When I think of Occupy, I think of hundreds of thousands of people seeking a communal space and coming together to talk about what reality was and what needed to be done. It could very well be that had that process been allowed to proceed, it would have created the organization and leadership that were needed for the tasks they felt needed doing. Instead it was systematically destroyed. Was it foolish for people to think it would not be destroyed? I don't know. But it's not like there were organizations and leadership at hand that the Occupiers rejected. Not at all. The organized, leaderful "left" was entirely unprepared and offered nothing.
(One of the most undemocratic experiences of my life was being a member of a Trotskyite sect in SF in the eighties. I was there because my ex was a member. It was quite horrible.)
I understand the point of the self-abolishing leader....at least as a transitional step. But I think David Bowie's erasure of a fictional character, is different from Marcos' anonymity. Marcos continues to lead.
I suppose in the best of all possible worlds, we would have organizations so strong that we could elect leaders by lottery. But we're not there yet, and the space needed to create that organization has been shut down.
Joanna
----- Original Message ----- By the way, I think this nicely criticizes and points beyond both dead organizational forms (parties) and the procedural feel-goodism of Occupy: And uses Bowie to do it!
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