Forum Post: Taking owernship of the movement through decentralization
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 14, 2011, 9:45 p.m. EST by precipice
(220)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
OWS is not entirely decentralized and it is most likely a movement puppeteered by Adbusters. The site owners of occupywallst.org are unknown at this point, everything seems quite secretive. I'm not saying this is a bad movement as the current goals are noble, BUT we are puppets at this stage. For instance, the whole Wall Street movement may be brought to a standstill if this one website ever goes down or if a divisive / controversial blog post comes up. Imagine an "official" post titled "OccupyWallSt Voices Support For Communism" showing up - it'd fracture and destroy us. For the same reasons that the headlines of our posts at the top of the page clearly indicate "User Submitted," OccupyWallSt blog posts need to indicate that they are but one voice in the community. But that is not the case - rather, it seems that occupywallst.org is becoming a voice for us all, and I think that is something we need to be careful of. There is, in fact, an "official" here and that was something I was surprised to learn. We need to take ownership of this movement for ourselves such that if Adbusters or OccupyWallSt ever go rogue, our movement continues as a deeper thread in society. The Occupy Resistsance Network ( http://www.OccupyR.com ) is a more independent source and has democratic features in forums such as votable posts. It operates like reddit. Check that out as well. OccupyTogether.org also appears more decentralized based off of local meetup groups, but I believe that website is backed by AdBusters. In any case, I advise people to not just blindly follow, but to constantly evaluate what they hear and make decisions for themselves. This movement is something that we need to realize we own and we can't let any one source tell us otherwise.
For the same reason, we don't see a "Finance" section listing 100% transparency for funds donated and spent. We may be being played here. The money is going to who exactly...? A corrupt movement is better than no movement, but we do need to take ownership for ourselves here. I believe Adbusters (which started the Occupy movement and likely owns this website) is a Canadian Human Rights group. That's strange, no? Americans need to own their movement.
Yeah, decentralizing real resources we depend on like food, water, shelter, communication, transportation, information, news, etc. - this is very important to preventing some new power broker coming along and sweeping us all up! We need to decentralize real resources, create local supplies everywhere we can, establish networks to share information on how to do this, and share resource exchanges! This is really important - if our vital resources are all centralized, we are vulnerable to being toppled and dictated to by the next big power entity to exploit the weakness!
props homie. good post. wana help pass around a poll?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&pli=1&formkey=dFlNNHJTRlZwMWs5ZjlhTWN0NlZReHc6MQ
The recent issues with the "blue armband guys" is another reason we need to decentralize. Here are some reports:
"I dont know what the hell is going on but I have been at Zucotti Park sense Sept and I was just told to leave and not come back for not telling a guy with a wristband where my tent was. These people are ripping our movement apart by the seams. They have told atleast ten people to leave and not return. We need every person we can get. Guess wont be back..."
"I am here at Zuccotti Park and noticed that there is a blocked off area with people that have blue armbands, no one is allowed through. I don't know what they are doing over there. I thought that we were all equal, I guess some people are more equal than others. This is like the 1% of the 99% within our movement. I don't think its fair."
"I was walking past the table area 15mins ago and got a text on my phone. I stopped about 3ft away from the table. A blue arm band guy told me to keep moving. I told him to F--k off and walked away. Who are these guys?"
"I was just smoking some pot around the tables (where the blue arm band guys are) and they told me to leave, they were really mean in how they asked me too. What is going on here. We need someone to infiltrate this area and find out. I don't like the idea that some people in this movement are more equal than others"
It won't be long before the 1% sends in the klowns to take over. Do u all really think they'll just stand by and allow a "leaderless movement" to stay that way? Its probably already happening right before your eyes.
Indeed, what would stop corporations from making deals with the "management" at the top levels of OWS. I saw some news lately that a music artist wanted to offer OWS $20,000 for an "official sponsorship" of his upcoming album. That's ridiculous. This is not a movement to be commercialized or sold. Luckily for us, OWS rejected the offer. But for how long? This sort of hierarchical structure needs to be democratized.
I'm glad to see there are people considering these contingencies. These are fundamental issues to consider. De-centralization is the way to go They can't just cut off the head and let the body die.
OK, I've decided to take over. As for the record deal I want 100K..For the movement of course, minus my new Honda. ;)