The ‘Occupy’ movement
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Another worth while article to read. Obviously, not everything in it can be agreed by the WSM such as the call to vote for 3rd party candidates but nevertheless i highlight some of its more thoughtful sections http://www.alternet.org/economy/155432/colonized_by_corporations/?page=entire “Revolutions take time…The most effective revolutions, including the Russian Revolution, have been largely nonviolent. There are always violent radicals who carry out bombings and assassinations, but they hinder…more than help revolutions. …Radical violent groups cling like parasites to popular protests… Violent radicals are used by the state to justify harsh repression. They scare the mainstream from the movement. They thwart the goal of all revolutions, which is to turn the majority against an isolated and discredited ruling class. These violent fringe groups are seductive to those who yearn for personal empowerment through hyper-masculinity and violence, but they do little to advance the cause. The primary role of radical extremists, such as Maximilien Robespierre and Vladimir Lenin, is to hijack successful revolutions. They unleash a reign of terror, primarily against fellow revolutionaries, which often outdoes the repression of the old regime. They often do not play much of a role in building a revolution….” “The power of the Occupy movement is that it expresses the widespread disgust with the elites, and the deep desire for justice and fairness that is essential to all successful revolutionary movements. The Occupy movement will change and mutate, but it will not go away. It may appear to make little headway, but this is less because of the movement’s ineffectiveness and more because decayed systems of power have an amazing ability to perpetuate themselves through habit, routine and inertia. The press and organs of communication, along with the anointed experts and academics, tied by money and ideology to the elites, are useless in dissecting what is happening within these movements. They view reality through the lens of their corporate sponsors. They have no idea what is happening. Dying regimes are chipped away slowly and imperceptibly. The assumptions and daily formalities of the old system are difficult for citizens to abandon, even when the old system is increasingly hostile to their dignity, well-being and survival. Supplanting an old faith with a new one is the silent, unseen battle of all revolutionary movements. And during the slow transition it is almost impossible to measure progress.“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong,” Fanon wrote “When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.” The end of these regimes comes when old beliefs die and the organs of security, especially the police and military, abandon the elites and join the revolutionaries.” “A revolution has been unleashed across the globe. This revolution, a popular repudiation of the old order, is where we should direct all our energy and commitment. If we do not topple the corporate elites the ecosystem will be destroyed and massive numbers of human beings along with it. The struggle will be long. There will be times when it will seem we are going nowhere. Victory is not inevitable. But this is our best and only hope. The response of the corporate state will ultimately determine the parameters and composition of rebellion.”
Still plenty going on down on Wall Street it seems………http://www.nycga.net/events/
There’ll be a debate about the Occupy Movement between Stair (SPGB) and Ian Barker (Occupy Norwich) at the Birmingham Summer School. Let me know if anyone would like more informaiton about coming along, or see here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/summer-school-6th-8th-july-2012-birmingham
The following is part of the statement issued by the SPGB about the Spanish Civil War. I think it is relevant to this thread. “The first is that, as a matter of course, Socialists are on the side of the exploited in their struggles against the landed and monied classes. This is true whether the workers concerned are Socialist or not, organised or unorganised, and whether the struggle is a strike or a lock-out, or whether it is concerned with gaining “elbow room” for the working class movement, i. e., the right to organise, to carry on propaganda, to secure the franchise and parliamentary government. These struggles are all expressions of the class struggle and are in the line of development towards Socialism. It is the plain duty of the organised workers in the more advanced countries to support and encourage such struggles, both at home and in the less advanced countries.”
And without throwing cold water over it, we should also remember what else we said about the Spanish Civil War. I paraphrased this observation for a Socialist Courier blog post on the Spanish Civil War. “One thing that was demonstrated was the impossibility of achieving real unity by merging together in a Popular Front parties and individuals who differed so fundamentally in aim, outlook, and method. It was obvious in 1936 that it would be an enormous task to secure unity between long-standing opponents like the anarcho-syndicalists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, liberal-republicans, social democrats and Basque separatists. There was frequent inability to secure effective and loyal co-operation, which shows that, even the stress of war will not make men who think differently work to a common programme.” http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/06/scotland-and-spanish-civil-war.html
It seems to me that the party’s position should be that we are on the side of ‘Occupy’ so why dont we declare it, without interfering and condeming them for not being socialist. To me it has always been obvious. Are we on the side of the miners? Solidarnosc? A general strike? Of course we are. But we draw the line at them organising or being a member of a political party which is not socialist
“There was frequent inability to secure effective and loyal co-operation, which shows that, even the stress of war will not make men who think differently work to a common programme.”Which surely illustrates that in order to attain a “common programme” the essential pre-requisite is a combination of a common interest and a common understanding, for history explains where this essential pre-requisite is absent all forms of struggle by the workers are either absorbed or utimately crushed by the ruling class.
I think the party has expressed its sympathies and support for the Occupy Movement on more than a few occasions but of course we are not in full agreement. [Occupy Movement ] “provided public places where political debate about this and other issues could take place – and did. Both worthwhile. There were two other pluses. It was a world-wide movement that understood that any solution had to be global. And it tried to organise itself democratically and without leaders…They need to continue.” from an editorial The issue some raised was that we should have a more uncritical approach to it and not offer prescriptive advice and also we should go beyond simply expressing sympathy to active material support. This led to the resignation, i believe of StuartW. We did donate our literature for free at St Pauls and other Occupy sites and at the up-coming Birmingham School will be offering a platform to Occupy Norwich. We have commended the Occupy Movement, not condemned it. Our common programme, our common interest, our common understanding, in the SPGB, is common ownership. For the majority in the Occupy Movement they still required convincing of this objective and that separated us. Some party members declare that the revolutionary consciousness displayed in Occupy Movement was more developed than our own, if i understood their posts correctly. I, however disagree. Occupy had not formulated an agreed aim, nor advocated a united means or method and it became more and more transparent as time passed that differences within the movement were manifesting itself and causing divisions in their earlier unity. To find faults and flaws and frailities in Occupy Movement may be viewed as demoralising and discouraging some of their participants and result in them distancing themselves from ourselves. It shouldn’t mean we should retaliate and retreat from making overtures towards them. Within the WSM we know disagreement can be conducted comradely…..well.. most of the time…a few cases excepted. We should focus on one particular part of our case, free access, describing it and detailing the mechanism of how it can be achieved. In this, someone in the Occupy Movement is to be treated like every other worker. Everybody is special and no-body is special. That’s common sense.
Again, the Occupy or Chomsky thread? New Statesman review of Occupy http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/05/review-occupy-noam-chomsky
alanjjohnstone wrote:The issue some raised was that we should … not offer prescriptive adviceThis was one of the silliest arguments put forward in the debate. No other group with a definite point of view adopted this position. If we’d have adopted this approach we’d have been the only group to have done so, so allowing all the others a freer range than they had — not so much the vanguardists who didn’t try their usual take-over tactics over here (as opposed to in the US) as the currency cranks and funny money merchants who had a real field day and a successful one to this day if you read Occupy websites and literature.Of course we had to put our own particular view across. That’s why we exist.
We are on the side of unions but we don’t tell them when to strike or what action to take. The same goes for the occupy movement surely? Let them get on with it, They are not in opposition to socialism, They are not socialist but then nor are trade unions. We cannot oppose workers’ defence tactics. We offer our case for socialism to them NOT how to run their organisations
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:We are on the side of unions but we don’t tell them when to strike or what action to take. The same goes for the occupy movement surely? Let them get on with it, They are not in opposition to socialism, They are not socialist but then nor are trade unions. We cannot oppose workers’ defence tactics. We offer our case for socialism to them NOT how to run their organisationsIt’s necessary to make a distinction between trade unions and political organisations. A trade union is a collective group of workers within a particular trade seeking to improve/maintain their working/living conditions under capitalism. Trade unions make no pretensions to be agents of social change, nor should they.The Occupy movement is concerned with social change and make no mistake, many, perhaps even most, of those who are part of it are, whether they know it or not, in opposition to socialism because they still think that something can be done with capitalism.We, as a revolutionary organisation committed to social change, would be shirking our responsibility and entire purpose for existence if we didn’t tell them where we think they’re going wrong. Part of that has to be to suggest ways in which they might best organise themselves and which tactics are likely to prove successful and which are not.
