Concerns From Another Generation

Firstly, I support Occupy and what it is about. I have concerns and I hear concerns from many quarters. I share this conversation that I had with Shepherd at the Occupy Sebastopol Meeting January 9 (and I paraphrase).. E: "Are you going to process us to death?" S: "There is some process." E:"I am short on process. We need to sink our teeth into something that resonates with the people." S: "You need to think outside the box." E: " I am a student of history. Process doesn't carry a movement" S: "That is such 20th Century thinking." It should be apparent that this conundrum stuck because I am responding here. Is there some new process that will carry the day or is history bound to repeat itself and the Occupy movement end up as an entry in Wikipedia?

Skipping through my own internal debate and forty years of protest history, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Iraq I have come to the conclusion that there is no new process that will change the system. Empowering people through encampments and a new language is not going to impress the body politic. It is at best an organizing tool. The Tea Party made significant (right wing) gains through harnessing the anger of the right to the ballot box. They got control of the Congress! Juxtapose this against "re-grouping" and hand signals, and "mic check". I conclude that the only significant non-violent change comes through the ballot box. Therefore, it must be the ballot box for Occupy.
The process of Occupy is the province of thinkers and optimist; not the gnarly political veteran or the middle class. The power structure includes banks, congress, government and the newly labeled 1%. What does Flagstar Bank of Michigan that owns your loan care about what a sign in Sebastopol might read? Read "What's The Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank who tells us why Kansans, historically progressive but now conservative, vote against their own interest. Congress? Where are our candidates? Or, consider that LaFollette the last real progressive that ran for President in 1925 was from Wisconsin, whose Governor threw out the unions last year. The Russian Revolution, Utopian movements and the Hippie generation. It didn't take long for the flower children to understand that putting a flower in the gun barrel of a National Guardsmen did not stop the cop from bashing you. History does lie but it is a real good measure of what works and doesn't work.

This is an appeal to move from process to understanding that only issues that resonate with middle-Americans will cause change in America. We are too satiated, fat and lazy for an American Spring. Occupy will only succeed if it hones in on issues like the mortgage defaults, unemployment, environment destruction, candidates for Congress , and restore some balance at the Ballot box. Otherwise, I fear we fiddle while America burns. Newt Gingrich is calling President Obama a "Saul Alinsky socialist". No communist, so no 'red baiting'. So, why not bash Alinsky socialism? The right knows this works even if Alinsky wasn't a socialist. Process will not change this or the American people who tend to vote against their own interest too often. We need to get cracking to register voters, call out the candidates and restore the liberal perspective that says "government should work for the people" and not the corporations. This may mean direct action. But we must do so in an American context and not waste time creating an idealism. Power to the People. Grow Occupy.

local occupy has joined with immigrant rights, the very definition of a wedge issue. the corporations are not people movement seems to have been energized by occupy, hopefully it will lead back to campaign finance reform, where democracy sometimes wins. i was hoping the occupy movement would help with financial industry regulation, but maybe thats to complicated for street consensus. it took me five years to figure out what a credit default swap is.

i thought you were a much better supervisor than the current one, would you ever run for elected office again?

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Posted in reply to the post by Ernieman:

Firstly, I support Occupy and what it is about. I have concerns and I hear concerns from many quarters. I share this conversation that I had with Shepherd at the Occupy Sebastopol Meeting January 9 (and I paraphrase).. E: "Are you going to process us to death?" S: "There is some process." E:"I am short on process. We need to sink our teeth into something that resonates with the people." S: "You need to think outside the box." E: " I am a student of history. Process doesn't carry a movement" S: "That is such 20th Century thinking." It should be apparent that this conundrum stuck because I am responding here. Is there some new process that will carry the day or is history bound to repeat itself and the Occupy movement end up as an entry in Wikipedia?

