Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website.Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
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Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. That is the sense that I used the dating Liberation Day One in recent posts. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as a demand-heavy, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
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Markin comment November 5, 2011 :
I am posting this entry here because it expresses some of the same things that I find disconcerting about the direction of the Occupy movement. Although I have some differences with the author's direction as well and am not familiar with the program of this particular group, Workers Action, I find his points well worth pondering. I will add my own in the future as we settle in to learn the lessons of the Oakland General Strike for our struggles.
A Sober Voice From The Occupy Movement :
The Way Forward for Occupy Portland by Shamus Cooke, Workers ActionVia Boston IndyMedia
Email: portland (nospam) workerscompass.org (unverified!) 01 Nov 2011
In Portland, Oregon, all the promise and pitfalls of the Occupy Movement are on public display. Portland is second only to New York when it comes to sustained Occupy power, but in a newly born social movement strength is not something to take for granted. The vast amounts of public support in Portland, earned through large demonstrations and strategic outreach, can be frittered away by the internal contradictions of the movement.
Portland began its occupation with a 10,000-person rally that shook the city's foundation and disorientated the Mayor, who had no choice but to "allow" the occupation to stay at the park they had taken without asking. There have since been several large Portland rallies and marches that have proven the wider population's support: On October 26 a labor union-led Occupy march turned out thousands of union members with ecstatic morale; the same week showcased a "This Land is Our Land" Occupy rally by Portland band Pink Martini, which attracted nearly 10,000 people.
But the speeches of the Pink Martini rally were hardly Occupy worthy, since they showcased two members of Oregon's Congressional House of Representatives, politicians of the political establishment that the Occupy movement rose up against. As Representative Earl Blumenauer spoke, a group of activists chanted "This is what hypocrisy looks like,” in response to his voting in favor for the recently passed pro-corporate free trade agreements.
If Portland's Occupy movement had a strong list of demands — or even a firm statement of principles — the Democrats in Oregon would be unable to associate with Occupy, since the Democrats’ objectives would so obviously clash with those of the anti-corporate movement. But for now "99%" is vague enough for political impostors to enter the fray and inject ideas from the wealthiest 1%.
Portland's 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters.
Thus far, Portland's 1% has been unable to establish the "rule of law" and evict the protesters because of the wider backlash that would ensue; the media have been pushing the Mayor to create a "timeline" for the protesters to leave. Thus far the Mayor remains too jarred to act, leaving the initiative to the protesters.
But initiative is something easily lost. There are sections of Occupiers who are impatient and want more "direct action,” including an expansion of the occupation to other parks. This would not be such a bad thing if masses of people were aggressively behind the action. Instead, on October 30th in the wee hours of the morning, the "new" occupation spot had only a couple dozen protesters who were promptly arrested, giving the police and Mayor an easy victory and the Occupy movement a small but bitter defeat. The illusion of the Mayor having "control" was upheld while the message of the protesters was muzzled.
Some protesters will argue that the arrests were a victory, but civil disobedience must be looked at from a strategic lens that is most effective with masses of people involved and specific goals in mind. The era of tiny protests and limited results belongs to the past. This movement has large scale potential, and the larger 99% will feel impelled to join if they see a strong, mass movement capable of winning demands.
Another way that Occupy Portland could lose mass support is through political disunity. There are different committees and working groups within Occupy Portland trying to build some political cohesiveness to broadcast to the wider community. The movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%.
This is precisely the problem. The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. These groups have come into the movement with ready-made ideas in mind, many of them good. But the left has been plagued by issue-based divisiveness for years, where the many different groups are pushing their individual issues into a movement that began by appealing to the 99% at large. It is healthy for left groups to advocate the end of animal cruelty, corporate personhood, and police brutality, but these are not the immediate demands that will spur the 99% to actively join the movement.
What will get people in the streets? The 99% supports the Occupy Movement because of the economic crisis that has directly affected them, not because they have ideological problems with capitalism at the moment, or want to take legal rights from corporations. The most progressive 5% cannot impose their demands on the larger 99%, since the majority of the 99% already have demands of their own.
What are these demands? The Washington Post explains: "How many times does this message have to be delivered? In poll after poll, Americans have said their top concern is the jobs crisis." (August 11, 2011).
Poll after poll has also declared mass opposition to cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other social programs, while declaring support for taxing the rich to solve these national problems.
And these issues have even greater potential to galvanize the 99% because of their centrality to organized labor. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently declared the cuts to Social Security, Medicare or to Medicaid, which have been proposed by the bipartisan “Super Committee,” are unacceptable. The proposed cuts, Trumka says, prove why people around the country “are raising their voices in protest because they’re fed up with a system that is stacked in favor of the richest one percent of Americans – at the expense of the other 99 percent of us.”
