Forum Post: Occupy the Occupation
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, 1:19 p.m. EST by RedJazz43
(2757)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I just read in the Nation magazine that there is apparently a secret OWS office. I work. I have medical problems and I live some distance from New York, but I try to get to Zuccotti Park as often as I can and stay as long as I can. I was there on day one and I consider myself an active if part time OWS supporter. But I find this notion of a secret OWS office so offensive that it makes me want to puke. It seems to me that it is a contradiction of OWS's most basic values for transparancy. If I get wind of where this is I plan to broadcast it as widely as I can and actively encourage people to occupy the occupation.
There simply is no central organizing authority or office. This rumor is nothing more than an obvious attempt to create a fake head that the 1% can chop-off. If one were created then it would be done by a mole that is paid to destroy the movement from within.
I dunno. This was reported in the Nation, which has consistently supported OWS and continues to do so and it was reported by someone who runs a daily (almost minute by minute) blog of occupations goings on around the nation from a very supportive point of view. His reporting on this secret headquarters was in no way negative on his part except to the extent that he reported its existence (including a rough location).
Does anyone besides me , find this hilarious?
As far as I can tell the pictures are of the place we used for dry storage for the various logistical committees (food, especially), which was converted to storage and sometimes used for committees after the Liberty square eviction because we had no space on hand (iirc some of these same committees used to meet in the Deutsche Bank buiding lobby but obviously Deutsche Bank doesn't like us very much). This is not secret: the storage space was announced two months ago.
I sort of thought that, but it is peculiar the way it was reported and otherwise the reporter has been consistently very supportive of the movement.
I feel there has been some misreporting in what it was in part because it's unclear where it is. We have a lot of indoor spaces; I think this one is on loan from UFT, there is a SEIU-loaned place we use for spokes council indoor meetings, Labor Outreach meets in a couple of places, and we've had meetings and conferences at the new school although most of them were not committee related except for the student movement itself.
The main problem really is that the city is pretty much opposed to the idea that we'd squat these spaces (so we can't used them for sleeping quarters and stuff)
[Removed]
Occupy has been not most non-transparent protest in history. Did you just notice this?
Actually, for a relatively mass movement, in my experience and from what I have read (which has been fairly extensive) I think it is about the most transparent movement in history, which is why I was so disturbed at learning of this apparent secret headquarters. Undoubtedly there have been small democratic sects, probably not numbering more than in the hundreds, that have been more transparent, but in my experience, for a movement of its size, OWS has been exemplary.
[Removed]
Occupy Wall Street Was Organized From Day One by SEIU / ACORN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOxERtkwN4&feature=player_embedded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Families_Party
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is especially dangerous to get information about non-conservative movements from conservative sources as they tend to throw everything outside their circle into one big stew and not draw any meaningful distinctions between various political currents outside their circle. To them liberals, socialists, social democrats, democratic socialists, revolutionary socialists, Stalinists, Maoists, Trotskyists, anarchists, trade union bureaucrats, rank and file trade union militiants, etc., are all the same thing.
However, that is not the case any more than the seven dwarfs no contending for the Republican Presidential nomination are all the same thing.
The fact is, while a few labor unions now do enthusiatically support OWS they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that position. Sure it happened pretty quickly after the occupation began, but not on day one, which was a very sparcely attended event (I know, I was there).
The fact is, politically, the people who initiated OWS are strongly influenced by the historical currents of historical anarchism and while they are a relatively small group they remain they remain the most politically coherent group within OWS. Many liberals became active OWS supporters early on, and they are probably numerically the largest group in OWS but they are also the least politically coherent and in general cannot even agree among themselves let alone get the whole movement to go along with them.
On day one a handful of rank and file trade union militants were active in the demonstration. These are not union officials or union staffer and are not paid by the union. They are simply dues paying members who avail themselves of he priviledges of membership, including attending membership meeting, arguing for their point of view at those meetings, etc.
Meanwhile, very early on, within a day or two of when the occupation began the initial occupiers went out of their way to express their solidarity with various local labor struggles, unannounced, uninvited and not asking anything in return. While this was going on the few rank and file union activists active in the occupation went to their respective unions and demanded that they support the occupation. Between that pressure from below from their own membership and support for current struggles from the occupation, a few unions began to more actively support the movement, but it should be understood that the whole structure of the labor movement is very different than OWS and in many respects they are like oil and water. Unions are very old fashioned and bureaucratic in their structure whereas OWS is very loose, democratic, non-hierarchal and without an identifiable leadership. In fact, they are so different that it is often difficult for them to communicate with each other.
The differences are so vast that cataloging them would take volumes, but one example is that every time labor wants to demonstrate it gets a parade permit from the local municipality. OWS never does and takes the position that demonstrations are a First amendment right and require no other permission.
Labor is in a supporting role in OWS, but an anarchist vision is still its defining political characteristic.
[Removed]
Well, we certainly don't agree. But, that's OK.
Give me any example of a social movement as large as OWS that was more transparent. They may well exist, but I am not aware of any and if they do exist I would like to know more about them. I am serious about that. If you think there are hundreds or thousands of such examples please just name one or a few that pop into your minds as I am ABD in history, I am fairly familiar with the history of social movements and personally I've been impressed with the transparency of OWS, but if there are better examples I'd love to hear about them.
Do not take Thrasymaque too seriously. He is a sophist full of hyperboles. Surely, OWS is more transparent than many movements in history, but, surely, it could be much more transparent.