"I would say that they are quite open, not indifferent, to the opinions of anyone who is interested in coming and talking to them."
In an earlier post I inserted a parenthesis, to the effect that OWS may intensify its current wonderful achievements. I wanted to allow for that while still insisting that it was the primary function of tose outside it to simply go to work to build on the terrain, in the climate, that OWS has so wonderfully created for us. It's a new world. Start thining about what you, one, anyone can do in this world that they couldn't do in the last 40 yearrs. Ravi's observation fits in with my parenthesis (and with another observation to the point that many participants in OWS will want to be part of furthr social and political action (including the building of various kinds of 'revolutionary' parties). Ravi notes the potential for further 'development' _inside_ OWS itself.
OWS participants are not going to pay much attention to nagging _from the outside_, to nagging which tells them that they really shouldn't exist , that they ought to be something else than what they are. But clearly the participants, individually and in small groups, are anxisous to hear, to respond to, to discuss, any and all points of view that anyone wants to bring to them _as a participant on equal terms_. One can't do that from a superior perch, proclaiming that one doesn't buy it.
Action creates intense hunger for knowledge, for debate, for theorizing and analysis. That is obiously happening. But for now I suspect it is only happening (for OWS participants) _within_ the frame they have set up. That frame is not limited to the General Assemblies. Those are simply a given. It's stupid to try to change them from outside or even to object to them from inside. And criticism of them is talking with your head in a corner. But any occupation as a whole offers huge opportunities for informal conversation and debate outside the Gas but within the occupation. Jodi Dean should perhaps spend some time there.
But if all you have to say to them is to accuse them of operating according to the demands of a character from a Hawthorne novel, you don't have much to say to them. Assume they are thinking people and listent to them as you talk to them without tagting them with labels.
Carrol
On 10/20/2011 10:28 AM, // ravi wrote:
On Oct 20, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Joseph Catron wrote: On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Carrol Cox<cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
You don't know what to do yourself and you are nagging OWS (who are not listening) to do it for you. They won't.
Who is this mysterious "they," and why do "they" care so little for the perspectives of others? :-D
Seriously, after organizing alongside many OWS participants for years, I'd be pretty miffed if I imagined they were really so indifferent to my opinions!
The "you" above was not you, Joe Catron, but SA and his collaborators. The "they" above is those occupying Wall St. This differentiation was not introduced by Carrol. It was introduced at the start of this thread by contrasting the debate in the panel and the lack of it (debate, strategic discussion, etc) in Zuccotti Park.
Having been to Zuccotti and talked to the people there, and judging by their response to Stiglitz and others, I would say that they are quite open, not indifferent, to the opinions of anyone who is interested in coming and talking to them.
-ravi .========
West performs a caricature of a black preacher for a mostly white audience that eats it up. It'd be like Chomsky speaking with a Yiddish accent, like someone out of I.B. Singer.
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