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First things first: The second “General Assembly” to plan the Oct. 15 Occupy Pittsburgh event is taking place Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., in Oakland’s Schenley Plaza. Plans for the event itself will be discussed and voted on — and now’s as good a time as any to check your level of commitment. Kickoff for the Steelers/Titans game is at 1 p.m.
On the bright side, it should be a balmy 80 degrees.
If you missed the first “General Assembly” this past Wednesday night, you can find a recording here — though if I were your physician, I would want to carry out a few routine tests before advising you to watch it. During the first hour especially, the proceedings were characterized by the fractiousness for which progressive gatherings are so justly renowned. There was disagreement, for example, over whether the principles of non-violence should include a reference to God … and then over whether we should be arguing about the principles of non-violence in the first place. Concerns over racial and gender representation also raised their heads.
But no need to belabor the point. The worst thing about this meeting was also arguably the best thing about it. Yeah, the facilitators were obviously new to their roles. But if you want an organic, spontaneous movement — as opposed to the kind of protests we’ve been seeing for years — you can’t expect everyone to know what the hell they are doing right off.
After all, Occupy Pittsburgh got its start thanks to a Facebook page posted by Leah Houser, a New Brighton woman who acknowledges “This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this — and I think that’s true of most of the other people who are helping to facilitiate.”
What prompted Houser to launch the page? For one thing, she’s firmly in the camp of the “99 percent” who aren’t doing particularly well in today’s economy: Despite a degree in graphic design, she’s jobless with a daughter and no health benefits.
“A bunch of friends and I had talked about going up to Wall Street,” she says. “But some of us had to work, and none of us had a legal car. So I said, ‘I’m just gonna start this page then, because it’s probably going to come out here.'”
Indeed, another facilitator, Jess Kelly, says she’s “never been to a protest in my life. I’ve seen things that I disagreed with, but I never did anything.” The Sarver resident, a mother of four, says about the only protest in her community involves “yelling at squirrels in the front yard.”
But not everyone is a neophyte: Facilitator Cassi Schaffer has been involved, intermittently, in antiwar and other efforts for years. (Full disclosure: In the mid-1990s, Schaffer and I worked together at the now-shuttered In Pittsburgh.) Along with Nathaniel Glosser, who did some of the early media outreach for the effort, “we’re the only two in the group who have any experience,” Schaffer says. “The rest of them live outside the city and have never done anything like this before. That enthusiasm is so exciting.”
In any case, Schaffer says, “We aren’t the leaders. This is a leaderless movement.”
To be sure, there were plenty of familiar faces in Wednesday nights’ crowd (which numbered between 350 and 400 people). There were veteran activists like Vince Eirene and Pete Shell, a couple of old hands from the (now defunct) Pittsburgh Organizing Group, union folks including local AFL-CIO head Jack Shea himself, and so on. These are folks who’ve led labor protests and anti-war demonstrations for years. On Wednesday night, though, they were part of the crowd, not in front of it.
And to borrow from that hoary protest slogan … most often, this is what democracy looks like. Not cadres of marchers barrelling down a street, but a group of people fumbling around for what to do next.
You can expect a bit more of that this Sunday, although the discussion is much more likely to focus on logistics and event planning. The Wednesday meeting ended with people breaking into “working groups” to focus on various aspects of the protest. Will there be some kind of formal statement? What will it say? When the occupiers begin their overnight vigil, where will they sleep? Who will handle logistical needs? What tactics of nonviolence will be used?
The committees will report back their proposals to the Sunday General Assembly, with attendees voting on them.
That question of where and how occupiers should camp out might be especially interesting. As we saw during the G-20, the city has been able to prevent people from camping out overnight in city parks … and the rules at state-run Point State Park are if anything even more restrictive.
One possibility: protesters sleeping on the sidewalk. There is a precedent for such activity. In 2007, antiwar protesters from POG itself began a round-the-clock vigil at an Oakland military-recruitment center. Police allegedly harassed and ticketed the protesters until the ACLU intervened. A court order eventually gave protesters the right to occupy a clearly delienated space; as long as pedestrians could negotiate the rest of the sidewalk, the demonstrators were allowed to set up folding chairs and sleeping bags within the space.
The circumstances this time may be different: The number of participants may be much larger, and the time commitment more open-ended. But either way, you’ll get a chance to voice your feeling on the proposals this Sunday. And with luck, the meeting will be at least well organized enough that someone can keep track of the Steelers/Titans score.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.
