[lbo-talk] the real problem with occupy wall street

wrobert at uci.edu wrobert at uci.edu
Mon Oct 3 18:29:25 PDT 2011



> I find this a tremendous stretch of reasoning. Nobody is stopping JESSICA
> and those like her from joining these movements. To fixate on a term
> (“occupy”) and weave an entire critique around it seems contrived. Nobody
> is getting to “ending capitalism” by “step[ping] on other people’s
> rights”.
>
> —ravi
>

To be honest, I haven't been thrilled by some of the populist nationalism that has defined a lot of the early rhetoric around the protests. I think there have been some shifts in this, and a lot of folks have made arguments for patience, but the claims that this article made about the word 'occupy' drove me up a wall. It's really cheap moralism posing as a critical analysis. On the other hand, this hasn't been all that representative of the material online produced by critical activists of color, most of which has been quite thoughtful and provocative.

I wonder what Yee's analysis of AIM's occupation of Alcatraz and the Bureau of Indian Affairs would be, or the I Hotel, or frankly a lot of the militant anti-racist activism of the 1970's.

robert wood



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