# OCCUPY: Guide to the Perplexed...

Dedicated to all Occupiers everywhere. Keep the faith, and keep it peaceful...

Copyright: Nadin Abbott 2012

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Table of Contents

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Occupy: A Short Analysis.

Introduction.

Occupy Wall Street came from nowhere. This is the meme from power and media elites. So first things first, what is Occupy Wall Street? In the most basic of terms “Occupy” is a grassroots social movement that took the country by storm. It is driven by real social needs and economic inequalities. It is not accidental and it is a reaction to real social and macro-economic issues that have affected American society for over a generation. It is also the first global movement of the computer age. It is part of a continuum ranging from London, to Madrid and yes, Cairo. It is part of a reaction by workers around the world to the systemic effects of globalization.

This movement is partially driven by powerful social media which plays a critical role in the logistics and organization of the movement. Without modern-day social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, the movement would not have been as successful as fast as it has. If we were still living in the mimeograph age the movement would have yet to have a real effect in both the language and attitudes of the Political Elite. Social media has influenced some of the forms this movement has taken. History also influences the forms taken in the United States, where the last large grassroots movement had it’s leaders taken out by assassins. This means that this is a leaderless movement, and the authorities are having a hard time understanding it. In fact, they are still demanding to know who the leaders are, even at this late date. In time this observer expects an actual hierarchy to emerge, but for the moment it has none.

Leaderless movements are not the norm in the grassroots. Therefore I will have to get this formality out of the way. I do not speak for OWS. In-fact, as far as I can tell, nobody really speaks for OWS. This is why Anonymous and the V mask have become the symbols of the movement. I'd hazard that this is quite a unique innovation in social movements.1 Given all social movements adapt to their present circumstance one has to wonder if this is also partly due to the United States Patriot Act and the last ten years of a closing society. Participants are very open though to new comers, and General Assemblies are the epitome of open direct self governance. Moreover, I can find out what any given Occupation is planning from the web and their facebook pages. But the lack of clear leadership is probably a response to increased police powers.2. Only time will tell how fast the movement will develop a sense of operational security as the police continues to pressure it.

Why write an essay this early in the process? What is to be gained by this? Partly because the movement is hard to understand if one only reads the Elite Press. Moreover, the movement is a real response to a real world crisis. But the main reason is that Occupy Wall Street already has had a significant effect in the political conversation. For example the main issue of conversation has already changed from deficit reduction to income inequality. This is an important point that is easy to miss or even easier ignore. This is especially the case when we find ourselves listening only to the Establishment media blather telling us how much the movement is dead.3 The movement has had direct effects in the political speech, to the point that the President has adopted Occupy narratives in Political speeches. The question is how long until those narratives become policy, or whether they will become policy.

I need to again emphasize that I do not speak for the Occupy movement. Anybody who makes this claim either is pretentious, or does not understand the movement. This is an effective strategy when dealing with the State. This will be explored later in detail when dealing with the dynamic between the State and the Occupiers.

What is this analysis about? It is about the effects of the movement in the political discourse. It is also an analysis of the power relationship between the movement and the State. Power, and who exercises it, is an essential component of this and how it has evolved. It's also a good example of the rise of a new totalitarianism in the United States. This new Totalitarianism does not require the traditional tools of the State to make it’s will known. In-fact, it can and will allow open criticism of it, to maintain an illusion of freedom, even when it still closes in on the citizen and how far the citizen can be critical without fear of retribution. In effect, the state pushes for compliance of critical matters, while still allowing the citizen to complain about it.4 In some ways the reaction by the State has been predictable when dealing with an irritant that has risen to question power relationships in the economic and political order. All social movements, whether they succeed or not, deal with this early in their history, when they are seen as an irritant, or worst a direct attack. Nor does it matter if this is the United States, or Egypt. Any open challenge is answered in similar ways.

The rise of Occupy took the State by surprise. State reaction has been, to a point bumbling, but predictable. They know they need to shut it down. It is seen as a direct challenge to the status quo, and the social order. And let's be honest, it is. What the movement also clearly signifies is the failure of the economic and political system as it stands right now. This cannot be allowed to stand, since this challenge lays open the lie that the political system has become. It also exposes the corruption in the system.

