Tidal2 Spring is Coming

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tidlOccupy Theory, Occupy Strategy • Issue 2 • March 2012 • Spring is coming.



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Communiqué #2

Pulling the Emergency Break by marna srn

So, What Are the Demands? by jd br

STRIKE!

Student Debt, Women, Housing, Art, 5 Theses, The General Strike

We Are Here Because You Are There by jan cars rz

Pillowghting or Our Lives

On Losing Complacency & Fear by sandra mar nrs

Media As Direct Action by Ka davsn

Consider the Lillies: Money & Movements by naan scndr

Editorial Statement

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tidal Indx

Photo: Guilleo egi

occupytheory.org



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1. When you’re sitting in jail, the topic o justice can’t help

but come up. You work backward rom sitting in your cell, to your ride

in the police car with handcus, to when the police threw you ace-rston the ground and applied said handcus. You ask how and why this all

happened. And in your pain in your cage, someone tells you, incredibly,

that it’s because you asked or it. It’s all in your social contract.

As with any proound concept, this may take a while to digest. Con-

noisseurs o the brazen should at least admire the answer’s audacity. It’s de-

livered by someone certain or shameless enough to look you in the eye and

say that, despite your insistence that you have no desire to go to jail; that

you think the social arrangements you are protesting represent an abomina-

tion and stain on the human soul; that you believe people should be com-

mended or speaking out or the public good against the rapacious ew; that

despite all o these things, you have really agreed to exactly the opposite.

Naturally, you want to see what you signed that said all o this.Tere must be a copy. Binding contracts must be in writing or all but

trivial matters. (Maybe locking you up is trivial?) A contract needs to

be signed by the parties to be bound. In some states, important clauses

must be highlighted. Te part where the police get to club you, or

example, should be in bold. Tere should be a orum to discuss misun-

derstandings: “Your honor, I’m pretty sure I declined the tear gas and

pepper spray options.”

Te most threadbare contracts contain these basic elements. Tey

ensure that contract parties have actually understood their agreement

and consented.

2. Perhaps this knowledge makes you smug, in your cell,temporarily. But when your mind starts to wander over the acres o

words-on-paper you’ve seen in your lietime, you get uneasy. Maybe all

this stu was in the ne print on an insurance or loan orm. You signed

some o those. It could have been in your rent agreement or credit card

application. How many Agreed to erms and Conditions boxes have

you checked? What were all the warnings on the reverse side o your

tickets and receipts?

It’s possible that i you stitched together every release o liability,

consent orm, waiver, permission slip and application in your lie, there

may be so little let o you as a legal person that a trained law ocer

would slap you in disgust. You could have signed away your right to

breathe and to have an opinion years ago.

But it’s probably worse than even that. Te modern social contract,

given its importance, operates beyond traditional contract principles.

Atavistic notions like print and consent insult its stature. Te modern world changes too quickly. oday’s social contract shrinks already mi-

nuscule print to a quantum text, subject to probabilistic fuctuations

based on the elite’s needs at any given time. Consent may be inerred;

to collect everyone’s actual signature would require some kind o absurd

robo-signing process.

We learn as part o the contract that we have granted a virtual, seem-

ingly irrevocable, power o attorney to a small group in government

and industry to act in our name. We appear to have granted this when

we chose to be born, and ratiy it daily by our continued existence.

In this context, questioning the social construct makes about as

much sense as an ant putting down its burden and demanding to speak

to the queen.

3. Some might point to laws and legal process as guarantors

o our rights. When you are arrested or protesting, you will spend on

average at least 24 hours in jail. No one thinks you pose a particular

threat; they keep you because the system takes that long to process your

existence. Te mere size and impersonal nature o the system dictates

this treatment. We have learned to accept this rom infexible institu-

tions, to be cheated o our time and money, to be passive in the ace o

unresponsiveness. But rankly, it can be embarrassing to be locked up

in a metaphor or what you’re protesting.

We know that laws can be enorced against you in a heartbeat, but

that ghting or your legal rights can take years. Properly understood,laws explain to the weak what they may not do. Tis is seen as preer-

able to more autocratic arrangements, where rules are made up ater the

act. We don’t seem to mind being told what to do, as long as we’re pro-

vided the simple courtesy o advance warning. Even that tender mercy

comes under routine attack by the authorities.

4. Let us consider to whom or to what we have given our proxy.

Even here, conusion reigns. It’s not entirely clear how the bank that

owns your home relates to the police smacking you around, or what

they have to do with the credit card company charging too much, or

those credit rating people, and how that ties into whatever layer o

government happens to hassle you on a given day, and how all that

The questions are simple.

Why does a small group o humanity reap the eorts o billions?

Why can this elite group poison the planet to urther enrich themselves?

Why do we accept a soulless social order built around the concept o people staying in line?

Why do we allow armed police to beat and cage us i we step o that line?

Communiqué #2



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means we should have a war or two going on, or planned, while the

environment is converted to a trash-strewn sauna. Whatever that thing

is has grown so huge and weird that we struggle even to nd a name or

it—the System, the Military-Industrial Complex, the Institution, the

State, the Matrix, the Man. No one really understands what the Ting

means or intends, but pundits occasionally oer a metaphor.

Te Ting resembles a ship that we’re all on together. Not a cruise

ship exactly, but more o a steam ship/trawler. We have a captain who

steers while we shovel coal and swab decks. He seems to have us headed

toward a typhoon. Te captain stares at the impending doom on thehorizon and grins ecstatically. He’s clearly thrilled to be the captain.

He aces down a storm that we can only wincingly glance at with one

squinting eye, and he jabbers incessantly about hope and destiny. We

realize that he does not see as a normal person, by passively receiving

light through his pupils. Rather he uses his eyes oensively to project

what he wants to see on the world. He has become so practiced at his

antasia that he can no longer recognize what we, cringing on deck, see

as certain catastrophe.

Or maybe the Ting should be understood as the body politic. We

each have our own role as cell or organ within the body. Te brain tells

everyone what to do, because bodies just work that way. I you were

part o the brain, you would know. Beyond that, things get oggy. From what we can tell, our collective body is some kind o morbidly obese

ranting child that eats what it sees and screams when someone threatens

its toys. It may have severe emotional decits and boundary issues. Are

we part o the spleen? Free-foating radicals? Maybe we are some vague

notion o decency trying to make our way to the brain to make our plea

or the rest o humanity.

5. What succor can we draw rom our social arrangements?

Te elite have hijacked our institutions and bent them to their will.

Tey have been sustained by the cultural myth that humanity advances

only through unchecked greed.

Our present institutions exploit our weaker aspects, our laziness andpassivity, our love o ease, our sel-centeredness. Tey encourage our

addictions to the vain and supercial. In return or our dignity, they

oer us the salve o television, magazines, movies, games, rom which

we invent antasies and identities in which to hide. Escapism has grown

rom occasional distraction to central social tenet. No one wants to deal

with lie, really. We want to believe the beautiul lie that humanity has

overcome the ancient need to work and suer, despite all evidence to

the contrary.

6. The basic themes have been with us now or centuries. Te

machine grows too great to control or comprehend; the sweat o the

many sustains the dreams o the ew; obsessions built on hatred and

alse mythologies occupy our minds. We have shown ourselves capable

o great compassion and depravity.

For a small percentage o the population, the world seems a won-

derland played out in the spotlight o a magical theatrical show. Tose

standing o-stage with brooms and hammers understand the true costs

o the production, the alsity o its script and imagery, but still can’t

look away. Some even cheer or the tacky actors who gobble up the

world, as i their open disdain or humanity were somehow heroic.

Te true nature o our circus has by now revealed itsel. We notice

that the big top has burst into fame, that when we turn to the ring-master we see his sweat streaking away his greasepaint, revealing the

clown beneath.

7. Most o what we have, we received as a gi rom our

orbearers and creation itsel. We should not surrender the hard-earned

concessions wrung rom lie by past generations or the comort o the

ew. We must also recognize that each generation inherits a dierent

world and requires dierent solutions, and that the sources o yester-

day’s hope and liberation can become tools o today’s oppression.

Our past solutions no longer serve as guarantors, exemplars, protec-

tors, and do not deserve the power we have ceded to them. We must

wean ourselves rom them and reclaim that power.Our present solutions must build on the generous aspects o our

beings and the potential o our time. We must no longer abdicate re-

sponsibility or developing our lives and spirit to others.

8. Each age brings changes in human capacities and creates

new space or possibilities. Past generations have ought oppression to

claim as much o that space or the good as possible, sometimes suc-

ceeding, oten not.

In our age, the capacity or connection, sel-education and sel-co-

operation has exploded. Tis oers a window o opportunity, with its

unspoken, unresolved question: Who will take and shape the bulk o

the resulting potential? Te space can be used or the benet o all, oremployed to enrich the ew at the cost o the many. Te window will

not remain open long beore being overwhelmed by claims rom those

in power.

9. It occurs to you in jail how much you’ve been had. Locked

away, apart rom the mesmerizing screens, the deal seems plain: Tere

is no deal. Te social contract exists only as rationalization. In its place,

there is what you can be suckered or bullied in to accepting, and wheth-

er you are brave and strong enough to resist.

What’s galling in this light is the creepy, sanctimonious importance

that the elite attach to honoring contractual obligations when some-

thing comes due rom you. You gave your binding promise! Never

We must also recognize that each generation inherits a

dierent world and requires dierent solutions, and that the

sources o yesterday’s hope and liberation can become tools

o today’s oppression.



mind that every manner o manipulation, alse promise, lie, obusca-

tion, pressure or cajolery was employed to extract it; you’re too insig-

nicant to back out o your word.

