[lbo-talk] David Graeber interview on OWS

SA s11131978 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 3 13:38:33 PDT 2011


On 10/3/2011 4:12 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:


> Their rhetoric of demands, while still not up to your high standards,
> seems to be improving. It's still a laundry list, but it no longer
> sounds hippie-ish:
>
> http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/
>

Better. Definitely better.

But I think it's revealing that as the movement grows and learns it seems to inch away from its anarchist principles. The other day I saw an OWS organizer on the news. She was asked the standard question about why no demands and gave the standard answer - as if she was quoting Jodi Dean - that listing demands would exclude other demands, which is exclusionary, or something. Well, look what they've done now - issued a finite list of grievances and fudged the exclusionary problem by simply tacking on an asterisk saying the grievances aren't meant to be exhaustive. I would suspect that some pretty interesting General Assemby debates led to that decision.

SA



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