paused to take a breath, and she asked "what do you think? do you agree?". i can't really think of another time in my life where my jaw was actually hanging down, open, involuntarily. i couldn't believe all the shit that had just come out of her mouth. i think i answered "i'm sorry, but that's the saddest thing i've heard anyone say in the last several years" or something.

awwkaaaaaard