Skipping through my own internal debate and forty years of protest history, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Iraq I have come to the conclusion that there is no new process that will change the system. Empowering people through encampments and a new language is not going to impress the body politic. It is at best an organizing tool. The Tea Party made significant (right wing) gains through harnessing the anger of the right to the ballot box. They got control of the Congress! Juxtapose this against "re-grouping" and hand signals, and "mic check". I conclude that the only significant non-violent change comes through the ballot box. Therefore, it must be the ballot box for Occupy.
The process of Occupy is the province of thinkers and optimist; not the gnarly political veteran or the middle class. The power structure includes banks, congress, government and the newly labeled 1%. What does Flagstar Bank of Michigan that owns your loan care about what a sign in Sebastopol might read? Read "What's The Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank who tells us why Kansans, historically progressive but now conservative, vote against their own interest. Congress? Where are our candidates? Or, consider that LaFollette the last real progressive that ran for President in 1925 was from Wisconsin, whose Governor threw out the unions last year. The Russian Revolution, Utopian movements and the Hippie generation. It didn't take long for the flower children to understand that putting a flower in the gun barrel of a National Guardsmen did not stop the cop from bashing you. History does lie but it is a real good measure of what works and doesn't work.

This is an appeal to move from process to understanding that only issues that resonate with middle-Americans will cause change in America. We are too satiated, fat and lazy for an American Spring. Occupy will only succeed if it hones in on issues like the mortgage defaults, unemployment, environment destruction, candidates for Congress , and restore some balance at the Ballot box. Otherwise, I fear we fiddle while America burns. Newt Gingrich is calling President Obama a "Saul Alinsky socialist". No communist, so no 'red baiting'. So, why not bash Alinsky socialism? The right knows this works even if Alinsky wasn't a socialist. Process will not change this or the American people who tend to vote against their own interest too often. We need to get cracking to register voters, call out the candidates and restore the liberal perspective that says "government should work for the people" and not the corporations. This may mean direct action. But we must do so in an American context and not waste time creating an idealism. Power to the People. Grow Occupy.

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I hope this isn't too tangential, but since Mary (Hi, Mary!) mentioned the consensus process, I wanna say this: Based on my few experiences with it some years ago, I hate the consensus process! On top of often being onerously long and drawn out, it creates a situation wherein 1% of the people, by holding out, can stymie the will of the other 99%--thus, ironically, it can be a microcosm of the all-too-familiar "1% calling the shots" world we're supposed to be resisting!

I strongly support everyone's being heard--I favor the "talking stick" method of encouraging even the shyest to have their say--but once everyone's heard, I favor majority rule over the consensus process. I'd much, much rather be outvoted in a democratic process than to be subjected to enormous social pressure to pretend I agree with something I don't agree with in order to end the torment of the consensus process by reaching phony consensus--which is what happens a lot, from what I've seen.

Genuine total consensus is rare, and that's especially true the larger a group is and the less conservative they are. A process which insists on 100% consensus will generally get phony consensus instead, and take a long, agonizing road to get there. So my vote is for democracy, not the cumbersome and often phony consensus process.

Dixon,

There are many variations/versions of consensus process. Most groups with members experienced with it, tend to agree to use modified consensus. Where a policy decision requires 2/3 to 3/4 of those present to agree, blocking requires at least 10% (with the strict requirement that the block be based on fundamental moral concerns and not just because someone, "doesn't like it", good facilitation can clarify that distinction and make the call, with the consent of the body) and executive decisions can be "consensed to" by 60%. Pure consensus is rarely used for long.

I'll not go into the advantages of consensus over majority rule, or Feminist Consensus Process over Robert's Rules. There has been tons written about it over the years, much of it is available online. I first read the discussion, engaged in the debates and started using consensus (modified) back in 1977 or thereabouts.

When it works it's amazing and beautiful. When it doesn't, it sucks just as much as railroading processes such as majority rule with heavy handed meeting chairs and forced agendas. And there's a whole range of possibilities in between!

In any group, whatever the discussion and decision making process, a solid minority of tendentious, stubborn, uncompromising uh... delusionals (trying to stay nice here!) can wreck the entire group. That's why I endorse self-selecting semi-autonomous affinity groups, and various other forms of self-selecting collectives, which operate in coalition and loose coordination with other such groups, but are not subsumed into "one big group for us all".