I’m a Democrat, but buffet-style liberal direct action efforts annoy the living shit out of me. You know who focuses their inchoate, inarticulable rage at symbols of the American financial system through direct action? Terrorists. The fucking 9/11 terrorists, you fucking pathetic hippie slobs.
Direct action only works when the people watching know what the hell the people who are doing the acting are talking about. People got the freedom riders. They understood the anti-Vietnam War protestors. Aside from the numerous spectators and anarchist thrill seekers, very few people involved in this garbage have any idea what they want. The handful who do are incapable of reducing their demands to anything shorter than the most obnoxious child’s Christmas wish list.
And you know why? Maybe it’s because things really aren’t that bad. Sure, the economy sucks, but what’s the great injustice that requires collective action in the streets? If people can’t agree on what that is, than it just doesn’t exist. The concerns people are raising, at least the coherent ones, are really matters of policy and not fundamental fairness.
Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts for effecting policy changes. Writing “people before profits” on a piece of poster board will not help us get that extra vote on the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United. No drum circle, no matter how wide or righteous, will help make federal income tax rates more progresive.
Change requires focus and determination and sustained effort. If you want to change policies, suck it up and get involved in the things that actually make a difference. If registering people to vote or working at the phone bank is too boring or too much of a commitment for you, take your Guy Fawkes mask and go fuck yourself. You’re a fucking poseur.
P.S., An unemployed single mom with a degree in graphic design who blames Wall Street for her professional failures is truly an inspiring figure. Way to choose a leader, communards.
@ Joe Wold —
There are some ideas here that are worth engaging; the lack of a coherent message, for example, is definitely something to discuss. But gotta say, you blow your credibility clear out of the water in that first paragraph:
“You know who focuses their inchoate, inarticulable rage at symbols of the American financial system through direct action? Terrorists. The fucking 9/11 terrorists, you fucking pathetic hippie slobs.”
Great argument, man. It’s like if someone says they didn’t like Sharon Tate’s performance in “Valley of the Dolls,” you come back with, “You know who ELSE didn’t like Sharon Tate? Charles Manson, you sick fuck.”
Really, what do you think you’re proving there? Why even suggest an equivalence between Occupy Wall Street and terrorism … especially if you think the Wall Street protesters are nothing but “poseurs”?
I’ll leave unchallenged some false dichotomies and just note that for the record, no one “chose” Leah Houser to be the leader for anything. She didn’t even really choose herself. She made a Facebook page that people have rallied around. For better and worse, that is the sort of decentralized “organizing” that is going on here.
Potter–
I don’t know how often you post comments to blog entries, but it’s customary when arguing against something to draw a comparison between it and either terrorism, the Nazis, or the Morlocks. In this instance, I felt that terrorists provided the most apt analogy. Apologies.
The incoherence seriously pisses me off. Since there is no cognizable message, the message becomes the spectacle itself. And to me, these demonstrations look a lot less like the march to Montgomery than they do the ’99 Seattle WTO protest. These aren’t the people who brought down apartheid. These are the people who broke some windows at a Starbucks, voted for Nader, and sat out the 2002 midterms. They confirm conservatives’ preconceived notions about the left, they alienate independent voters, and they make liberals and Democrats look bad.
Whether people chose Leah Houser or just coalesced around her, she’s a leader of whatever this stuff is in Pittsburgh. So, awesome.
Joe Wold, you have to understand that these protests aren’t about formulating a “message” on a “policy”. These are new-aged, revolutionized, world-wide protests, which neither follow the zombie policies of “left or right”. This is the human species gaining back its own independence and human rights from any sort of intentional dumbing down as there may be. If you haven’t realized, the whole world is coming together, free of the institutionalized “visions” of the past leaders who only had one goal and that was to protect and serve the elite and globalist agenda. The people aren’t just fed up with privatized banks under the facade of a governmental naming convention (Federal Reserve), this goes much further than that. This isn’t just about the housing collapse by design which mortgages were being secured with triple-A ratings up till 3 days prior to the imminent bubble-burst because people were greasing each others pockets. This isn’t about CEOs of corporate giants threatening that there was going to be a financial meltdown and stealing 700 billion from taxpayers pockets just to gain a huge annual bonus. This is a world-wide awakening against the oligarchs and tyrannical corporate monsters who INTENTIONALLY keep HUMANS, ALL OVER OUR WORLD, starving and fighting for their survival. This is Plato, “Allegory of the cave” on steroids. This sir is everyone getting on the same wave length about the understanding and enlightenment to the American policy makers on military keynesianism. This is the world realizing that dropping bombs for profits doesn’t serve any purpose but the hands of an elite few people at the top with no regard to and for human life. This is not some half assed “We want to change a few words on a fucking policy in a document with a 1000 pages of hidden nonsense”. This is people standing up to corruption and greed on both sides and realizing it was a charade all along. You are either with the 99% or with the 1%. Judging by your demeanor and inability to think outside of the box they have shoved you in, I am guessing you are ALSO part of the 99% that continually has their rights taken away in exchange for “safeties”… The 99% that continually struggles to survive free of all crony capitalism. You may be afraid of what you don’t know, but I agree with the people to have the right to come together as one world, one entity, instead of always conned into believing there is an enemy. If you just took the time to do some research, maybe you wouldn’t have so much time to troll such worthy causes. “The whole world is watching… and is believing”.
I just want to go on the record and say that I didn’t write Megamind’s post as a way of illustrating my own point.
Joe Wold, first of all, I will say I hate the expression “we are the 99%”. I would much prefer “we are the 80%”, which is roughly where the income divides between over and under $100,000 (actually right around 84% in 2003, so probably now 80%).
Second, I have been interested in politics for the last 35 years and I studied political science and economics in school (although I don’t work in it). I can comment reasonably intelligently about policy. But the people you are complaining about, many if not most (I suspect most) do not have a background in politics. Maybe they made calls or knocked on doors for Obama, but that’s almost certainly the extent of it. They know that their friends, if not themselves have had trouble keeping or getting a job, at all ages and stages of their careers. They know they work hard, but year after year their companies have been telling them that the companies can not afford to give them raises, or the raises are one or two percent. They look at the news and see Wall Street banks and financial companies getting billion dollar bailouts, and no executives going to jail. Yeah, it would be nice if the protesters had a degree in economics, and could call for specific policies. But a lot of these people are just ordinary people, many of them the 70% that don’t follow the news. I doubt more than one in ten is a communist (if that), and calling them “communards” says a lot more about you than about them.
Third, if you go to the Occupy Pittsburgh web page, you will see they really have *too many* policy complaints, many of them unrealistic in my opinion. But a paucity of positions is not one of their problems. But go ahead and play the stereotype game.
Fourth, tell me about Europe. Yep, there is a financial crisis caused to a considerable extent by having so many nations share the Euro, and yep Greece and Spain and Ireland are among those in the worst shape. But I believe every single European nation has some form of universal healthcare, from Germany to Greece, and for every country it is a source of economic strength. They tax individuals at higher levels than we do, yet in the aggregate these are supposedly some of the happiest nations on earth (maybe the rich are miserable, should Europe value them more?). Europe may have lower tax rates for corporations, but I doubt any given European would let an Exxon pay zero taxes and receive billion dollar subsidies. And actually some countries in Europe do a good job of even providing free college for their citizens.
Finally, you seriously slam an unemployed single mom with a degree in graphic design just because she is a single mom with a degree in graphic design? Who exactly do *you* blame for the economic downturn? Obama? Did Obama cause Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt? Why exactly is demand down right now?
Ed–
1) I agree that the 99% slogan distorts and oversimplifies the issue of rising income inequality. But it’s catchy in a death panel sort of way, so I can see why people use it.
2) You don’t need a degree in economics or political science or anything else in order to participate in democracy. I do think that if you’re going to take part in a street protest you should have a clear idea of what your grievance is, what causes it, and ideally, how it can best be addressed. Otherwise, you’re just joining a mob for the sake of joining a mob. Also, maybe try googling “communards.”
3) Um, we agree here, too. My complaint was never that the official list of complaints was too short. The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City includes no fewer than 20 wide-ranging–and sometimes paranoid-sounding–beefs. The only common theme is that “They” are responsible. My favorite part is the caveat at the end, “These grievances are not all-inclusive.”
Here in Pittsburgh, the liberal inclination toward inclusiveness is on farcical display. The Post-Gazette described Occupy Pittsburgh’s attempt to agree on a set of things to complain about this way:
“[M]oderators tried to describe an elaborate system in which attendees would vote on proposals by agreeing, agreeing with reservations, standing aside, disagreeing or attempting to block an idea entirely.
Each option came with its own signal — waving two hands in the air, creating an X by crossing one hand over the other — and everyone would show their symbols at the same time.
After some shouting and a few groans from the crowd, moderators eventually decided instead to count the number of people who raised their hands when asked if they agreed with an idea. The group then had to define a consensus, which they set at 75 percent.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11279/1180098-53-0.stm
4) Not sure what the point here is.
5) Leaders are important. They symbolize the rest of the people within the movement. An unemployed construction worker or a teacher who was laid off because of budget cuts would fit better with the narrative these people are going for. But an unemployed graphic designer who thinks corporate greed is making her poor is hard to take seriously, unless you already buy in to this stuff. If the last three years have taught us anything it’s that times are tough. You need to be practical, especially if you have a family to support. That might mean that you have to defer your dream of being an artist or an ethnomusicologist in favor of making a living as an actuary or a nurse. If you hang on to the dream in spite of what’s going on around you, you have to take some of the responsibility for your situation.
@ Joe Wold —
“I don’t know how often you post comments to blog entries, but it’s customary when arguing against something to draw a comparison between it and either terrorism, the Nazis, or the Morlocks. In this instance, I felt that terrorists provided the most apt analogy. Apologies. “
>>> I’m from the old school: I was raised not to START my internet debates with Nazi references, but to END with them. But apology accepted, and I hope you’ll accept mine for getting all het up.
In response to the larger debate, I think a couple things. The most obvious is just that we’re talking about a movement that began just a couple weeks ago, and that involves a whole bunch of people who’ve never done anything like this before. There’s clearly a learning curve here.
I’ll also say that as someone who has covered a slew of Tea Party gatherings, the left doesn’t have a monopoly on delivering messages that lack ideological cohesiveness. But clearly, the Tea Partiers have been effective at driving the political discourse.
And it’s not becuase of the clarity of their ideas. To simplify drastically, the Tea Partiers are vaguely against government overreach into the private sector, the Occupy movement is vaguely against private sector overreach into the government. But within that broad framework, if you really listened to the Tea Party movement — at least in the early days — there were ideas all over the goddamn place.
Just by way of example, I once heard a featured speaker articulate the belief that our healthcare system would be better off if it were run the way the Amish do — with leaders “prayerfully” deciding where to spend healthcare dollars. (I don’t know how you square this with the fear of death panels and unelected elites; maybe it doesn’t count if you invoke God.)
In the end, the Tea Party isn’t about a particular set of policies — it’s about a kind of mood. Obviously the Tea Partiers have some advantages right out of the gate. TP events in Pittsburgh have been emceed by the likes of Jim Quinn, who makes a living glibly presenting a reactionary agenda. I probably don’t need to get into the role played by Fox News or the Koch brothers. But the point remains: You actually don’t NEED a particularly cogent set of policy prescriptions to be politically successful. sometimes, in fact, it helps NOT to have them.
Which seems obvious, I know. But I’m amazed at how easy it is to forget. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at Obama’s technocratic policy proposals … think twice before faulting the Occupy movement for not having a White Paper all set to go. (Not saying Joe Wold falls into this camp — if anything, *I’* probably do.)
My point here is just this: We’re seeing a process unfold in real time, and the fact that it looks goofy doesn’t mean it can’t become effective. In any case, if you’re a lefty looking to cause some change … where else are you going to go? There is simply no other game in town right now. I’m all for voter registration and so on, but realistically, we’re in an off-year election cycle. You seem to presume that political activism is a zero-sum game — if people do an occupation, they won’t door-knock for their Congressional candidate. That’s a realistic fear I agree … but it’s also sometimes the case that political activism motivates people to do even more. And let’s face it — Democrats aren’t doing much to fire up the left. I find it hard to fault the left for trying to fire up itself.
I think part of the problem is that people’s approach to politics is this: A movement is supposed to come along and perfectly articulate your goals, and then you can join it. That probably DOES work, for people with the “right” goals — i.e. those whose goals serve the right. (If you hate government regulation, the Kochs will be happy to bankroll your political entertainment.) But I think for a truly oppositional movement, things work the other way around: You commit to a movement in hopes of shaping it toward your goals. It’s a leap of faith.
Of course, I might be singing a very different tune if Oct. 15 turns out to be a complete trainwreck. Which could happen. But I’ll tell you what — speaking simply as a reporter who has covered a bunch of antiwar marches that I could have written the script for in advance … on some level, I’m glad to see new people trying new things.
Potter–
Well put. Even as my queasiness intensifies, I’m interested in seeing how this all plays out, and I look forward to reading the CP’s coverage.
Here’s what I want to know–if this movement does pick up momentum, where does it go? It’s unlikely that the general assemblies gathering in Pittsburgh and elsewhere will miraculously recreate the platforms of their Democratic representatives. When they want more than Democrats can realistically promise, will the occupiers get pragmatic or will they get mad? Will they launch primary challenges against Democratic incumbents? Will they demand that their candidates endorse left-leaning principles sure to alienate mainstream voters in the general elections? Will they get frustrated and support third-party candidates, or worse yet, sit out the elections altogether?
