OCCUPY - How informed are you?

[Phanerothyme]

Mostly non-violent and unarmed mass resistance movements take 20-30 years to come to fruition on a national level where the ruling elites are overturned or superceded. You get the occasional implosions from within that can be triggered by macroeconomic events but for the most part, it's a long, long slog. Ask Ghandi, or Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela. And hundreds, even thousands died in the process.

 

What the continental timescales are likely to be, even with the internet, is anyone's guess. But whilst somewhere like Rumania imploded almost by accident, Europe or "The World" isn't going to do that. So the Occupy movement needs to be in for the very, very long haul.

 

I would expect to see them in, for example, the city and county councils, the european parliament. Unless they become either electable, or a truly mass movement (the actual so-called '99%' have a Damascene moment of class-consciousness) it's just going to be endless PFJ meetings and "what have the bankers ever done for us?" in a simultaneously global webcast.

 

Whoopee.

 

Nothing will happen until all the ideology and moralising have gone.

 

If you want, if we want, power which is what we are talking about here, then based on all the available evidence, it is only very very rarely given away. It has to be taken.

 

Which usually means at least some killing and some dying too. Even if you don't plan to at the outset.

 

Using coercion is quicker of course, but not many people have the stomach for that unless things are really desperate.

 

Power is worth fighting for and power is also worth defending. It's also much easier to defend from a position of power than it is to attack from a position of powerlessness. Power is the freedom to do, and act. Powerlessness is a prison. These are the absolute ends of the spectrum. Everyone in the world lies along that power rainbow somewhere.

 

Changing your bank account to a mutual society is fine as far as it goes. That sort of thing will hit retail banking where it hurts. Which is good, but it's not really going to change the world. Your power may be marginally increased but you will still be beholden to a worthless credit voucher, the number and value of which is not determined by you.

 

There are disruptive technologies and ideas and mass movements can make use of them. But short of the

global revolution in … human consciousness, nothing will change for the better

 

And that's only if you actually believe in so-called "progress", which I don't.

[tinfoilhat]

And the insults keep coming, at least with a concrete idea. If I ask another occupy supporter I'll get the same sort of thing ? I'll wager if you go on the tv and day that you'll be disowned quicker than that.

 

But your being selective. By not supporting the status quo do you want to close schools ? Do you want to abandon our current infrastructure ? Close all the libraries ?

 

See, I can pick and choose what you want to take apart just like you can pick and choose what my and your taxes are paying for. And occupy do disapprove of regular news sources. You've said it, donkeys said it and solomans said it. Your quick to insult. Do I really want to turn up to these general meetings and say, I'm not sure I agree with what you say. If you are anything to go by all I'll get is an earful of abuse.

 

Enjoy your evening.

 

EDIT you didn't call people stupid but you called people greedy and selfish if they didn't agree with occupy and have a vested interest in the stays quo. So nurses and care workers who don't have time to go hunting and validating news stories, in the eyes of occupy are greedy and selfish.

 

 

Hmmmmm.

[donkey]

Mostly non-violent and unarmed mass resistance movements take 20-30 years to come to fruition on a national level where the ruling elites are overturned or superceded. You get the occasional implosions from within that can be triggered by macroeconomic events but for the most part, it's a long, long slog. Ask Ghandi, or Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela. And hundreds, even thousands died in the process.

 

What the continental timescales are likely to be, even with the internet, is anyone's guess. But whilst somewhere like Rumania imploded almost by accident, Europe or "The World" isn't going to do that. So the Occupy movement needs to be in for the very, very long haul.

 

I would expect to see them in, for example, the city and county councils, the european parliament. Unless they become either electable, or a truly mass movement (the actual so-called '99%' have a Damascene moment of class-consciousness) it's just going to be endless PFJ meetings and "what have the bankers ever done for us?" in a simultaneously global webcast.

 

Whoopee.

 

Nothing will happen until all the ideology and moralising have gone.

 

If you want, if we want, power which is what we are talking about here, then based on all the available evidence, it is only very very rarely given away. It has to be taken.

