Three activists discuss the challenges of building a citizens’ movement in Baltimore

Engrossing conversation — Includes practical tips on movement building of interest to all activists

No 601 Posted by fw October 30, 2012

In the following 15:40-minute embedded video, editors of the book We Are Many: Critical Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation discuss challenges of building a movement in a city with a black political elite. Sub-heading and hyperlinks have been added to the transcript. To access the original transcript and video, click on the linked title below.

Reflections on Occupy Baltimore, The Real News Network, October 30, 2012

TRANSCRIPT

PAUL JAY, Senior Editor, TRNN — Welcome to The Real News Network (TRNN). I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore. And we’re continuing our discussion with three activists from Baltimore. Joining us again:

Kate Khatib. She’s a co-editor of the book We Are Many: Critical Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, which just came out. She’s also a founding member of Red Emma’s Collective.

Mike McGuire. He’s also co-editor of the book We Are Many, and he’s been working with the Occupy movement since September 17, when it started. He also works with The Real News Network now, helping build our new headquarters.

Lester Spence. He’s a contributor to the book We Are Many. He’s an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. He’s the author of the book Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics.

In the ‘60s thousands joined protests; today only a few hundred show up. How come?

So, Lester, I’ll start with you again. So, in 1968 there were thousands of people joined the protest that hit cities across America and Baltimore. I said in the last time, the first Occupy Baltimore was actually the Army or the National Guard, and there were soldiers with guns and tanks on the street, and Baltimore was really an occupied city. But that level of mass protest, that movement that requires troops to come, fast-forward to now where you’re telling me that if a few hundred people show up for a protest or an event, that’s pretty good. Most recently there was a big one around the Trayvon Martin killing, but that was sort of an exception.

So how do you get from a mass movement at such heights in Baltimore to one that’s—you could say is pretty much in an ebb right now?

Spence cites three factors: Growing black political power, Young blacks in prison, and High unemployment

SPENCE — I think there are a few different things to consider. One is growing black political power. I don’t think there’s been a major civil disturbance in a city run by a black mayor. I don’t think there’s—I know there definitely wasn’t one in Detroit. The last one we had was ’67. I don’t think there’s—I know there hasn’t been one in Baltimore since the three black mayors were elected. I don’t think there was one even in New York or Chicago when Harold Washington was in Chicago or Dinkins was in New York. So I think that’s part of it.

The other part of it is that the population that’s most likely to engage in serious activist work is young, and a sizable portion of that population in the black community is now tied up in the prison-industrial complex.

And then a third related dynamic—and there’s other stuff, but I’ll open it up for Mike and Kate—the third related dynamic is unemployment, you know, unemployment drops—I mean, unemployment rises. Right? So to the extent that we’re talking about these ’60s movements that had a sizable labor component, when people aren’t working, you know, they’re not—there’s a certain type of politics that they’re not connected to anymore, because the labor movement was at least one of the funnels through which black politics takes on a certain tenor.

So when those three things happened, you know, the election of black mayors, the increasing election of black political leadership, the movement, the shutting off of a sizable percentage of black populations into the prison-industrial complex, and then growing unemployment, it makes it very hard for a certain type of political activism to take place in places like Baltimore.

JAY — [Addressing Kate Khatib] What’s your take on the same question?

Khatib cites growing black political class and absence of “culture of protest” in Baltimore because of proximity to Washington

KHATIB — Well, I mean, I think Lester has given a pretty good outline of it. I definitely think that the fact that Baltimore has a black political class has a lot to do with the fact that we don’t necessarily see mass activism coming from the black community in Baltimore in the same way that maybe we did in the ’60s either in Baltimore or elsewhere around the country.

In general, I think the question of why we don’t have a climate of or maybe a culture of protest in Baltimore right now, I think, is a bigger question. It’s not something that’s entirely tied to race. I mean, it’s definitely a racial question, but I think there are other aspects to it. I think some of it has to do with our proximity to Washington and the fact that there is always a lot of push for folks in Baltimore to actually go to D.C. to protest. There is, I think, a sense that protesting in Baltimore isn’t necessarily going to accomplish anything. I think a lot of the mass mobilizations that you’ve seen in the United States in recent years, at least in the past couple of decades, have really very much been around conventions, around gatherings, and Baltimore really hasn’t seen a major convention, either a political convention or, you know, a meeting of the WTO or the World Bank or the IMF, which is where a lot of the mass protest has kind of come from.

