hope the winds blow
anonumos posted:
I, too, don’t think electing Obama should be first-and-foremost on our list of things to accomplish this election cycle. I’m still, personally, stuck in the rut of “anyone but the Republican candidates” but I am under no illusion that Obama is actually all that much better than Romney or Perry.
At this time we just need to get people from all walks of the 99% life together to network, compare lives, and begin to agree on how the nation should function, so that when we do go vote we vote for more than just a jersey.
The 1% control the country, and that’s not going to change because of an election. Obama was honestly the best shot we have had at working out reforms from within the system, and he has failed. I don’t see any reason to be optimistic that he or anyone else will succeed if we give them a chance at the same job.At even the most basic level there is no sincere and honest conversation about the candidates in the elections we have. It is all mediated by the corporate-owned media, who allow only a narrow range of conversation or possible solutions to be discussed, and every other alternative is thrown out as lunatic. In such situations, where there is no legitimate public discussion, the democracy is illegitimate and void. You can keep participating in the process and hope the winds blow in your direction, but it will be as effective as a rain dance. I’m done with the process. I know I don’t speak for the rest of OWS when I say it, but the only process I believe in right now is the process of Assembly.(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
4:39 pm • 11 October 2011 • View comments
available to spark
entris posted:
After reading that article, I find myself wondering if this thread is an accurate representation of the Occupy demographic - I get the feeling that this thread has many more socialists than the actual protests have.
For those of you who are socialist, can you tolerate the presence of pro-capitalist reformers in the movement? Is there space for non-leftist protesters?
Absolutely. Assemblies are inclusive; the only operating assumption is that every voice deserves a chance to be heard by the community, and every individual deserves the opportunity to participate in the process. This is the only operating norm of Assembly, and it ensures that your ideas stand or fall on its merits.There are plenty of libertarians and economic conservatives at these rallies, most of whom have become rightfully disillusioned by the tea party that was stolen from under their feet. Everything I’ve seen on the ground has spoken to how eager people are to have them participate in the process. That doesn’t mean that everyone will agree, but that it is important that they are included and that their voices are heard and that their ideas are available to spark discussion. You won’t be turned away from an Assembly, no matter what you believe. You might find yourself walking away and refusing to participate, but not because you have been excluded from the process. If you have something to say, if you think your ideas can contribute to the movement, then Assembly is where you need to be.(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
4:37 pm • 11 October 2011 • View comments
embrace the plurality of shirts
I’m going to try to tackle this post, because it gives some good insight into the issues with getting Assemblies to work.
theblackw0lf posted:
I agree that not only the Assembly, but even the entire economic and sociological model that has been created through the Occupation is extremely powerful. It really is envisioning the society you want in miniature, and is a great petri dish for experimenting with new ways of thinking of the economy, society and democracy.
There are a couple of concerns though I have though with using the GA in its current state to make a credible claim that this can work on a national scale.
There are two issues.
1) I’m skeptical we’re really achieving true consensus. I know personally that some people are not hard-blocking due to (for lack of a better word) peer pressure. Now on the one hand by refusing to participate in the process they have no right to complain. However it’s also true that when these decisions were made there was not true consensus within the entire GA. In fact what you may end up having is a more subtle version of “tyranny of the majority”. I’m not really sure how you remedy this.
This is a problem with the process itself, and it is a problem I’ve definitely witnessed as well, both on the streams and in the Assemblies I’ve attended. It can be remedied to some extent by making sure the people doing facilitation and stack-keeping are good at their job, but those jobs are really hard. It is also important to constantly remind the Assembly that it is their job to ensure the process is maintained, because ultimately the process is more important than the efficiency of the system, and it is worth the extra 5 minutes to check and ensure a legit consensus has been achieved than risk glossing over people who are too intimidated to speak.Another option is to introduce another layer of bureaucracy: the process-keeper, who is in charge of ensuring that consensus is actually given instead of assumed, and that the facilitator and stack-keeper aren’t inadvertently using their position to circumvent the process. The facilitator and stack-keepers usually have too much other shit to worry about to ensure a horizontal process anyway. Ideally, the Assembly itself should be looking after the process, but maybe designating a role for process-keeping might empower some people to take responsibility for it directly.Either way, though, the process is vitally important for the legitimacy of the Assembly. Without the process, the Assembly has no power at all. quote:
2) The bigger problem is that it’s one thing to build consensus when you have people who for the most part tend to share a general political tendency (in this case leftward). It’s another to achieve consensus when you have a truly
diversified range of opinions from all political perspectives. Until the GA truly represents the 99%, truly represents the general public, it’s going to be difficult for people to believe that this model can work on a more national scale. I think it is possible. But we really need to diversify the occupation for us to make that as a credible claim.
