[WS:] I think it is a quite serious threat. It may well be that OWS will propel the tea baggers to metastasize to their Bear Hall Putsch stage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
Wallerstein: "But the second and bigger threat comes from the very success of the movement. As it attracts more support, it increases the diversity of views among the active protestors. The problem here is, as it always is, how to avoid the Scylla of being a tight cult that would lose because it is too narrowly based, and the Charybdis of no longer having a political coherence because it is too broad. There is no simple formula of how to manage avoiding going to either extreme. It is difficult."
[WS:] An excellent point, indeed. Not having a definite strategy or even organizational coherence is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be an advantage for a nascent movement, as it can act as a "Rorschach blot" for many different groups and thus attract them to the movement, which would not have happened had the movement been more defined from the start. But not having strategy and coherence when the window of opportunity to act opens is a serious problem - it really squanders the critical mass energy of the movement. Unfortunately, Wallerstein does not provide much guidance as what specific strategic goals and organizational coherence need to be adopted.
>From my point of view, an achievable and realistic strategy goal is an
electoral reform that will bring true minority representation to
politics. It is a tried and well established system - most countries
have some form of proportional representation - and it will likely
split the cozy gig of the two political parties and the big business.
The key advantages are that it is not overtly anti-business - so it
cannot be easily smeared as a "stab on American prosperity" - and it
speaks to the quintessential "flag and apple pie" American values -
democratic representation. It targets mainly the doupoly of the two
political parties, which are not only unpopular, but they actually ARE
the main reason why the US political system is so much influenced by
big money. Their main raison d'etre is to demand "payments to play"
and provide access to government services i.e. patronage to those who
do pay. Finally, an electoral reform will likely have a broad
political support beyond the left. It is likely that many minorities -
from libertarians to Christians and to Black nationalists - will see
it as something to their advantage. And last but not least, such a
program will provide decent guarantees that the movement will not be
coopted and neutered by Democrats.
Wojtek
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:54 AM, John E. Norem <jenorem at cox.net> wrote:
>
> The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street
>
> Commentary No. 315, Oct. 15, 2011
>
> The Occupy Wall Street movement -- for now it is a movement -- is the most
> important political happening in the United States since the uprisings in
> 1968, whose direct descendant or continuation it is.
>
> Why it started in the United States when it did -- and not three days, three
> months, three years earlier or later -- we'll never know for sure. The
> conditions were there: acutely increasing economic pain not only for the
> truly poverty-stricken but for an ever-growing segment of the working poor
> (otherwise known as the "middle class"); incredible exaggeration
> (exploitation, greed) of the wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population ("Wall
> Street"); the example of angry upsurges around the world (the "Arab spring,"
> the Spanish indignados, the Chilean students, the Wisconsin trade unions,
> and a long list of others). It doesn't really matter what the spark was that
> ignited the fire. It started.
>
> In Stage one -- the first few days -- the movement was a handful of
> audacious, mostly young, persons who were trying to demonstrate. The press
> ignored them totally. Then some stupid police captains thought that a bit of
> brutality would end the demonstrations. They were caught on film and the
> film went viral on YouTube.
>
> That brought us to Stage two -- publicity. The press could no longer ignore
> the demonstrators entirely. So the press tried condescension. What did these
> foolish, ignorant youth (and a few elderly women) know about the economy?
> Did they have any positive program? Were they "disciplined"? The
> demonstrations, we were told, would soon fizzle. What the press and the
> powers that be didn't count on (they never seem to learn) is that the theme
> of the protest resonated widely and quickly caught on. In city after city,
> similar "occupations" began. Unemployed 50-year-olds started to join in. So
> did celebrities. So did trade-unions, including none less than the president
> of the AFL-CIO. The press outside the United States now began to follow the
> events. Asked what they wanted, the demonstrators replied "justice." This
> began to seem like a meaningful answer to more and more people.
>
> This brought us to Stage three -- legitimacy. Academics of a certain repute
> began to suggest that the attack on "Wall Street" had some justification.
> All of a sudden, the main voice of centrist respectability, The New York
> Times, ran an editorial on October 8 in which they said that the protestors
> did indeed have "a clear message and specific policy prescriptions" and that
> the movement was "more than a youth uprising." The Times went on: "Extreme
> inequality is the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, dominated by a
> financial sector that is driven as much by speculation, gouging and
> government backing as by productive investment." Strong language for the
> Times. And then the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started
> circulating a petition asking party supporters to declare "I stand with the
> Occupy Wall Street protests."
>
> The movement had become respectable. And with respectability came danger --
> Stage four. A major protest movement that has caught on usually faces two
> major threats. One is the organization of a significant right-wing
> counterdemonstration in the streets. Eric Cantor, the hardline (and quite
> astute) Republican congressional leader, has already called for that in
> effect. These counterdemonstrations can be quite ferocious. The Occupy Wall
> Street movement needs to be prepared for this and think through how it
> intends to handle or contain it.
>
> But the second and bigger threat comes from the very success of the
> movement. As it attracts more support, it increases the diversity of views
> among the active protestors. The problem here is, as it always is, how to
> avoid the Scylla of being a tight cult that would lose because it is too
> narrowly based, and the Charybdis of no longer having a political coherence
> because it is too broad. There is no simple formula of how to manage
> avoiding going to either extreme. It is difficult.
>
> As to the future, it could be that the movement goes from strength to
> strength. It might be able to do two things: force short-term restructuring
> of what the government will actually do to minimize the pain that people are
> obviously feeling acutely; and bring about long-term transformation of how
> large segments of the American population think about the realities of the
> structural crisis of capitalism and the major geopolitical transformations
> that are occurring because we are now living in a multipolar world.
>
> Even if the Occupy Wall Street movement were to begin to peter out because
> of exhaustion or repression, it has already succeeded and will leave a
> lasting legacy, just as the uprisings of 1968 did. The United States will
> have changed, and in a positive direction. As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't
> built in a day." A new and better world-system, a new and better United
> States, is a task that requires repeated effort by repeated generations. But
> another world is indeed possible (albeit not inevitable). And we can make a
> difference. Occupy Wall Street is making a difference, a big difference.
>
> http://www.iwallerstein.com/fantastic-success-occupy-wall-street/
>
> --
> Adorno: "And in that sense the difference between thinking
> and eating roast goose is not so very great. The one thing
> can stand in for the other."
>
> Horkheimer: "But eating roast goose is not the same thing
> as doing theory."
>
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>