10. The questions are simple. Why does a small group o

humanity reap the eorts o billions? Why can this elite group poison

the planet to urther enrich themselves? Why do we accept a soulless

social order built around the concept o people staying in line? Why

do we allow armed police to beat and cage us i we step o that line?One might answer, “because we allow it, and because we are con-

tent with the beggar’s portion,” but this is uncharitable. Forging unity

among ourselves to resist, to act, is hard. It must be built person-by-

person by engaging with each other, believing that each o us has value,

that i we learn the trick o working together we will change the world.

We must unplug ourselves rom the bloviating network o the banal

and talk with someone.

We must nurture the habit o thinking or ourselves. We have sur-

rendered most o the space we should occupy to others, and we have

accepted a sliver in return. Tis pattern has become so established that,

when we attempt to assert otherwise, we will be attacked and jailed.

When we live and think independently, we lessen our dependence on

institutions we can’t control. Teir strength depends entirely upon

our relative ignorance and powerlessness, our willingness to acquiesce.

We can develop the skills needed to live together as a human race that

might actually be able to share the planet without destroying it.

11. It is customary to give some type o notice when

ending a contractual relationship. We should respect the ormalities,

even in the ace o a sham.

Since we’re not sure who’s supposed to get the notice, we are orcedto deliver it generally to the world by word and deed in every available

orum. We proclaim rom our jail cells, in city squares, on Wall Street,

rom every space we occupy: We want no part o any contract that

produces a world like this; we do not consent to be governed; we take

responsibility or our own lives.

Any powers o attorney are hereby terminated. I we want you to do

something in our name, we will tell you.

When you come to collect on the ruits o your arrangements, we

will not comply. We will go out o our way to thwart the eorts o the

1% to take what does not belong to it, to wipe away the old orders o

oppression, to change the world or the good.

Blocking the triborough bridge uig 1964 it-i potetig uequl liig hool oitio of afi-aei.

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“Marx said that revolutions are the locomotive o world history.

But perhaps things are very dierent. It may be that revolu-tions are the act by which the human race traveling in the train applies

the emergency brake.” Walter Benjamin’s words perectly t what oc-

curred around the globe in 2011 and in many places beore this, and

much urther south, rom Chiapas and Oaxaca Mexico to Argentina.

Our movements are the shouting o “No!” Te “Ya Basta!” Te “Que

Se Vayan odos!” Tey are our collective reusal to remain passive in an

untenable situation. And so we pull the emergency brake, reeze time,

and begin to open up and create something new. We are not even sure

what that something is. We know we want to create open space. What

that looks like we are discovering together, as we create, which is also

how we create: together, horizontally and with aect. What we are do-

ing and how we are doing it are inextricably linked, and both are parto this pregurative movement.

A Few Dangers in Openness

In these moments o crisis people come together, look to one an-

other, and create new supportive relationships. Tese ties can be some

o the most beautiul and solidarious that we ever experience. Tey can

also be some o the most feeting. ime and time again, institutional

powers repress and co-opt these relationships, or distrust causes our

networks to implode rom within. How can we prevent this dissolu-

tion? How can we bring about lasting moments where history breaks

open, our imaginations are reed and we are able to envision and create

new landscapes towards new horizons? Below, I address a ew o the

many potential challenges we ace as a movement by looking at the

example o Argentina, where autonomous movements now have tenyears o experience. I use the examples o let political parties and the

State, but the challenges are many and the point is to begin an open

conversation about these challenges so as to overcome them, or even

better, to avoid them.

Political Party Disruption

Te relationships we are creating in our movements attempt to open

space or all people who agree with a set o emancipatory principles.

Occupy does not create structures o membership or behavior modes—

anyone is welcome. Tis inclusion is both our strength and a potential

weakness i we do not think careully about what can happen in these

open spaces and organize accordingly.In Argentina ater the 2001 popular rebellion, the people ormed

hundreds o neighborhood assemblies, all using horizontalidad, re-

sembling what Occupy is attempting to create with general assemblies

in neighborhoods, towns and cities—orging new relationships while

striving to meet basic needs. While the neighborhood assemblies aced

numerous challenges, one o the most destabilizing was let political

party disruption. Tis intererence took many orms: trying to control

the assemblies’ agenda; loading the speakers list with party members so

as to dominate the conversation; and even organizing disruption cam-

paigns, especially in the interbarrial (the assembly o assemblies where

many hundreds o assemblies came together to make decisions). Tere,

party members mobilized to disrupt an assembly, shouting out o turn,

Pulling the EmErgEncy

Brakeby Min Sitin



7

making demands, such as the end to imperialism now, or the

need or a ten-point plan or women’s liberation—all to be de-

cided that night. Most deviously, these party members oten

did not identiy as members o a group so they appeared to be

just regular passionate participants. Tis trick, o course, then

brings out the most wonderul o our democratic impulses,

which is to make sure these people are ully heard. But i their

agenda is not sincere, is it democratic to allow them the space

to make demands on the group?

Our open and horizontal assemblies are our strength, but

they leave us vulnerable to those who disrupt or divert the agen-

da. Having principles o unity, base political agreements andbehavioral norms, bolstered by ways to eectuate these agree-

ments, will create open spaces with limited disruption. Te

argument here is not against any particular group or institu-

tion (though not in support o them either), but to address the

behavior. It is not about them being bad, but us being better.

Elections & the State

Te national elections in Argentina also created a great deal o dis-

orientation and demobilization or the movements. Te 2001 rebel-

lion orced out ve consecutive governments with popular power. Te

legitimacy o the State was in question. People organized assemblies in

neighborhoods, unemployed workers’ movements grew exponentially,and workers, using horizontalidad, recuperated workplaces, with-

out bosses or hierarchy. Te State responded with direct repression,

cooptation and attempts at legitimate re-institutionalization: popular

elections. Te people planned to boycott the elections and orm as-

semblies o assemblies, creating a potential dual power situation. Ten,

a ar right candidate appeared on the ballot, a man responsible or the

last decade o privatization who ran on a ticket o “law and order.”

Fear pervaded the movements, and the conversations shited to what

to do—vote? not vote? organize against the candidates?—sidetracking

the movements’ agendas to that o the State and the State’s agenda. Te

center candidate won, but at the expense o a loss o momentum in the

movement and a shit in the point o reerence. People had positionedthemselves in relation to the possible and real oerings o the State

rather than in relation to the alternative powers being developed by the

movements.

Years later, many refect on the question o elections and the State

in a dierent way. Te perspective is not a total boycott. Te most im-

portant thing, however, is to maintain the movements’ agendas and—

rom the point o reerence o the movement—decide strategically the

relationship to institutional power. Some have reerred to this strategy

as “With, Against and Beyond the State.” Along these lines, at the time

o the latest elections, one movement participant explained that her

perspective was to “vote and run.” She explained that there were inten-

tionally ew conversations in the assemblies about the current elections.

Similarly, the perspective on material support is to take what movementparticipants can get only as long as they maintain their own agenda. As

soon as the State puts demands or qualiers on the oer, the people

walk away.

Te politics o our movements necessarily means that the State can-

not x the problems o society. Te State, whether capitalist or socialist,

cannot be the emancipatory agent o change. Yet, when we as move-

ments try to work outside the State and without conscious engagement,

the State will always engage us, through direct repression and countless

covert tactics. Our point o reerence should continue to be one an-

other and the creation o directly democratic spaces, but we must also

nd ways to negotiate issues o institutional power while maintaining

our agenda.

Graftti rom Argentina



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S, Wat A tAnd Where Do They Go From Here?

Ever since the Occupy Movement emerged

onto the political landscape, critics and

skeptics have both asked, “so, what are the de-

mands?” And in more recent months, skeptics

have asked whether the movement has lost

momentum since many o public sites occu-

pied have been cleared by state-ordered police

power. Let us consider rst the question o de-

mands, and then turn to the question o wherethe occupy movement moves now.

I we think about this rst question, we

can see how rmly entrenched the notion is

that political movements, i they are to qualiy

as “political”, must (a) be organized around a

concrete and discrete list o demands, and (b)

endeavor to have those demands satised. For

the moment, let us consider what kind o poli-

tics is characterized by such assumptions, and

what kind is not. In other words, although we

take or granted that politics must urnish a

list o demands that can be satised, it doesnot ollow that we are right to take that version

o politics or granted as some o us clearly do.

Let us think, then, about the component parts

o this skeptical claim, and see which version

o politics is assumed and promoted by this

question. Further, let us consider whether the

kind o politics that Occupy pursues not only

ails – or reuses – to comply with this idea o

politics, but is actively trying to establish an-

other one. So let us start with two o the basic

building blocks o the skeptical position: (1)

demands that appear in the orm o a list, (2)

demands that can be satised,

1. Demands should take the form of a list. Let

us imagine that the Occupy Movement were

to say that we have three demands: (a) the end

o home oreclosures, (b) orgiving student

debt, and (c) a decrease in unemployment. In

some ways, each o these demands surely reso-nates with what Occupy is about, and people

who are concerned with all these issues have

clearly joined occupy, joined demonstrations

with signs that oppose home oreclosures, un-

manageable student debt, and unemployment

rates. So the list o demands is clearly related

to the Occupy Movement, and yet, it would

be a mistake to say that the political mean-

ing or eect o the Occupy Movement can be

understood perectly well by understanding

these demands or, indeed, a much longer list

o demands. Te rst reason is that a “list” is a series o demands. But a list does not explain

how these demands are related to one another.