Depends on what you mean by ‘political organisations’ campaign groups for the disabled? Tenants associations? Trade Unions are not socialist organisations therefore they are against us and anti socialist? . The SPGB are a few hundred people. do we oppose everyone who is not socialist.? Until we change the declaration of principles we do not oppose ‘workers’ organisations’, we oppose capitalist political parties
We are on the side of the unions and we do not decide for them when and what to strike over, unlike the Left which tries to do so. But we do offer advice and make it clear that our support is conditional on that they operate on clear and sound lines. For instance, we did not support closed shops. Are you suggesting that because we support unions that we should not point out to trade unionists such flaws and provide remedies to certain failings? In the past, even though the Mob brought some much- and well-needed leverage to trade union power, should we, as a socialist party, not suggest to the Teamsters that Mafia involvement was not desirable and not necessary for success but being at variance with unions doesn’t mean we should advise union members to resign, but simply to clean house. Is that type of prescriptive advice forbidden ? It maybe from 1911 but i think much of this article stand the trial of time.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-87-november-1911/socialist-and-trade-unionism We recognise that many workers organisations are not perfect and are often in an on-going stage of change and development. They are in a constant state of flux and evolution. Are we not to offer our input? Isn’t that reinforcing an aloofness to day-to-day class struggle? From the earliest days of Occupy we praised them for their non-violence and commitment to endeavouring to create mass democratic decision making. But hand-waving had its problems when contesting and irreconcilable views were to be decided. We argued for a more structured and formal means of democracy and that the decision of a majority, (and we leave it up to them to agree what a majority should entail) , was a necessary requirement for authorising and approving actions. As events panned out over the months and now year what has been frequently raised as an issue on organisation? Yes – the mean of decision making and how it legitimised or does not legitimise certain statements and certain protests by various Occupiers. There were participants, as Adam said, who were pushing there own platform. In America, most obviously Move On, a Democratic Party caucus. Unlike Adam i do think the Left were a threat. In Edinburgh, i recognised the name of one of the local Occupy movement’s spokespersons, long time and prominent SWP/Stop The War activist. The Left were infilitrating the Occupy Movement when and where it could. But i think Adam’s overall impression was probably correct that many fringe ideas suddenly appeared and were risking taking root, many “solutions” with long histories, Henry George, Major Douglas to more updated models such as Parecon and Robin Hood Tax advocates. Are we to sit back and never ever counter such mistaken ideas? Never challenge those who advocate adopting simple reforms to the more outlandish theories. David Icke even started to try and gain influence, no doubt equating the devils on Wall St with his alien lizard people. Should we do as you counsel and just give them a free rein? What i suggested was to ensure that socialism…free access socialism ….was an option to choose or reject, and to do that means placing it on the agenda. That means explaining what it is and what it is not. Just as importantly, we have to offer a means on how it can be achieved – not as something apart and separate from the Occupy Movement but with them as an important component in the trasformative process of Revolution BUT just as only one component amongst many others, including a mass socialist politcal party and new industrial unions and as you yourself mentioned tenants and community groups. To have such a revolutionary umbrella organisation requires a form of democracy more elaborate than jazz hand waving. To object to a more structured style of reaching concensus is not enpowering all the people. I have argued with anarchists that the vote enfranchise those who cannot get out into the streets, the old, the sick, and all the others through all sorts of personal reasons are unable to participate physically 24/7 but need to be included in decision-making which makes the vote imperative. Again how we vote is up for debate…i can see advantages in reality tv style text voting, or thru online e-democracy, but regardless of other mechanisms , the ballot box exists, public meetings and show of hands exists. However, when people vote on questions of instructions, then they have to know that the mandate will be followed. And the right to disassociate and disavow those who go counter to the wishes of the majority must also exist. Should