Forum Post: Why I did not and will not join the protest
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 15, 2011, 4:21 p.m. EST by gawdoftruth
(3698)
from Santa Barbara, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
https://www.facebook.com/OccupySB?sk=wall&filter=1
I spent all day long present with you people. i spent 30 dollars on pens and 20 $ on poster board to help you people. But in the long run you didn't listen, you ran your agenda, you rolled over the issues that people brought up, and your just going to go do what you were just going to go do- 98 percent be damned. If you won't listen to me when i give you all day- why would i join you in a protest that only represents your chaos and disorder and not any kind of useful sense of direction on how to make change happen? Why would i join you in anarchism when you can't walk across the bridge to rationality? You aren't meeting me or the 98 percent half way ... and 98 percent is not anarchist and not socialist. 98 percent won't be fooled by faked consensus either.
Me, and about 98 percent of the population- don't have a solid reason to join you in protests you can't manage to properly organize, with communication methods which drive more people away and piss more people off than convince or relay any message... We speak to you and you don't listen- just like you try to speak to power and they don't listen. The difference is we are trying to help you and this will all be an epic fail for nothing unless you wake up and start getting lucid on issues like these. I'm not going to join a pack led mob. Show me an evolutionary process and evolutionary communication tactics and a plan to approach the rest of the 99 percent with meaningful communication. I'm not going to risk being arrested just so that adolescent anarchists can feel like they had a fun day.
Still waiting on a wake up. Still looking at patently adolescent ways of approaching problems, instead of adult ways of approaching problems. Still looking at a giant log jam of issues and problems that protesting does not address. Still looking at one percent of the population which has not the first clue how to get its message organized enough to be heard by even as much as a second percent of the population- calling itself 99 percent- but not representing the rest of us. And certainly not representing meaningful or useful problem solving process, evolutionary work, or any kind of meaningful direction for positive social change.
Still waiting on anybody in OWS to get back to me over the CRITICAL and EMERGENCY state of disorganization and chaos which could only be reaosnably fixed by a wiki and a large array of forums and sub forums.
Still waiting on any kind of real problem solving process, still waiting on any kind of open source problem solving process, still waiting for any actual WORK in the evolutionary sense to begin. It hasn't yet. And in fact protesting is really just a means to an end of avoiding such work.
Still waiting on meaningful self policing tactics. since i said it last night and was shut down, shut up, and silenced, lets go through this again. It is futile, pointless, and meaningless to say "we hereby decide to NOT do X or Y" when a stress situation arises when you haven't figured out what you WILL do. Changing behaviors does not happen because you make a rule. It can only happen if you give a new functional tactic which people can use in place of the old one. Lacking any attention to such tactics, people will continue to call the police on their own call- not yours.
Still waiting for consensus process, instead of pack psychology delphi process due to the inability of so called facilitators to know the difference. IE. educational epic fail 29C-45 B. Don't know what consensus process is- have a vague idea- diddn't bother to look it up- didn't bother to do the homework, and didn't thus manage to have actual consensus process.
Agreed, OWS does not represent the 99%. They represent the 1% - themselves. Then we have the elitist 1%, and the 98% of normal people who are not looking for a complete overhaul of the system.
the majority of people SHOULD wake up and seek a total and complete reform of the system. OWS is calling for that but is too much of an anarchist movement and thus has nowhere near enough organizational structure to accomplish anything. People like me are the ONLY way out of the box or this movement will be as futile as 2003 war protesting was.
Why should we?
because otherwise everyone dies and your civilization becomes the genocidal criminal that leads to human extinction.
Proof of this?
And if this happens, so what?
Blue-green algae overpopulated the Earth and oxidized the atmosphere, killing almost every species that was around at the time. This was referred to as the Great Oxidation Event. Oxygenation of the atmosphere required more complex lifeforms to evolve, and thereby led to the great diversity in species we see today.