I one o the main political points

o the movement is to draw attention

to, and resist, growing inequalities o

wealth, then that is a social and eco-

nomic reality that crosses all the spe-

cic demands that such a list might

include. But it would not really count

as one demand among many. In other

words, through what language and action does

one call attention to a growing inequality o

wealth in which the rich monopolize increas-

ingly greater amounts o wealth and the poor

now includes increasing numbers o the popu-

lation? Tis point is made evident by each o

the particular issues on the list, a list that could

include the decimation o social services, in-

cluding public healthcare, o pensions, the in-crease in “fexible” labour that makes workers

into a disposable population, the destruction

o public and aordable higher education, the

overcrowding o primary and secondary public

lluttio fo The Beginning of the American Fall stephie mmill

by jd br



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Dmands?schools, tax breaks or the rich, depression o

wages, and increasing government support or

the prison industry. We can make such a list,

add to such a list, even become more specic

about such a list, but no one item on the list

can help us explain what gathers all those items

together on the list. I we argue, though, that

increasing wealth dierentials and inequality

that emerge directly rom contemporary ormso capitalism are exemplied by each o these

issues, and that together they provide evidence

or the claim that capitalism relies upon, and

reproduces, social and economic inequalities o

this kind, then we are making a claim about

how a system works and, more particularly,

how the capitalist system works now: inequali-

ties are becoming greater, assuming new and

devastating orms, and this accelerated process

o inequality remains unchecked by existing

state and global authorities who have a vested

interest in making capitalism work.Te skeptic might still respond with the

ollowing: “but don’t we have to work on each

o these issues separately in order to make any

real dierence in people’s lives? I we would

all take on some one issue, we could make

our way down the list, nding practical solu-

tions or each item there.” o take this point

o view, however, is to insist that the items can

be separated rom one another. But i we need

to know what links the items together in or-

der to provide a solution to this problem, then

our politics depends upon our asking about

the systemic and historical character o theeconomic system itsel.

Indeed, i we understand how the increas-

ing dierentials in wealth (and the accumu-

lation o more wealth by ewer and ewer

people, and the extension o poverty and dis-

posability to increasingly larger numbers o

people) ollows rom a particular economic

organization o society, one that is geared to

produce ever more acute versions o this in-

equality, then in order to address any o the

items on the list, we have to understand the

broader structure o inequality to which eachitem points, and we have to think about ways

o objecting to that economic regime, rather

than seek to make smaller adjustments to its

operation. Indeed, i we “x” any problem on

the list without addressing the reproduction

o inequality, and i that inequality is being

reproduced in ever more acute ways, then the

list just gets larger, even as we seek to remove a

particular item rom it.

We cannot x the one orm o inequal-

ity without understanding the broader trends

o inequality we are seeking to overcome. By

thinking that all the items must be disaggre-gated, we miss our mark and narrow our vision

at the expensive o both social and economic

justice. O course, one can work on any o these

items at the same time that one struggles or the

end to the structural reproduction o inequal-

ity. But that means that some group, some po-

litical articulation, has to keep attention on the

problem o structural inequality. I we think

that there are adequate resources within the

current economic regime to x these problems,

then, we make an odd assumption. We assume

that the very system that has produced the in-equality that characterizes all the items on the

list can serve as the recipient o our demands.

Tis brings me then to the second presumption

made by the skeptic’s question.



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2.Demands should be

capable of being satised. Tis surely seems like a

reasonable point. But

anyone who argues

that demands must

be capable o being

satised assumes that

there is someone or

some existing institu-

tional power to whom

one could appeal to

have one’s demands

satised. Union ne-gotiations backed by

the threat o strikes

usually do have a list

o demands which, i

satised, will avert the

strike, and i not, will

commence or prolong

a strike. But when a

company, corporation, or state is not consid-

ered a legitimate partner or negotiation, then

it makes no sense to appeal to that authority

or a negotiated settlement. In act, to appealto that authority to satisy the demand would

be one way o attributing legitimacy to that

authority. So articulating demands that can

be satised depends undamentally on the

attribution o legitimacy to those who have

the power to satisy the demands. And when

one ceases to direct demands to those authori-

ties, as happens in the general strike, then it

is the illegitimacy o those authorities that is

exposed. Tis is one important implication o

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s contribution to

Occupy Teory.But i those existing institutions are com-

plicit with the economic regime that depends

upon, and urthers, the reproduction o in-

equality, then one cannot appeal to those in-

stitutions to bring about an end to the con-

ditions o inequality. Such an appeal would

deeat itsel in the course o its articulation.

Simply put, the appeal or demand that sought

to be satised by the existing state, global

monetary institutions, or corporations, na-

tional or transnational, would be giving more

power to the very sources o inequality, and in

that way aiding and abetting the reproduction

o inequality itsel. As a result, another set o

strategies are required, and what we are now

seeing in the Occupy Movement is precisely the development o a set o strategies that call

attention to, and oppose, the reproduction o

inequality.

Perhaps to the skeptic the idea o making

“impossible demands” is equivalent to vacat-

ing the eld o the political itsel. But that

response should call our attention to the way

that the eld o the political has been consti-

tuted such that satisable demands become

the hallmark o its intelligibility. In other

words, why is it that we have come to accept

that the only politics that makes sense is onein which a set o demands are made to exist-

ing authorities, and that the demands isolate

instances o inequality and injustice rom one

another without seeing or drawing any links

among them? One can see that the restriction

o politics to a list o demands that can be sat-

ised thus keeps the eld o politics restricted

to contemporary electoral systems that oper-

ate on the assumption that any radical change

in the economic regime is non-negotiable. So,

whatever is negotiated, whatever demand is

satised, will not touch upon what is non-ne-

gotiable, namely, the reproduction o an eco-

nomic regime that is spawning inequalities at

an alarming rate. We might say the particular

politics that denes practical and intelligiblepolitics as the production and satisaction o

a list o discrete demands is committed in ad-

vance to the legitimacy o existing economic

and political structures, and to a reusal o the

systematic character o inequality.

As we can see, one o the key ways that ex-

isting regimes o power maintain their legitima-

cy is by debunking and dismissing all orms o

popular political resistance that call their own

legitimacy into question. Tey have strong sel-

interested reasons to dismiss the Occupy move-

ment as “apolitical.” At that moment, they aretrying to maintain a monopoly on the discourse

o the political, trying, in other words, to dene

and control the power o discourse that will

establish who makes senses, whose actions are

truly political, and who is “beyond the pale,”

“misguided,” and “impractical.”

Te uprising that calls into question those

strategies o sel-legitimation reminds us that

a orm o government or power that is demo-

cratic depends upon the popular will o the

demos, the people. What recourse do people

have when the institutions that are supposed



11

to equally represent them politically, provide

conditions or sustainable work, secure basic

health care and education, and honor basic

rights to equality, end up distributing all o those basic resources and rights dierentially

and illegitimately? At such a moment, there

are other ways o enacting equality, showing

up together on the street or on the internet,

producing alliances that demonstrate the

resonance, the overlap, and the broader links

among all those items on the list o contem-

porary injustice.

No political or economic regime can claim

to be legitimately democratic when it ails to

represent the people equally. And when that in-

equality becomes pervasive, and is treated as anirreversible act o economic lie, then the people

who suer that inequality act in alliance, enact-

ing and calling or the kind o equality. Some

might object that radical equality is impossible.

Even i that were the case – and there is no good

reason to accept that claim at ace-value – it

would not be possible to think democracy with-

out an ideal o radical equality. So radical equal-

ity is a demand, but it is not directed to those

institutions that reproduce inequality. It is di-

rected to the people themselves whose historical

task is the making o new institutions. Te ap-peal is to ourselves, and it is this new “we” that is

ormed, episodically and globally, in every action

and demonstration. Such actions are in no sense

“apolitical.” Tey take aim at a politics that oers

practical solutions at the expense o addressing

structural inequality. And they remind us that

every orm o politics gains or loses its legitimacy

depending on whether it accords equality to the

people it is said to represent. Otherwise, it ails

to represent, and so destroys its own legitimacy

in the eyes o the people. In demonstrating, in

acting, the people come to represent themselves,embodying and reanimating the principles o

equality that have been decimated. Abandoned

by existing institutions, they assemble themselves

in the name o a social and political equality, giv-

ing voice, body, movement, and visibility to an

idea o “the people” regularly divided and eaced

by existing power.

So where does the Occupy movement go

now? o answer this question, we have to ask

rst, who poses this question? And we have to

ask, in what orm does this question appear?

One point is clear rom the start: it is not the

tasks o intellectuals to pose and answer the

question. One reason is that intellectuals do

not have prescient powers and theory cannot

have the job o prescribing to those who areengaged primarily as activists. Indeed, let us

take this whole distinction apart, since activists

are very oten theorists, and theorists are some-

times also engaged in orms o activism that

are not primarily concerned with theory. Te

best any o us can do is to track what is actually

happening, how it moves people, and what e-

ects it has. And what we see right now, I be-

lieve, is that the Occupy movement has several

centers, that its public actions are episodic,

and that new orms o eectiveness are in-

creasingly evident. By “eectiveness” I do notmean that demands are being ormulated and

satised, but that mobilizations are increas-

ing in size and appearing in new geopolitical

locations. As the US elections dominate the

news media, it remains clear that a large part

o the population understand that their con-

cerns are not addressed by electoral politics.

So Occupy continues to delineate the way

the popular will wants a political movement

that exceeds that o electoral politics. In this

way, the “representative” claim o electoral

politics is itsel brought into greater crisis. Few achievements could be more important than

showing that electoral politics as it is currently

organized does not represent the popular will

– and that its very legitimacy is put into cri-

sis by this divergence o democratic will rom

electoral institutions.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is that

Occupy questions structural inequality, capi-

talism, and the specic sites and practices that

exempliy the relation between capitalism and

structural inequality. I Occupy has drawn at-

tention to orms o structural inequality thataect any number o corporations and state

institutions, that adversely aect the general

population as they try to meet the basic needs

o lie (shelter, ood, health care, employment),

then it has surely brought attention to the

general economic system that relies upon, and

produces, inequality with increasing intensity.

We can argue whether capitalism is a system,

an historical ormation, whether its neo-liberal

versions are substantially dierent than the cap-

italism criticized by Marx in the 19th century.

Tese are important debates, and academics

should consider to ocus their attention there,

to be sure. But there remains the question o

the historical present o capitalism, and Marx

himsel tells us that we must take as our pointo departure the historical present. What are

the specic public institutions and services that

plunge ever more people into conditions o pre-

carity, the corporations whose exploitative prac-

tices have decimated working lives, the health

care conglomerates that prot on illness and re-

use to oer adequate health services, the public

institutions that are either being decimated or

subordinated to corporate logics and the prot

calculus? Paradoxically but urgently, Occupy

must act episodically to target and expose these

sites o inequality, nding their public ace andinstance, and seizing or interrupting those pro-

cesses by which inequality and increased precar-

ity are being reproduced.

So, I do not think we have only to mourn

the loss o Zucotti Park or other public spaces

where Occupy was dwelling. Perhaps the task

is to undertake squatting as a orm o public

protest, even i it is only episodic and targeted.

Paradoxically, one can only draw attention to

radical inequality by exposing the sites where

inequality is reproduced. Tis must happen

in relation to centers o corporate and statepower, but also precisely at the site o “service

delivery” – health care corporations that ail to

provide service, banks that exploit those who

keep their money there, universities that be-

come the tools o corporate prot. Tese are

just a ew. But i Occupy is episodic, then

its target is not known in advance. And i it

targets unemployment in one place, unaord-

able housing in another, and the loss o public

services in yet a third, then it strings together

over time a sense o how capitalism is located

in concrete institutions and sites. As muchas we nd against structural inequality and a

“system” that prots by its reproduction, we

have to ocus on the concrete instances where

that inequality takes place. So i we do not stay

in the same place, it is not to be lamented. I

we are on the move, then we are, in collective

orms, tracking the sites o injustice and in-

equality, and our trail becomes the new map

o radical change.



12

When the entire workorce o a city lays down itstools and reuses to resume work until certaindemands are met, it is called a General Strike.

Te idea rst came rom the nineteenth-century anarchists,

who did not constitute a workorce but were people o anti-statist convictions. Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish revolution-ary thinker (1871–1919) murdered by German reaction-ary troops, rewrote the concept o the General Strike andclaimed it or the workorce (proletariat) ater witnessing thegreat General Strikes in the Russian Empire that began in1896 and ended in the tremendous General Strike o 1905.Georges Sorel (1847-1922), a French thinker who movedrom the political Let tothe political Right, alsoconceived o the GeneralStrike as a way to ener-

gize the workorce.Te Arican American

historian and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) described the exo-dus o the slaves immedi-ately ater Emancipationas a General Strike, be-cause slavery had not allowed the “Black Proletariat” (plan-tation workorce or the cotton industry) to orm itsel as a regular workorce.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), the Indian national lib-

erationist, rewrote the General Strike once again and claimedit or the colonized as such, regardless o class. Tus it wasshited rom a working-class movement to something like a mixture o civil disobedience and boycott politics. He calledit “Non-Cooperation.” W.E.B. Du Bois ollowed this care-ully.

oday the global workorce is deeply divided. And global-ization also operates by way o nance — trading in unevencurrencies — which has little to do with the workorce. A great deal o the economy is digital. It is time again to reclaimthe General Strike. It is being reclaimed by those who havebeen disenranchised rom the benets fowing toward the

citizen in a socially just state. Corporate greed leading to in-denite oreclosures, bailout o banks, 1% against 99%, deci-mated healthcare, corporatization o education at all levels —leading to exacerbation o student loans, and the destruction

o the teaching proession; and a general corporatization o every aspect o lie — agriculture, sport — the list goes on.Labor joins hands in this redenition o the General Strike asa collectivity o disenranchised citizens rather than the chie moving orce.

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) had dened those whohad no access to the welare structure o the state, those

who had no part in the state, as the subaltern. Tese werethe poorest o the poor.oday this too is being re-written. What we are

witnessing is the subal-

ternization o the middleclass — the largest sectoro the 99%. Te GeneralStrike, as with Du Boisand Gandhi, is now a powerul symbol; not

just a neatly matched worker/master ght. Te

power o a symbol is innitely greater than that o a mereact. A act can seemingly be quickly corrected, with all theservice o the corporate sector.

At this point, the things to remember are:

a. the General Strike has always been special be-

cause it is undertaken by those who suer, not

by morally outraged ideologues.

b. It is by denition non-violent (this is why Gan-

dhi could segue into it), though the repressive

apparatus o the state has used great violence

against the strikers.

c. Although the results are transormative, the

demands are generally ocused on laws:

the length o the working day or the Rus-

sian workers; the ourteenth and eenth

General Strikeby Gayar caKravry sPvaK

“IF ONE SEES THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE

GENERAL STRIKE AND THE LAW, ONE REALIZES

THAT THIS IS NOT LEGAL REFORMISM, BUT A WILL

TO SOCIAL JUSTICE. THIS INTENSE COMMITMENT

TO LEGAL CHANGE AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IS

A BID FOR JUSTICE. THE RIGHT TO A CEASELESS

CIVIL REVOLUTION WON BY A GENERAL STRIKE.



General Strikes are always against “Wall Street” or capi-talism. But, because revolutions have also been against badregimes represented by single dictators or kings, our idea o “revolution” is conused with armed struggle, violence,and regime change. In Russia the Czars, in China decadenteudalism and Euro-colonialism, various regimes and thelatiundia system in Latin America, in France the Bourbon

monarchy, in America the Hanover monarchy and later theslaveholding system; today, Zine el-Abidin ben Al or the

Arab Spring in unisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, MuammarGadda in Libya.

By contrast, in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement thespirit o the General Strike has come into its own and joinedorces with the American tradition o civil disobedience: citi-zens against an unregulated capitalist state, not against anindividual and his regime. Tereore, short-term: change thelaws that make the state accountable to business and banks,not to people. Long-term: establish and nurture an educa-tion that keeps this will to justice alive.

Amendments (in substance i not in discourse)

by the ormer slaves; a decolonized legal

structure by Gandhi. So, laws banning bailout,

legal oversight o scal policy — tax the rich

— de-corporatization o education, liing ag-

ricultural subsidies — changing electoral laws

so it is not only the rich who run — where will

you stop? I one sees the connection betweenthe General Strike and the Law, one realizes

that this is not legal reormism, but a will to

social justice. This intense commitment to le-

gal change and its implementation is a bid or

justice. The right to a ceaseless civil revolution

won by a General Strike.

d. Unlike a party, a general strike reuses to co-

operate until things change. Pressure is work-

ing: witness the 5% victory over debit card

charges!

hee e two photo fo 1937 tht eflet two

iffeet tike. at ight, 60,000 people ttee

“get gtheig of lo i cill sque,” pt of

wht i oiee to e the ot ipott tike

i .s. hito. at left, 110 woe i detoit’ i

Woolwoth toe pet ix i the toe, leepig o

the oute. he ee thei tike whe the wee

gte 5¢ pe hou iee.

13



14

I. As students, we strike at the heart oan economy that depends on an edu-cation system that exploits us, disci-plines us, and proits rom us.

o strike as students is to recognize ourselves as workers in the present and uture economy. Ourlabor is necessary to produce and reproduce an

educational system which is a source o prot andplunder or the 1% and a source o disciplined andexploitable labor power. A student strike is a reusalo this role at every level—rom high schools tocolleges and universities. So long as the employing class prots rom our knowledge, we should notpay tuition and be plunged into debt in order tobe employable. Instead, we should be guaranteed a

wage to learn.

II. We strike to reject a system th at

divides us.

We strike because our desire to learn must not beused to maintain violent social divisions. We rejecta system that exploits our dierences and dividesus along race, sexual, gender, and class lines. Weare taught that education is our best means to‘get ahead’ in lie, yet, many are also let behind,devalued, discarded, or simply excluded. We rejecta system that orces us into vicious competition andpits us against each other.

III. We strike against a ailing system thatrobs us o our uture .

We strike against the devaluation o our educationthrough austerity measures, rising tuition and bud-get cuts. We strike against being doomed to lielong debt, constant training and re-skilling, and againsta system that saddles us with the cost o produc-

ing exploitable workers or the market. We reusean educational system governed by the dictates o competition, individualism, and prot.

IV. We strike to airm and createeducation as we want it.

We strike or an educational system that serves ourcollective needs and desires. We want to be decision-makers in our collective uture, or knowledge to bea genuine commons and not a source o prot.

V. We strike to build our collective powerand create something new.

o strike is to realize our power to determine oureveryday lives. We reuse to let our bodies and ourminds be held hostage to the current educationaland work regimes, to collaborate quietly as the vio-lent logic o capital bankrupts us o our present anduture. We strike together to build a better worldand reclaim our uture.

by anms sdns a

cny Grada cnr

Five Theses on the

Student Strike

14



15

15

What are your demands? What are your demands?

Wld ystik againstwa? F datin?F alt

a? Againstpli btality?



16

16

Ocsolid

day wand mor

are:

No Work No Shop

Getting Ready or



17

17

orget our own interests. We have already become someoneelse. We hold the belies o the other and ght or them, nomatter how ludicrous.

We could collectivize ghts against debt and unemploy-ment, ght as a people, democratically, horizontally.

But the way student loan debt is structured has preventedus rom engaging or creating a movement. Our loans don’t

eect us until ater we graduate. Te myth o the Americandream persists throughout our college years, only to comecrashing down when we enter the real world. We can’t get

jobs that aord us the luxury o paying o our debt and liv-ing a comortable lie. We work during the day and study atnight. We work at night and study during the day. We willnot risk quitting a low paying job to work or ourselves; thedanger o deault is too great. We will not open our own busi-nesses. We will not create jobs or others. We will delay mar-riage, having kids, traveling. We will not pursue our dreams.

We are destined to pursue our collective nightmares in

Student Debt Strike

There are no statistics to substantiate the psychologicalbattle that student debtors are ghting. It is impos-sible to account or the suicides and the runaways.

Tis year, student debt will top $1 trillion dollars in the US. An entire generation is acing a uture under water. We are

entering adult lie ripped rom our sense o ourselves. We arein debt. We are humiliated. We struggle alone.

Debt destroys solidarity; it corrodes relationships andsocial movements with the yolk o obligation to work andconsume.

Debt has disciplining eects. We tailor our lives to com-bat it consciously and unconsciously, and we eectively un-dergo a total transormation. We socialize these changes, they spread like a disease. We adapt strategies to conceal our dis-grace by selectively interacting with those who are radically dierent than we are. We can’t bear to look at ourselves inthe mirror. What we study changes. Our strategy must beto target industries that we can prot rom. We ignore ouractual interests. We manuacture alse identities based on sta-tus in order to orget ourselves. We blindly pursue dignity atevery turn aced with our own personal shame. Politically we

Wall Street stands inwith the calls or athe 99%, a general strike,

May Day, wherever you

chool No HouseworkNo Banking

A Book Bloc, London, 2010: b uig ook hiel

igig the ito the teet eotto e wig t-

tetio to the iolee t the het of the eoliel ieolog.

book e ou tool – we teh with the, we le with the,

we pl with the, we ete with the, we ke loe with the

, oetie, we ut fight with the.

tetig citiop’ lk of equlit i the wokple.

ay Day 2012

Take the streets



18

a huge h ogie

the ueploe ouil,

chigo 1932.

“

W av bn sd by caPasm, W av bn

sd and radd n Wa sr, W av

bn XPcd cra ay ms and

Fams and ar n vcd Frm ssam ms W a scnd G.”

derstand that history has turned us into property. We have been used by capitalism, we have been sold

and traded on Wall Street, we have been expected to createhealthy homes and amilies and are then evicted rom thosesame homes without a second thought. We have been used

to keep homes afoat while husbands work, and we are now being used to keep a ailing, exploitative economy running as e ciently as possible.

A general strike on May 1 st, 2012 is an opportunity orus to come together and call out the extreme damage andoppression done by capitalism to the human community.

It has divided us based ongender and has ensured theexploitation o those o uslabeled “woman.” Te gen-eral strike is a gendered is-sue and we must illuminate

this through our actionson May Day. Don’t go to

work, don’t go to school,don’t behave and don’t buy.Get in the streets and build

community. We can create the world we want to see once weremove our consent rom the world that destroys us.

Housing Strike

The most intimate corners and spaces in our lives have

been stolen rom us in thets justied by words likeproperty rights and mortgages and rent checks. It’s

time to question these alse contracts. Why does a bank thatsplit ownership o our homes into hundreds o parts, tanked

our economy, stole our in-vestments and is now try-ing to extort mortgage pay-ments rom us say it ownsour home? Why does a management company thatowns hal the city, that ex-ploits amilies’ basic neces-

sities or prot, and that isnow raising our rent whenreal wages haven’t increasedin 50 years deserve to ownour apartments?

Housing has alwaysbeen an unequal nancialarrangement: those withconsolidated wealth prey on amilies’ most unda-mental needs. Foreclosedproperties stand as bitter

isolation. Where is the rage?Reuse your debt! Cast o the chains that bind you to the

state and the nancial system. Join the Occupy Student Debt Campaign and build a

movement. Become a part o an action o mutual aid. Band

together with others across the country. Sign the pledge o debt reusal. I you are not in debt, sign a pledge o supportor debtors repudiating their debt. I you are a aculty mem-ber, sign the pledge endorsing the action and show supportor your students. Your wages are being cut and your knowl-edge undervalued. Don’t be complacent in a system that isswallowing you whole!

Make the decisionto reuse your debt andstart today. Join us.

Women’s StrikeTe issues o eco-

nomic oppression andthe realities o genderare intrinsically linked. o separate them would literally beimpossible—and yet this refexive relationship o oppressionis constantly ignored or relegated to ‘disturbing actoid’ sta-tus. o be sure, there are indeed numbers and percentagesthat will make your eyes widen. Te UN reports those o us

who are emale assigned at birth make on average 17% lessthan those who are male assigned. Women, as a gendered

category o people, perorm 66% o the world’s work, andproduce 50% o its ood. Yet we earn only 10% o its incomeand own 1% o its property.

Te global economic crisis has and will continue to re-inorce patriarchy through an economic stranglehold onthe necks o the emaleassigned and identied.But the solution is no-

where near the economicreorm and recovery promised by politiciansand NGOs. In act, the

solution can never be a proposed program, devel-opment initiative, or mi-cronance game. Tose o us who have been called orcall ourselves women un-

18



19

reminders o how ar those with power will go to enorcethis contract: In New York City, 10,000 homeless amiliessleep in shelters each night while 80,000 apartment unitsand homes stand vacant in the borough o Brooklyn alone—

company owned, 1% controlled. It’s no wonder that so many have been evicted across the country: a amily has to earn$16.31 an hour to be able to aord housing at the nationalaverage “air” market rent, while the ederal minimum wagestands at a mere $7.25 an hour.

State and urban governments selectively enorce their lawsto prop up this injustice, while mainstream media constructsa national narrative in which private ownership is a right buta amily’s basic shelter, security and saety is a privilege. Land-lords’ right to property is brutally enorced under the guiseo the Fourteenth Amendment, but citizens’ right to lie—that inalienable right o the Declaration o Independent—is

ignored. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s too-big-to-ail banks arenothing more than black holes that require a constant streamour money to survive, that are already teetering, relying ontax-dollar handouts rom the State to avoid ailure.

Paying rent and mortgage is akin to unding our own so-cial and economic marginalization. It’s time to say enough:No more rent checks. No more mortgage payments. Strikeagainst a system that is already broken; reuse to make pay-ments that are already invalid. Tis apartment, this house,this country: Tis is already our home and we will assumeull ownership.

Arts Strike

The arts will be crucial to our collective economic non-compliance on May Day 2012. Te arts are embed-ded in the broader cultural and media sectors o the

neoliberal urban economy. People who work in these sectors,including musicians and writers, perormers and architects,dancers and designers, photographers and lmmakers, typi-cally work numerous other jobs to make ends meet. We work as students, educators, bartenders, prooreaders, interns,tour-guides, care-takers, art-handlers, administrative assis-

tants, street-vendors, and more. Tough some o us belong to unions, cultural workers are largely precarious and unor-ganized. Many o us do not have jobs at all. And cultural

workers are debtors--we share this “negative commons” withthe rest o the 99%.

Cultural workers are variously striated by class-back-ground, race, gender, age, immigration-status, education,institutional a liation, and cultural prestige, with the mostelite oten serving as the avant-garde o gentrication. Build-ing a strike-alliance involving cultural workers will thus becomplicated. Matters o privilege and hierarchy will need tobe deeply examined. But it will also be quite powerul, given

that the cultural workers o the 99% create the cultural com-monwealth rom which the 1% in the entertainment, tour-ism, and real-estate industries draw their astronomical prots.

As cultural workers, we can contribute our various skill-sets to the build-up or May Day through creative media,research, and direct action. At the same time, we can do or-mal and inormal outreach in our workplaces, institutions,communities, and social networks.

May Day will be beautiully disruptive. As we shut downthe privatized city o capital, we will open new public spacesthat are empowering and inspiring. Te strike will be an ex-

ercise in radical imagination inormed by dreams o belovedcommunity and histories o militant resistance. It will draw upon and reinvent the creative tactics o earlier struggles orreedom, equality, and justice rom across the world. We willcontinuously add and multiply our collective creativity sothat every act o deance also demonstrates the possibility o another world beyond neoliberalism.

When we withdraw rom work, let’s not just stay home orgo shopping. Imagine May Day and its build-up as a Spring celebration o the arts, a people’s jubilee o the cultural com-mons. Everyone will be invited to the party: the kids andthe elders, the singers and the dancers, the clowns and the

monsters. Let’s go out into to the streets, parks, and lots toreclaim our city. Let’s march, converge, and assemble withour riends and amilies, communities and allies. Let’s makesome art, pitch some tents, plant some seeds... and see whatgrows or the Summer and beyond.

mephi ittio woke tike, 1968.

W cnrbns Frm:

szan braman, mas nz, yas

mcK, am da, and cnvrsans Wn

dFFrn WrKnG GrPs and assmbs

19



20

. . . As the applause died down,

Sister Tompkins began to speak:

“Comrades! On this, the seventh day o our general strike,

the Citywide Coordinating Committee o New York’s Work-place and Community Assemblies has asked me to sum up itsmeaning and signicance.