JAY — Well, Mike, what do you make of Lester’s point from the previous segment of the interview, that the thing that would galvanize people here more is certainly the issue that’s affecting people more, it’s the criminal justice system and the kind of issues that—I guess I don’t know if it’d be the—. Would you say that’s the same for Hispanics as well, and other people? Or is it really something specifically in terms of black Baltimore?

SPENCE — [clarifies before Mike can reply] – Yeah. So it’s not—so it’s a similar apparatus, but with Latinos I’d say it’s the immigration apparatus, which is related to criminal justice, but it’s not the same thing.

JAY – And it’s a little sidetrack from where we’re going, but is that not less an issue in Baltimore? I saw that the mayor was saying that the city officials are not allowed to ask people for citizenship and they’re actually trying to get people to move here.

SPENCE — Yeah. I think it’s less a problem in Baltimore. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem; it just means it’s less of a problem.

JAY — Yeah. But in terms of this, I guess, you know, the ’68 protest was really a product of the black political movement. So that’s one set of dynamics why that isn’t at a rise. So maybe we should return to that in a second. But what do you make of Lester’s point that white activists here aren’t as tuned in to the problems facing, in fact, the majority of the city? ‘Cause the majority of the city’s black.

Whites aren’t as engaged. But that raises the question: should whites be organizing blacks? I’d say yes, if they’re inspired to do so

MCGUIRE — Well, that begs another question, which is: should it be the white community that’s organizing the black community around prison-industrial issues? So should we be the ones going out, and should I, for example, be the one that’s going out? And I think the answer is yes if that’s what I’m inspired to do, if that’s what’s driving me.

There’s not a huge culture of organizing in the US. And we’re more in touch digitally than in person

But I think in general there’s not a huge culture of organizing in the United States. We’ve kind of lost those traditions. So we’re talking about not just—like, the difference that you’re talking about isn’t numbers; it’s whether or not it’s a mass movement. And what’s happened in the United States between the ’60s and now, it seems like it should be easier. We’re much more in touch with each other through all of our digital devices. But at the same time, we’re much less in touch with each other, because we’re in touch with each other through these digital devices.

JAY — But it’s interesting in the recent period. The biggest protest that you’re telling me took place in Baltimore was about youth and the criminal justice system. The killing of Trayvon Martin is that, and it so resonated with people here ’cause they say, this is what’s happening to us every day and Baltimore.

“We don’t form strategies well as social movements in the United States right now… We’re immature…” – Mike McGuire

MCGUIRE — Yeah, but then what happened with that? Where did the organizing go with that? And here in the first segment we’re talking a lot about elections or electoral strategies. We don’t form strategies well as social movements in the United States right now. We don’t have venues in which we’re actually coming together and talking through how we organize, what strategies we use, what makes sense, what we need to pursue, what—and in just rational discussions.

We had this debate with—kind of within or about the Occupy movement a couple nights ago that Verso hosted between Chris Hedges and a guy representing CrimethInc and I came away from that thinking, yeah, the situation’s actually worse than we thought. Like, if this is the level of discussion at which we can discuss strategies within a movement, then we’re not going to move very far very fast. So I think that’s actually something that’s very generalizable, that we’re immature in terms of how we organize in this country.

There’s an important difference between “mass action” and “mass movement”

SPENCE — And even in how we articulate, right? So there is a difference between a mass action and a mass movement, right? So what happened in ’68 was a mass action, and it was spurred by the assassination of Martin Luther King. Dozens of cities in the United States and cities across the country, I mean, across the world exploded. The same thing happened with Rodney King, right? Dozens of cities in the United States and in a number of cities across the world. Those were mass actions.

But there’s a difference between a mass action and a mass movement. Right? And the things—so mass actions are spurred on by crises. We can’t predict when those crises happen. We can’t predict which crises is going to lead to this stuff. They just kind of explode. But a mass movement or movement-building is a totally different process.