That's where the Spokes Council Model came from. It can be unwieldy as well, especially if those involved don't understand its limits and push for complete agreement, or major policy statements, or significant tactical control over all groups, especially on the fly in a tactical situation requiring a quick decision (been there, done that) but so are all efforts at radical democracy.

Big topic.


Ernie,

Encouraging Occupy! to focus its efforts on electoral politics, to direct its time and effort into the Democratic Party, well, have you really been reading and listening to the accounts coming out of the Occupy! movement?

The debate about mainstream partisan politics, Pragmatic Liberalism, the efficacy of our status quo winner take all electoral system, has been going on my entire life and long before. Due to my understanding, it's why I'm a Green Party partisan who votes strategically.

Some of us, have long concluded that if we keep trying to get the Democratic Party leadership to "do the right thing" and walk their talk, nothing will change. Other than cosmetic tinkering at the edges of a broken system.

That's why without a massive social movement using non-violent direct action in the tens, hundreds of thousands, millions, electoral efforts will result in the same limited gains and sometimes significant losses that they have for the last forty years at least. Hence the "get corporate money out of politics" theme, another big topic.

Your commitment has been to the system as a means of reform. I understand that position, I know many such people. But what you propose is a time tested recipe for more of the same.

I'm all for elections, I'm a radical democrat (process, not party) but without the critical mass to make them matter they're useless (opinions differ as to what "matters") other than to change the cast in this play we call government. A play with real consequences, admittedly, but not sufficient ones for the last generation or three.

A discussion of how much government has to do with social reality, the economy, etc., I'll save that. But it's complicated. No easy answers. And hard as winning elections is, compared to the real work we need to engage in to stave off economic and ecological disaster, they're child's play.

Election results reflect social change. They rarely, if ever, cause it. Has Occupy! created enough social momentum to reboot the system? I think we don't know yet. I fervently hope it/we will.

The political, electoral, judicial and financial systems are all corrupt. No immediate remedy will be found through these systems until they are either reformed (which is unlikely) or removed and replaced. Thus, non-violent direct action is the only logical course of action left to the American people.


If anyone truly wants to bring together the "99%", then they need to limit their focus to issues on which everyone agrees. The aforementioned corruption is that set of issues.


It makes absolutely no sense to argue about the size and/or role of government when the government we have is as corrupt and illegitimate as it is now.


We need to reach out to, and bring together, every community we can as we work to rehabilitate our corrupt institutions.



We also need to continue to create new approaches to meeting everyone's basic human needs as we move forward, because real change only happens when the new replaces the old.


Our strategy has to combine non-violent direct action which exposes and undermines the existing, corrupt institutions and paradigms while creating sustainable, truly democratic communities.


Full transparency, accountability and participation are the key tenets to creating any meaningful, peaceful change.


Our tactics should include strikes, boycotts and protests; always non-violent and always with a clearly defined goal. Public education on issues, goals, strategy and tactics is paramount to success and the continued growth of any movement which endeavors to be successful.



The corrupt elites who our are adversaries employ overlapping strategies of tension. They use a variety of "divide and conquer" tactical approaches which highlight xenophobia and push wedge issues.


Thus, we must counter this by always emphasizing that we have far more in common as humans than the relatively minor issues constantly pushed to create artificial divisions.


The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

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Posted in reply to the post by LeftWright:

The political, electoral, judicial and financial systems are all corrupt. No immediate remedy will be found through these systems until they are either reformed (which is unlikely) or removed and replaced. Thus, non-violent direct action is the only logical course of action left to the American people.

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Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime minister from 1868 to 1880, said, "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." Nathan Rothshild, who controlled the Bank of England after 1820, is quoted as declaring: I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.
In 1934 the former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said, that "Britain is the slave of an international financial bloc."
Today the world is slave of an international financial bloc.
The government is under control of the financial bloc.
Separate the banks from the government and the government will be there for the people.
It should be government and the people.
Not banks and government.

Hmmmmm. Whom can we trust? How is it that government ends up bad? Where is there a better form of democracy. When I ran for public office I used the phrase "Government is always working for someone. I want it to work for you." How is it all financial institutions are bad? Money has been concentrated and put to work since barter ended as a system. I am totally dismayed by the concentration of power in huge corporations. I am dismayed that elected types end up chasing campaign money and forgetting that they serve the people.