2012 is going to be a trying year for Democrats. In order to achieve any of the goals us lefties share (or even to keep the status quo alive), we need Democrats to win tough elections in red-leaning states. Democratic senators are retiring in New Mexico, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin. We need turnout and enthusiasm, but we also need a narrative and platform that will play in Topeka. Bringing liberal economic issues into the national conversation is generally a good thing, but it’s easy to imagine how in this case it could spin out of control, stir up the right, and rub independents the wrong way.
The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City is no Port Huron Statement, but at the very least, it brought us the rallying cry, “These grievances are not all-inclusive,” which would be just as awesome as the title of a debut acoustic folk album as it would as the subtitle of an Andy Rooney memoir.
What I looked for and can’t find is, HOW exactly did the formal consensus process become SO integral to ALL this? The means more than overshadow the political ends, or I should say the means replace the political ends. It didn’t really occur to me how alien it was until Infinonymous posted the video from Occupy Atlanta, in which the process was actually being utilized to the letter (and my criticism has little to do with the actual decision they made in the video). I’m not saying Quaker Consensus or whatever isn’t a wise way to arrive at decisions, but it sure is a good way to drive at least 80% of otherwise receptive Americans away.
@ Bram —
Well, you know I guess there are a couple of ways of looking at that. On the one hand, there is absolutely no question that the consensus approach bogs down the process. Even setting aside the extreme example of the Occupy Atlanta snub, it’s pretty clear that emulating the approach was a factor in bogging down the first two Occupy Pittsburgh meetings. As a longtime labor activist whispered to me at one point during the first gathering, “There’s a REASON unions are hierarchical organizations.”
On the other hand, I’m not sure the distinction between means and ends is quite as clear cut as you’re suggesting. If the goal is to oppose a “winner take all” approach to politics AND economics, then it’s contingent upon you to find another approach, yes? Finding the right means is, arguably, ONE of the ends being sought.
It’s been pretty rocky, obviously. The story we have coming out tomorrow reflects that, because there really wasn’t any other way to write it. But there’s a third consensus meeting called tomorrow night, and I’d be surprised if things didn’t proceed more smoothly. If only because time is of the essence.
Things taking a long time is only one difficulty. Another problem is, a vocal superminority can pull the whole wagon train into a ditch. Every proposition is treated as equally valid and therefore important, no matter how bonkers.
But my main point is, the proffered “new approach” on the table is surprisingly rigidly ingrained even in its infancy, and it quickly becomes paramount over the objectives which actually unite the “99%”. Saul Alinsky would not be happy with the proposition that we begin organizing so far outside of the experiences of the people we are trying to organize.
“Saul Alinsky would not be happy with the proposition that we begin organizing so far outside of the experiences of the people we are trying to organize. “
>>> by the same token, though, sleeping out in public parks is itself far outside the experience of the vast majority of the 99 percent. (Though given the economic trends, that may not be true for long.) And the phrase “supervocal minority” defines the whole Occupy movement itself, which has already been written off as “bonkers” in some quarters. So I can understand why they aren’t rejecting extreme points of view out of hand — since their OWN views are being regarded as extreme in some quarters. (Though for the record, I haven’t heard a ton of “bonkers” views expressed in Pittsburgh. Quite the opposite.)
Obviously, there are perils in the approach that they are taking. We’ve seen them in the first two general assembly meetings here. But there are perils in every approach, including the approach that constrains the movement’s input and ambition from the outset, because of a desire not to run afoul of the expectations or experiences “of the people we are trying to organize.” You go very far down that road, and the next thing you know, you’re arguing that a single-payer health plan not only isn’t doable … but *can’t even be discussed* in the national political conversation. Because it’s bonkers! Too far outside people’s experience!
Just to be clear: I’m not saying these tactics are ideal. They may not even be the right ones. Tonight’s general assembly meeting may be the least attended of the three, and if so, I’d be willing to bet that people’s frustration with the process thus far is part of the reason. It has certainly made covering the thing difficult, witness our story today.
But what I AM saying is that viewed within the context of the movement and its beliefs, this dedication to an open process is comprehensible, and even commendable. And again — this thing, at least in Pittsburgh, is less than two weeks old. The general assemblies have been excruciating, but even so — they start and end pretty much when the organizers say they will. Which means they ARE BETTER RUN THAN MANY CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS. Not a bad start for a bunch of amateurs.