4 ms·

> It's the powerless, free-association, relatively democratic groups that are antagonistic to the hierarchy that are vulnerable to these tactics, and that are n

by jt2190 5y ago

> It's the powerless, free-association, relatively democratic groups that are antagonistic to the hierarchy that are vulnerable to these tactics, and that are neutralized by them. For more clarity on what can happen in organizations that are antagonistic to hierarchy and structure, I can think of no better read than “The Tyranny of structurelessness” by Jo Feeman https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Animats 5y ago
"The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do something more specific. At this point they usually foundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their tasks." That happened to Occupy Wall Street, and to Black Lives Matter. Both failed to focus on specific, achievable goals. And so, they never got beyond the consciousness raising stage. If Occupy Wall Street had focused on "Tax the 1%" and "Break up monopoly landlords", and Black Lives Matter had focused on "Every killing by a cop gets investigated by the FBI" and "Fire the bottom 10% of cops", they might have achieved those goals.
- culi 5y ago
  Occupy Wall Street was the birth of the left in the US. The US hasn't really had a leftwing since the 1920s. It created a whole class of activists that went around couch-surfing and protesting at major events. A few years later #NoDAPL happened and a huge chunk of the people involved in that were also involved in Occupy. As someone who was really involved in union organizing all the way on the opposite side of the country, I can tell you how much these organizers had an influence. We saw a huge shift in attitudes towards labor organizing after that and a huge influx of energy from people who first got into organizing through Occupy. Occupy also gave us Graeber and so many strains of leftist theory related to eco-socialism, communalism, and many other "hot" leftist theories today. I'm sorry but I feel like this author is really out of touch here. Perhaps to someone who only interacted with it through the news, it seemed like they didn't get anything done. But that energy didn't just dissipate. It spread to almost every facet of American leftist organizing
  - Animats 5y ago
    Union, Yes! I didn't realize that Occupy had helped labor organizing. Does leftist theory really help when trying to organize a business?
    - tacocataco 5y ago
      I think you'd be interested in Mondragon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
  - vegenaise 5y ago
    what about seattle in 99? what about the alf and elf? what about EF!? bookchin, zerzan, cfd, i could go on forever. also, occupy didn't give us graeber, graeber gave us occupy. sounds like occupy was your first exposure to the left in the us.
    - culi 5y ago
      Sure of course I'm biased to my own anecdata. Yeah sure you can find examples like ALF and ELF and even demonstrations like the 1990 WTO protests, but it doesn't change the fact that for basically the last 100 years the american "left" has been a pretty niche political movement mostly involving very academic post-marxist debates or sectarian conflicts about ml theorists. It certainly wasn't at the scale it was in the early 20th century and certainly not at the scale it's emerging to be now Also saying Graeber gave us occupy is giving a lot more credit to him than I think is fair. And I think Occupy introduced a lot more people to Graeber than Graeber introduced to Occupy
  - refurb 5y ago
    ”The US hasn't really had a leftwing since the 1920s.” Ummm… the 60’s would like to have a word with you. You’re clearly lack some significant history lessons.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > Occupy Wall Street was the birth of the left in the US And did you miss the 60's?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Black Lives Matter had focused on "Every killing by a cop gets investigated by the FBI" and "Fire the bottom 10% of cops", BLM wasn't formed in response to police violence, so if it was to limit itself to a narrow tactical policy aim, those would have been odd choices. Also, BLM has arguably had a broader and more substantial impact already than achieving either one of those narrow goals would have.
  - berdario 5y ago
    > BLM wasn't formed in response to police violence, ??? Do you have references to that? I understand that BLM prominence started with the Ferguson protests against cop Darren Wilson murdering Michael Brown Jr (Ps, forgot about Zimmerman murdering Trayvon. But that's also a cop-adjacent figure. What most people would define a vigilante)
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      Huh. I don't remember a court of law determining that either Zimmerman or Darren Wilson murdered anyone.
      - s5300 5y ago
        kybernetyk 5y ago
        Mostly peaceful.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I don't remember a court of law determining that either Zimmerman or Darren Wilson murdered anyone Courts of law are institutions of government, and surprisingly enough people sometimes disagree with the jobs done by institutions of government.
        5y ago
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Basically the same thing happened to the Tea Party. My impression is that the movement gets co-opted as a generic partisan force, and then having specific goals is a detriment when the unstated goal is merely to elect a particular party. The best goal for Occupy Wall Street would have been to break up all the Too Big To Fail institutions. The "problem" with that was twofold. One, if that's the goal, and they manage to turn the election, then they'll expect the people they elected to actually do it. But politicians didn't wanna do it. Both parties are in the pocket of the banks. And two, if they actually did do it, it would be done. The movement would have succeeded and lost its raison d'etre. If you solve the problem then you can't run on it again. So you're completely right. The question is how to prevent movements from getting co-opted like this. Because actually solving the problem is the thing we should want.