Yet, not all corporations are bad. Not all politicians are bad. Really, there is no new system that will come about to give us a fix. It will take getting the right controls on lending institutions and campaign finance. There is, however, a reason change is slow. It serves the interest of those in control to maintain the status control.

This is why Occupy must move toward the ballot box, elect leaders who are not afraid of standing up for the people, controlling the banks, mortgage lenders, and speculators. It is a much more complicated scenario than I have heard discussed at a local level. Developing a new system is a pipe dream. What to do? The Tea Party came and it is going but at least it exercised power at the ballot box and elected a slew of new Congress persons. Why can't the left get this? Short of power at the ballot box, we lose. Dream on ye harbingers of a more perfect world. It is not going to happen. Roll up those sleeves and find the local pressure points to clean up our own elected house.
Ernieman

To say that "The political, electoral, judicial and financial systems are all corrupt" is a failure of critical thinking. To be sure, the influence of money does indeed tend to corrupt these systems. However, if we fail to differentiate between aspects that are corrupt and those that are not, we will be unable to effect the fundamental systemic changes to create a truly just just and sustainable world. It is as important to identify what works as to identify what doesn't.

I think anyone who studies what took place in the 2000 and 2004 elections will clearly see that the electoral process has been corrupted and, until it is repaired or replaced, does not provide a workable solution for real change in this country.

The Bush v. Gore decision proves that the Judicial system has also been corrupted and does not provide any redress for our legitimate grievances. Further evidence of Judicial corruption can be seen in the ongoing and nearly complete evisceration of all of our basic rights (habeas corpus, etc.) with full support in the Supreme Court. The House and Senate are now considering a bill (HR3166/S1698) which would let the government strip anyone declared "a terrorist" of their U.S. citizenship without a trial or even a hearing. This is in addition to the use of indefinite detention for any US citizen, also without a trial or hearing, which began with the Patriot Act and was further codified with the Military Commissions Act and most recently codified in NDAA 2012.

Members of the Occupy movement are now being described as "urban terrorists."

All this under a president who allegedly is a "constitutional scholar".

Yes, there are a few decent national level politicians, but I could probably count them on my fingers and toes, and they lack the courage to actually take on the massive corruption we now face (e.g. the open murder of U.S. citizens by elements within the U.S. government) in any meaningful way. National electoral politics has been reduced to bad theater and is completely useless at this point.

On March 7, 2011 I was accosted and handcuffed for no legal reason at the Denver International Airport while attempting to fly home to northern California. After being handcuffed I calmly stated that I "have rights" and was told "No sir, you are in a 'federal protection area', you have no rights". This means that any time anyone passes through one of these "federal protection areas" (which can be created anywhere they choose at any time) we can be "renditioned" anywhere they want and, with no habeas corpus, we could potentially never been seen or heard from again.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the founding document of the United States of America states unequivocally that we have the right to abolish our government when it no longer serves the interests of the people and has become despotic, as it now clearly has.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Thus, until we have elections with verifiable paper ballots, I will not consider the electoral process in this country to be a valid avenue for the real change we need.

As for creating a "new system"....every choice we make is an opportunity to create something new...we can be the change we want to see in the world....the means create the end.

Brothers and sisters, WE ARE THE MEANS, let's start creating the world we want to live in.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Sir -

I hope that you and yours are well.

With all due respect I believe that the "failure" to think critically is yours. The reality of the facts and the inescapable conclusions one logically arrives at from said facts make it quite clear that the our political, electoral, financial and judicial systems have been corrupted to the point where the people have no real recourse through them.

If you like, during the next week, I can cite examples which fully illustrate said corruption (a few examples are in a post below).

Before doing so, I would ask you to state why you think they are not corrupt and how these systems could be effectively utilized to redress the greivances of the people and create real and sustainable change.

Enjoy the day.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

To say that "The political, electoral, judicial and financial systems are all corrupt" is a failure of critical thinking.