 

Which usually means at least some killing and some dying too. Even if you don't plan to at the outset.

 

Using coercion is quicker of course, but not many people have the stomach for that unless things are really desperate.

 

Power is worth fighting for and power is also worth defending. It's also much easier to defend from a position of power than it is to attack from a position of powerlessness. Power is the freedom to do, and act. Powerlessness is a prison. These are the absolute ends of the spectrum. Everyone in the world lies along that power rainbow somewhere.

 

Changing your bank account to a mutual society is fine as far as it goes. That sort of thing will hit retail banking where it hurts. Which is good, but it's not really going to change the world. Your power may be marginally increased but you will still be beholden to a worthless credit voucher, the number and value of which is not determined by you.

 

There are disruptive technologies and ideas and mass movements can make use of them. But short of the

 

And that's only if you actually believe in so-called "progress", which I don't.

 

You might be right, but it isn't much of a message for the next generation. "Hey kids, social mobility has been done away with, so unless you are a member of the ruling class, you better gert used to kissing arse and accepting your lot (no matter how bad it gets) with Hindu-style stoicism!"

[Phanerothyme]

You might be right, but it isn't much of a message for the next generation. "Hey kids, social mobility has been done away with, so unless you are a member of the ruling class, you better gert used to kissing arse and accepting your lot (no matter how bad it gets) with Hindu-style stoicism!"

Sure - but to say otherwise would be an empty platitude.

 

[edit - when you say 'ruling class' are you using that in the aristocratic sense or the financial one? It's an important distinction]

 

Unless someone can think of a way where we can get the financial elites to relinquish their power over currency, government and armed conflict without bloodshed, I'm all ears.

 

And I'm not saying this as some kind of "it's human nature" fatalist. I do believe that it can be changed. But just take a look at the magnitude of the change implied in the A&O of Occupy. Even with the internet (increasingly controlled by financial elites of course) that's more than one lifetime of constant revolution.

 

Now the greens in the UK experimented with non-hierarchical power structures and non-violence for a long time and got nowhere. The German greens, by contrast, had powerful charismatic leaders and tellingly the one that made the deepest inroads into the establishment and was arguably co-opted into it, was the one throwing molotov cocktails at the police in his 20s.

 

If Occupy wants what it wants and within their children's lifetimes, being all non-hierarchical, nonviolent and just nice isn't going to cut the mustard is it?

 

So will the time come when individual occupy collectives worldwide decide to strike the commitment to non-violence in their constitutions? How long will it take?

 

Or will it just be subsumed into the political landscape as a very minority ally of the Green party or the RCP?

[Runnybabbit]

Mostly non-violent and unarmed mass resistance movements take 20-30 years to come to fruition on a national level where the ruling elites are overturned or superceded. You get the occasional implosions from within that can be triggered by macroeconomic events but for the most part, it's a long, long slog. Ask Ghandi, or Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela. And hundreds, even thousands died in the process.

 

What the continental timescales are likely to be, even with the internet, is anyone's guess. But whilst somewhere like Rumania imploded almost by accident, Europe or "The World" isn't going to do that. So the Occupy movement needs to be in for the very, very long haul.

 

Occupy is a tactic of a much larger movement. Also the world has changed now. The internet allows instant communication. That's why there are protests in Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Honduras, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela and Yemen

 

The Occupiers are well on their way to a global revolution. They are doing much better than the socialists have been doing for the last 70 years.

 

If you want, if we want, power which is what we are talking about here, then based on all the available evidence, it is only very very rarely given away. It has to be taken.

 

We already have the power. We are only just starting to realize and use it.

 

There are disruptive technologies and ideas and mass movements can make use of them.

 

Absolutely. That technology is called peer to peer. It's about to change the world. It is BETTER than the current systems. Right now it's music sharing, tomorrow the entire internet will be P2P. After that, banks, governments and even militaries will become distributed and decentralized.

 

The existing power structures have already lost. The only question now is how long will it take for them to realize it.

[dabuckle]

Occupy is an inside job - Sorry!