This, I think, isn’t a problem with the process so much as a problem with the makeup of the Assembly. From what I can see, there are really only two requirements for the individuals in the Assembly :1) Honest participation2) SolidarityThe first one ensures that people won’t keep mum when the process is violated.The second one, which is far more important, ensures that all the members of the Assembly are working towards common goals. Solidarity doesn’t mean agreement or consent. It means we are willing to stand together for mutual benefit. The way you make alliances across partisan division is by recognizing shared goals and working together to accomplish those goals. The Assemblies work because each of its members, whatever they believe, want it to succeed. So the problem you mention, about the diversity of views across the country, is only a problem insofar as the goals of the nation are not shared by all its members. This can happen in two ways. The first way is if different factions have different, incompatible visions of success. I think that if there are genuinely incompatible visions of success about which no consensus can be achieved, then the Assembly must necessarily remain silent on those issues. The Assembly is only useful in those cases where consensus is possible. If some people like to wear blue shirts and others like red shirts, there is no reason for the Assembly to decide what shirts people should wear, but it should just embrace the plurality of shirts and try to minimize cases where the that plurality causes significant conflict among the Assembly. I think the effect is to reduce the scope of things that the Assembly can decide on, which is ultimately a good thing. The Assembly is only there to address issues that pertain to the whole community, about resource management and safety and organization, and presumably those issues where consensus can genuinely be reached if we all recognize the importance of the issue. Say we need to build a road, but every proposal for where to build is met by opposition from that part of the community. This is a surmountable problem as long as all parties see the need for a road in the first place, and then it becomes a matter of discussion and negotiation to find a place for it. If we all recognize the importance of the goal, then we will try to work out minor differences in order to achieve that goal.The second, much more sinister way is if some faction explicitly does not want the assembly to succeed. I don’t know what to do about this, but given the desire for unanimous consent in LA and other Assemblies, it would be incredibly easy for a malevolent voice to step up and shut down the Assembly process by blocking proposals and generally being a dick. It would be incredibly easy for a political operative to infiltrate an Assembly and completely divert and wreck the whole process. I don’t know what to do about this, though I will just mention that in a participatory political system, exile is the harshest possible sentence, and it might also be the only feasible way forward in extreme cases.quote:
Also, while I definitely agree the current system is untenable, not just in terms of our democratic process but even our economic system (especially due to the huge economic crisis we’re going to face due to climate change), and we have to be looking at new political and economic models, I don’t see why we can’t also use the occupation to push for smaller reforms or proposals in the meantime. People are seriously hurting now. And I think we could do a lot of good if we use the occupation to push for things like not only financial reform, but things like much higher investments in infrastructure, education, and energy. All of which we should be able to achieve with bipartisan public support if polls are any barometer. I understand the concept that if you work within the system you are legitimizing that system. But while we wait for a new system to emerge, people will be suffering. Also, if we did make serious positive change using the system, that would also strengthen and give more credibility and respect to the movement as a whole.
I agree with this.(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
4:35 pm • 11 October 2011 • 25 notes • View comments
working for you
No-Jokes Feynman posted:
You see, when you give a poor person free money, he will choose to work less hard.
When you give poor people free money, they don’t work less hard. They just stop working for you.(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
3:08 pm • 11 October 2011 • View comments
tyranny of the majority
theblackw0lf posted:
Eripsa posted:
The Assembly is a powerful thing, though right now it is about as slick and well-organized as a geocities site in 1993. Group consensus and direct democracy are powerful things. People will gravitate to that power; each one that does makes the existing order a little less legitimate.
I agree that not only the Assembly, but even the entire economic and sociological model that has been created through the Occupation is extremely powerful. It really is envisioning the society you want in miniature, and is a great petri dish for experimenting with new ways of thinking of the economy, society and democracy.
There are a couple of concerns though I have though with using the GA in its current state to make a credible claim that this can work on a national scale.
There are two issues.
1) I’m skeptical we’re really achieving true consensus. I know personally that some people are not hard-blocking due to (for lack of a better word) peer pressure. Now on the one hand by refusing to participate in the process they have no right to complain. However it’s also true that when these decisions were made there was not true consensus within the entire GA. In fact what you may end up having is a more subtle version of “tyranny of the majority”. I’m not really sure how you remedy this.
