Radical Networking

A massive set of protests has been planned for November 17^th in New York City. It remains to be seen whether they will evidence strong, continuing support for the Occupy movement. In recent weeks it seems that those who wish for the failure of the movement have been taking the proverbial gloves off, with more harsh police tactics in evidence as several cities (St. Louis, Burlington, Salt Lake City, Portland and others) have attempted to evict Occupy encampments from public spaces. The intense antagonism toward the movement is the inevitable result of its success in mobilizing massive numbers of people around progressive causes and capturing the media spotlight that was so reluctant to shine on it in the beginning. If the forces of reaction are successful in driving the movement out of the public squares, it will still have done much to energize the left in America and should leave it in a stronger position to win battles on policy and shift the nation's consciousness in a progressive direction.

The reason for this is an aspect of OWS that seems obvious, but hasn't been discussed much in the media. Occupy Wall Street has become (perhaps unintentionally) the best vehicle for what I'd call “radical networking” (you can call it movement-building if you really want to avoid the business school connotations of the former). OWS, with its lack of demands (actually, the important thing is that it has many) and its sharing of decision making between individuals and between multiple nodes of activity brings together causes that might have seemed distinct in the past, and allows them to coalesce into an umbrella movement that's greater than the sum of its parts.

I'll give you an example from my own experience. A few weeks ago, wanting to do more than march in general support of OWS, I joined one of its many autonomous “working groups” who meet outside of Zuccotti Park and attempt to use the same horizontal decision making process that the General Assembly does to come to agreement about issues that fall under the purview of their particular group's focus. I am a union shop steward at my workplace and feel strongly that organized labor is a powerful and positive social force that can be credited with much of the progress that occurred in American social relations in the twentieth century. I hoped that organized labor might be able to bring to bear some of its institutional resources in service of the Occupy cause, and that Occupy's freshness and energy might play some part in re-vitalizing the state of organized labor. Days before I signed up for the Labor Outreach Committee, my union (The United Auto Workers) officially endorsed Occupy Wall Street. When New York City's Mayor Mike Bloomberg had tried to clear Zuccotti Park on the pretext of a cleaning of the area, members of my union, both rank-and-file and paid officials of the international went to the park in the wee hours of morning to stand down the NYPD. I was exceedingly proud.

The OWS Labor Outreach Committee is dedicated to getting more rank-and-file union workers involved with the Occupy movement and using the momentum of OWS to aid organized labor in its varied battles. Occupy supporters, some union members and some simply sympathetic to the struggles of working class people, have joined picket lines in support of locked-out Teamsters at the Sotheby's auction house and demonstrations for Communications and Electrical workers fighting to get a decent contract out of Verizon. It seemed that my hopes had been realized when a week ago the New York Times ran a story under the headline, “Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics.” Labor has been on the retreat for decades. It has lost members to outsourcing as well as to legislative attacks. At the same time it has lost the sympathy of many who would benefit from its power as they accept fear-mongering pro-business propaganda as gospel. (I'll be surprised if I don't get at least one hateful comment after revealing that I am one of those scary 'union thugs') With Occupy Wall Street entering the picture it seems like there is finally a chance that the momentum will be in the other direction.

Because OWS isn't solely focused on one issue it can marshal the energies, talents and enthusiasm of all its supporters in service of all of the more narrow progressive causes that others have fought for for years. Since OWS has focused on issues of economic inequality and class power it has avoided the single-issue tunnel vision that has hamstrung the left for decades. Since the ascendancy of the post-1960's right-wing in America, the left has generally seemed willing to give much ground on the broad issue of economic justice and has instead focused on an array of secondary problems. Without the recognition that all of these problems relate directly to the way in which economic power is distributed in society, the left allowed itself to become balkanized into multiple, often mutually hostile groups dedicated to their own pet issue or brand of identity politics. Occupy Wall Street seems to me to be ushering in a new era of radical networking, welcoming all of those who fight against one or another of the ill-effects of economic injustice, the corporate power that thrives on it and the political corruption bred by it. It facilitates their ability to act in a concert with each other. Each specific cause gives purpose and focus to the movement as a whole, and the movement as a whole lends power to each of its parts. Unions who lend their support will gain allies in their workplace struggles, while they lend support to those opposing Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, who will fight against unfair foreclosures and the corporate “reform” of the public school system. I think that this is a great thing, and hope that the Occupy Movement can maintain its momentum. If you're near NYC, come out Thursday and be a part of it.