by jt2190 5y ago

Animats 5y ago

"The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do something more specific. At this point they usually foundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their tasks." That happened to Occupy Wall Street, and to Black Lives Matter. Both failed to focus on specific, achievable goals. And so, they never got beyond the consciousness raising stage. If Occupy Wall Street had focused on "Tax the 1%" and "Break up monopoly landlords", and Black Lives Matter had focused on "Every killing by a cop gets investigated by the FBI" and "Fire the bottom 10% of cops", they might have achieved those goals.

culi 5y ago
Occupy Wall Street was the birth of the left in the US. The US hasn't really had a leftwing since the 1920s. It created a whole class of activists that went around couch-surfing and protesting at major events. A few years later #NoDAPL happened and a huge chunk of the people involved in that were also involved in Occupy. As someone who was really involved in union organizing all the way on the opposite side of the country, I can tell you how much these organizers had an influence. We saw a huge shift in attitudes towards labor organizing after that and a huge influx of energy from people who first got into organizing through Occupy. Occupy also gave us Graeber and so many strains of leftist theory related to eco-socialism, communalism, and many other "hot" leftist theories today. I'm sorry but I feel like this author is really out of touch here. Perhaps to someone who only interacted with it through the news, it seemed like they didn't get anything done. But that energy didn't just dissipate. It spread to almost every facet of American leftist organizing
- Animats 5y ago
  Union, Yes! I didn't realize that Occupy had helped labor organizing. Does leftist theory really help when trying to organize a business?
  - tacocataco 5y ago
    I think you'd be interested in Mondragon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- vegenaise 5y ago
  what about seattle in 99? what about the alf and elf? what about EF!? bookchin, zerzan, cfd, i could go on forever. also, occupy didn't give us graeber, graeber gave us occupy. sounds like occupy was your first exposure to the left in the us.
  - culi 5y ago
    Sure of course I'm biased to my own anecdata. Yeah sure you can find examples like ALF and ELF and even demonstrations like the 1990 WTO protests, but it doesn't change the fact that for basically the last 100 years the american "left" has been a pretty niche political movement mostly involving very academic post-marxist debates or sectarian conflicts about ml theorists. It certainly wasn't at the scale it was in the early 20th century and certainly not at the scale it's emerging to be now Also saying Graeber gave us occupy is giving a lot more credit to him than I think is fair. And I think Occupy introduced a lot more people to Graeber than Graeber introduced to Occupy
- refurb 5y ago
  ”The US hasn't really had a leftwing since the 1920s.” Ummm… the 60’s would like to have a word with you. You’re clearly lack some significant history lessons.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > Occupy Wall Street was the birth of the left in the US And did you miss the 60's?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Black Lives Matter had focused on "Every killing by a cop gets investigated by the FBI" and "Fire the bottom 10% of cops", BLM wasn't formed in response to police violence, so if it was to limit itself to a narrow tactical policy aim, those would have been odd choices. Also, BLM has arguably had a broader and more substantial impact already than achieving either one of those narrow goals would have.
- berdario 5y ago
  > BLM wasn't formed in response to police violence, ??? Do you have references to that? I understand that BLM prominence started with the Ferguson protests against cop Darren Wilson murdering Michael Brown Jr (Ps, forgot about Zimmerman murdering Trayvon. But that's also a cop-adjacent figure. What most people would define a vigilante)
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    Huh. I don't remember a court of law determining that either Zimmerman or Darren Wilson murdered anyone.
    - s5300 5y ago
      - kybernetyk 5y ago
        Mostly peaceful.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I don't remember a court of law determining that either Zimmerman or Darren Wilson murdered anyone Courts of law are institutions of government, and surprisingly enough people sometimes disagree with the jobs done by institutions of government.
      - 5y ago
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Basically the same thing happened to the Tea Party. My impression is that the movement gets co-opted as a generic partisan force, and then having specific goals is a detriment when the unstated goal is merely to elect a particular party. The best goal for Occupy Wall Street would have been to break up all the Too Big To Fail institutions. The "problem" with that was twofold. One, if that's the goal, and they manage to turn the election, then they'll expect the people they elected to actually do it. But politicians didn't wanna do it. Both parties are in the pocket of the banks. And two, if they actually did do it, it would be done. The movement would have succeeded and lost its raison d'etre. If you solve the problem then you can't run on it again. So you're completely right. The question is how to prevent movements from getting co-opted like this. Because actually solving the problem is the thing we should want.