OWS 9/17 two years...

Those first days of rain and cops banning one form of shelter after another, as though, they only needed to dampen spirits and everyone'd just go home. Those, I think, were OWS's bravest hours. Wherever the encampments dealt with material conditions, dealt with procuring and preparing food, planning for demos, setting up and organizing space, we saw grow as out of nowhere, a collective energy and creativity that no one could have anticipate, saw awakening in our camps a realization of untapped power that made us, in those first weeks, giddy with love and hope. The general assemblies and commitment to "process," that seemed so important then, looking back, seem to have been more of a distraction, and as they became increasingly divorced from the logistical and material realities we faced, a drain and divisive force. They were about how to govern a new world before the foundation had been laid and before anyone could imagine, in other than abstractions, what that world might look like. We almost let our most impressive efforts, organizing and learning how to feed ourselves and hundreds of the homeless who came to our camps, slip by as though it were merely incidental. Where 'process' mattered, was in the planning for actions, in solving material problems: skills that have continued to be applied, as in Occcupy Sandy, on so many different fronts. What we thought the GA's were for, we did best with no process at all but that of the endless conversations and discussion that went on in those first weeks. Forgive my presumptuous "we," ... but I think it less so than using language of the outsider. How can I say "they" to something I was a part of, whose mistakes I share, along with the intoxication of those moments where my 'I' really did feel like a 'we', that I was a part of something larger and more important than myself or any one of us… and still do, still feel that. “This is for a lifetime,” I remember saying the first day at Occupy Philly, and it was, and is, and I will share a bond of love and dedication and purpose with my beautiful brave flawed comrades of those days to the end of my days. Solidarity/Love/Imagination/Resistance!

Strategic targeted mobile occupatioins

Talking with Michael Mizner at Independence Mall today. He said he’d been talking with a few others about moving the day time occupation/ nighttime sidewalk sleep-in to in front of the city stock exchange. I only wish there were enough to do both. I really like the Independence Mall sitting occupation, but Mizner’s point that we’re mostly visible only to tourists here made sense. … then got to thinking

What I like about the blank-sleeps and the continuing presence at Independence Mall (day 12 today!)… is the way it fits the principles of guerrilla, asymmetrical struggles. You don’t mass all your forces in one spot and sit there waiting to be crushed—you hit one place, disappear & show up somewhere else. Maybe several places at once—spreading out police without weakening our own actions.

I’m thinking, what this needs is strategic targeting—mobile occupations, planning for each move—targeting key structures in the system and over time, tying them together to illustrate how they work together. Each type of target creates different opportunities for coalition building—the Wells Fargo campaigns are a perfect example, expanding the message to cover the banking and financial system, forging tactical alliances with groups like Fight for Philly, moving out to housing & foreclosures.

So we could do this…say, at the transportation centers, Frankford, Eire Ave—do the research, have information, send press releases. A whole range of issues here—maybe with a simul at a couple of the Pendot centers (public transit & private auto… relative public expenditures—roads hiways versus transit, comparative impact on urban infrastructure. Be there for days, a couple of week.  And connect with those most affected. Hey, a post 2 AM news conference teach in at each end of the Frankford Shuttle—which is the work-life line for the cities working poor, orderlies, low end restaurant workers, nursing home workers, those who clean up the office towers in Center City.

Outside of the welfare offices…

The Food distribution centers on the river…

Move from one to the other over the course of a season, several months. Planned, strategic actions with multiple educational benefits, connecting with the cities REAL working infrastructure and those who make everything go… or not.

and who knows… after a year or so, we might have a large enough assemblage of those we’ve connected with—and learned from—to talk SERIOUSLY about a general strike.

Winter Strategy Retreat

My thoughts on this question from the form sent out to Philly Occupiers: What are some of your goals for this strategy retreat? What do you hope will be accomplished?

The structure of unity in diversity: discuss & define respective roles of GA & WGs... not definitions of what they are or of process, but a picture of how as parts, they come to make up a whole--and how THAT might better help us think about the role of process and a more harmonious OP

Revolutionary versus Reform models of action. To what degree are they compatible, and to what degree, incommensurate.

How can we build consciousness of being part of an INTERNATIONAL movement--from the smallest local unit to our interoc gatherings and regional assemblies

How does technology effect our democracy? A different way of using the metaphor of transparency' -- here, as the window or lens that defines, frames and limits our vision without our seeing it or acknowledging its effects.

How can we have a greater involvement in ALL the arts: drama, poetry, visual arts--and the aesthetics of everyday life.

Reform? Or Revolution?

This article would be a good vehicle for a discussion: are we a reform movement, seeking to tweak the system to make it (appear to be) a little better? Or do we seek fundamental, cultural, political and economic transformation--that is, a revolutionary movement?
Unaddressed here is the larger question, unresolved--as to whether our efforts to address specific, definable problems are primary to our mission--or, while important-- are secondary to shaping a potentially revolutionary movement, and what that means.

Several points of this critique depend on which side you fall out on with this question. Concern about our image to outsiders, for instance--stands on the primacy of reform, and is itself a powerful inhibitor to the development of revolutionary consciousness--as is a premature move toward greater central organization... premature, because without resolving what sort of movement we wish to be--it privileges reform & forecloses on our revolutionary mortgage and leaves those of us who want to live there homeless.

In more complex but related ways--the complaints about the drum circles split along the same lines (concern for 'image' -- the fear, distrust and contempt of the Dionnysian, deconstructive work we need to create a new foundation--a cultural revolution--not surface politics! Do peeps who worry about this realize how much their complaints sound like massively repressed middlebrow middle age graysuited prematurely senile vice principals deploring rock n' roll in 1955!
Jacob Spirit Stick--dancing to the drum beat of a thousand different drummers!