Advice From an Ally That OWS Should Ignore

I have been increasingly interested and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement that sprung up in New York about a month ago and in a short time began to spread to the far corners of the United States and the world. I haven't been able to properly “Occupy” Zucotti park as I work full time, but I have made it to most of the larger actions; the march halfway across the Brooklyn bridge (followed by the paddy wagon ride to One Police Plaza), the huge labor solidarity march the following week and the convergence on Times Square this past weekend. It seems that the usual dismissive criticisms and back-handed compliments from supposed allies have failed to overshadow tangible victories, like the one that occurred last Friday when thousands converged in the dawn hours to prevent the police from emptying the park. With each victory the movement draws more sympathizers into the fold, but simultaneously rankles the very powerful interests and institutions that are threatened by this type of nascent mass-movement. I'm surprised and heartened by the movement's success. In the end, however, if either tangible reforms or revolutionary change are going to be affected by the Occupy movement it is important that we not only preach to the liberal left/ choir, but win enough converts to our general point of view to either pressure the political establishment to enact legislative change, or circumvent the existing structures and organize around some other socioeconomic structure. So far, I fear that what the Occupy movement has achieved so far is unifying and activating the roughly half of the nation's population that shares a generally progressive view. And this is important in itself. What of the other half? Those who have a profoundly different view of what constitutes “justice” or “fairness”. The ones who shout at us as we march down the streets of Manhattan to “Stop protesting, and get off your asses!”

When I saw a piece by George Lakoff in Truthout this week (http://www.truth-out.org/how-frame-yourself-framing-memo-occupy-wall-street/1319031142), billed as his advice to Occupy Wall Street on how to present itself to the world at large, I was interested. I was familiar his ideas about how political ideas exist within cognitive frames. He describes how the political world views of most individuals are not based on rational inquiry but on an emotional response based on a cognitive framework. The framework is a set of arbitrary moral judgments. Lakoff's work in this field has always seemed generally valid to me. The left sees individuals as irrevocably part of a larger society. The right sees the individual as autonomous and ultimately responsible for his own actions. The left sees a need for nurturing and collective decision making, while the right looks only for the individual's right to act freely, responsibly and in self-interest. In identifying these important root differences in point of view I feel that Lakoff has been particularly astute. I've always been frustrated by the fact that no amount of economic statistics on income inequality or social mobility can cut through the typical conservative's ironclad belief that it is the individual's personal responsibility to find work, to the extent that if there were five jobs available to the twenty six million un- and underemployed in America, it would be the individual's responsibility to be one of the five most educated, hard-working and diligent applicants, and if they weren't, there would be no right to complain or petition government to help them in their situation. Lakoff in his short essay proposes to have some insight into how we can circumvent the conservative framework and become a more truly mass-movement. In my opinion though, he seems to ignore the basis of his own ideas when formulating his advice.

Lakoff goes on to claim that what the Occupy movement needs to do in order to win hearts and minds is to cram its own goals and principles into a superficially conservative framework and then expect conservatives to be bamboozled into agreeing. It seems to me that this is doomed to failure and shouldn't be seriously considered by anyone involved. He claims that Occupy Wall street should declare itself a “moral” movement and go on to explain to its detractors that it is society's moral duty to nurture the individual. He himself, however, has already clearly explained why this is next to impossible. A conservative's morality is based on a framework where free-will decisions are either punished with destitution or rewarded with wealth. For the society to “nurture” the individual in hope of insuring her success is doomed to failure and at any rate, rife with moral hazard. I would like to propose a different tack in trying to reach out to those who don't already agree with the general left-leaning point of view of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Simply by coming into existence, Occupy Wall Street has begun to challenge the overall conservative ideological framework, not by attempting to work within it, but by loudly and clearly presenting the opposite framework. It has shown with the thousands that have shown up at Liberty Square and marched and rallied for more specific causes (Labor rights, a legally-enforced living wage, foreclosure relief and affordable housing, environmental concerns about hydro-fracking and the nuclear industry) that the conservative framework's deficiencies left-unchallenged have produced suffering in the 99% that will no longer be met with apathy. It has always seemed to me not that the vast majority of Americans are conservative in their world view, but that those who are are louder, more consistent and supported by most of the powerful institutions of the media. Now, with the Internet technology as a world-straddling megaphone and a multiple physical spaces delineated as breeding grounds for activism, consciousness-raising and civil disobedience, our side just might have the power to push back and win a significant number of converts. I fear that following Mr. Lakoff's advice would simply dampen this energy and if anything, reinforce conservative's belief that their framework is so superior to ours that we must adopt it even as we try to fight it.