Maybe humans are the blue-green algae of our time, maybe we will re-carbonize the atmosphere, act like a reset button destroying existing species and paving the way for new and more complex life-forms. Have you ever considered that this could be our reason for existence?
i don't engage in stupid and infantile philosophy debates with meaningless and pointless hypotheticals. I'm here to save the humans, and if you aren't on board with that then your ethics and morality system is broken or malfunctioning.
Any systems analysis of oil and coal and our mass distribution network shows that it is unsustainable and that having reached peak oil in 2004 the world will burn through the second half of oil 10 times as fast as the first half. right now 10 pounds of fuel are attached to every pound of food. When the mass distribution network fails and people have nothing to eat they become violent cannibals. This is only one of 20 absolutely science centered doomsday clocks that are ticking on this civilization due to corporate oligarchy.
So I must strive to save humanity despite the fact that you admit it is a destructive force on the planet?
Seems very illogical to me.
humanity is not the destructive force. corporate oligarchy is. Your spinning. Humanity can be a force for good for the planet and garden the planet green. We can be repsonisble care takers of this planet. we must remove the corporate oligarchy to do that.
LOL, humanity has been destroying the planet for a lot longer than corporate oligarchy. Corporate oligarchy is just a manifestation of the human-centered consciousness which disregards other life forms.
and you have no point. evolutionary process can get past that. white humans have been destroying the planet since the feudal ages. Native Americans lived in harmony with nature. So not all humans are doing it- and your assertion that they are is actually accidentally racist and simply wrong on every level.
So humanity is a race?
It's not just white humans destroying the planet, in fact blaming "whites" for the situation is extremely racist.
All agricultural humans have destroyed the planet, which is the great majority of humanity. Maybe we were meant to go down in a blaze of glory!
It's not homicidal or evil to say "maybe we are meant to go down in a blaze of glory". It is just stating that maybe we are.
How are you so sure of humanity's end goals? Keep an open mind.
It only becomes genocidal if I was actively working towards destroying humanity. I am not. I'm just not particularly concerned if we eventually go extinct.
If Native Americans "developed technology" instead of whites, then they would be exploiting the planet. Technology is itself a product of an extractionist mentality.
I didn't blame whites. You said the humans are bad for the planet. Thats only true due to culture, and if some other culture had won out, instead of fascist imperialist oligarchy, we wouldn't be here. if native americans had technology instead of whites, the earth would have been a gardened eden.
You spun what i said into a racist remark. thats not what i said. In fact there are agricultural societies which have otherwise greened their local ecologies- you don't know what you are talking about.
saying we are maybe meant to go down in a blaze of glory= homocidal genocidal evil and stupidity.
Absolutely true, man. Unfortunately this movement is all about rhetoric and protesting without any real substance. People need to study our problems before they rage against "the system". There is a much bigger picture than just corporate greed, we are in a deeper hole than most people here know. There is so much info available pertaining to the white collar crimes that have been committed and Washingtons compliance in it all but I have seen no specifics cited by anyone. It's sad that there is all this enthusiasm but hardly anyone is willing to do some homework.
I agree with this. Do you have any links to hard facts you could share on here? I feel like I can't find objective information on anything OWS is complaining about.
A great start would be tragedyandhope.com watch the intro video and "what you've been missin" also the peace revolution podcast, it blows wide open all of these issues with well researched and cited info.
Thank you!
No, thank you. There is so much mindless blabbing going on it is nice to see someone who really wants to learn their way out instead of just bitching. Tragedyandhope.com has a forum too but, unlike this one, people there do real research and don't attack each other.
There is some sense to what this article says, the BBC online coverage said that the objectives of OWS remain "unclear". If this movement is to last the long-term and reach it's objectives and engage and direct the tide of popular feeling it MUST become more organised sooner rather than later.
What we neede here is a unified voice - a consensus. Let's consider implementing a grass roots purple finger vote within Occupy as a means of sorting through our intentions. Democracy, not corporatocracy!
