The Cancer in Occupy

Many of them, at least, undoubtedly are, (oh, perceptive one.)

pinning your hopes on any movement is futile, but then so is doing nothing.....

I tend to agree with you there.... Except believing there is a candidate, or government that will fix it...

Voted up!

Totally agreed, same thing I've been saying. Until they get some candidates up and a platform together, they are just noise.

pinning your hopes on this movement is futile, --------- far too many of us pinned our hopes on a politician in 2008 ... this movement is the result of the futility of THAT hope.

Pwr 2 the true American 99%! GUILLOTINE the black bloc anarchists!

but perhaps the culture must undergo change as well.....although I think there are things about human nature that are not going to change....but I agree with you that the leader who does not actually exist provides for endless excursions in futility.

Your Jesus - George Washington analogy is an interesting one. However, the British new Washington as he has been a British officer prior to the American Revolution. The British public was also aware of his family (many where still in England).

True but any great imaginary leader has some trace of truth. A war hero of the colonies from the British army, when he could have just been killed and no one properly documented it. Though he wasn't altogether in the head they said King George thought he was made up until several of his victories in the Revolution were piling up. At least that's what my college history prof said.

True. Like in "Capitalism a Love Story" when he was talking about businesses that had no bosses and everyone in the company owned equal shares. I like the idea and would love to see it take off more. We'll see though.

Perhaps your professor was correct but given that King George III signed Washington's commission, one would think he knew who he was. Granted disease drove him mad, but this was much later in life. Washington was a very wealthy colonialist and there are loads of references to him, some with artist sketches, in British newspapers.

Any leader can be killed , like MLK . NO .

Anonymous has helped this movement a great deal and there is no ONE Anonymous 'person' .... Anonymous could be the 'leader' of the Occupy movement b/c even when our gov't has found and arrested members, more pop up to take their place. If Anonymous was the declared leader no one would ever be able to completely eradicate their presence, thereby never being able to completely eradicate the Occupy movement!

Pwr 2 the true American 99%! GUILLOTINE the black bloc anarchists!

mmmm, good points

I could believe Homeland Security/FBI is behind it. Afterall, Blackwater and other mercenary organizations are hired by corporations like Monsanto, Chevron, etc. to quell attempts to protest them. I suppose it was inevitable we would see something like this happen. We have to stand firm.

I agree! History has shown the "security establishment" to be entirely capable of all manner of secret machiavellian dirty tricks behind the scenes. I have little doubt they're doing whatever they can to infiltrate and destroy from within. People need to understand these organizations are not there for our good, or well-being but to preserve the "status qua", that means protect the precious money, wall-street, the banksters interests, not ours.

super good post
I side with you 100% on your statement
the only way the movement can succeed is to stick with nonviolent actions
the longer you stay in the public eyes the more you win their hearts
accept the labels as a badge of service to the 99%
Justice can only win when the spirit flows as a tide for the majority not with fear or hate

I think the idea that a movement cannot either survive or flourish without a structure of leadership is really thinking from within, rather than from outside the box. The point being, if your opponent controls everything that goes on in the box, then refusing to step within that box to battle your opponent, on your opponent's terms, is actually a much more savvy line of both defense and offense.

To declare that there is no consensus of movement is nothing more than oppositional rhetoric. If there were no consensus of movement, there would be no Occupy, and there IS Occupy. Occupy has direction, what it doesn't have is predictable direction. It operates very much like ideological gorilla warfare, and as such, the opposition is frustrated because they can neither attack leaders nor overcome with conventional tactics....very much like the British in their redcoats, marching in formation against an enemy they could neither see nor predict.

and so....the opposition infiltrates and is hoping to pervert from within.

Spoken like a idealist

you look at the weaknesses in your army and you fix them, you get everyone in the same page. Thinking outside the box only works if you have managed to outwit your opponent so he cannot touch you, here occupy has left itself open to sabotage from outside and within, this is why every team has a coach every squadron a commander, the thinking outside the box you speak of has lead to the demise of hundreds of occupy protests around the planet and a movement once gaining steam is being pushed into obscurity a global movement with far reaching support relegated to the level of a squashed ant under sarah palin's shoe.

Have you ever questioned why the original leaders of occupy went silent and abandoned the movement?