When you don’t distinguish between mass actions and mass movements your change expectations may be unrealistic

So when you conflate them, when you associate mass actions with mass movements, right, then you end up mis-specifying what needs to happen in order to make political change. Right? And then you end up—your time horizon ends up being short. We talked about that in the first segment, where you’re thinking about overthrowing the state, like, within four years, right, and not understanding that this takes 30, 40. Right? You end up misunderstanding the populations you need to be engaged in, how you need to engage them, the whole thing.

The civil rights ‘movement’ didn’t spring up overnight. To expect Occupy to look like a ‘movement’ this soon is unrealistic

KHATIB — But, you know, it’s also important to remember that in the ’60s you do have—I mean, you do have a mass movement, right? You have the civil rights movement. But the civil rights movement didn’t just spring up overnight in ’68, right? I mean, it took many, many years to actually build a strong civil rights movement in the United States. And, you know, I think to look at Occupy and say, well, why hasn’t Occupy managed to catalyze the same kind of thing, why isn’t Occupy looking like a mass movement, I think we’ve got to—you know, as Lester says, I think we have to kind of widen our temporal gaze, we have to be looking even further into the future and saying, this is only the very beginning of a mass movement.

JAY — Yeah, but what I’m getting at is: if you’re talking Baltimore and you’re organizing Baltimore, what Lester said earlier is, if you want to get a movement that’s going to be a mass movement, you’d better deal with the issues that are facing the majority of the people, and he’s saying right now that’s the criminal justice system and related issues. And that’s certainly my experience when I’ve been asking either young people who are activists or even—.

Paradoxically, the best place to start building a mass movement is with local community issues

You know, we’ve been holding and we had a couple of these front-porch meetings where we just went to East Baltimore and sat on the front porch and asked people—we said, we’re journalists, tell us what you want us to do. And it was two issues. It was—number one, it was criminal justice—not just injustice to young people going to jail; it was also how do we have safer streets so I can go to the corner store and not worry about getting robbed. And it’s both sides of that coin. And then the second one was a great one. It says, who the hell owns all these boarded-up houses, and why aren’t they being rented out to low-income families. So those were the issues.

But those are exactly the issues that Occupy Baltimore did address

KHATIB — And I think if you look at where—sorry to cut you off, but I think if you look at where Occupy went after—so in Baltimore, after the Occupy movement was evicted from McKeldin Square, which was the sort of—the beginning of the occupation was the physical occupation of McKeldin Square in downtown Baltimore. And once that eviction happened, it freed up a lot of energy and a lot of time and a lot of excitement and ideas for organizing. Right? So there were all of these people organizing under the auspices of Occupy Baltimore. And where did it go? Well, it went specifically into addressing the situation with the youth jail, and it went specifically into what has now become known as the Occupy Our Homes movement, which is essentially foreclosure defense. So I think exactly the issues that you’re bringing up here really are the issues that Occupy Baltimore tried to address and did address in very real ways.

SPENCE — And is trying, yeah.

KHATIB — Yeah, is trying, is still trying.

SPENCE — Yeah.

The issues may be local but the themes are universal and are necessary stepping stones to a mass movement

MCGUIRE — Another thing. If we look at right now what’s going on in Baltimore and that there’s a bunch of stuff—. And one of the really good things about the occupation movement is that we were all addressing universal themes, but addressing them locally and we were all in our own community.

So here in Baltimore, Occupy Baltimore quickly turned to look at development. We weren’t the only ones. Like, there are a lot of people looking at development, how development is practiced in the city, who’s getting the money, what they’re doing with the money, how we’re using public resources for public good.

Tip – Find out what organizing efforts are going on in your city – you may be pleasantly surprised

And right now some very interesting organizing and one of the more mass organizing efforts going on in Baltimore is in the black community. It’s on the east side, and it’s around jobs, and it’s around development, and it’s around how we use public subsidies for development without any benefit for the local populations in terms of economic development, in terms of skill development, stuff like that.

“And it was shocking to discover that I was completely unaware of this organizing effort” — McGuire

And it was shocking. Like, you know, at the same time that Occupy Baltimore was happening—and I was seeing kind of record numbers in the community that I’m used to organizing and seeing those folks on the street. At the same time, I’m reading in the newspaper—and I was completely unaware of this organizing going on—I’m reading in the newspaper that there were 300 people on the east side that marched onto a job site that was being led by EBDI, East Baltimore Development Incorporated, the group that’s overseeing the largest urban redevelopment program—project in the country; they’re marching on one of their job sites and saying, where are our jobs, this is our community, these are our jobs, and they got their heads beaten in. You know, they just—the trials were just resolved the other day, and it was kind of pathetic, the whole thing.