There does seem to be some organization however limited. The point however, is to see if anybody DOES want to organize. I understand your frustrations, others, no doubt feel the same way. A few points here. As I said on another post, the classic line I use to use in these instances is: "If nothing is is being done, it is because no one wants to do it."
Sometimes, YOU have to take the initiative. You can make a proposal to form some structure beyond that which is currently operating (I'm not there, so besides some daily meetings, discussions and consensus on a few items, I don't really know what is happening).
There does not SEEM to be any real vision, a plan as you say. I advocate building a Mass Movement of autonomous chapters dedicated to a platform of four or rive principal reforms. For example, in these areas: 1) Wall Street and Banks Reform; 2) Tax Reform; 3) Electoral Reform; 4) Congressional Reform (I've detailed this elsewhere).
As a group, we can focus on one or more of these. We do so by building a Movement through attempting to build a network of chapters dispersed geographically. The timing is good as this Occupy thing has already spread, attracted a lot of attention and support. It just needs some clearer focus and some leadership.
From what I have seen, the main group there in New York along with contributions from across the country, is putting together a list of demands or some such thing. It appears that the focus is getting lost judging from reading of this list. I am seeing things on the list like: animal rights concerns, dealing with student loans, etc. Maybe these are reforms needed as well but if you want to build a real movement, you need to have broad, general consensus on a few basic principal reforms, especially in today's context. A laundry list of dozens of wants or demands is probably not going to cut it.
Back in 1912, the Progressive Party developed a 16 page pamphlet listing their platform, desired reforms and probably some explanation and analysis. This is exactly what we need but we need to keep it simple and broad so that the media and others can't effectively destroy our efforts by mocking it. That is why I say, finding four or five general points that have wide agreement.
Consensus can be a problem because what really happens is that people go along to get along and end up not really expressing the problems they might have with something because they just want to get along with everybody. A modified form of consensus, say 75% is better. Also, meetings need to be run using some basic parliamentary rules (I assume they are?). These are just a few brief comments as there is much more to be said.
very much agree, we need to follow the 1912 example and generate a detailed platform using a wiki.
I don't want to cosign this OP 100%, but I'm definitely getting frustrated with the chaos and the takeover of OWS-NYC by dirt punks and kids who regard the whole thing as a party.
I'm not writing it off, but it needs to evolve. This post is a good breakdown of the problems.
Ultimately, it's up to us, the grownups, to save this movement.
Wake up people! All you need to do is vote. Stop voting for liberal, corporate owned assholes like Reid, Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, Weiner and things will change.
merely voting is NOT the simple cure all answer. we need to write laws and change the conversation to science. we need a whole new party of non oligarchs to vote for. voting is useless without other strategies.
is everyone blind to the fact that there waiting to see what power they have to detirmine what changes can be made. They are waiting for growth, as they grow, the things the demand casn be more of a dramatic change in the system or a whole new system is at play.
Its a collection of people saying "Things have to change now", their numbers dictate what they can change bassed on voting among themselves or every supporter of the cause.
i'm for change, i don't think government acts in our interest, or even acts intelligent.
is everyone blind to the fact that there waiting to see what power they have to detirmine what changes can be made. They are waiting for growth, as they grow, the things the demand casn be more of a dramatic change in the system or a whole new system is at play.
Its a collection of people saying "Things have to change now", their numbers dictate what they can change bassed on voting among themselves or every supporter of the cause.
i'm for change, i don't think government acts in our interest, or even acts intelligent.
They do not even represent 1% of us population. I quit this week along with my friends. Occupy DC sucks as there are handful of losers left.
You can always start your own movement.
i am a member of the 99 percent, so apparently this is supposed to include me. either it does or does not.
it will fail or succeed ultimately on how well it bothers to listen to me. (and other people like me and the simple science facts which people like us privide.)
