Just before Christmas, I wrote a
post about what the second phase of the Occupy
movement might look like. Moving beyond camping, I suggested that we
focus our energy and resources on developing local assemblies - in
neighborhoods, workplaces and other pre-existing communities. I
encouraged occupiers to redouble our efforts to find ways to
collaborate with existing organizations, including labor unions,
civic organizations and faith groups. Rather than glorifying some
radical camping vanguard, I proposed that we place our focus on
developing stable, rooted networks that could endure in the ongoing
struggle for economic justice and democratic reform in the United
States.
A month later, it is even more clear to
me that the Occupy movement must develop a robust strategy for
promoting new bases of popular power to confront the injustices that
are resulting from a corporate take-over of our economic life, public
discourse and government. This will not happen if we continue to
place our focus on maintaining a camping presence in public parks, an
effort which drains our attention and resources as we struggle to
combat drunkenness, abusive behavior and interpersonal squabbles
which are magnified by the trials of full-time winter camping.
The most troubling aspect of pouring
our time and energy into the drama of public encampments is that it
has the effect of narrowing the movement. The longer we relate to
Occupy as a camping phenomenon, the more we restrict the movement to
the tiny minority who are able and willing to spend their days and
nights in freezing public parks. While the act of physically
reclaiming public space was a radical act in September and October,
it has since become an elitist exercise, alienating most Americans
from any sense that they, too, could be part of the movement.
The time has come for us to open this
movement to everyone who feels that there is something wrong with a
society in which corporations and the super-rich have more voice than
ordinary people, and in which bankers and oil tycoons are being
subsidized while millions of working class people struggle to provide
for their families. The time has come to make the transition from
being a movement primarily based in symbolic theater to being one
that develops sustainable networks of popular power.
For the last seventy five years, the
voice of ordinary Americans has been increasingly overwhelmed by the
dominance of corporate wealth. Labor unions have been eviscerated,
and neighborhoods have in many cases simply become places where
workers are housed, rather than communities that can stand together
for their shared needs and concerns. Our civil society has become a
hollow satellite, orbiting obligingly around the black hole of
corporate power. For generations, the ability of ordinary working
people to have a voice in the direction of their neighborhoods, towns
and nation has been gradually usurped by organized corporate
interests. It is time to reclaim our voice.
We can do this by taking the principles
at the heart of the Occupy movement and applying them to our local
communities. We can adapt consensus decision-making to our
neighborhoods, paring our assemblies with potlucks, barbeques and
block parties. We can organize our offices and faith communities. We
can break out of the false separation of home, work and religious
life, inviting all realms of our existence to be transformed by the
struggle for justice and truth. And in this struggle, we will find
not only the economic integrity that we so desperately need; we will
find also the real human community that we have been longing for. In
our work for a more just social order, we will discover a more
intimately connected common life.
Where do you see possible connecting
points between the communities and organizations where you are
already involved, and the struggle for economic justice? What are
ways that we can integrate the whole of our lives - home, work,
school and religious life - with our calling to be peacemakers and
truth-speakers? How can we open the Occupy movement up to every man,
woman and child who seeks an Earth restored?
4 comments:
I'd like to suggest that you take a look at the history of attempts to practice the sort of democracy you are talking about here: New England town meetings, the Paris Commune of 1848, the Workers' and Peasants' soviets of revolutionary Russia, the Industrial Workers of the World, and so forth. No need to re-invent the wheel. There have been successes and failures, and as the failures have been so often catastrophic, it makes sense to learn from them.
can you give us some sites to check
yes lets open up discussions
For groups to partner- look at parts of this site, especially the Critical Librarianship post.http://librariansbuildcommunities.wordpress.com/ Only please don't do anything to hinder my library's services. We are too busy helping people fill out job applications, practice speaking English, find school and college material, do tax returns, find medical info., etc.
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