But, like, at the same time that we were talking about this from Occupy Baltimore, Churches and Communities United in LiUNA [Laborers’ International Union of North America] were organizing hundreds of folks. But they’re turning out overnight. Like, this is probably more important than talking about the Trayvon Martin rally, you know, which was an instantaneous thing; it was, you know, a thousand or a couple of thousand people. But the folks that are organized around the EBDI stuff, they’re turning out hundreds of people every time.

LiUNA started in a church – organizers hoped for 200 tops and 1,000 turned up

And how did that start? LiUNA hosted a forum in a church, and they said, we want—we’re trying to organize around jobs here, we’re trying to get jobs from folks in this community, so come out and talk to us about your job situation. They ended up having folks lined up around the block. They had 1,000 people turn out for that meeting. They were expecting to accommodate a couple of hundred. They had 1,000 people turn out for that meeting. Richie Armstrong, who’s the main organizer of Churches and Communities United now, he went to that meeting looking for a job. He ended up becoming an organizer of Churches and Communities United. And they’re turning out literally—like, they called for a demonstration. They’re turning out hundreds of folks. And they’re organizing in the black community. And, you know, the first rally I went to, I was like, I know no one here. And they thought that I was probably a hostile entity going to EBDI as a developer, and they were like, are you with us, or are you against us? And I was like, give me a sign.

JAY — Alright. Well, thank you all for joining us. And we’ll pick this up in a few weeks and we will—it will be an ongoing discussion, and we will add some more people to it. Thanks for joining us on The Real News Network, from Baltimore.

Fair Use Notice: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing

“We need YOU to participate in the Occupy change movement” –Activist filmmaker

“All that is required is the willingness to see the world as it is and decide that you were going to be part of the solution.”

No 571 Posted by fw September 19, 2012

“You know, in the past year we can now talk about capitalism as not, you know, something that’s the be-all and the end-all. We can question it without being painted red and painted into a corner. So in the infancy of the movement, we’ve accomplished that, opened up the door for people to think about a new way, a new system that should govern the way they go about their lives.” —Dennis Trainor Jr.

Filmmaker Dennis Trainor Jr. talks about his new film and his hopes for the future of the Occupy Movement in an interview on The Real News Network (TRNN). Trainer acknowledges up front that he’s not a policy wonk; he’s just an ordinary guy making films that he hopes will motivate other ordinary folks to participate in change. The 10-minute video is embedded below followed by TRNN’s transcript with my added subheadings and text highlighting. At the very end of the post DON’T MISS a full-length video of Dennis’ documentary. Enjoy.

American Autumn: An Occudoc, Dennis Trainor Jr. interviewed by Paul Jay, Senior Editor, TRNN, September 18, 2012

TRANSCRIPT

Paul Jay — Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore. A new documentary called American Autumn: An Occudoc essentially invites people to join the Occupy movement. Here’s a little clip from the film.

Unidentified — There is something more important than the richest people becoming richer when we have the highest rate of child poverty in the industrialized world. When is enough enough?

Unidentified (Voiceover) — You know that scene from the Oliver Stone film Wall Street when Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in a role that would win him an Oscar, appears at a shareholders meeting of a company, Teldar Paper, to defend his actions and his grotesque worldview and delivers the now famous speech where he says:

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) — “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”

Jay – Now joining us to talk about his film, from Groton, Massachusetts, is Dennis Trainor Jr. He’s currently the host of a web series, Acronym TV. He’s been writing and producing editorial video commentaries since 2007, published over 800 of these short videos, many of which have gone viral on YouTube. He was an adviser, a media adviser for the Kucinich campaign. And he’s the writer, producer, and director of this newly released documentary, American Autumn: An Occudoc. So, Dennis, just give us a little outline of the film, what you hope to accomplish with it.