“During the general strike ve years ago, we stayed out inthe streets or ten days until driven back by murderous orce.

“Nonetheless the strike was a success, or we rose as oneand denied the bosses the prots extracted rom our labor.

And we proved it is our labor alone that keeps society run-ning. (Applause.)

“What’s more, in the years since 2017, new unions havesprung up in thousands o worksites, each breathing the reand love o those days, and giving millions condence in

their ability to ght the bosses.“Tis year when we struck we did not leave work, but

instead occupied our o ces and actories, our schools, hos-pitals and childcare centers. And we invited into them theparents and children, all the residents o the surrounding communities, who are helping us to run this strike and toprotect the occupied worksites.

“ogether we are organizing provision o ood and medi-cal care, as well as cultural and educational eorts to bolsterour spirits and ortiy our steadastness.

“At each workplace we democratically decide how to -

nance those activities, just as our Citywide Coordinating Committee and in turn the Coordinating Committee or allOccupied Zones in this country democratically decide how to allocate the pooled resources o the General Strike sites.

“In all this we are getting practice or the day when we will carry out these tasks as part o building a new society.(Applause.)

“We may not get there this time. Te rulers’ police andmilitary are massing on the opposite sides o every bridgeleading into the city. And our resistance, while careully pre-pared, may not su ce.

“But no matter the outcome o the coming battle, we

have written an indelible chapter in history, one which, evenshould we not complete our work, will be read with prideby our children and grandchildren, who will learn rom oursuccesses as well as our mistakes, and who will usher in thatnew society.”

(Prolonged, stormy applause.)

“Let us turn now to a report on our coordination withother striking cities…”

Excerpt From an Account o theGeneral Strike o 2022

BY ANDY POLLACK

20



21

“ tike, rie Ptol, ol 1299”

u stike, nyc

1951 5000 tit woke fille uo st.

i nyc outie of the bo of pottio

uilig to e 40-hou wok week.

Who strikes? Who has the right to strike?

Wld y stik egypt? F

oakland? Fcil?

Would you strike

instead o settle?

Would you strike

or queer rights, theundocumented,

the homeless youth,

the women?

21



22

Aew years back, I took my niece and my neph-

ew to the aquarium, and the image that I saw

still uels my imagination. In the tank, a pro-

jected light in the shape o a sh kept moving and, thus,

the penguins kept chasing ater it. Tis poignant imageleads me to refect on the human rights work and the jus-

tice movement that I have been part o or the last two de-

cades. I have come to live this lie as a displaced immigrant

rom Mexico, whose amily was squeezed out by oreign,

neoliberal policies that have aected millions and millions

negatively. Te saying that is common among many o

us who have been ousted is, “we are here because you are

there”—“there” meaning our homelands rom which we

have been orced out under the banner o democracy and

development. I have the privilege o struggling side by side

with people who have been under the eye o the gun, so to

speak, and who live day in and day out risking and acting to change systems that are oppressive and inhuman. My

amily, mentors and close riends have always been part o

the struggle in acilitating a more humane, and commu-

nity-oriented society. Teir analysis always point to that

radical sense o being connected in a genuine, real and

human way to each other and to the earth. It’s a radical,

human understanding that takes in the whole o creation

and sees the intricate seamless web o all lie as sacred.

It is rare to see the making o history. We realize that,

with the Occupy Movement, a spark that has ed the

imagination o thousands and compelled them to action

has taken fight rom the great re o indignation andinjustice that our communities o color have been living

with and resisting or centuries. It is the making o his-

tory that we are witnessing, and it does concern all o us.

A visible shit is underway in the way we resist, organize

and how we come to know, engage and shape our lives

and the society we live in.

It is in this empowering awareness that we are occu-

pying anew the dates that once were signicant on our

journeys or liberation. May 1st is around the corner and

the question is already on the organizing tables as we

prepare or our own spring. How can we use this date

to build a movement that is inclusive and eectively ad-

We Are HereBecAuSe You Are There

dresses the many needs o our communities? It is encouraging that representa-tives o all sectors o our society are at the table. Now it is time or the 99% to

be counted.

Te image o the light comes back to my mind, probing and questioning: Are

we just ollowing a light that deceives us and keeps us captive in the same molds

o thinking and acting, captive to the collapsing institutions and governments

that do not respond to the needs o the many nor urther the common good? Or

are we truly building a movement that is liberating and creating communities

where doing what is good is easier than doing what is dehumanizing?

Dan Berrigan poetically points to that reality whenever he is asked why he

keeps resisting, “Because o the children, they said, and because o the heart,

and because o the bread. Because the cause is the heart’s beat and the children

born and the risen bread.”

“We have kept a silence quite similar to stupidity,” Valparaiso, Chile.

Photo: Alredo Jaar

by jan cars rz



23

The recent wave o Chilean stu-dent protests exploded in April

2011. Sparked by a conederationo university students, the protest-ers called or a strike to demand ree

public education, equal access to thecountry’s best schools, an end to or-prot schools and student participa-tion in university governments.

Te Chilean educational system isnotoriously underunded, unequaland stratied by class, and the strikeand revolutionary spirit quickly spread

across the universities and secondary schools. Hundreds o thousands o students mobilized or protests, sit-ins, school takeovers, ash mobs andspectacular media demonstrations.By June, the students efectively shutdown the educational system. By July,they ousted the Minister o Education.Te Chilean winter had begun.

Te Chilean student movementcombined mass mobilization, oc-cupation and subversive creativity toachieve an impact that is hard to exag-gerate. Wielding barricades and ban-ners, students occupied hundreds o school buildings. Public spaces became

homes to dozens o massive demon-strations, where thousands o people

used rehearsed choreography to createtheatrical perormances or the mediato report and consume—thereby goingninja on mainstream media.

Students used symbolism and spec-tacle to communicate. Pillow ghts inront o parliament raged or a “besteductation.” Mass kiss-ins spread“passion or eduction.” Die-ins the-

atrically demonstrated “casualties by tuition increase,” and paint-bombings

o police armored vehicles mocked thelegacy o ear that has dened Chileanpolitics since the years o Pinochet.

All o these actions demonstrate thedepth o thought behind the ChileanStudents’ movement, and their abil-ity to break through the police versus

protester binary narrative and suc-cessully reach and engage the 99%.

Pillow Fighting or our lives

Ps: lieo Fee, alioh

mque, cote



24

In the United States, the Occupy movement is at war with compla-

cency and ear. From riends and strangers outside the movement I

hear pride and apathy in the same sentences. It goes something like,

“We are so proud o you and all you are doing!” How proud they are that

Americans are taking to the streets in protest o injustice, and yet how ar

removed rom the ght they remain.

Many o us in Occupy spend hours upon hours guring out how to

grow a movement. We are constantly asking ourselves how to get every-

day people involved. We think o how much inormation about global

injustices we have at our ngertips or more importantly, how easily we

can see vast disparities all around us. We are growing insane wondering

why we would even need to consider canvassing. We scream and rant to

each other in bewilderment and disbelie at our acquiescent American

public: Where is the rage? Why aren’t there 100,000 in the streets?

Complacency is a most subtle, most dicult thing to recognize in

onesel. I nd it in the most well-intentioned, good-spirited individu-als. Tey wander into the movement here and there and oer welcomed

brilliant ideas and careul criticisms. Tey are satised, delighted even,

about the Occupy movement but nd themselves hamstrung by their

daily grinds. Tey say they don’t have time, cannot jeopardize their jobs

or simply do not know where to begin.

When I think o how to address this reaction, it seems useul to think

o complacency in terms o satisaction and time. Te degree to which we

are satised or content with lie as it is tends to dictate the time we dedi-

cate to altering it. Beyond this, condence in our thoughts and our moral

intuition drives our personal initiatives that challenge those structures

that do not satisy our needs. When we lack the latter, we look to create

a sense o suciency—that we have participated just enough to eel asthough we actually have a say in the trajectory o our society.

In this moment, in the United States, complacency is only slightly

understandable. We can still enjoy capitalism’s creature comorts: nights

out with our riends at interesting bars, locally grown organic produce

and hot new shoes. Tere is still a very real space between choosing

to mobilize in the ace o oppression and having to or survival. Our

threshold or tolerating corruption and white-collar crimes seems right-

ully proportionate to our privilege.

Te American population, the 1% o the world, is wrapped in a skin

lled with memory we must shed. Memory o alse historical narratives,

o manipulations we knowingly uphold, o dreams about “making it”

and o an existence that seems to have stopped evolving. Tese alsememories require our collective insomnia. We are not at the end o

history, as some would have us believe. Our current society does not

represent the best we can do. Tere is nothing inherent to human be-

ings that allow some to achieve nancial success by their own volition

and others to remain stagnant in reaching an acceptable quality o lie.

We need to connect ourselves and the products we use, the places

we work and the ideologies we uphold to the millions who deal with

their consequences around the world. Whether through collective ig-

norance or denial, our complacency is an utter insult—heaps o salt in

their gaping wounds—to the impoverished millions who mobilize daily

against extremely violent oppression and systematic execution. Tose

On Losing Complacency

& Fearby sandra mar nrs



25

who cling to the last toxic droplets o trickle-down capitalism,

who have the most important thing to lose—their existence,

their ability to experience living in this most beautiul world—

are let to eat the dust our disinterested eet kick in their aces.It is not enough to pat protestors on the back as they march

by; it’s condescending. It is not enough to do eel-good charity; this

is borderline criminal. It is not enough to read the volumes o litera-

ture on the ills working against a peaceul and just humanity. It is not

enough to be open to hearing the struggles o millions. It is not enough

to talk politics at your dinner table. Tere is something we are missing

in these moments, and it is only ound when we put our bodies on

the line as agents o change. o ght in this moment is to welcome

discomort, is to expect inconvenience and is to move in spaces you

have never dreamed o.