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Larry, while I agree with most of what you say in your post, I think your opening sentence overstates your case. If the quote you're critiquing had said "...are all totally corrupt" (or some such absolutistic wording) you'd be right in disputing it, because there are non-corrupt aspects in all those systems, especially at the local level. But just to label those systems "corrupt" doesn't really carry the implication that they're absolutely so. It does imply that they're very substantially so, maybe even to the point that, as currently constituted, they cannot be depended upon for the systemic changes we need. FWIW, I'd say that's accurate, with the caveat that there are some exceptions at the local level.

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

To say that "The political, electoral, judicial and financial systems are all corrupt" is a failure of critical thinking. To be sure, the influence of money does indeed tend to corrupt these systems. However, if we fail to differentiate between aspects that are corrupt and those that are not, we will be unable to effect the fundamental systemic changes to create a truly just just and sustainable world. It is as important to identify what works as to identify what doesn't.

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I think it is not a failure of critical thinking to declare with great certainty that the root, trunk and stem at the core of the system is absolutely and irreparably corrupt.... and has been for a very, very long time, just not so exposed since the information age exploded. All the branches, twigs and leaves stemming from it range from corrupt to not corrupt and it's silly to expect we could ever have an accurate who's who.

The bottomline is that the noncorrupt in the treetop have no chance of survival with it's roots so rotten.

Alex

>>>I think it is not a failure of critical thinking to declare with great certainty that the root, trunk and stem at the core of the system is absolutely and irreparably corrupt....

This is a very broadly-shared view on this website, and probably among many progressives. Sometimes it's a statement preliminary to a pitch for voting for Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, or someone's anti-war aunt. Sometimes it's a call for power to the people, without much of a notion how to bring that about. Sometimes it's in the context of mocking anyone who's under the foolish illusion that voting actually means something, so we should keep our conscience pure by farting into the wind on Election Day. What never seems quite to emerge, though some poor fool may nurse it, is the notion of armed rebellion — right now only reactionaries speak of "the Second Amendment option."

Forgive me. I reject the "absolutely and irreparably" meme, and on frail evidence. Well, maybe not so frail. Would the civil-rights legislation have become law if Goldwater had been elected? Not a chance. Did we get it passed by electing a saint? Gotta-be-kidding. Did it bring about heaven-on-earth for blacks? Not hardly. Did it make a huge fucking difference??? Can anyone say it didn't?

I used to pride myself on my critique of the System-as-is, but now I find I'm almost ready to join the Pollyannas. Because I see this everything-hopeless cry to be nothing more than posturing. I'm hesitant to say that because I don't mean that to belittle anyone's true belief. Those who describe that vast, desolate shit-heap of abuse and corruption are quite accurate in their draughtsmanship. But what does that lead to? Impotence.

For those who give up on electoral politics — and here I include among the give-ups those who vote their conscience by voting impossibility, sorry, but that's how I feel — what actual course is there for you than armed revolt? Pitching a tent in a park isn't a pointless act, but it only goes so far. What you feel in solidarity when among a mass of lovely, dedicated people isn't illusion, it's real, but it only goes so far. You raise a spirit by singing a song, but either you get things actually done either at the ballot box or by killing a lot of people before they kill you. I wish there was a middle ground, I really do, but I don't see one.

Democracy is a very messy business, and never in history has it been without corruption and the power of money and class and special interests and unkept promises and double-speak — never. What's better? Lenin? Mao? Mussolini? Henry VIII? Philip IV? I can't dispute the myriad evidence of hopelessness. But I have to stand against the conclusion. Otherwise why not just die? It's cheaper, even better perhaps than single-payer.

Peace & joy--
Conrad

My more simplistic version of Pollyanna: This lovely weather is really ominous, but I'm gonna enjoy it.

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Posted in reply to the post by theindependenteye:

...
I used to pride myself on my critique of the System-as-is, but now I find I'm almost ready to join the Pollyannas. ...

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You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

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Posted in reply to the post by patchen:

As near as I can tell, missing from this discussion -- and both missing and relevant to Conrads’s list of “leaders” -- is Ghandi.

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