“Occupy is still the best chance of getting our country back”

Trainor – Well, I hope to entertain people and answer the question, why Occupy? I’m looking at the Occupy movement not as a series of single issues but, say, people interested in single-payer, people interested in the antiwar movement or just people interested in anti-austerity measures can choose to fight alone, or they can choose to get under the big banner of Occupy and push that fight up the hill together, so that the single issues—working alone, standing alone, people on the far left have been working and mostly failing to demonstrate any successful victories for the past several generations. So in my opinion, Occupy—and I think Occupy’s still a baby and the future of it has yet to be written—is the best chance that we have of getting our country back and moving the center back left.

Jay – One of the ideas in the film, I think, that comes out very strongly is there needs to be a counternarrative to the presidential elections in this next coming period. And while I understand that the idea that whether one section or the other of the elite gets to rule can’t be the only choice for people, do you not think there needs to be some kind of engagement, some form of electoral strategy for this movement? And I say some form of electoral strategy, ’cause at the end if you don’t have one, at best you are trying to just ask for and influence the current parties, whichever one’s in power, to do something, which one of the voices in your film says people should stop doing.

“There’s no Messiah going to get elected by this system and deliver hope and change we could believe in.”

Trainor – There’s a big strain within the movement, a big thread within the movement of people saying, we should not be asking this system for anything—we shouldn’t be asking them for permission, we shouldn’t be asking them to improve our lives. We should instead create our own world. Now, that’s a big dream, and I don’t see that happening in the short term. But Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign speaks very eloquently about this.

~~~

Bill Moyer, Activist, Exec. Dir. Backbone Society — Some of us knew better, that you can’t—there’s no Messiah going to get elected by this system and deliver hope and change we could believe in.

Unidentified (Voiceover) — So how will the Occupy movement that has wisely stayed away from promoting political parties or individual politicians navigate the minefield of the potentially co-opting force that is the presidential election cycle?

~~~

Occupy should not look to the electoral process for solutions

Trainor – So voting, yes, people should go and vote their conscience or they should vote tactically, they should do what they will. I don’t think that this movement should be wasting too much time or energy on the electoral process. We saw big fights within the movement happening about—in the wake of the Madison, Wisconsin, failed recall effort of Scott Walker and people splitting hairs over strategy and should we back Democrats who are only slightly better than Scott Walker—the Democrat that was put up against Scott Walker there was almost as anti-union as Walker himself.

So should we be—is it true to say Obama is a more attractive presidential candidate, a little more—yes—than Mitt Romney? Of course. Am I going to personally waste much time working or campaigning for the Obama administration? No, of course not.

Jay – And what about some of the alternative parties that espouse many of the ideas that you see in the Occupy movement, whether it’s the Rocky Anderson candidacy with the Justice Party or Jill Stein with the Green Party? What’s your attitude towards that?

Trainor – I think that the Green Party has been working towards a lot of the things that most people within the Occupy movement who are very young and newly awakened to the movement—the Green parties were working towards those for decades unsuccessfully. Part of that could be some organizational problems within the Green Party, but a bigger part of it, as Ralph Nader has pointed out on Real News over and time and time again, is the exclusion from—any other candidates from the conversation.

So I think that, you know, for people who live in states that Obama’s going to carry, if you’re really worried about that, if you can’t find it within you to vote your conscience and find a candidate that you are attracted to, then you can vote tactically and give your vote to Jill Stein. Now, maybe the Green Party and Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala can get a little bit more of a slice of the conversation if they get 2 or 3 or 4 percent. This is a tactical vote. And for me, that’s how I approach the election. But I don’t think people should take electoral advice from me. I’ve never voted for a winner.

Jay – Now, in a longer-term way—this isn’t going to happen this round, and it’s hard to say how many years it would take, but there seems to be, in my view, a kind of false dichotomy. There’s either movement or there’s electoral process. And one would think—I would think if you look at places even like Egypt where you had a massive movement but very little for—parties ready to take—participate in the electoral process, except Muslim Brotherhood, and so you wound up having this mass—it’s hard to imagine a bigger mass movement than what happened in Cairo and across Egypt, but completely unable to take advantage of the electoral process. I mean, what I’m asking is: doesn’t there need to be both, not one or the other?

