The Occupations are (in terms of earlier experience) neither fish nor fowl: they aren't formally an insurrection and I doubt any of them see themselves that way -- but they do have the shape or 'feel' of an insurrection or insurgency of some kind.
Now 'real' insurrections are either crushed (usually with considerable bloodshed or they succeed in overthrowing the state. "Not-Insurrections" that have the shape or feel of insurrections are not I presume going to overthrow the state, or even try to. BUT - officials at all levels are beginning to 'feel' them as a sort of disguised insurgency; they have from the beginning. That feeling got expressed in the stop-and-go nature of repression to date. That corresponds to the neither fish-nor-fowl nature of the phenomenon that the Occupations are. We don't have a good name for that phenomenon -- which is also, perhaps, one of the reasons the debate about them (inside and 'outside') has been a bit confused.
But I dunno. They are still pretty wonderful, however they end (or don't end).
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 12:40 PM To: lbo-talk Subject: [lbo-talk] OWS: crackdown imminent?
[Can't vouch for this, but could well be...]
From: han shan Date: Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 10:03 AM
Friends, allies, and troublemakers,
I heard through a back-channel (which I did not seek nor cultivate) from a very highly-placed person in the Mayor's office that they are losing patience with the status quo VERY quickly. This person was rather blunt and without giving me any sort of firm timeline nonetheless made it clear that the city has a plan, the resources, and will likely mobilize very soon (tonight? early next week? I don't exactly know) to either clear the occupation entirely, or remove 99% of the infrastructure currently in the park (all the tents, sleeping bags, etc.-the plan 3 weeks ago for Brookfield's 'cleaning').
This communication from the Mayor's office has gone to other power brokers I'm in touch with and is being echoed and affirmed by various local elected officials, as well as the Public Advocate's office. Press are starting to hear ruminations too. It seems the letter from Assembly speaker Silver and colleagues may have brought the (political) situation to a tipping point.
At this point, the combination of various implicit and damn-near-explicit warnings has me so I wouldn't be surprised if they came in 4am tomorrow morning. I believe we should be prepared for that.
I haven't been well plugged into contingency planning for this nor has there been much discussion amongst this group with reports from DA affinity groups and whoever is lately working on tactical contingency planning for a raid. I would like to suggest that the discussion be brought to the fore rather urgently.
Parallel to this, I have been given the suggestion that the only way to delay the seemingly inevitable is visible, highly-touted progress on some of the basic things that have consumed too much of my and many others' time, including:
. locating bathrooms for use by occupiers overnight and spreading the word that any public urination or defecation will risk police action
. curbing the drumming (yes, really, the additional 2 afternoon hours beyond what the community board's resolution called for remains a significant sticking point, despite the drummers' effective self-regulation)
. highlighting and touting our security and community watch system Beyond that, we gotta just figure out how to pivot-and fast-to whatever's next in the wake of a Liberty Square raid.
Onward. Han ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk