TenthCircle Syndication

Thoughts on the past and future of OWS

2011-11-13T06:00:00Z

Occupy Wall Street started as a call to action by a little know Canadian anti-consumerist magazine, Ad Busters. I first saw it a couple months before, and figured it would not go anywhere. Now, months after it started, it has evolved into a world wide movement with international media attention.

One of the most frequent criticisms I have heard about OWS is that it has no demands, and therefore can not win. In fact, not having any demands has been critical in this stage of OWS. It has allowed the movement to draw in a wide range of people and ideas, not limiting people grouping around one issue.

More importantly, the lack of specific demands has not given those opposed to the movement a chance to move the debate to their terms. If OWS had come out with concrete demands in the beginning, the least popular would have been picked up by those wanting to stop the movement, and that would be the only thing talked about in relation to the movement. Even if there was not an unpopular demand, it would be trivial to spin one to be something completely different.

Instead, this has confounded the established powers. They don't know how to respond to something like this. They have resorted almost exclusively to ad-hominem attacks, calling the protesters a bunch of hippies and anarchists. This change has been both undaunting to those whom the movement aims to recruit and easily proved false.

Not only were the demands kept general, but the protests were too. They were against the 1, or banks in general. While specific banks were targeted on specific days, the message was clear. All of them are bad.

These strategies worked great in the beginning. Now that the movement has a great deal of momentum and energy it's time to think about what to do with it. Continuing to protest at banks and at Wall Street is still getting media attention, but that won't last. The country will get bored and move on. Winter is coming and this will almost certainly have an effect on the numbers in Zucotti Square park.

Furthermore, if OWS wants to keep the momentum it has, it is going to have to start winning more than just the right to stay in the park. Up until now, it has not actually changed anything that directly effects people outside of the protest.

Occupy Wall Street needs something that will get attention, sustain energy and mobilization, and directly help people. When looking for this, it helps to turn to NYC in the 1930s. The situation was much the same. There were few jobs, people were struggling to stay alive, and there was a movement of ordinary people that was fighting back. Instead of OWS, it was the Communist Party.

Harlem was hit especially hard by the great depression. It was predominately black, and many black families, lifted from poverty by the economic boom of the 20's, had just bought their first house. They were still paying back the loans from the bank. Other were still renting from mostly white landlords. When the depression hit, many of them stopped being able to pay their rent. Many people were evicted.

Mark Naison, professor of history at Fordham University, writes on tenant.net:

"By the fall of 1930, Communist-led Unemployed Councils had begun to experiment with two tactics that had a direct impact on the housing market ... The first of these, eviction resistance, proved to be one of the most effective weapons in the Party's arsenal. Coming upon instances where tenants had been forcibly evicted, Communist organizers would move the furniture back from the street to the apartment, while appealing to neighbors and passersby to resist marshals and police if the eviction were repeated ... Through the fall of 1930 and the spring and summer of 1931, Communists employed this tactic in almost every city neighborhood where they were active, although the bulk seem to have occurred in poor communities where the depression hit early and hard -- Harlem, the Lower East Side, Hell's Kitchen, the South Bronx, Brownsville, and Coney Island ... Hundreds, possibly thousands, of such incidents occurred during the early depression years; some of them led to confrontations with police in which hundreds of people participated, but most of them led to some peaceful resolution, be it retention of the apartment by the tenants or a delay in their departure. 'The practice of moving evicted families back into their homes has become frequent of late on the Lower East Side,' declared the New York Times in describing the arrest of a group of eviction protesters, 'but this was the first time that the police had arrived in time to seize any of the participants in such demonstrations.'"

These type of actions led to the Communist Party growing to it's largest size ever during the Great Depression. It received massive popular support from helping ordinary citizens with problems facing millions. Had they concentrated on getting legislation passed which allowed tenants to stay in the houses, it is doubtful they would have succeeded and certainly would not have grown as powerful among the working class.

This tactic could also help OWS. While it does not get to the root of the problem, it calls attention to it. It also shows an alternative to the current situation: what could be if not for our government and the banks.

If Occupy Wall Street can learn from and emulate this type of action it will be able to retain it's existing activists and grow its base with the working class.

Social Workers with Power:
My Vision for the Future of ASM

2011-11-10T06:00:00Z

The vast majority of students at UW-Madison either do not know what Student Council is and does, or do not have a favorable opinion of it. It's hard to get new students involved in ASM, and to get them active in campaigns.

I've often heard this blamed on the campus media. People feel that the Badger Herald and the Daily Cardinal do a bad job reporting the happenings of ASM. While this may well be true, it's hardly their fault that the campus papers are the only way that most students interface with student government. It's both disingenuous and lazy to shift all of the blame to the papers without taking a look at what ASM's elected representatives could be doing better.

If you take a look at how most student representatives see themselves and their jobs, there is a common thread, no matter their political ideology. They feel they are responsible for keeping the University headed in the right direction. They see a need to focus on important policy discussions that affect thousands of students, or even the entire university. Discussions and action around the New Badger Partnership and affordability dominate their time.

These things need to be done, and they need to be done well. However, I believe representatives have another, equally important responsibility, one that will connect them better to students and increase the profile of ASM on campus. A student should be able to come into the ASM office with a problem they are having at the university, whether it be with financial aid, housing, or their job, and they should be taken care of. An ASM representative should talk with them, and if it is reasonable, solve their problem. They should help students navigate the maze of administrative systems. In short, they should work as social workers, but social workers who actually have power to change the system when it does not serve the interests of the people it is for. This will have a significant positive impact on the view students have of ASM, and provide a good opportunity to bring people in and get them involved.

This does not require ASM representatives knowing the financial aid system inside out, or exactly how all the housing rules and regulations work. It simply requires that they know someone who does, and who can fix the problem, such as an administrator or staff member in that area. Instead of simply pointing the student to this person, the representative should contact the person who can fix it and request that the student's problem be fixed. A few days later, he/she should follow up with the student and the person helping.

If the student still has the problem, the issue should be pressed. If the administrator is dragging their feet, or refusing to help, the other avenues should be pursued, such as contacting a boss or co-worker. If this fails, the student on the shared governance committee relating to this area should be contacted. If none exists, or they are also not helpful, a new one should be put in place.

Most ASM members see their job in the same way that members of congress do, and act accordingly. This is the wrong model. They should act more like a city council member. And it's no wonder people tend to like their city council better than they do congress.

While interning at the office of a council member in New York City, I got to see the diverse range of constituents that came in and the problems they brought. Someone would call in with a problem with a noisy neighbor, and some one would walk in having a dispute with their landlord. People needed assistance getting low-income housing, or food stamps. In each of these cases, they had ether tried the traditional avenues or they had no idea where to start. When they contacted the city council member, they were taken care of and given the help they needed.

ASM is far from this right now, but it's possible to bring it closer. The hardest part is starting the ball rolling. Right now, new representative see what is current going on and copy that. If we can start slowly instilling a different culture now, future representatives will enter a different system.

Right now, there are not many people coming in needing help. This is not because students don't need it, it's because they don't see ASM as a resource for this. If students that need help start getting it, and enough publicity is received (possible with help from the press office), more people will start coming in.

In the end, it's up to the representatives how they act and what kind of a body they want ASM to be. I hope that they consider this the next time someone comes in needing help.

Images from Holland, July 25th

2011-06-25T05:00:00Z

Pictures from the houseboat I am staying on and the village it is in. (Click on Image)

Je Voir Le Tour De France

2011-06-24T05:00:00Z

Off to France

2011-06-21T05:00:00Z