Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
(UNEDITED COPY)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
As each day passes, when I walk past the OWS/99 Percent signs plastered in the front window of my studio I have to fight the urge to tear them down and start moving myself and this blog in a new direction. It has begun to look to many of my readers that the entire purpose of oddbloke.ca was to champion the OWS movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. The coincidental timing of OWS and the birth of oddbloke.ca was entirely by chance.
A few years ago our studio in Vancouver, B.C., was repeatedly attacked by a very organized group that truly believed in their hearts that they were standing up to people who they felt were directly responsible for the rapid gentrification of our neighbourhood. On more than one occasion we had multiple oil paint “bombs” thrown at the studio. They were cast to 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick wax, with the intention, of course, of breaking the glass windows and spraying my pottery studio/gallery with paint.
These self-professed “anarchists” (they used that term and this bothered us as they didn’t seem to understand what anarchists actually are – certainly not that they are essentially pissed off libertarians) couldn’t have known that I have severe allergies to such things as turpentine, paint thinner, etc. and that the cleaning up of gallons of paint, after the multiple volleys fired at the front of our studio, would almost put me into the hospital with respiratory distress. I was sick in bed for two weeks after the clean up and that would have been seemed like just desserts to them. This is what often happens with people who act without thinking about the consequences of their actions.
And they attacked again with paint and on several occasions posted on the front of our studio pictures such as “Death” walking with a scythe. My wife who works a graveyard shift became afraid to even leave the house alone at night. I would walk her to the car carrying a baseball bat because I too had become afraid of what they might be capable of.
Out of the many people who were being attacked in our neighbourhood it was Erin and I who decided to attempt to engage this group. We spent an evening crafting a letter that tried to explain a number of things to them, and posted it on light posts throughout our neighborhood. Some of what we mentioned were things such as: when we came to the neighbourhood ten years earlier it was a somewhat depressed, downtrodden area, which was why we could afford to rent an leaky old warehouse for our studios. We tried to explain to them that they were attacking people who were in many ways sympathetic to their feelings of hopelessness and despair with the world we lived in. And we told them what anarchists actually were and how reading notable men like Noam Chomsky would aid them in putting their energies to good use to make the world a better place.
With these protests, we now enter the phase that I have talked about several times on this blog and that is the dismantling phase. The article that I wrote tried to explain what would happen if an organizational structure was not put in place. It was read hundreds of times yet not once did anyone engage me or the article and I believe there are a number of good reasons for this.
Who am I, oddbloke, to say anything, would be the general mentality of many of the protestors. As I mentioned above we have personally had contact with the particular mindset of some of the people who are part of this protest. I would venture that a similar group to those who attacked our studio might make up 40-50% of the main body of the protestors camped out or coming out daily.
If one looks at enough history, understands a modicum of politics and moreover understands strategy and tactics then it is quite easy to make the next factual observation.
These people are filled with anger and despair, for good reason, but you begin to understand how they hobble themselves when you engage them and find that they have limited historical knowledge and not a clue of what politics is and how it can be a tool for their own use instead of being used against them. They don’t understand the power that they’re up against; they have overestimated their own power, underestimated the power of those they’re protesting, or more accurately they have done both.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I hear of accounts of their general assemblies, and it’s clear they are completely ignorant of Robert’s Rules of Order and therefore nothing of substance is accomplished at any of their meetings. The general assemblies sound to me like kindergarten rooms where the teacher has left one toy (here the toy is a microphone) and then left the room. I imagine kindergarten students would figure out some semblance of order faster than these folks have.
Why is this happening? For a start, there’s Adbusters and their half-cocked spurring-on of the troops without having any kind of plan on how to make sure the people were formed into spearhead groups that could be pointed at strategically selected sections of established policy.
Without an organizational structure it becomes, and essentially has become, nothing but fragmented mobs of angry people in multiple cities across the globe. None of their actions are creating the much-needed legitimacy that the movement requires to resonate with the masses.
As a huge supporter of this movement I am beginning to get ready to turn my attention elsewhere as I know what is going to happen. I talked about this one week ago, two weeks ago and right at the beginning. I have sent letters to the websites of various Occupy groups throughout Canada and the US and I know that I’m not the only one who has. I have personally been contacted by some of these other people and have reached out to others myself. All of us saying the same thing, over and over again.
Get Organized. Get Organized. Get Organized.
What is particularly upsetting is this: if these younger, angrier, more extremist people I described earlier saw that the movement was coalescing into a massive multinational group that was focusing on specific, agreed areas of international policy that must be changed, and they were not willing to either
a) support the organic organization that was starting to develop or
b) understand their limitations and act as willing soldiers (boots on the ground) who took specific occupying orders from the organizers,
Then drastic action could/should have been taken. The most drastic action is that if these factions were unwilling (due to their anarchist beliefs) to take part in a cohesive political process, they could have actually been used politically. The main body of organizers could have splintered them off, distanced themselves from them and quite literally sacrificed them politically for the greater good. They would simply announce, “Look, we of the organized movement are not like these hooligans, etc. – this is what we are….” and release an internationally agreed upon statement. Sad as it is, the political power of doing this would be breathtakingly enormous. This simple act would have brought tens of thousands of new people into the movement. Why?
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
People have been raised with order. They grow up with the orderly structure of the school system, then they go to college/university where there is a new set of rules, then they find jobs that stipulate yet a new framework with its own associated rules. These structures are what provide people with a sense of safety and belonging; they know where they fit in and they know what the requirements and expectations are. You are also dealing with a mass public that has, in general, the attention span of a common gnat. You are dealing with people who once you have their attention, you better use it quick! They need order, they are not much different from sheep which, without a shepherd and dog herding them, are filled with fear and confusion. If they believe in you, then they need structure to tell them what to do and where they fit in. All successful organizational structures have places where people at different levels of intellect, with various personal beliefs, etc., find others they can identify and communicate with. Without this there is chaos.
This order solves so many problems and the lack of it really delegitimizes the Occupy movement for so many people, including myself.
The reason for this is multifacted but stated simply, people with busy lives, struggling on their own to pay mortgages, raise children, etc. need to know that if they expend effort that it will be used wisely.
People want to know they are making a difference and not sitting in a boat with one set of people rowing one direction and another set of rowers moving in the other, which in the end, foolishly wastes an incalulatable amount of limited energy.
If these folks understood more history, politics, strategy and tactics they would understand that ignoring just history alone, dooms them in so many, many ways. Adding insult to injury they completly drop the ball in organization, not understsanding that if they are not internationally organized through a organically grown and structured system they will be crushed – there is no doubt in that. If some of you reading this today went back and read what I, one man, have written for the past month you will see that as each day unfolds I accuratly predicted it, exactly, weeks before.
I want to begin organizing a group of people that feel that an organizational structure needs to be put in place. Please some of you reading please leave a comment at the end that you would be interested in forming a group that would appeal to the disparate factions of OWS and get them to see that unless specifics start to be eloquently stated and that a international structure is needed to build legitamacy all will be lost. I give you my word that this list of people will be kept confidential and will remain so until otherwise is stated.
Unless I do this, living in these times I will always feel a great sense of loss that I didn’t do more in my own limited capacity as one man.
But as I stated before I will not jump into a boat that is going nowhere.
Life is short.
Please read, “Without a united 99%, all will be lost to a patient 1%…” that I wrote earlier if you can find the time.
And in closing shame on you AdBusters for stirring the pot and not being there to help serve dinner.
R.