Past complacency, there is real ear. Most talk about ear in terms

o the unknown, but it eels more betting to talk about ear in termso human disappointment. Disappointment that we cannot actualize a

better world. Disappointment that those we trust the most in our ght

will make grave mistakes. Disappointment that we may pass beore we

see our eorts come to ruition. Tese are things to truly ear because

these are human. More importantly, these disappointments will never

be a non-actor in our ght. We must come to terms with this ear and

turn it into a source o inspiration by acknowledging the incredible

courage and grit it takes to put ourselves on the line. We must trust not

just each other, but our inevitable stumbles. We must bend our backs

to ensure the umbling o our ideas land sotly.

Te inexplicable sense o liberation elt while peeling away each lie

rom our skins is met with immediate terror. During the time it takes toreplace it with truth, we may eel the real sense that our intuition may

be misleading us. Tere is a panic that we have given it away so reely

or nothing. Our eorts are equally powerul and terriying in their

naïve honesty: We want a just world. Every blind step where we all, it

seems to be into an endless pit. However, the proound relie you will

eel, the ullled sense your body gains when you hear the pitter-patter

rom the charging eet o others, a collective jangly wander towards

justice that does not tire even though there is no end in sight.

Putting the ear o personal consequences behind us, there is now

an opportunity or us to live up to the promise and spirit o resistance.

Tis spring, as many cities and towns across the nation launch new

occupations, mass days o actions and general strikes, it is crucial we

whole-heartedly embrace spring as a budding revolution. When we oc-

cupy, we hold space with our bodies and put aside our ear o enduring

physical violence rom the state or o spending nights in jail. When we

hit the streets in mass actions, we bring our collective disillusionment

and outrage into the public realm. When we strike, we overcome the

anxiety o not participating and cooperating in systems that undamen-

tally restrict our human potential and that work to separate us rom

each other. When we reuse to engage a corrupt and broken electoral

system, we stop earing society without central leaders and start looking to lead together.

It is a personal challenge or us all to push beyond our alse sense o

security and move without trepidation. I know and I trust we will tear

away these dreadul constraints as we move towards revolution. I know

that at our most alive, we are together crying, screaming and shouting

at injustice; that at our most alive, we are together thinking, talking,

marching and pushing towards liberation. At our most alive, there is no

complacency. Tere is no ear. Tere is only trust in each other as we

hold hands on the rontline o this ght.

Pitig alex Kle

Our eorts are equally powerul and

terriying in their naïve honesty: We want

a just world. Every blind step where we all,

it seems to be into an endless pit. However,

the proound relie you will eel, the ullled

sense your body gains when you hear the

pitter-patter rom the charging eet o others,

a collective jangly wander towards justice

that does not tire even though there is no

end in sight.



26

THE PROPOGANDA MODEL: POWER AND HEIRARCHY

From Glenn Beck, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, to Wol Blitzer, Te New York imes and Te Post, newsgath-

ering and reporting is a comedic theatre in which the only thing wecan know or sure is that we aren’t receiving the whole truth. Fox

News, with its fashy tickers, and beautiul, angry women, ranks

much higher in the U.S. than the tamer, blander backdrops o Al

Jazeera and the BBC. Tis is the culture industry, which objecties

and reies subtly, in packaging, style and content, while we sit eyes

glued to the tube absorbing the drivel that is spoon ed to us, ask-

ing or more. It is a cyclical dilemma, mass culture dening society

to the extent that society is no longer able to critically evaluate the

belies that dene it. Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique o the “cul-

ture industry” resonates today, ostering consumption-based needs,

manuacturing consent, standardizing cultural goods and watering

down critical thought.Te propaganda model is more straightorward, easier to spot.

Who owns Fox News and what’s its agenda? Which advertisers air

most requently, and how does that aect the corresponding chan-

nels content? Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s 1988 wa-

tershed analysis o the propaganda model, “Manuacturing Consent:

Te Political Economy o the Mass Media,” remains the best expla-

nation o the various ways media outlets are co-opted by corporate

conglomerates and their government partners. Chomsky and Her-

man ocused on ve lters—ownership; advertising; sourcing (think

subsidized media—privileged access to elites and policy makers); fak

(the prospect o negative responses/criticism rom powerul interest

groups); and anti-communist sentiment (revised to incorporate ear

Media As Direct Action

Since the earliest days o the occupation, great

eorts were made to infuence media spin..

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Livestream—the goal was

to attract reporters, wrangle, and document. But asmainstream media interest grew, the press twisted and

conated our voices. Why did we expect anything less?

We live in a world defned by a system o mass

manipulation, and the media is its greatest weapon.

Although decentralized and semi-democratic online

platorms oer us unprecedented access to alterna-

tive media, we have yet to harness these resources

in reexive, proactive ways that present accessible

narratives to the outside world. Instead, we have

tried to control the spin o mainstream media, engag-

ing on its terms and playing by its rules.In ocusing on the spin, we have not only missed

opportunities to message proactively, but we have

witnessed the rise o a more disturbing trend: ac-

tions defned and supported internally and externally

based on perceived press response.

The extent to which we allow press to defne our

actions is the extent to which we lose. Radical struc-

tural change requires radical departure rom tradi-

tional ormulas, models and rules o engagement.

by Ka davsn



27

and anti-Islamic sentiment as a means o ideological control)—all o which

act as a corporate kaleidoscope, ltering and warping news coverage to re-

fect the attitudes, belies and agendas o the powers that be.

Over the last twenty-plus years, the Internet promised to change the

rules o the game. Many hoped this technology would usher in a new era o

truly democratic and accessible media. Tis has not been the case.

THE PROPOGANDA MODEL LIVES ON IN THE INTERNET When I entered the eld in 2004, the industry was in the throws o a

mad scramble to protect prot margins. Te ear that the Internet would

usher in the Marxist equivalent o the end o capital raged like a wildre

through the industry as service providers and media outlets struggled to

undermine net-neutrality and create tiered models o engagement.

Over the years, the corporate machine prevailed. Tink o the an-

noying 30-second ad you can’t click away, the pop-up banners littered

across your screen, the built-in marketing links within bodies o content

and the search engines that generate advertising in line with your likes

and dislikes. Tink o companies like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon as the

new corporate conglomerates dominating this “decentralized” platorm.

Tink o site trac as the new subscription, controlled access to the most widely visited sites and more disturbing trends like the rise o identity

thet and tracking. Te propaganda model inserted, the lters in place,

the Internet now allows or the same bottleneck o power, wealth and

inormation as its analog counterparts.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE BANKS

Te media is one o the most eective tools protecting market interests

and shaping public opinion and, as such, should be thought o no dier-

ently than concentrations o power on Wall Street or Capitol Hill.

So why, in this one area, do we continue to play by their rules? At

what point does an attempt to work within a corrupt system begin to

replicate the system we seek to destroy? At the point where that system begins to dictate our actions, to

water down our resolve and undermine our solidarity. Tere is perhaps

no better example than December 17.

D17 was an incredibly controversial action within the movement,

in part because o the anticipated media response. Many were araid

that this would appear to be an attack on the Church. Tat this particu-

lar church was actually a Real Estate corporation and the third-largest

landowner in Manhattan with a vestry that reads like a who’s who o

Wall Street was beside the point.

Te morning o the action Te New York imes printed an article

pulled straight rom rinity Wall Street’s press kit. Bought and paid or,

it was a scathing attack on OWS in deense o the Church, and it createda wave o panic through our ranks. o enter the space or not to enter

the space, that became the question. Tat the media had any role in that

conversation, proves my point. Te New York imes manuactured dis-

sent among our ranks while perpetuating consent or the position o an

organization run by the 1%. Had we accepted that the Real Estate giant

would pull the media out o their tool kit and used that understanding to

inorm a creative, proactive messaging strategy leading up to the action,

perhaps the battle would have looked dierent.

THE ANSWER IS CREATIVE

2012 is about a plurality o tactics: disrupting business as usual

while presenting viable alternatives to the public at large. We must

think o media engagement as strategic, direct action—a tool or sub-versive empowerment.

From the Situationist’s détournement and tactical media strategies

to hacktivism, pirate radio and street theatre, alternative media has

explored ways in which we can engage audiences and create outside

traditional modes o production and distribution since the 1950s. We

should draw inspiration rom the ‘hit-and-run’ strategies employed by

groups like the Yes Men in creating tactical media around actions and

issues. We should re-envision guerilla communication and the street

theatre o the 1960s. How can technology update and expand these

techniques to reach broader audiences?

Imagine i D17 had looked like a national guerilla “marketing”

campaign—“rinity Wall Street gets behind Occupy Movement!”“rinity endorses new occupation at Duarte Square!” “Te Church in

Support o OWS!”—while we simultaneously created inormative and

thoughtul pieces about space.

Radical strategic media is about more than viral Youube videos; it’s

about avant-garde media that pushes the limits o traditional ormulas,

story structures, and methods o communication. It’s about creating

content that asks questions rather than provides answers.

Faced with an opponent that cultivates alse needs predicated on

consumption, cultivating work that promote real needs—reedom,

happiness, creativity—could be a watershed moment or radical activa-

tion. Culture can and will inspire civic engagement. Tink interactive

media and art projects in public spaces. Tink coordinated nationalguerilla marketing campaigns. Tink hacktivism that takes on main-

stream media outlets.