Trainor – You know, I think that’s very possible. And one of the things that I try to present in the movie is I don’t try to present myself as a policy wonk or a talking head that would normally be on a show like yours. I’m a regular guy who lives on a main street in a small New England town, who looks at the world kind of honestly and thinks that it’s completely screwed up

~~~

“This movie is an invitation for you to join the Occupy movement”

Trainor – I mentioned at the beginning that this movie is an invitation for you to join the Occupy movement, but there are no membership dues, no papers to sign. All that is required is the willingness to see the world as it is and decide that you were going to be part of the solution. Occupy is less of an organization and more of an organism, a living, breathing, multi-tentacled force that refuses to find a niche or be pushed into a corner. This organism is still a baby, and the narrative it will be telling in the years to come is yours to write.

~~~

“Greed is a homicidal force in our culture and we need a cultural shift”

Trainor – [snip] greed is a homicidal force in our culture and that we need a cultural shift. And some day, if we can shift the culture, then perhaps we can shift the body of government that governs for, of, and by that culture. Right now, to say that we have a government of, for, and by the people is a cruel joke. You know, Citizens United may have been the last nail in the coffin, but the giveaway and the corporate takeover of our government’s been a process that’s been going on for a long time.

Is this really a moral problem (greed) or is this a problem inherent in the capitalist system?

Jay – Well, yeah, I do want to take up this concept of greed as the problem. You know, in your film you have—as we showed in the clip, you talk about Gordon Gekko’s piece about greed is good in the Oliver Stone film Wall Street. And there was a mass movement against greed, and it had great effect, and that’s called early Christianity, and it eventually got assimilated by the state. And part of the issue is, I think, that—is there’s too much emphasis on the idea of the morality rather than, you know, the fundamentals of the system, and the most fundamental thing about the system, how stuff is owned. I mean, I don’t know how many ordinary people, if they were given controlling shares, or even just a big stake of Goldman Sachs, you know, wouldn’t all of a sudden discover greed is good, in the sense that it’s sort of inherent in the fact that if you own the commanding heights of the economy and corporations are about making maximum profit, not modest profits, not reasonable profits—you know, that is the essence of a corporation, to make maximum profits. Then why is it about greed? Why isn’t it about who owns it? And then the issue of public ownership obviously emerges.

Trainor – Paul, I do think it is a moral issue that I hope that the Occupy movement can awaken something in a culture that sees a shift in that. And like you said, you know, in the past year we can now talk about capitalism as not, you know, something that’s the be-all and the end-all. We can question it without being painted red and painted into a corner. So in the infancy of the movement, we’ve accomplished that, opened up the door for people to think about a new way, a new system that should govern the way they go about their lives.

SEE ALSO

• American Autumn: an Occudoc (full length)

Fair Use Notice: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing

US Occupy movement has lost momentum: Shamus Cooke explains why

Meanwhile, Occupy Movements in Europe and elsewhere surge ahead. Why the difference?

No 407 Posted by fw, February 12, 2012

Shamus Cooke

“A healthy debate has finally gripped the Occupy Movement: there is now a discussion over strategy. Most Occupiers have learned that raw enthusiasm alone cannot bring victory to a social movement; ideas matter too. Action divorced from strategy equals wasted energy, divisiveness, diversions and unnecessary mistakes. Not all tactics push the movement forward. . . . Why this debate now? Anyone paying attention can tell that the Occupy Movement has lost momentum.” —Shamus Cooke

To read Cooke’s original article, click on the linked title below. Alternatively, you can read a reposting of his piece below, which includes my added subheadings and text highlighting.

Will Occupy Spring Forward Or Meltdown? by Shamus Cooke, Countercurrents.org, February 12, 2012

Raw enthusiasm alone cannot bring victory to a social movement

A healthy debate has finally gripped the Occupy Movement: there is now a discussion over strategy. Most Occupiers have learned that raw enthusiasm alone cannot bring victory to a social movement; ideas matter too. Action divorced from strategy equals wasted energy, divisiveness, diversions and unnecessary mistakes. Not all tactics push the movement forward.

The Movement has lost momentum and participants

Why this debate now? Anyone paying attention can tell that the Occupy Movement has lost momentum; the winter months showcased increasing amount of actions combined with fewer and fewer people. After taking the lead in national Occupy enthusiasm, Occupy Oakland is doing some soul searching after an attempted building takeover resulted in massive police violence.

