#OWS Summer Disobedience School Starts TODAY
Posted 12 years ago on May 26, 2012, 2:15 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Summer Disobedience School (#OWSDS) begins today at noon in Bryant Park. Your homework is to Watch and Share this VIDEO (a visual Curriculum in #OWS style). See you there! And don't forget to come prepared.
via Tidal
¨Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty¨ - Henry David Thoreau
What is capitalism? Where is capitalism? Who and what sustains it? How can we starve its roots, which feed off our relations to one another to the detriment of humanity? What alternatives can we create together? These are a few of the questions we will explore in OWS Summer Disobedience School (OWSDS), a twelve-week training program that will empower us to map, target, and disrupt sites of capitalist injustice across the city with a wide range of creative tactics accessible to people will all levels of experience.
OWSDS is informed by the following pedagogical principles:
- We learn by questioning, sharing, and doing
- We learn from and with each other
- We learn with our hearts, minds, and bodies
- Our education will create space for action, empowerment, and imagination
- Our growth will allow us to shed layer after layer of fear and complacency
Our experience together will enable us to occupy Wall Street and reclaim our power as people.
OWSDS will be divided into four three-week quarters, each of which will take a city park as a staging-ground for actions against nearby corporate targets: Bryant Park, Central Park, Washington Square Park, and Liberty Plaza. Each week, we will develop the group affinities, technical skill-sets and operational roles necessary for successful actions, such as target-scouting, march-pacing, research & messaging, mic-checking, banner-deployment, communications coordination, media documentation, and police liaison. We will also hone and expand the tactical vocabulary used during #SpringTraining. Emphasis will be placed on infiltrations, interruptions, slowdowns, and blockades undertaken by small action-teams rather than unified mass demonstrations.
A key priority in the OWSDS curriculum is the empowerment of new people to step up in planning and executing actions; to this end, OWSDS will involve a mentoring system in which those with more experience can "buddy up" with less experienced individuals to lend moral support and technical guidance. This "training of trainers" process can in turn be replicated and innovated by increasing numbers of people across time and space. Students will be encouraged to develop personal escalation calendars to track their own progress over the course of Summer School in advance of Graduation Day: September 17th, the one-year anniversary of OWS.
As the reign of the 1% collapses, it desperately deploys the police, the law, and the media to silence us and keep us in our places. In solidarity with students from Chile to Greece to Montreal to the Bronx, the school motto of OWSDS proclaims:
Educate to liberate! The crisis is our classroom! Now is the teachable moment!
Read more: ON THE CITY AS UNIVERSITY: OCCUPY AND THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
Sounds great. Sounds exciting. but what about us out of towners? I'm not sure one would want to disseminate the wisdom gained on the internet; too tapped by the Feds, and too many trolls. But then how does one disseminate the wisdom nationally, globally?
Don't need to answer that here....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1je1c5aETg
If this is the level of maturity the leadership of Occupy has reached, then these members of the school board need to be voted out. This so called school needs to be shut down temporarily and have it's curriculum updated with some history of the men who actually knew how to achieve meaningful change .
There is a vast difference between blockading and non cooperation which King, Ghandi, and Thoreau espouse.
King did not blockade the buses that forced him to stand while whites sat. He refused to ride those buses.
Ghandi did not block the trade of salt in India, he made his own salt!
Thoreau did not block the casting of ballots because of an unfair poll tax, instead he refused to pay the tax.
We are not against commerce, we are against the unfair practices that some use. That is where our non cooperation should begin, with the unfair parts, not commerce in general.
When you fight injustice by being unjust yourselves, you are just as much a criminal as those who oppress you.
Thoreau, Ghandi, and King, with all respect to them, did not on their own get their adversaries to change course. Things changed only after Guevara, Ghosh, and Malcom X came onto the scene.
Are you saying that without Malcolm, King would not have succeeded?
Yes, that is what I'm saying.
By the same token, Malcolm would not have succeeded without King coming first.
Without rules there would be no freedom above raw natural laws. The strong would oppress the weak, the sadist would gain respect, the foolish would hinder the smart and good hearted's from occupying strategic position. Please don't promote people to break the rule! Your move is going global, this is a voice from Indonesia.
Obedience is the foundation of solutions. All things work by following constructive rules. Disobedience should only be directed towards bad rules.
"Disobedience should only be directed towards bad rules."
Exactly!
Bad rules, as in all those laws in place to cover the elites?
Prove it, there are a lot of smart people including law and political scientist supporting the movement. Don't rampage blindly, use reason and focus your attacks towards the most strategic weaknesses of enemies of humanity. Publish how some rules are bad for the economy and for the people in scientific journals.
The way I look at it, tv and movies started to promote consumerism and disrespect towards the law ever from the 90's. Before that the generation built the US economy positively, but after that the culture deteriorated and it destroyed the economy. This is all done by consumtive law breaking people. Saving, lowering prices, and respecting the law is the direction you want to go.