The Occupy Movement will grow or die based on its ability to relate to these demands of the larger 99%. It is these issues that reflect the most urgent needs, where the demands are held in common by the vast majority and that affect working people on a city, state, and national level. No long-term demands — like ending corporate personhood — can be won outside of a mass movement, and no mass movement can grow without the focus on immediate, basic demands; these demands must come before the former.
There is plenty of time for the Occupy Movement to work out the details of its long-term mission, but there is no time to waste to fight for the most popular demands of working people. The Occupy Movement is still struggling for existence, and its life cannot be maintained in a political environment unattractive to the broader 99%. If the Occupy Movement demanded that the wealthy and corporations be taxed to create jobs and prevent cuts to social programs, the 99% would see a movement built in its own image, and working people would fight for themselves while learning to fight alongside each other for the good of all working people.
This work is in the public domain
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Markin comment November 7 2011:
I noted in yesterday’s comment (see above) that I would have my own points to make about my observations of the progress (or lack of progress in the Occupy movement). Today I just want to outline the concerns that I will go into greater detail as things get clear (or murkier). Remember these comments are made in the light of the lessons to be learned from the great Oakland General Strike of November 2, 2011 which is now the vanguard axis of the struggle.
One, the seemingly endless and somewhat haphazard marches, rallies, and guerilla theater antics of the past few weeks, while important as a catalyst for actions and publicity, have reached something like a saturation point. Actions like the glorious march to close down the Port of Oakland-a direct challenge to capitalist rule and as a way to hit them where they live is where we should be heading.
Two, while the "Occupy everywhere" theme is right in the long haul establishing eight million small, poorly planned, poorly attended, and merely episodic sites in small towns which have increasing been picked off by the local authorities, and rather easily suppressed, is self-defeating especially as winter closes in and we need to have a serious mainline cities presence.
Three, the Oakland General Strike, if it stands for anything, stands for the proposition that the working class is central to any concrete actions that will bring this monster down. The labor, minority and other oppressed segments of the movement who will be key to creating our new, more just society have until now not played a central but rather an auxiliary role and reflects a bad trend in the movement.
Four, while the question of electoral politics, bourgeois electoral politics, is not pressing right this minute there are distinct tom-toms being heard from bourgeois candidates (example, the Elizabeth Warren campaign for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts) trying to corral this movement into the straitjacket of electoral politics. The Occupy slogan should be Candidate X, Y, Z is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The slogan noted in the Workers Action article when bourgeois politicians tried to drum up support at Occupy Portland hits the point correctly- "This is what hypocrisy looks like.”
Five, the question of no demands, or even a firm statement of principles, is beginning to sap away the strength of the movement as people do their own thing with at least one case of repetitive action on the student loan showing a lack of national co-ordination as well. You can try to run from politics at your peril, and hide behind an anti-politics stance, as witness the general daily atmosphere at Occupy Boston and which you can read about read about through the General Assembly minutes at many other sites, but it is still politics-bad politics.
Six, I will repeat the Workers Action statement here and just universalize it. The 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters. There is moreover a very big gap between the political operatives who defend the Occupy movement (including this writer) and a large number of those who actually camp out.
Seven, the movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%. This brings up the division that is becoming more apparent between those who want to tweak at the capitalist system and those who want to throw the bums out and create another type of society, including this writer.
Eight, The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. There is precious little outreach to the broader working class milieu. I see precious few “soccer moms and dads,” except an occasional thoughtful donor dropping off food or other supplies. This is a political generational problem, a problem of the missing generation between the oldsters (me and my generation) and the youth, the generation who bought into anti-activist notions of the world, except to not be bothered as much as possible.
Nine, and here is where my major different with the brother from Workers Action comes in. Program is necessary for any political movement and as I have noted above this movement will, in the end, not be able to evade that norm. However, that norm does not include some mythical search for a grab bag of demands that will make the soccer moms and dads jump up and salute our movement. Smart politics will raise the right set of demands and then those who now stand on the sidelines will come over, assuming some victories for us in the meantime.
Ten, right now the most progressive 5% has to speak for their demands and can direct them to the larger audience since the majority of those we are trying to reach do not have demands of their own, or have been unable to articulate them. In fact the 99 percent figure while attractive as a street slogan should no blind us to the reality that we have more natural enemies than the one percent and that most people are not part of the political “nation”. That is why we speak up now to push the “silent majority” forward but make no mistake what we are doing is the pushing so caution is warranted about going too fast, for now.
Ah, ten points seems enough for now. I will write more on each point as I think about things a little more.
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