Have you ever questioned what is being done with all the money that has been donated to the cause?

Respectfully, my opinion is that whats going on with occupy is not thinking outside the box, its just plain not thinking, you are going against the establishment a multi trillion dollar entity and the only thing stopping them from erasing the movement off the face of the planet is the fear of a backlash from the people, instead of working to garner the support of the people it has made several key mistakes in alienating the people and because of the movements lack of leadership its ability to respond to the propaganda machine crippled. Beyond that its style of unorganized pseudo direct democracy is simply not fast or nimble enough to find solutions and counteract propaganda from the establishment, which in effect makes it significantly disadvantaged in the campaign to win hearts and minds which is the battleground, with a 24 hour newscycle working against you, you need action taken and decisions made with haste, resources directed toward cause and ears to ring with your message, thinking outside the box in a manner that does not address those things, means that again it is doomed to failure.

I'm not the opposition to occupy, i am simply pointing out it has no strategy and no leadership those of which who do not pay attention to these blatantly obvious realities and the overwhelming defeats that occupy has been dealt are only condemning the movement to failure.

The lack of consensus i speak of is the one of the people of the movement itself everyone has their own idea of how to do things of how to carry out the movement and because there are so many different people with different opinions doing their own thing there is no consensus as to how to carry out the movement in a manner to get what they want, so at the end of the day nobody gets anything.

The thinking outside the box I speak of led to the collapse of British colonialism in India.

Your critique presupposes that the intention or purpose of Occupy is solely to accomplish every step of what it is going to take to topple the current system, and I simply don't see it that way. I think Occupy is one stage of a multi-stage process, and there is surely more to come. I am not sure this stage of the movement is necessarily focused on providing solutions, but more on drawing attention to the problems, and as such, Occupy has already been successful. I think people are less drawn to the movement based on any failures or mistakes that have been made by the movement, than they are drawn to the movement by their own experiences with Wall Street and a system that crushes them. I don't think Occupy has really had to do much at all to win hearts and minds....for most of us, they had us at hello....

Yours is a very systematized approach to the problems we are facing, and yet, it is the very system of systems that needs to go.

Ideologically, you and I are coming from very different places...but I thoroughly enjoy your comments....challenging and thought provoking! :-)

we can defeat any leader when know him
we can stop any movement by choking off the direction it is heading
those techniques are used to beat any competitor
It is taught to any opposing party that is wanting to win.

good reply

one man 33 years old change the world
one child changed a war
one black man change a country
one president put an man on the moon
one man change labor in the world
and it only took 50 years and the stock market to destroy Europe and the U S A

good reply
vote you up

"The thinking outside the box I speak of led to the collapse of British colonialism in India."
With all movements of note there are three constants that i have identified. 1 that it has a leadership to focus the energy of the movement in a desired fashion. 2 is that it has the support of the majority of the people. 3. The movement had managed to gain a leverage over the establishment that comes in the form of a underlying threat that is not direct but very much real and dangerous.

With india the underlying threat had existed for quite sometime, that threat was india's population, the british knew at the end of the day they were at a strategic disadvantage if the people of india rose against them and after world war 2 britain could simply not afford to fight to keep india especially with the rise of freedom fighters in bengal and punjab.

Gandhi was the man of non-violence the man we remember because of it but Subhas Chandra Bose wasn't, he was of the opinion that india should be liberated by any means through violence, so when world war 2 broke out he reorganized the indian national army and with japanese support took on the allies in two failed attempts, the trials of his men following the war known as the red fort trials sparked a huge event known as the "bombay mutiny" in february 1946 of the british royal indian navy, about 80 ships and 20 on shore establishments were involved and it spread to become a general strike in karachi, bombay calcutta and several other indian cities over 20,000 royal british indian navy officers and it spread to the army and the airforce as well.

Soldiers refused to take orders from their british superiors and demonstrations were carried out all throughout british india in solidarity with the mutineers it also was the first time hindus and muslims worked to together against the british. when prime minister atlee was asked what was the main factor in him deciding to quit india he cited the bombay mutiny as the main reason because the british indian army could not be trusted to maintain the british raj in india, a mutiny that gandhi himself condemned.