2) The bigger problem is that it’s one thing to build consensus when you have people who for the most part tend to share a general political tendency (in this case leftward). It’s another to achieve consensus when you have a truly
diversified range of opinions from all political perspectives. Until the GA truly represents the 99%, truly represents the general public, it’s going to be difficult for people to believe that this model can work on a more national scale. I think it is possible. But we really need to diversify the occupation for us to make that as a credible claim.
Also, while I definitely agree the current system is untenable, not just in terms of our democratic process but even our economic system (especially due to the huge economic crisis we’re going to face due to climate change), and we have to be looking at new political and economic models, I don’t see why we can’t also use the occupation to push for smaller reforms or proposals in the meantime. People are seriously hurting now. And I think we could do a lot of good if we use the occupation to push for things like not only financial reform, but things like much higher investments in infrastructure, education, and energy. All of which we should be able to achieve with bipartisan public support if polls are any barometer. I understand the concept that if you work within the system you are legitimizing that system. But while we wait for a new system to emerge, people will be suffering. Also, if we did make serious positive change using the system, that would also strengthen and give more credibility and respect to the movement as a whole.
Obviusly I’m in full support of the occupation, but I also want it to create the kinds of reforms it seeks, which is why I raise these concerns.
(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
12:19 pm • 11 October 2011 • View comments
loaf of bread
Hieronymous Alloy posted:
If your local Assembly voted to approve a resolution encouraging members to vote for a Democratic candidate in an upcoming election (say, Elizabeth Warren), what would you do?
If you spend even a minute at an Assembly you will understand that this will never happen. You are right that the overwhelming majority of people want a comfortable life, and will take whatever government can give it to them. If we get some minor reforms and an improved economy out of this, most people will be happy. But if that’s how it ends, we will not have fixed the system. The same 1% will remain in control, and the same systems of power will determine our fate. The occupationists on the ground know this, and they will not go home because they are want to be comfortable. They want to be free. And that means they cannot and will not make concessions to the existing order of things and they cannot be satisfied with minor reforms. They will not be grateful when the powerful throw them a loaf of bread and ask them to go home. This is our land. This is our country. We are home. I’m not saying this will be easy. It will take a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wall Street is still occupied 5 years from now. But I won’t accept that it is impossible to change the system at such a fundamental level. Because we’ve done it before. We built the internet. So here’s the best analogy to the kind of argument you are making: it is 1993, and I’m writing independent news for my Geocities site. You say to me that a vanishingly small fraction of the people are engaged in internet journalism, and my geocities site will never make a significant impact on the world. You say, if we want the internet to be a successful news medium, the best we can hope for is the NYT and CNN putting up websites for their news, but that there is no chance that independent journalism like mine would ever come to replace the centers of power in the media world. Here we are, 20 years later. In some sense you were right; my geocities site was ultimately unimportant, and moving major media to the internet was an important part of the transition. But despite the accuracy of your skepticism, we are still talking daily about the collapse of mainstream media and the rise of independent internet journalism. We can talk, without fear of being contradicted, about how the internet caused a genuine media revolution, and has wildly displaced the centers of power: not that they don’t exist, but that their sphere of influence has wildly deflated. Such things were wide-eyed fantasies 20 years ago, and they are the reality today. I think the same thing is happening here. I think in the next election cycle, the OWS kids will have successfully put enough pressure on the political process to shift the debate to the left, and I think that’s a good thing that will leave a lot of people satisfied. But I also think that no matter what happens in the government, the OWS kids will still be occupying and practicing Assembly, and that their legitimacy as a community power will grow, and that more people will turn to the Assembly for answers and action, and will turn away from a government that is incapable of finding answers. This is the story of the internet: the people, working in cooperation for shared purposes, produces public and freely available works that rival or even overcome the resources provided by the Capitalist machine. This is how any open-source movement takes power from the establishment: by providing a product that works well, that is freely available, and that is open and inclusive. The Assembly is a powerful thing, though right now it is about as slick and well-organized as a geocities site in 1993. Group consensus and direct democracy are powerful things. People will gravitate to that power; each one that does makes the existing order a little less legitimate.(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
10:22 am • 11 October 2011 • View comments
stop making hurricanes
No-Jokes Feynman posted:
Serious question: If I went to my local protest and tried to explain to everyone that the quickest way out of this mess is for Obama to spend a radical and gnarly amount of Keynesian stimulus, like another $1 trillion of printed money, would I get laughed out of there or arrested by the new police or is this still up for debate.
