This is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population James Fallows, the celebrated American author and columnist.
It appears that Occupy's extreme non-violence/passivity has finally generated a social system disruption. Videos and pictures showing policemen using violence against passive protesters have gone viral (UC Berkeley students, Grandma, and open mouth were the leading examples). Stories about this violence are now sweeping the media (7,910 news stories over the last 24 hours). Is this going to have a strategic effect?
Let's look at this from the late, great American strategist John Boyd‘s perspective. The dynamic of Boyd's strategy is to isolate your enemy across three essential vectors (physical, mental, and moral), while at the same time improving your connectivity across those same vectors. It's very network centric for a pre-Internet theoretician. Here's more detail what disconnection looks like:
“One of the constant mantras of the “Occupy Together” (OT) phenomenon is its “leaderless” nature. I support and applaud this… to a point.
Anyone who has come to my workshops over the past ten years knows I’ve been an advocate of “Emergence” – defined as “leaderless distributed networks of information and power”. In an Emergence, it is the system that learns, grows and adapts… without any kind of “authority” telling the various agents what to do.When it happens, it is startling, it is beautiful, and it is POWERFUL.
So, the question of whether OT needs “leadership” is tied to the question: “Is OT an Emergence?” The answer to that question is a firm “NOT YET”. And, because of that, OT is in definite need of leadership.But, a very different kind of leadership than what we’ve been used to.
First: upon what do I base my “not yet” assessment? An Emergence has five very important factors. In an Emergence…
1. The group has a large number of independent actors, all sharing information.
2. There is a lack of control over any individual’s behavior.
3. The actors share a common vision, simple values, and/or rules.
4. The actors have largely interchangeable roles.
5. The actors have the same goals and objectives.
OT clearly has #2 and #4.They clearly do NOT have #3 and #5. (I’m not sure about #1…) Without vision/ values/ goals/ objectives, OT NEEDS LEADERSHIP.A very different kind of leadership: Emergent Leadership.
We know the role of old-style leadership: tell the sheeple what to do. Whether it’s the “boss” on the shop floor, or the old-style politician wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power, leadership equals control, and control equals power.
Not in an Emergence.Someone grabbing a bullhorn and “telling” the Occupy forces what to
do would be met with derision, silence, scorn or pity. (Perhaps all of the above.) OT is – and should be – allergic to “control”.
Here’s a quote from Stephen Johnson, author of the book “Emergence”:
“Without an active leader who takes responsibility for building a network, spontaneous connection between groups emerges very slowly, or not at all.”
Each and every day some police action infuriates and breathes new life into this movement. Just when you think the movement might go stale and the message of “We are the 99%” will no longer pack the punch that it has had over the last two months, some picture or some video is released showing occupiers or, in this case, students peacefully standing their ground in the face of police violence.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Yesterday, UC Davis students showed solidarity with students at other UC campuses, who are facing tuition increases and have been the victim of police brutality (particularly at UC Berkeley during Occupy Cal protests). The students set up tents on the main quad area of UC Davis. Police were ordered to remove the tents and arrived in riot gear holding batons and tear gas guns. Students sat on the ground in a circle, linked arms and held their ground in the face of a menacing police force.
“Lieutenant of Police” for UC Davis, John Pike, stepped over the line of occupiers sitting on the ground. He pointed a pepper spray canister at the line of students. Then, as if he was watering his lawn, he began spraying the students with orange-colored pepper spray.
In response to internet rumor, DHS says, “Only in Portland”
EXTRACT:
What has been documented over the past few days, but received little mainstream media attention, is clear coordination between big city mayors in working to evict Occupy protesters. Mayor Jean Quan let it slip that mayors had been discussing how to deal with Occupy protests on nationwide conference calls. On Tuesday, after initially disputing the account, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter acknowledged that such a call had taken place.
Phi Beta Iota: OWS is an open source insurgency – unconventional, asymmetric, domestic, peaceful, and 99%. The worst nightmare for a stovepiped government that has lost its intelligence and integrity.
