this is why, while I know it will never happen, part of me just wants Doug to hang out with 20 people from OWS and just talk to them for awhile. Not talk at them, but with them. Get in their heads, find out what they're thinking, etc. *then* craft a teach in. that's a tactic I used to use when teaching, but I had 1. time and 2. pretty accurate foreknowledge of what they were going to say so that I wasn't going to be caught off guard.
There's also a lot to be said for a more socratic method of engagement, where you get *them* to come with the answers. Not pin them into a corner and piss them off, showing them up to be weak thinkers, but to pull out of them what, as carrol often says, they already know.
e.g., if you read their blogs, for instance, they already know the drawbacks of their approach to consensus building, they already know that they depend on capitalist production, etc. they have just determined that they are going to pick an approach and move forward. This isn't true of everyone, it's just clear about the bloggers I'm reading. But the goal for our Wall St Socrates is, as Marx said, get them to the point where they can put words to what they haven't been able to put words to before.
shag
> This is good. Do you have more? Please go on.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 4:00 AM, James Heartfield <
> Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Occupy Wall Street is the left’s own Tea Party, so we should not be
>> surprised at the occasional intellectual crossover:
>>
>> ‘The lefties who pick up Ron Paul's line on the Fed don't really
>> understand
>> that he has a coherent political philosophy. When says "end the Fed"
>> he
>> means "switch to gold." Again, that makes sense from his POV. But
>> why an
>> unemployed kid should embrace the gold standard, well, that makes no
>> sense.’
>> (Quoth Doug)
>>
>> Both movements, Tea Party and OWS, give voice to political
>> alienation, and
>> fix on the MAIN EVENT as a focus for that alienation. The Main Event
>> is the
>> ongoing bailout of Wall Street. For the Tea Partiers it was a sign
>> of
>> government profligacy, for the OWS it is a sign of Corporate Greed.
>> Both no
>> doubt have some truth in them, but much more important is that they
>> both are
>> movements that signal popular disaffection from the mainstream,
>> establishment outlook.
>>
>> The Tea Partiers peeled away from the Governing Party of George
>> Bush, for
>> whom they had been mobilised, but became disillusioned – a
>> disillusionment
>> that was turned into a sense of being robbed, when Obama took the
>> White
>> House.
>>
>> Those occupying Wall Street were enthused by Obama, but have found
>> little
>> focus for their enthusiasm since – he has not done much to cement
>> his base
>> (too busy reaching across to his opponents). Their disaffection
>> comes first,
>> its focus comes afterwards.
>>
>> Wall Street is the focus, because it is the MAIN EVENT. If Obama had
>> been
>> fighting a war in Iraq, disaffection would manifest itself in large
>> demonstrations against the war. If his central policy had been to
>> move
>> America to the adoption of kilometres instead of miles, no doubt
>> there would
>> be vast demonstrations against kilometres. The substantial basis of
>> the
>> grassroots movements, both OWS and Tea Party is political
>> disaffection: the
>> way that mainstream political ideologies have failed to become a
>> focus for
>> popular organisation.
>>
>> That doesn’t mean that there is not a problem in Wall Street. Wall
>> Street
>> is an important focus for these populist movements. However, because
>> they
>> are popular, inchoate, and intuitive, the character of their
>> reaction is
>> likely to be the kind of magical thinking that says ‘abolish the
>> Fed’, or
>> ‘eat the rich’ (why not?) – everything makes sense in this carnival
>> of the
>> disaffected. ‘Corporations’, Jews, Big Governments, Wall Street
>> chicanery,
>> money lenders in the temple – this is the demonology of populism.
>>
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>
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