You wouldn’t get laughed out of there at all. You might get people agreeing with you. I do think, though, that you will find that the only political power you actually have is at the assembly, and the assembly does not have the power to change this or that policy in the operation of the existing Government. So I have been to Assembly and I’ve heard people make proposals like that, and they don’t sound silly, they just sound completely impotent and misguided, like a church resolving to ask God to stop making hurricanes. We don’t want a new fiscal policy. We want the reorganization of the structure of human life. We want society to function at the will of the people, and for the interests of the people, and we mean all of them. We want every person to have a voice in the process, and for their participation in society to not be determined by their appearance or identity or bank account. We won’t get that by passing a stimulus bill to punt the problem to our kids or theirs. We want this system to go away, because we know how to run a better system. Above all, all we want is to practice Assembly, freely and peacefully without interruption, as is our right, in public, every day. It is only by practicing Assembly that we will figure out the needs and interests of the people, and how to accommodate those interests into the actions of the collective. If there is some need or demand, it will be discussed and resolved at Assembly. There can be no resolution about Obama’s financial policy at Assembly, so although you won’t get laughed at, discussing your proposal will basically be a waste of time, and it will become immediately apparently how dramatically ineffective any such requests are when you see the power of the Assembly. The Assembly is the source of our power. It is the most important thing we are doing, and it is the entire reason why we are doing this. It is both the means to achieve our ends and the end itself. It is the shape of the order to come.
Eripsa fucked around with this message at Oct 11, 2011 around 09:30
(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
9:31 am • 11 October 2011 • View comments
risky venture
I see another round of people showed up to say “OWS should do this” or “OWS should stop doing that”.
OWS is the 99%, and it will only do what its participants agree to. If you think you have an idea for OWS, go to an assembly, because your voice will be heard there. You don’t have to have an idle opinion any more, you can now take action.
This is a full scale revolution. This is the Fall of America. It is the occupation of the land by its people, in defiance of the law and illegitimate authority. There will be no more reform. The current American Government will continue to hold bogus elections, and the Occupationists will refuse to participate in them. America as you knew it is done, it is over.
I am not saying this to convince you it is true. I am saying this to prepare you for what is to come.
Because we are busy, every night in Assembly, figuring out how the new, open source, inclusive, participatory government is supposed to work. We are already engaged in the process of building the system that will replace the existing system. All we need to do is cultivate that system until it has gained such power that the existing order of things collapses in its face. Because it will. Our system works better at organizing people into action than a thousand batons. And you can have a part in forming the new global human system. You can have a huge role in how it comes to your community and how it shapes the lives of your friends and neighbors.
You don’t have to pick up arms against the police. You don’t have to invest your money in any risky venture. All you have to do is speak your mind at Assembly.
(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
9:06 am • 11 October 2011 • View comments
your leisure time
Wala Mango posted:
“Work ethic” was a concept invented to make workers work willingly. They sure as fuck didn’t want to work for a boss. When early capitalism took away alternatives to wage labor, such as common farming land, it tied work with survival. Work ethic tricks the worker into thinking what he’s doing is morally superior to resisting through laziness! Early workers were lazy as hell. Also, taking away pleasures, rituals, boozing, etc. through religious ideals helps maintain a serious worker who will show up on time.
Work exists because of modern production. Capitalist work has always been unnecessary for survival. We only work to create surplus value for the benefit of capitalists. Now, it’s true that increasingly work and social life have been blending together, so modern production is becoming social production. For example, when Google ad-words mines your web activity. So you’re even creating value for corporate profits when you’re surfing the web in your leisure time. Along with just about every other form of worker reproduction (the things we do so we continue to be workers, such as raising children and cleaning), the hours of our actual jobs are not the only form of modern production. The lines between work and play have been blurring due to the commodification of everyday life. We buy love when we buy chocolates. Modern production, then, is affective.
Ever since the 60’s, maybe earlier, radicals have been arguing for abolishing the lines between what’s called “work” and what we would consider our fuller life. To have the freedom to be productive in whatever way we choose to. This production would satisfy human needs, rather than simply Capital. But this breakdown is exactly what’s happening, and Capital has colonized everything, and everything colonized is managed.
So, when we say that work sucks we also have to admit that everything sucks. But nobody needs to be told that.
People have always been trying to flee work. But their dreams have turned into nightmares, as people who need work can’t find it.
But luckily, you’re right. Everything we need to survive and more already exists. It’s up for the taking.
(Source: forums.somethingawful.com)
11:15 pm • 10 October 2011 • 3 notes • View comments