We must liberate creativity while ocusing our resources on proactive

messaging. We must research and experiment with models that have been

tried and those that have only been imagined. We must create alternative

media outlets that incorporate decision-making processes that refect the

balanced, air and non-exploitative world we wish to create.

A radical departure rom old power structures means empowering

autonomous actions, voices, ideas and works that activate a broad base

who then do the same. We will never be able to control the mainstream,

but why would we want to? We can create outside the language, ideas,

parameters, and mediums that aim to dene and constrict, to packageand standardize. We can use media to educate, communicate, critique

and liberate, but we must reassert our creativity rom creation to pro-

duction and delivery. We must marry concepts o autonomous, direct

action with our approach to culture and then use media as a tool to ree

the mind rather than enslave it.

2012 is about a plurality o tactics: disrupting business as usual while

presenting viable alternatives to the public at large.. We must think o

media engagement as strategic, direct action — a tool or subversive em-

powerment.



28

Tings have calmed down somewhat or the winter, and now there’s

time to think more careully. Tere has been tremendous time and en-

ergy sapped up in the General Assembly and Spokes Council about

oten-minute hows and whys o distributing money within the move-

ment. Te philanthropy starting to come in rom outside risks empow-

ering only those privileged with existing connections to the pursestrings

o the wealthy. O course, ull-time activists don’t grow on trees, and

they need to be supported, as do their works. Yet a paycheck can be-come a sense o entitlement—good or building a stable institution, but

threatening to the militancy o a resistance movement.

Dealing with money is hard, and all the more so or a community

committed to making its every procedure refective o its aspirations.

Compared to most other kinds o undertakings, however, true popular

movements are actually pretty cheap, and they can come by what they

need quite naturally i they’re doing their job right.

In the heyday o the civil rights movement, radical groups had to

buckle down or years o intensive on-the-ground organizing. Te Stu-

dent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee entrusted budgetary details

to Executive Secretary James Foreman, which enabled SNCC to react

quickly to the various emergencies that came up all the time. Still, its

members would hold days-long meetings to decide on overall priorities

collectively—meetings which make a ew hours at the General Assem-

bly seem merciully short.

“Fundraising went on all the time,” explains SNCC veteran Mary King. “But it was segmented.” While SNCC organizers lived and

worked in black communities in the South, Te Freedom Singers

toured the country, raising money and awareness by singing songs and

telling stories about the movement. Tese weren’t entertainers. “Tey

were real people with real stories,” says King, “authentic heroes and

heroines working in the movement, until Jim Forman asked them to

go on the road.” “Friends o SNCC” chapters ormed in Northern cities

to organize these perormances and support the movement rom aar.

Not that the intake was very big, in the end; a SNCC eld secretary, the

person in charge o local operations, earned the equivalent o less than

$70 a week in today’s dollars.

Te Southern Christian Leadership Conerence had a more inte-grated approach to undraising. Staers were expected to contribute

at least 10 percent o whatever they spent. “Tere was plenty o ancy

undraising involving celebrities like Harry Belaonte,” explains Mary

King. “Yet the wonderul thing about sta members being expected to

help carry their own weight is that it made them remember to be ru-

gal.” Tey raised money rom bake sales, car washes, and amily mem-

bers, oten close to the communities in which the staers were work-

ing. King hersel advocated or more o this decentralized approach in

SNCC. “Grassroots undraising is extremely important,” she says. “You

can draw psychological nourishment rom it, and share knowledge. It

is not just money.”

Improvisation was also a big part o the civil rights movement’s daily bread. During the Montgomery bus boycott, Bayard Rustin turned to

nearby Birmingham, where black steel workers made good salaries and

oten had two cars per amily. He persuaded many o them to send

their second cars to Montgomery or carpooling boycotters. Tis made

donors part o the eort in a more direct, substantive way than just

giving money.

Such in-kind giving has been the basis o the ongoing May 15 move-

ment in Spain, which helped to inspire Occupy Wall Street. According to

Spanish activist and journalist er Garcia, “Little money, but many hours o

voluntary work, made possible the country’s most important social move-

ment in recent memory.” Tose at the month-long Madrid encampment,

or instance, decided not to accept monetary donations at all. As the camp

Money & MoveMents

cnsid t Lilis

T day opy Wall Stt atd t

Finan wking gp — nw appily -namd Anting — was anti. It ad t

b; tis was t st wk t patin, wit

dnatins ping in m all t nty.

Nbdy knw w wld gt t spnd it, w,

and t mmnity’s nds w mnting -

y mint. A ppsal was bbld tgt

tat afnn’s Gnal Assmbly (GA), and an

ally w appnd t b at t plaza tat day

pitd in t st p a sal spnssip. Nbdy

ad m a an t tink abt w t bt ang ty want t s in t wld, at last

in tis spt.

by naan scndr



29

grew, more and more o its needs—ood, printing, and sound equipment,

or instance—were provided by people joining the movement. Even now,

ater having transitioned rom encampment to neighborhood assemblies,

Madrid’s Indignados don’t take or manage money.

Where money is necessary, such as or web server space, the Span-

iards raise it through small-scale benet parties or selling swag like but-tons and -shirts. Teir widespread anti-oreclosure eorts have detly

avoided legal ees by using trained volunteer activists as advisors to

government-provided public deenders. Organizers see keeping money

to a minimum as a way o maintaining independence while ostering

interdependence.

Down in Washington, DC, those occupying Freedom Plaza intend

to create a “co-operative sub-economy” that can support participants and

the movement. With the help o political economist Gal Alperovitz, au-

thor o America Beyond Capitalism, they’re now drawing up business

plans. One is or an “Occupy ood truck,” an oshoot o Freedom Plaza’s

extraordinary kitchen. Another idea is to produce and sell propaganda

swag through a worker-owned shop, oering their services to other Oc-cupy groups. Tis kind o project, i successul, would meet shorter-term

goals as well as longer-term ones; besides raising some money, it models

a more sustainable alternative to the usual corporate structures. But these

occupiers certainly aren’t expecting to get rich in the process.

For those in the Serbian resistance movement Otpor!—which

helped bring down Slobodan Miloševic—nobody got too comort-

able, even when hundreds o thousands o dollars were pouring in rom

Western interests eager to do away with the regime. Tis money paid

or printing supplies, -shirts, banners, and rallies. “We were volun-

teers, so our parents were nancing us or almost two years,” recallsIvan Marović, one o Otpor’s ounding organizers, who visited Liberty

Plaza in the rst week o the occupation. “Old ladies were bringing

ood and tea to protests, taxis gave us ree rides, local caes would give

us ree coee.”

I a radical movement is doing what it should be doing, it will run

mostly on things other than money. What money it does need will be

used better when coming rom those whom the movement serves. I

you’re holding ancy thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners, you’ve probably

become a status-quo NGO, and you’d better start giving up hope o

revolution.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow,” Jesus is recorded as having

told his riends. “Don’t keep striving or what you’ll eat and what you’lldrink, and don’t keep worrying. It’s the nations o the world that strive

ater these kinds o things.” Instead, he said, work toward the blessed

community, as the lilies grow toward the sun—“and these things will

be given to you as well.”

I a radical movement is doing what it should be doing, it will run mostly on

things other than money. What money it does need will be used better when

coming rom those whom the movement serves.



30

I am t p wit, fooled and pused

apart, I a t Ng baing slavy’s sas.I a t red n divn f t land, I am the immigrant

luting te ope I seek — And fnding nly

t sa ol stupi pln of og t og , f igty

us t wak.

O’ let aeric b aericagain— Te land that has never been yEt

— And yt ust BE — Te land w

vry n is fr . Te land tat’s ine — The poor n’s, Indin’s, Negro’s, mE —

Who made AmerIcA, ws sweat and blood,

ws fh d p, Wose and at tefoundr, whose plw in t ain, must bing

bak u mIghTy dre again.

O’ yes, I say it plain, Aia was nvr Aia to ,

And yt I swer tis at —

ewll BE!

— Langston Hughes



31

We have spent the winter learning, work-ing and growing. And now we are being

propelled to bolder, more intelligent orms o resistance.

Our vision and alternatives will come in time, with patience, working together, when we re-

fect the strength and diversity o the 99%.Until then, let’s grow our power with eachother against a government that’s no longerresponsive to the will o the people it claimsto represent.

We hope this idal ignites new conversa-tions and deepens older ones amongst eachother, in our assemblies, working groups,caucuses, universities, town halls, unionhalls, bars, bus stops, subway cars, shelters,

dinner tables, and workplaces, in every spaces we occupy. Te stakes are high enough

that the conversations should happen ev-erywhere. And perhaps the coming

year will be the moment when weare unleashed beyond a ‘move-

ment’ and towards a new way o being.

Photo: Ja son B . N i cho la s

eDITorSNatasha Rosa Luxemburg

Amin HusainBabak Karimi

Laura Gottesdiener

ProDucTIoN Jed Brandt, Zak Greene,

Web: Eric Ribellarsi

APPrecIATIoNS

+Yates Mckee, Tomas Hintze,Katie Falkenberg, Katie

Davison, Ron Clark, Alredo Jaar, Nelini Stamp, IshamChristie, Nona Hildebrand.

cover PhoToMichael Bocchieri

tidlTheory. Strategy. Action.Reading. Thinking. Discussing.

See you in thestreets.

occupytheory.orgoccupiedmedia.us



32

Documents

Tidal2 Spring is Coming