Get republicans to vote yes on jobs bill - by any means necessary -POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Is it possible that your expectations were giant for one day of work? Things did not get to where they are now in a day, and they will not become better in a day. If we all gave up and attacked our own interests in one day, this entire movement would have ended in one day. Patience is a virtue.
no. everything is a giant stinking pile of disorganization. Thats not me, thats OWS. Its not just one day. I just spent four or five days. i got me a citation for a trophy. I AM there and i AM being supportive. BUT the simple FACT of the matter is that on every other detail, OWS and etc occupy movements are epic failing to organize. Thats their problem. This is what happens when anarchists run a social movement. And a fine proof of why anarchy is not a solution, just another part of the problem.
I understand and agree the movement is not as organized as it should be, but quitting the movement and trashing it is no better (actually worse) than the lack of organization. I would hope no one is pushing an agenda of anarchy, which would be a total waste of time. Also, I can understand your need to vent, if that is worth anything.
I'm not venting. I'm not trashing. I just got myself a citation trophy.
I am simply telling the truth that must be heard or everything will fail. Get organized- or become irrelevant. This is not anything other than the crucial help i have to give a movement which will otherwise accomplish nothing. Which has yet to even START the actual business of a paradigm shift centered revolution.
I agree this is all very adolescent.
whatever it is, its a start. every positive change has to start somewhere.
what chaps my ass is that big banks received billions in TARP money and then they gave out massive bonusses to their top performers.
to me, that's the red-flag-in-front-of-the-bull that has got me following this movement with eager interest.
that behavior must change. focus on a goal and don't give up. keep this thing going but please do it right..!!! the protests in 1968 reached a peak and seemed to then wilt away. stay strong...stay focussed...
since you are bringing up money, where are all the funds that have been donated? Who is accounting for receivables and expenditures? Who has the spending authority? and who decides who gets what? This is either corrupt or incompetent or both. Protest yourselves for lack of transparency.
If you are not part of the solution do not be part of the problem, gawdoftruth. Work to fix things. Post what you want, we can all vote and lets try to get 75 % of the 99% to agree. Start a pole!
working to fix things. I managed to get a citation for camping occupying SB already. I am certainly there. But people need to wake up and start listening to me and people like me, .. because my time and support are a window of opportunity which is slowly closing due to the assorted organizational epic fails.
This is all very interesting, but you don't sound like a day at the beach yourself, either, with your rigid insistance on your own way or the highway.
Each time you use the word "evolutionary," I have to wonder what you really mean by that.
Also, please explain what "pack psychology delphi process" means. I'm all ears.
Evolutionary means exactly what it sasy. Evolution. The processes that move us in an evolutionary direction. towards direct democracy and away from corporate oligarchy/ modern feudalism.
Pack psychology is a well defined psychology reality, people operate in packs according to 3 main pack roles. Delphi process is fake consensus. Moderators start with a preplanned outcome and so whats really going on is everyones being sucked into thinking that the group has decided X via consensus when in fact a small group of controllers actually made the decisions.
You just need patience friend, and a belief that we can make a difference even as multi-faceted and disorganized as we are. Our voices are being heard and analyzed by everyone now and that itself is great progress
no; occupy needs to get its head out of its ass. I have been patient. I am not the problem- they are. merely being heard when you have nothing coherrent to say is not winning.
Stick with it gawdoftruth. Teaching the issues isn't an easy task, but if it were easy wouldn't someone else be doing it already?
See my post "In order to form a more perfect union...collapse the system". Its quick, its easy, and we will have the opportunity to live our lives the way we choose from that point on...the American Dream.
I bet your blood pressure spiked cuz you couldn't be in control of "those people'. lol Another one bites the dust. Keep running your mouth though.
Decision by consensus at it's finest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI
Its the classic pipe dream of a world where more than 65% of people agree they sky is blue.
lewis came to a GA and tried to be a big shot where all peeps are equal. his failure, his mistake. he did not try to participate in equal footing nor wait till after GA. So the simple fact remains that he assumed as an oligarch his right to address the peasants... and they respectfully declined and would have allowed him to participate on equal footing with everyone else- which he did not do.