I'd say the deterioration of political confidence and the exaltation of self interests goes back further than the '90s. Lack of political confidence began with Watergate and embracing individual self interests goes back to the founding of this nation. Raunchy television, to me, is not the cause but is a symptom.
There is a vast difference between blockading and non cooperation which King, Ghandi, and Thoreau espouse.
King did not blockade the buses that forced him to stand while whites sat. He refused to ride those buses.
Ghandi did not block the trade of salt in India, he made his own salt!
Thoreau did not block the casting of ballots because of an unfair poll tax, instead he refused to pay the tax.
We are not against commerce, we are against the unfair practices that some use. That is where our non cooperation should begin, with the unfair parts, not commerce in general.
When you fight injustice by being unjust yourselves, you are just as much a criminal as those who oppress you.
I agree, Injustice only exists because we allow it. If a system is corrupt refuse to participate. Present a sustainable alternative and people will adopt it. Direct your energy to the positive. This is the most powerful form of disobedience. There is a place for making noise and being disruptive as well.
Did I hear you suggest opting out?
So... don't vote in elections where candidates are not likely to be a good leader?
If they were all bad, Yes. In America we can write in any name we wish, so at least we always have a "good" choice.
[Removed]
Ah, not like here, we have to choose otherwise the vote would be disposed.
Thank you for the point of view on King, Ghandi, and Thoreau
You're welcome. Is there a group similar to Occupy in Indonesia?
They did an occupy demonstration once, but we already have a significant undergraduate organizations that's more popular here in Indonesia. They have their own agendas, maybe they're not too familiar with your movement. But these undergraduate organizations have been known for overthrowing 2 presidents one of them was Soeharto.
Well since demonstration has been a very strong force here in Indonesia the Government has adapted and cared a lot of the opinions of the people. But most of the people here tolerate corruption, it has been a culture of ignorance adopted by many.
As much as we still need massive reform especially against corporate influences over our government, this stupidity is still strongly preventing our people from going out against the corruptors.
When corruption occurs within our own family (our government), we choose to overlook it. When the same corruption occurs outside the family (their government), it becomes clearly visible.
Just like this video above. No one else will condemn it because it was made by their own group. They rightly criticize wall streets unjust actions but refuse to criticize their own.
If your move gained popularity here, many Indonesians might follow
[Removed]
[Removed]
NYC students have faced rising student debt for far too long. The strike in Quebec symbolizes a struggle for a system that provides everyone equal opportunity to achieve their full potential. Debt is slavery and education is the liberation that will help us win all our struggles. It is time to bring Quebec's infinite strike to the United States, starting in NYC. Nightly marches depart from Washington Square Park at 8 PM.
We have created a Facebook page and Twitter to help us organize actions around NYC infinite strike Quebec solidarity marches, please like, follow, and share:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/NYC-Infinte-Strike-Marches/238195689624622
https://twitter.com/#!/NYCStrike
[Removed]
idiots
[Removed]
Is this like majoring in Sociology? LOL.
Better. Instead of reading about society, you create it.
Well, hopefully the dumbest generation ever knows better than to borrow more for this "course".
why dont all you OWS idiots go to Quebec and stay there. then you and the smelly socialist Frenches can all sit in cafes, drink your espresso while waiting for your Friday entitlement welfare checks, food stamps, etc which goes on financed by all us "bad guys" working every day and paying 36% tax rates (plus State tax, City tax, and too many other taxes to count). Quit being a loser and quit your whining, complaining and bitching. improve your skills (beyond that worthless 4 year degree in communications or history) and make your own mark in the world. The USA is a free country, meaning we are free to succeed or to fail. Our founding fathers and our Constitution ensured these freedoms, not entitlements or handouts, if you want the latter than go to France, Spain, Portugal ....oh wait...socialistic democracies and excessive entitlements have rendered these economies insolvent. So go to Quebec. and stay there. please.
We don't want anything for free. Just want our money back from the 1% criminals who crashed the world economy and took bail out money from us.! From the 1% criminals who perpetrated fraudulent sub prime mortgages, bundled them without disclosing the poor quality then blamed the homeowner victims From the 1% criminals who charge us loan shark level cr card interest rates while borrowing from our govt at less than 1%!, From the 1% criminals who have stolen the govt of the people by excessive donations, lobbying, ridiculous corp personhood. From the 1% criminals who have rigged the tax and regulation system against the 99% and in favor of the 1%. Thats all. We just wan't to reverse the largest redistribution of wealth (from the 99% to the 1%) in human history. The courageous people you call names are working hard for you! Sacrificing for you and all the 99%. While you are advocating for the criminal 1% who have stolen your future. You are speaking for the criminal 1% who have armies of lawyers, lobbyists,accountants and who own the politicians! And still they have convinced half the 99% including you to speak and vote their interests! Vote YOUR interests!. Support OWS. Vote out pro citizens united politicians.