David Graeber: Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots

[RufusTFirefly]

Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots

The 'Occupy' movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles.

New York, NY - Almost every time I'm interviewed by a mainstream journalist about Occupy Wall Street I get some variation of the same lecture:

"How are you going to get anywhere if you refuse to create a leadership structure or make a practical list of demands? And what's with all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers? Don't you realise all this radical language is going to alienate people? You're never going to be able to reach regular, mainstream Americans with this sort of thing!"

If one were compiling a scrapbook of worst advice ever given, this sort of thing might well merit an honourable place. After all, since the financial crash of 2007, there have been dozens of attempts to kick-off a national movement against the depredations of the United States' financial elites taking the approach such journalists recommended. All failed. It was only on August 2, when a small group of anarchists and other anti-authoritarians showed up at a meeting called by one such group and effectively wooed everyone away from the planned march and rally to create a genuine democratic assembly, on basically anarchist principles, that the stage was set for a movement that Americans from Portland to Tuscaloosa were willing to embrace.

Source: Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots

[groovedaddy]

1. This should stir the pot nicely. n.t

[RufusTFirefly]

2. This gets to the heart of what some people don't "get" about OWS:

One cannot ... create peace by training for war, equality by creating top-down chains of command, or, for that matter, human happiness by becoming grim joyless revolutionaries who sacrifice all personal self-realisation or self-fulfillment to the cause.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

But one thing overwhelming numbers of Americans do feel is that something is terribly wrong with their country, that its key institutions are controlled by an arrogant elite, that radical change of some kind is long since overdue. They're right. It's hard to imagine a political system so systematically corrupt - one where bribery, on every level, has not only been made legal, but soliciting and dispensing bribes has become the full-time occupation of every American politician. The outrage is appropriate. The problem is that up until September 17, the only side of the spectrum willing to propose radical solutions of any sort was the Right.

As the history of the past movements all make clear, nothing terrifies those running the US more than the danger of democracy breaking out. The immediate response to even a modest spark of democratically organised civil disobedience is a panicked combination of concessions and brutality. How else can one explain the recent national mobilisation of thousands of riot cops, the beatings, chemical attacks, and mass arrests, of citizens engaged in precisely the kind of democratic assemblies the Bill of Rights was designed to protect, and whose only crime - if any - was the violation of local camping regulations?

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112872835904508.html

Thanks for the thread, RufusTFirefly.

[qb]

4. Alcoholics Anonymous is an extremely successful movement based on principles of anarchy

A well-written analysis whose author is, of course, anonymous
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38398959/Benign-Anarchy-Voluntary-association-mutual-aid-and-Alcoholics-Anonymous

[RufusTFirefly]

5. A lot of people have some pretty flawed conceptions of anarchism

I know. I was once one of those people.

[nichomachus]

6. Its met the same fate

as "socialist," "liberal," and "environmentalist."

[Uncle Joe]

7. What words describing any desired ideology will follow those and where does it end?

You have to fight for what you believe in regardless of the corporate media propaganda or nothing will ever change except for the worse.

[RufusTFirefly]

10. The brainwashing we all receive is pretty horrifying...

... especially because most of us are unaware that we're receiving it. Smart people are just as susceptible to propaganda as dumb people, perhaps even more so, because they feel as though they are somehow immune to it.

If you opposed the illegal Iraq invasion in 2003, you were almost obligated to explain that it didn't mean you supported Saddam Hussein.

That's because the issue had been totally molded and shaped by corporate media.

The same applies to "anarchism" and all the other "bad words" that Nicho has listed.

Uncle Joe is right that you still have to keep fighting regardless, but it is frustrating when you're constantly called upon to address "When did you stop beating your wife?" type questions first before you even have a chance to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes you don't even get that chance.

[zalinda]

8. And, of course, it is in not only a foreign site, but

Aljazeera.com, a Middle Eastern news site. We really do live in a topsy turvy world. I remember when our reporters were the best in the world.

zalinda

[nichomachus]

9. Well, AJ has hired a lot of former BBC folks

[RufusTFirefly]

11. Ironically, "Al Jazeera" triggers the same knee-jerk reaction as "anarchist" or "environmentalist"

Among the accomplishments of the Bush Propaganda Machine was the perception that AJ was some sort of rogue, terrorist-enabling news operation.

The excellent documentary Control Room belies that perception. It is a highly professional organization with, just as Nicho suggests, a lot of former BBC folks, including David Frost.