> Graeber says something to that effect already, doesn't he?
Yeah he does. Until the last few days, I hadn't realized anarchists' were so involved in organizing OWS.
Sorta related to what we've been talking about:
"That being said, the occupations are quite different a political action than those typically deployed in the alt-globalization movement at the early part of the last decade that erupted out of Seattle and inspired by the radical agenda of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Unlike what became the sort of circus-like atmospheres that would descend upon various global gatherings of capitalist plutocrats such as the IMF, WTO, GATT, WEF, G8, etc., the occupation this time sits on the doorstep of a power that must remain there. It is not an event driven ordeal, but in fact, one that must operate across a longer threshold of time. If the protest movements of the 1980s and 1990s continued on the take it to the streets, they suffered from vast ideological divisions (which has become to some degree, the inspiration for numerous anarchist-inspired decentralized general assembly models) but also from temporal limitations of momentum. Marches would end that day and with it, the momentum.
"But in this case, the occupation stretches out over time. The desire for a message (which certainly holds true for a protest) takes on a different manifestation as the message must continue to adjust as the body politic that gathers at the site of occupation continues to grow. Watching the lefty progressives demanding a message of this loose-knit gathering of people indicates a lack of understanding regarding an important strategic shift in the occupation of both space and time. For in watching this movement gather steam over the course of three weeks, one realizes the obvious. No protest march could last three weeks. No gathering of the IMF, WTO or G8 could last three weeks. What this movement benefits from is a sustained approach via occupation. The overall duality of both a symbolic resistance to the condition of capitalism communicated with by the occupation of a place called Wall Street was message enough to allow for a the decentralized group of people there to gather interest and support as they continued to sleep and hold down a one block section of downtown.
"Which is to go back to why the young and the nothing-to-lose are the most critical elements of this movement. Without the seizure of space over time, discussing the merits of this movement would be a non-issue. There would be nothing to discuss.... The occupation of space over time is what garnered the momentum of the Arab Spring and it will continue to be a strategy that works across the United States. For those that can literally camp out and hold down the physical and symbolic squatting of what rightfully belongs to the inhabitants of the globe, their efforts must go commended and they must be supported."
http://eipcp.net/transversal/1011/thompson/en