True as you may feel that is, the decision was put to the group for decision making. The group made a decision the way groups always make decisions, with some portion weighing in "Yea" and some portion weighing in "Nay", and more still just keeping quiet.
Pure Democracy: 51% overrules the 49%
Representative Democracy: An representative makes the decision after considering the whole situation as well as what the people he represents want.
Dictatorship: The leader makes the decision he wants, in spite of what 99% of the his minions want.
The person with the megaphone in that video was not an elected leader, and no vote was taken. He was the guy with the megaphone. From what I could tell, most wanted to let him speak.
Not sure what more can be expected of a group without leaders, but your thread here sounds like exactly the same thing.
its probably true that consensus process is NOT happening in most of these instances, but instead delphi process. i don't know as i was not there. if most people did want to let him speak, that might still be irrelevant to process.
I agree with your assessment gawdoftruth. I have given up being an active participant in OWS for the reasons you state. In any event, I believe that neither OWS nor any other effort is going to change anything or reverse our course. However, despite its lack of direction and focus, I do appreciate even the chaos of OWS to the apathy that heretofore pervaded our country's citizenry. At least OWS has brought the conversation forward and although there are many different understandings of what OWS is all about, the country has been jolted out of its doldrums by the rapid explosion of OWS. We need to have a national conversation, not because we can change what lies ahead, but so that we gain a better understanding of what is causing our pain and start thinking about preparing for the worse that is yet to come. I have been trying to tell my family and friends for years now what I believe is the overriding message of OWS, i.e. our system is corrupted (imo beyond repair), we are on the road to ruin, etc etc. Most of my warnings have fallen on deaf ears. At least since OWS, I am getting a bit more respect and my family and friends are paying more heed to my opinion. All I can say is everyone better start personally preparing because we ain't seen nothin' yet.
there is a window of opportunity for real change here. occupy etc is losing that chance and missing that opportunity.
Hi gawdoftruth I see that you are still interested and seeking organization. I understand how you feel, we made the mistakes that you are pointing at during the uprising in my town in Spain. We had to wait one long-long month, but here it is: http://www.nycga.net/ the place where we can interact "in an orderly fashion" with the assembly, Please join and take part of the work groups, have your voice heard and PLEASE share your advice also with us in: https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international/ THANKS!
i don't see 1001 sub forums and i don't see a wiki.
well, sorry to bother you then, it is clear that you want things to go "your way" and that is not how this works, Take my word, I've been in this rev since May, my assembly has a forum with 200 subforums and a wiki...that no one uses! Would you like to use those? Best luck in your solitude!
you don't link us.
Keep waiting... we will see you on the wrong side of history.
I'll agree the protesters aren't doing their homework, not at the moment at least. When it gets down to it, people need to sit down and do some actual "work." We need to look over the constitutions and laws, propose a smart and sensible list of demands, and tackle the hard issues. The fun part is yelling and running around in the streets.
Well, let me back up - there are two paths really.
One is outright revolution - in that case, by all means continue yelling and mobbing, until we overrun the White House.
The second path is to use the current system and by that, it means we need to get laws and amendments in place. To play that game, we'll need to use our brains and sit down at the desks to propose a bill that we demand to be ratified. In the meanwhile though, it might make sense to just keep demonstrating until we gain a critical mass of movement that cannot be ignored. Occupy is still relatively non-mainstream.
I love the way you put it, pretty neat and clear. You should take part of the strategic group to take this idea into action :): Do you mind if I borrow this and take it to my branch in Europe? Regards, T
Any links to help people get properly informed would be appreciated :)
and so you picked up your 30 dollars in pens and $20 in poster board and you went home.Awww did ya get your feelings hurt widdle gadoftruth?
Look at the bright side. Now you can focus on getting a life!
no. i left the materials. my feelings are hardly the issue. the issue is 98 percent of the population will not join a movement which has its head up its ass.