In india the british establishment was given two options the easy way or the hard way they were under a threat to their power of course subhas chandra bose is a name not spoken of in the west he collaborated with the axis during ww2 this is understandable, but the system never wants to look weak and does everything in its power to save face, so it would rather seem like it was overcome with the love of gandhi than the threat created by the indian national army and subhas chandra bose's actions not to say gandhi was not a important and influencial figure,but he had been working for toward his goal since 1918, the mutiny occured on february 1946 and by june 1947 they were figuring out how to partition india, while gandhi had laid the ground work in support for independence the mutiny was the catalyst.

In the civil rights movement the same dynamic occured there was martin luther king on the peace side of the equation alongside other leaders malcolm x understood this and applied to it to that situation.

"I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King."

Malcolm X, in Coretta Scott King's, My life with MLK Jr., p. 256

(Martin Luther King, Jr., about Malcolm)
"You know, right before he was killed he came down to Selma and said some pretty passionate things against me, and that surprised me because after all it was my territory there. But afterwards he took my wife aside, and said he thought he could help me more by attacking me than praising me. He thought it would make it easier for me in the long run."

MLK, Halberstam, "Second coming of MLK", p.51

You see the riots in watts and detroit and the rhetoric of malcolm x and the stokely carmichael and fred hampton were all important they showed the establishment there were two options, the easy way or the hard way.

“You get your freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get it. Then you'll get it. It's the only way

you'll get it.”
― Malcolm X

This is as true today as it was in india or the civil rights movement, it is also true that in both circumstances the movements have managed to garner support of the people.

"Your critique presupposes that the intention or purpose of Occupy is solely to accomplish every step of what it is going

to take to topple the current system, and I simply don't see it that way."

I agree with this in a way i believe the occupy is a indication of things to come but only because failure from idealistic tactics made it so. Occupy had the power and the momentum this is like choosing to give up a strategic leverage in a battle for no good reason it do so. If you need to get to the top floor late for a meeting why would occupy get off the elevator it was on and go back to the bottom of the stairs to climb it?

That simply makes no sense, what makes sense is to get as much as you done as possible when you have the opportunity to do so?

"Yours is a very systematized approach to the problems we are facing, and yet, it is the very system of systems that needs to go."

Many occupiers have not made up their minds as to whether they want to work within the system to fix things or dismantle it all together, i don't disagree with either approach but i disagree with any notion that occupiers all believe this.

"Ideologically, you and I are coming from very different places...but I thoroughly enjoy your comments....challenging and thought provoking! :-)"

Thank you very much i have great respect for you and your comments as well!!!

a gross oversimplification in my view, reference my last reply to incredulous as context.

the hijackers are what they are
the true followers knows to whom to follow
the faint of heart will always side with the bitters of Egypt

There are very few movements that haven't been hijacked in the US. Partly, I attribute that to the ever shrinking attention span of most Americans, and partly, I attribute that to the fact that in order to survive, a movement must continue to evolve....shape shift, if you will, and I think Occupy, given its lack of structure and leaders, has a better chance than most at avoiding the hijackers.

gotta say...I love the glitter, and it is less abrasive than say, a cream pie in the face.

I also include mic check I a lot better than a shoe or a
pie in the face , they are counted as an assault
( but I do have to admit it gets a good laugh)

It is an interesting commentary by Hedges...and the chronology of OWS being hijacked is so reminiscent of countless other movements that began to impact the status quo.

People are really pissed off, reaction from the Corporate Dictatorship we all live under has been very slow to react positively. Yes we must remain non-violent even thought the violent reactions from Police all over the Country is dubious!

There are proven ways to non-violently target the police. Record -EVERYTHING- and put those images up for the world to see. Try and identify the individual police doing the violence against the non-violent and embarrass them and their organization. By name. Been shown to work. The ones that come after don't want their family, children, friends to see pictures/video of them beating up on defenseless non-violent little old people demonstrating, etc.

I agree, In some ways it's starting to look like Syria out there, MLK, was right in the civil rights era to keep it peaceful. He won the battle without firing a shot. Non-violent is the way to go.

Agreed!

I agree

It hasn't
how many years tor the civil right movement took to succeed
It will take longer to over come the money news company, But you can see the distaste by the public being told about the poor have a satisfactory safety net

good points....and yes, the civil rights movement, while not perfect in accomplishing its goals, did succeed in changing what it set out to change.