we remain silent upon such questions and issues? In regards to violence there is an element that appeared again mostly in America that chose to employ such as tactic instead of passive resistance when confronted by police. Are we not to discourage this ultimately suicidal stategy?Putting it into a broader international context, the mass protests by Syrian opposition was to be applauded but when some took the the step of militarising the resistance with armed struggle then it put men and women with AK47s, at best a RPG, up against tanks artillery and helicopter gun-ships. A severe one-sided battle ….UNLESS…the opposion seeks out international intervention and arms supply and training and air support from other countries…in other words, surrender the direction of the revolution to the political and economic interests of rival countries and their elites and produce even more bloody consequences. You raised the Spanish Civil War earlier, we saw the results there of relying on Russian military aid and the power it suddenly gave the previously almost non-existent Spanish Communist Party who proceeded to execute anarchists and POUMists. We can be certain that the Islamists will not countenance secular leftists once sufficiently equipped by Saudi Arabia. Surely if we are to become part of a broader and more general ” workers organisation” means for us, and them, of course, to recognise that we, too, are also workers, (albeit already somewhat organised), and cannot have our voice excluded. Are we to never ever take a critical position on politics or economics and always offer unconditional support ? Are we, as a socialist party of over a 100 years of handed down experience as arrogant as that may sound, to ignore lessons that were learned the hard way from previous decades of false ideas which are now being “re-discovered” once more and presented as “revolutionary” goals? I’m not advocating abstention to the Occupy Movement nor that we should be evoking the hostility clause against them . Quite the opposite. I am promoting more involvment, more participation, not to seek control and not to manipulate but to do what we exist for. Describe socialism. Debate the democratic means to create socialism. If that means in the process stepping on the toes of some well-intentioned ” lets keep capitalism but make it nicer” new-ager, and alienating them, thats unfortunately unavoidable. Hopefully we will engage more constructively with those who are genuinely in search of a sustainable new system of society and understand that it has to be acieved by inclusive and not exclusive methods. Sorry, but in the end, we do oppose some workers views and should not condone them by being overly aquiescent through a misguided conception that support and solidarity means always agreeing and putting aside differences. It will oblige the SPGB to be more efficious in its use of propaganda, its manner and its approach. We seek a comradely interaction of ideas. Perhaps, as an abrasive individual, i might not be the ideal candidate to represent the party. And without naming names there are others that likewise may offer the rong impression. Yet there are plenty of members who are non-threatening and more cordial in their attitudes who could be ambassadors for the party in its dealings with certain groups like the Occupy Movement. Our literature could be written in more appropriate language. We already have mobved on from the confrontational style of debate to a more comradely forum type of discussion meeting. We have a decent premises that could host such events and yes, even give facilities, to others to sometimes use such as a venue or printing. There are precedents for such from our past when we publicised a peace conference manifesto during the First War War, so yes, on occasions we can subsume our own particular political viewpoint to the welfare of the the working class generally. All within reason, naturally, and without putting our own existence or position at jeapardy. Apologies for a lengthy reply.
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:We are on the side of unions but we don’t tell them when to strike or what action to take.That’s true, but surely the second part of this isn’t:
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:We offer our case for socialism to them NOT how to run their organisations.Don’t we “tell” workers in unions that ideally they should organise democratically, recognise the class struggle, oppose links with political parties, ie how to run their organisations even if not what do in specific circumstances (that’s what we leave up to them to decide for themselves, in fact insist that this should happen and is not the job of any political party or group)? As it happened, we didn’t need to say to Occupy to organise democratically. They’d worked that out for themselves. But we did need to tell them about socialism (and capitalism).
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