Forum Post: First to Come First to Leave - or - Paradigm Shift
Posted 10 years ago on May 31, 2013, 11:31 p.m. EST by hamletandcornell
(-27)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Anarchists were first to come. They created Occupy. Then they were first to leave.
If you've heard of the Arab Spring protests, or France's May 68 occupations and strikes, then it should be of no surprise as to why most anarchists left Occupy. It simply did not work as intended. The revolution failed because the number of participants did not rise high enough.
Sure, a lot of US citizens participated in Occupy, but the numbers were nowhere near the Arab Springs or May 68. In May 68, 35% of the nation's workers went on strike! The numbers in Montreal's student protest dwarfed Occupy Montreal in comparison. This, in turn, led to a collapse of the Quebec government and a call for new elections, a similar thing which happened in May 68. In France, the President fled the country!
The turning point was most likely the UC Davis protest where the students got pepper sprayed by the cops. Up until then, Occupy had planned all the things of May 68. Occupying parks, occupying ports, occupying the subway, mass strikes, etc... This was all designed to get the population in the streets in high numbers and make the government crumble. The UC Davis incident could have been the major spark needed, but not enough people were outraged. Once the situation was diffused, the police realized the numbers of May 68 or the Arab Springs were just not there, and they proceeded to disband all the encampments, essentially killing any prospects of revolution. The energy was lost.
Nowadays, the energy has switch to a new paradigm. The anarchists mostly left because the promise of revolution faded, but Occupy still exists in a softer style. No more occupations, mass strikes, port blocking, etc... Instead, Occupy has morphed into various projects to help the community, something quite remarkable and valuable on its on rights.
These offshoots of Occupy come in many flavors. My favorite is the Rolling Jubilee where participants work hard to buy the debts off people's back. An amazing project! They have raised close to $600,000 and have eliminated $12,000,000 in debt.
If you ever have spare change, this cause it worthwhile!
We'll never see Occupy like it once was. Unfortunately, there will be no revolution like in the Arab countries. The first Occupy has failed. However, we do benefit from these early efforts in the reincarnation all these offshoots have taken. So, in a sense we failed, but our efforts were still not in vain.
But, who knows? Perhaps the idea to reclaim Zuccotti by re-occupying will create the tensions we require to start the revolution once more and make the government fall to its knees. Anything could happen. If the cops react badly, it could spark enough outrage to increase the numbers in the streets. Let's hope it works.
You can have money deducted from your credit card (which I realize is fucked-up, but the good outweighs the bad) for the Rolling Jubilee on a monthly basis which I do
Those people in Strike Debt are wonderful human beings
~Odin~
Something with Occupy roots will take off and change the world significantly.
Perhaps. Offshoots like the Rolling Jubilee are already affecting small change. If we are lucky, this will eventually spill into a full on socialist revolution. We'll see. The idea of making the government crumble from occupations didn't work, but that's OK. We can move on to other things.
The idea of making the US government crumble was a pipe dream anyway. I like this new, more subtle approach. Things like the Rolling Jubilee and Occupy Sandy are great PR.
Good post.
I'm not sure it was a pipe dream considering it did happen in other countries. It's hard to tell how these things will turn out. May 68 happened very quickly in France. It went from nothing, to 35% of the countries workers striking in a matter of weeks. The anarchists were hoping for bigger numbers. Perhaps the outrage of the people isn't high enough yet. Who knows. These things are extremely hard to calculate. There are all kinds of variables at play. We tried and failed, so now let's try something else!
I agree, I also like this soft approach. My personal opinion is the new world needs to be built bottom up slowly but surely. One institution at a time. We just need to keep building these groups that help others. We must not give up. Once other people, even hard core capitalist, see how well it can work, I have a feeling it will start picking up very quickly.
Good points. The outrage of the general population is definitely not high enough. Not enough citizens directly affected, I think. But all that could change rather quickly if something big were to occur. And despite the general population's complacency right now, there are a number of things that are teetering right on the edge that could change the whole picture, like food prices.