Suffice it to say OWS is not just a national phenomena. It is quite frankly the first international movement of the twenty first century. It is a reaction to the new globalized economy that has benefited a relatively small number of people and corporations. Why it has risen in multiple languages and across borders and cultures. Why Tahrir Square is a symbol to the people in New York or Los Angeles, and why Egyptian Unions bought pizza for people in Wisconsin when they protested Governor Walker during his attacks on labor. As such this is a direct challenge to the new global economic order..5

As far as the United States is concerned OWS is also a direct challenge to the political duopoly in DC and levels of corruption and cronyism not seen in generations. The political class has failed to understand the plight of the people since most in the political class do not share the same challenges. The bubble they live has grown to the point that they are beyond caring for how most Americans live.6 Whether this bubble is reality in Washington or populist perception, it does not matter. At this point perception has become reality, signaled in the approval numbers of Congress. To the members of OWS it is obvious there is a problem. And while individual movement members might not know the exact diagnosis, they understand something is broken in DC. In-fact, the Declaration from the New York General Assembly was quite clear on it. Never mind this declaration has been ignored by media elites, since it belies the claim that the movement has no established goals.

Method.

There is not much published yet on the Occupy movement. So a lot of this essay is based on individual observations and interviews at the Occupy San Diego Encampment, as well as press coverage. American corporate media has had spotty coverage which at times ignores a whole universe of facts. In fact, three months plus Corporate Elite media is still is asking what do Occupiers want? So quite a few of the coverage has happened in smaller press systems, such as The Nation, as well as foreign press, such as the Guardian. Our establishment press has studiously gone out of it’s way to not explain what this is about.7 Partly this can be understood since they are part of the problem. It actually makes sense that it is not in their best interest to cover this story and spread it in a positive way.

This essay also relies on field interviews with Occupiers at Civic Center Plaza, renamed by Occupiers "Freedom Plaza." This is important since the best way to find things out is by actually talking to people. This will answer the basic question: Why are people are taking to the streets? Moreover, I will be the first to admit, there are some fringe views, like in all grassroots movements, but they are quite minority. The local movement has attracted one person who is a fan of ending the Fed. In fact he precedes the movement at Civic Center. For reasons that will make perfect sense, it has also attracted a few young anarchists, and one 9.11 truther. They are quite the minority and add some flavor to the occupation.

Any errors in this work are my own. Nor should they be interpreted as errors made by the movement. Moreover, given the nature of the movement it will be easy to make errors in interpretation, especially this early in its history. Complete scholarly interpretation of the meaning of OWS will have to wait. It is way too early to do that. In fact, it will be years before we can make a complete and fair judgment on the meaning of OWS.

1 Historically movements are quite hierarchical with set leaders. These are easily identifiable and targeted by power elites. But the OWS have no identified leaders. They are quite possibly unique. We have seen systems of leaderless resistance as a form of guerrilla war. But as a social movement this is quite unique.

2 Wolf, Naomi. The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. (Chelsea Green: Vermont, 2007) In this book Naomi Wolf explains how societies close down as perceived external and internal threats grow. She went in depth into how the Patriot Act has already cooled down the realm of possible discussion and how American Society was closing. The Occupiers are also challenging this closing openly.

3 The best example of this probably is Bill O'Reilly Talking Points Memo of November 16th, 2011. During that program, after the eviction of OWS at Zucotti Park, Mr. O'Reilly declared OWS dead. This was to be wishful thinking on the part of movement conservatives who were surprised by an effective national day of action.

4 As Sheldon Woolin argues in Democracy inc, the country has gone through a complete paradigmatic change, embracing empire at the level of the ruling elite. In this sense we are in a new way of looking at the world. I will argue 2008 is the moment it became obvious to the vox populi. The problem is that the state now has a direct challenge to it in the form of OWS. The movement is democratic, with a small d. But the Empire can't afford anything but the semblance of democracy.

5 During the height of the Wisconsin Protest, the Egyptian Labor Federation called Ryan’s Pizza and placed an order for the people occupying government buildings. In fact, according to Ryan Pizza Employees orders came from all States in the Union and around the world.

6 Part of the problem is the number of members of congress that are millionaires. They really have little in common with how the rest of the country lives. When twenty four percent of congress is very wealthy, and money flows, they have little interest in fixing the problem.

Another good example of the bubble was the bet of ten thousand dollars between two Republican Presidential candidates on the debate stage. For Mr. Romney 10, 000 dollars are not that much money. For most Americans it can be a third of annual income, or more.

7 During the December 12th, 2011 port closure Elite American Media never asked why they were there in the middle of a Pacific Storm. The Guardian in the UK led their coverage with the support for the International Longshoremen Union, from now on referred as ILWU. The Union has been in a tussle with their employer for over a year, but the No Strike clause makes it impossible for the Union to openly declare a wild cat strike. They cannot openly support this either, but talking to San Diego members of the Union and truckers, there was little animosity towards the Occupiers. .

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Chapter One: A Brief History of OWS.

