>From this bit you wrote:
> Several audience members said that none of this is being discussed at Zuccotti. Everyone's too polite to fight.
This seems to imply that the panel members and audience thought that fights/debates between Jodi Dean and anarchists and such is central to what is going on in Zuccotti park, but alas they are not paying attention to it - and that's because they are too polite to fight (with each other!), unlike Dean and the anarchists. But perhaps “none of this is being discussed at Zuccotti” because none of the people at Zuccotti care about “this” [at least, not yet]. I assume also that “this” here means the content of the debate - old leftists and anarchists arguing process vs practise, so on.
Perhaps it is enough for the OWS folks to know you are, broadly, on their side, or are ambivalent or even unhappy (as Dean seems to be), and are not the enemy.
Without intending to insult: if I were an OWS participant, why should I discuss what a panel discussed on whether “schools are prisons” or whether I am obsessed with “process”, or whether a self-selected audience agreed that it is important to get these discussions out there, etc? What is it that makes such discussion relevant or useful to me?
One reason [that I could think of] why I should listen to such stuff, follow the prescriptions of Taibbi or Dean, or debate things in a similar fashion might be that what I am doing (“politics”) is well understood and analysed as a “science" by Dean or Taibbi or others. But is that even the case?
> This is what I meant: Politics means conflict. It's inevitable, and delusional to think otherwise.
But what does conflict mean? Does it mean action that challenges one’s enemies, exploiters, bankers, Bloomberg, Geraldo, and the NYPD? Or does it mean debating Foucault with Jodi Dean?
I can’t think of only a few other things that acknowledge conflict more than saying, doing: I am going to come to your house and sit in your living room, mf’ers, and I am not going to leave. Because the house doesn’t belong to you.
IMHO, tactically, the OWS crowd has (as some commentators have noted) done more than most Western groups since the 70s, including the much beloved Seattle action. Perhaps not through high theory, but by chance, they have achieved two things: escape the 15 minute news cycle (the idea to “occupy” rather than just “march” or “rally” was brilliant, as is the 99% slogan) and start giving the US a hint of an alternative to the Tea Party.
—ravi
P.S: I mention Taibbi because he wrote a much circulated article in Rolling Stone a few days ago offering an agenda to OWS.