> Such a pleasure to hear from new people.
It would be great if more 99-percenters occupied these lists. :)
Regarding the main discussion here, and to the extent I'm able to get the gist of it, IMO what we need is -- and it'll sound formulaic -- a *critical synthesis*.
1. I'm all for people, in- or outside OWS, criticizing the content and form of the protests. Furthermore, OWS itself is questioning the in- and outside-ness of these critiques, as it strives to be inclusive of the 99%. The whole point of people communicating, of education, of having a culture (as opposed to relying on genetic evolution) is to appropriate the experience of other individuals and develop a shared idea of the world to build. So keep the critiques coming. Aside from the sharpening effect of the critiques, a byproduct will be that the more you critique, the more you'll own OWS, and OWS wants to be owned by those not joining the 1% by interest or sympathy.
2. If you want your critique to stick and help OWS advance, admit (to yourself at least, since it doesn't need to be a public mea culpa, just get it and act accordingly) that you have misunderstood the phenomenon, that you have or had expectations, anticipations, and concepts that proved to be out of touch. We are all learning one thing or the other from what is happening. If you were agnostic about the revolutionary potential of working people or about the potential of a crisis of this magnitude to drive people to protest, you've been proven wrong. So far. There may be a problem with your "model" -- so to speak. If you thought that a protest without explicit "demands" was doomed, then revise some of your assumptions, because you have been proven wrong. So far. If you believe or expect passive aggressively or just aggressively that, because you've been a more or less prominent figure in the left for years, then people at OWS will hold their breath to receive your seasoned insight, you may want to revise your expectations, humble yourself a little and admit that your belief is misguided, that this is moving with or without you, but that it would definitely be stronger with all of you on board. Etc.
3. Yes, OWS is an embryo. Embryos have in them potential to become healthy, fully developed organisms. That is what prefiguring means. Cuba doesn't produce but a tiny fraction of the goods that Cubans consume. A large number of goods they consume, they import from the rest of the world. But by allocating the few "non-tradeable" goods they produce, like education, some elements of health care, space, and a few others in a spirit of domestic solidarity, and being internationally generous, they are prefiguring a socialist society. Mutatis mutandis (and there's certainly much that the comparison obviates) the issues of direct cooperative allocation involved at OWS and Cuba are similar.
4. As I wrote before, Jodi Dean is correct in saying that we need a political party. We need a disciplined organization. There is nothing wrong with discipline and commitment and all that. We'll have to forge it one way or another, or we'll pay dearly for the lack of it. That doesn't mean that we need to wear hats like the ones Lenin and Trotsky used or that the party is going to be some organizational syringe injecting socialist ideas from without into an otherwise spontaneous workers movement. Things are more -- may I say -- dialectical. As I also wrote, Dean does not seem to have a very clear notion of how this party is going to emerge historically and what her role is in such a process. But why dwell in that reproach -- who has that clear notion anyway? It's great that she's raising the issue. The issue won't go away, with her or without her, because the party is historically necessary.
In the summer, I was talking with a friend about Elinor Ostrom's book Governing the Commons. (Ostrom got the Nobel in economics a few years ago.) I was telling my friend that if there is an overriding conclusion that flows from her work (and pokes a hole in Mancur Olson's argument) is that to break out of the so-called "commons dilemma" (chicken and egg paralysis that prevents people from cooperating to advance their collective interest in the face of uncertainty and adverse odds) groups, social classes, etc. need a political formation separate from the governing mechanism itself, a formation to (in Ostrom's words, citing by memory) "foster communication among members, help them to build mutual trust, and articulate a shared vision of the future." The role of socialists is precisely that one -- back to the Communist Manifesto, Lenin, etc.