Social movements do not just appear fully formed Athena-like, from Zeus’s head. "Occupy" has a history, and one that for the moment we can partially guess at, but as we get distance it will be easier to see. There are social and economic forces that led to this movement, and some of them have been taking form for over a decade.1 In time historians will be able to trace this back to the point where it started to gel, but that will take years. So for the moment I will try to detail some of the forces that in my view are the origins of this movement. Some of them go all the way back to the 1990s and the early days of globalization and the World Trade Organization. Regardless, while I will concentrate on the American incarnation of the Occupy movement, one should never forget that this a global social movement.2

One of the chief drivers of this movement is the process of globalization. This process has flattened wage scales across the world and taken quite a bit of perceived and real economic opportunity from people, and destroyed local economies to the benefit of a few transnational corporations. This has also led to a concerted attack on Unionized work forces around the world, and the prevention of the rise of Unions where there were none. Free trade agreements place corporations above the interests of the people of the nations entering into these agreements. They allow corporations to claim financial losses from environmental or labor laws. In3 the United States the people no longer have the same economic opportunities they once had. Many of the people in the Occupy movement might not understand the details of this, but they know in their gut that the “American dream” as they knew it, is over, and that the system is rigged against them. In personal conversations I heard this repeatedly from older Occupiers. They came out into the cold to try to make it better for their children and grandchildren.4 The wish for the return of real economic opportunities for the American people. They want jobs, good paying jobs.

Starting with the PATCO strike in the early years of the Reagan administration, we have seen an organized attack on Unions. This reached the natural end as the last bastion of unionized workers, that is public sector workers, are now under direct attack. This has woken people up; after thirty plus years of propaganda, the people have been slow to react5.

Starting with Wisconsin people became angry. Traditional political analysis tells us that it was Republican overreach by Governor Scott Walker who did not run on taking bargaining rights away. It was not just overreach, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In Wisconsin the people took over public spaces just as they did in Egypt. When OWS exploded this was exactly the same tactic used. Public spaces, and their occupation, have become a theme of the movement. The movement relied heavily on social media. It also depended on people far away feeding the protesters. It was no longer a local event. Unlike other protests in the recent past this took a national if not outright and international flavor. It fed into the continuum of the Arab Spring where activists in the West maintained internet proxies for the people at Tahrir square. In some ways they returned the favor. This is how global this is, and most observers have missed it. Partly this is not easy to comprehend since there is no example of this in the recent past. The closest would truly be 1848, the year of Revolution. But even that one did not have the technological advantages this movement has developed6.

For the elite in the United States this movement came as a surprise. Yet it is a reaction to a new global economic order. While the Elites call this a market based economy, which is capitalist at it’s core, in reality this is not a traditional capitalist system of exchange. This new system should be best be described as a new form of mercantilism. It is different from the traditional eighteenth century system. In the eighteenth century it involved the export of finished goods from the center of the Empire, and the importation of raw materials. In many ways the new economy built in the globalized world, raw goods are exported from advanced economies and manufactured goods are built in less developed economies. This has flipped the order of the economy and de-industrialized advanced economies. In effect advanced economies did all the industrial work, and developing economies imported those goods. This has flipped and it is accelerating.

This flip started with the push for globalization and Corporations searching for cheaper labor pools, as well as lax environmental regulations. It was promoted by the Chicago School of Economics and popularized by Thomas Friedman. In fact, for Thomas Friedman the origin of this lies in the Communications Revolution of the 1960s, and the rise of the Internet. This led to a revolution in the supply chain that allows industry to keep an eye on developing technologies and projects far afield.7

I will admit, calling this economic system mercantilism makes the mind reel since it carries many other names. Politicians and conservative economists proclaim that this system works best with as few regulations as possible, nor does it matter if monopolies rise. These monopolies work under efficiencies of scale that will benefit everybody. To say that this is Capitalism as defined by the founder of Capitalism, one Adam Smith. would be silly. In fact, the system currently at work has far more in common with that Adam Smith wrote against in The Wealth of Nations. This is especially true of monopolies that destroy local economies.

Admittedly this is not just classic mercantilism as understood in the eighteenth century. It has been infused by a deep layer of consumerism. It is essential for the economy that the population consumes. At this point our national economy depends on that as the engine that drives the economy. This accounts for about seventy percent of economic activity. Granted, this number includes things like rent, utilities and other necessities, but this makes growth non sustainable in the long run, especially when part of the goal is to continue to grow the economy while keeping wages flat.

Yet, this tension is critical. The Economic system has two competing goals. On the one hand it needs salaries and benefits to flatten across the world, to benefit the few. On the other it depends on disposable income to continue to grow that same economy. This is why there is an open attack on the middle class, which is being systematically decimated, while we are told that people do not spend enough to keep the economy going. These two goals are mutually exclusive. And at the same time, as salaries flatten, Americans feel under pressure from multiple sides and see their future become a nightmare.8