[Runnybabbit]

And the insults keep coming, at least with a concrete idea. If I ask another occupy supporter I'll get the same sort of thing ? I'll wager if you go on the tv and day that you'll be disowned quicker than that.

 

If it's that easy why don't you do it?

 

But your being selective. By not supporting the status quo do you want to close schools ? Do you want to abandon our current infrastructure ? Close all the libraries ?

 

Yes I am. Fascists and trolls on here do it. I'm just following their lead. In answer to the specific points you raise, yes, yes and yes.

 

See, I can pick and choose what you want to take apart...

 

I know, you do it all the time.

 

...just like you can pick and choose what my and your taxes are paying for.

When did I do that?

 

And occupy do disapprove of regular news sources.

 

That's different. They disapprove of them because they are deliberately being misrepresented

 

You've said it, donkeys said it and solomans said it. Your quick to insult.

 

What does this even mean?

 

Do I really want to turn up to these general meetings and say, I'm not sure I agree with what you say. If you are anything to go by all I'll get is an earful of abuse.

 

A bit like if I go on TV as you suggested in the beginning of your post. The difference is you have the ability to go down there and make your voice heard. I have no such opportunity with the mass media. They just talk AT me, with no two way feedback.

 

 

Enjoy your evening.

 

I will. Thank you

 

EDIT you didn't call people stupid but you called people greedy and selfish if they didn't agree with occupy and have a vested interest in the stays quo.

 

No I call people greedy and selfish when they act in ways that are greedy and selfish

 

So nurses and care workers who don't have time to go hunting and validating news stories, in the eyes of occupy are greedy and selfish.

 

They have the same time that you, me and everybody else has. The difference is that they don't SEEK OUT that information because they still believe the lies of the mainstream media and don't know any better (and incidentally right now you're not helping with that).

[tinfoilhat]

Occupy is an inside job - Sorry!

 

Post of the day. Forum nutjob and ace conspiracy theorist flies into the thread like randy quaid at the end of indepence day. You could also be right. Whilst ever we're all banging on about tents, citadels and bankers (sooooo 2009) we arent looking at pensions, high speed train networks etc.

 

Awesome.

[donkey]

Sure - but to say otherwise would be an empty platitude.

 

[edit - when you say 'ruling class' are you using that in the aristocratic sense or the financial one? It's an important distinction]

 

Unless someone can think of a way where we can get the financial elites to relinquish their power over currency, government and armed conflict without bloodshed, I'm all ears.

 

 

 

By ruling class, I mean whichever elite are currently using their advantage to cement their poistion and exclude the majority.

 

 

I see your point. The ultimate battle against corruption can only be won by the incorruptable. It is debatable whether such people exist. Any significant threat to the status quo is usually effectively dealt with through bribery and compromise, long before popular revolution breaks out.

 

However, the abscense of the possibility of the complete defeat of corruption does not neccessarily mean there is no point in continuing to oppose it in the hope of at least doing it some damage? It is probably a battle which will never end while there are still people to fight it.

[onewheeldave]

There should be a fifith choice, done research still don't understand occupy.

 

I really, really want to help but it's so badly thought out and organised and run my numpties I feel my time would be wasted. I checked out the literature but came away feeling frustrated...

 

....I say go back to the drawing board or at least be more transparent about what it is you are doing (really), or you run the risk of alienating a huge percentage of people who otherwise would be willing to back your cause.

 

 

That's fair enough- if the words of Occupy don't resonate with you, then you can simply not get involved- there's plenty of other options for bringing about change e.g. conventional politics and others, that you can look into and contribute to.

 

But, it's plain to see that the words of Occupy do resonate with many.

 

It seems a bit unreasonable to expect the movement to 'go back to the drawing board' or to pack up, just because some people can't see the point- not when there are many others who fully support the movement.

 

 

 

Why for instance have they got a wishlist of things like mobile phones and laptops - what are these for exactly?

 

Making phone calls and internet access/word processing etc

 

I think the wish list is because Occupy can make good use of phones/pcs and, if people are happy to donate them, obviously that's good because it will save Occupy buying new ones and free up their limited funds for other purposes.