And I completely agree with the bottom up approach. The top, the politicians and mega-rich, are too entrenched, too removed from the street. I've been advocating 'starve the beast' ever since Winter 2011. That's one of my approaches.
I like that idea. 'Starve the Beast'. It also sounds very marketable. It has a nice ring.
Yes it does, and very appropriate. I can't take credit, of course.
Absolutely - and simple too. Transfer all accounts to local - non-subsidiaries or local credit unions - and let the mega assholes dry up for lack of participation.
Definitely. Buy from the local hardware store (when possible) instead of Home Depot. I stopped buying from Home Depot after that asshole CEO said something derogatory about OWS in the early days. Don't remember the quote but I have it written down somewhere in my notes.
Buy your fruits, veggies, meats from the Farmer's Market (if one's close enough) instead of the BIG grocery store, like Schnuck's or Kroger's.
Exactly - like being physically healthy in ones habits ( no diets - just proper lifestyle ) - be healthy in ones economic habits.
Yeah, and like health, it sometimes costs a little more to do the right thing. Like buying good food instead of cheap junk food. Quality vitamins instead of cut-rate. The same economically. If people would be willing to pay a bit more to shop Mom and Pops instead of chasing the cheapest prices at Walmart.
A proper way to look at life - quality - NOT - quantity.
Ask a mechanic - do you buy the cheapest tools you can find? Or do you buy an expensive quality tool?
Damn good analogy, DK. A perfect one, as my (and your) experiences can attest.
LOL - YEP - nothing like a good ( nasty ) experience to get across a major point of acceptance/understanding.
Thx - I have found that quality is quantifiable leaps beyond quantity. Really sucks when you are doing a wheel assembly tear down and rebuild when a critical socket or Allen wrench or something strips or cracks and you have to stop to go find a replacement - hopefully not having to do a make shift operation because the bad/cheap tool stripped/ruined your part.
Oh yeah, I've been there. When I was young I had some good tools and some junk, but being young and dumb I'd usually grab the junk tool so I wouldn't wear out the good one. It didn't take long though before I learned the folly of my ways. Once, I was using an off-brand breaker bar trying to bust a nut or bolt loose under my car in a fairly tight spot. The cheap breaker bar flexed so much it didn't work. Said fuck it, went and grabbed the S-K and haven't looked back since.
I think monsanto was in the news recently. Occupy might have had a little to do with that.
Yeah, a little. ;-)
Next time it needs to be even bigger.
To a certain extent, but there were many anti-GMO and anti-Monsanto groups before Occupy even existed. They are mostly the ones who organized this. Occupy did play a role in marketing the protests. That's true.
Anarchists left? Really? I don't think so. Not real anarchists anyway.
BS
a question for you: When the rolling jubilee decides to retire somebody's debt, what criteria are used? Is the rolling jubilee finding particular individuals, or is it buying bulk debt from collection agencies or the like? if individuals, what are the criteria?
This is answered quite well in the FAQ which you can find near the bottom of the website: http://rollingjubilee.org/
I'll post the part which is of interest to you:
And
Excellent. Exactly what I wanted to know. I'm thinking of throwing in some money. You can't beat the ROI.
Note this - "Before purchasing debt, there is only limited information as to whose debt we are buying.". Once the debt is purchased, we know who's debt we have.
One of the ideas is to collect back what we paid to abolish the debt from the person, although we don't force this. For example, let's say you had a debt of $100,000 and we bought it for $5,000 then abolished it. We would ask you if you can pay us back the $5,000. This is simply so that we can remain functional as long as possible. Some people can't pay and that's fine too. We always ask. Ideally, if everyone could pay, we would never run out of capital and could keep on buying debts more and more as our capital grows from donations.
Understood, and entirely reasonable. Thanks for the insight.