It’s not just the winter doldrums because the movements in Europe, Middle East and Russia are active and growing.

Some Occupiers claim that Occupy was simply in winter hibernation, waiting for its own Arab Spring. But the movement in Europe has grown during the same winter months. The movements in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere too have voted with their feet against hibernation.

A social movements requires masses of participants but the US Movement has been shedding numbers

A social movement, by definition, requires masses of participants, without which momentum grinds to a halt; the movement ceases to move. Numbers matter, and Occupy has been shedding numbers for months.

Reason for decline: Occupy has swung too far left leaving moderate Americans in its wake

A major reason for this is because Occupiers have swerved drastically left, leaving the broader 99% ashore. If this trend isn’t corrected soon, Occupy will resemble the pre-Occupy left: small isolated groups pursuing their own issues, disconnected from the very broader population that must be involved to actually win any significant demands.

This is the original sin of Occupy: Without first sinking its roots deep enough into the broader population, Occupy marched quickly to the left, unconcerned with who was following. Hopefully Occupy can correct this mistake in time, since not doing so would be fatal fast.

To recover its momentum, Occupy must appeal to the working class masses

Hopefully, Occupiers have passed through the movement’s immature adolescence. For example, Occupy must shed its focus on radical-themed direct actions that inevitably attract only a couple hundred Occupiers but no one else. Again, this was the strategy of pre-Occupy that has already proved its lack of worth. Mass direction action is truly effective, but that raises the critical question: how to bring the masses of working people to Occupy, and vice versa?

European Occupiers, e.g. Greece, are highly focused on bringing down unpopular governments

Europe has already answered this question, having passed through the adolescence of its own movement, and now focused on bringing down unpopular governments. Greece, for example, went through an immature stage of rioting that showcased much bravery but could provide no real answers. Now, however, a massive workers movement has emerged, the entire 99% is directly involved in producing gigantic demonstrations that soon evolved into one-day General Strikes, and then two-day General Strikes. A common demand in Greece is now for an “indefinite general strike” to bring down the government and stop austerity, i.e., the massive cuts to public programs — education, health care, social services — and jobs.

Demands matter. They must engage all working people, sufficiently agitated enough to take to the streets

Typically, an effective general strike — one where the entire 99% participates — happens after a prolonged struggle over demands that affect all working people, where they are agitated enough to take action in the streets. A general strike is the culmination of this movement, itself the byproduct of reaching out to and connecting with broader and broader layers of working people.

In the US, labor and Occupy have failed to take on key issues

Throughout Europe working people are inspired to fight against austerity. Workers in the United States would likely also be inspired to fight against austerity. Unfortunately, there is no venue to do this. The labor and Occupy Movements have failed to take on the key issues that actually have the potential to unite the U.S. population in a European style social movement.

And those key issues, include . . .

Austerity is happening fast in the United States; on a state-by-state level massive cuts are being pushed through while taxes on the rich stay low. Health care, education, and social services are being killed on a city, state, and federal level. Public sector jobs are being slashed in an epoch of mass joblessness. Medicare and Medicaid are undergoing a very public attack and Social Security is on the chopping block.

Occupy is too radical; labor is too timid

Yes, Occupy is too “radical” to unite around these demands; while the labor movement has acted too timidly. Some Occupiers avoid these demands because they fear Democrat co-optation; labor avoids seriously pressing for these demands because they don’t want to upset the Democrats. This is exactly the point: the Democrats — with the Republicans — are the ones pushing these cuts. Fighting austerity in the United States directly challenges the two-party system, while engaging the broader population into struggle.

Without struggle there is no movement. If working people do not identify with the issues that Occupy is fighting for, they will not join, and Occupy’s issues will remain un-achievable.

Occupy Oakland’s call for a general strike is unlikely to succeed unless . . .

Occupy Oakland has called for a general strike on May Day. Unless conditions change fast, it is unlikely to succeed, and more likely it will put further distance between Occupy and working people, since the 99% will not take Occupy seriously if it calls for actions it cannot organize. Occupy would do better to follow Europe’s example: organize around demands that connect with working people, so that the real power of the majority of working people can be mobilized in the streets.

Shamus Cooke is a social worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org)

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