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:
In a hastily thrown together press conference Sunday afternoon, several months in the planning, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his efforts to spread freedom beyond New York City had included the deployment of 1,000 NYPD officers to Schenectady, where they have just apprehended a young man inspired by Al Qaeda and Occupy Wall Street propaganda provided to him by the NYPD on a regular basis since September.
The arrest could not await an opportunity to persuade the FBI of the seriousness or sanity of the matter, Bloomberg said, as the evildoer had apparently packed a marijuana bong with Christmas lights and was prepared to attempt unspeakable acts imminently. Although the materials were intentionally defective, having been provided to the terrorist on Saturday by the NYPD, a careful analysis identified a greater than one percent likelihood of an attack on a local Home Depot store with which the terrorist had previously quarreled over malfunctioning plumbing materials and staff he accused of “not knowing their elbow pipes from their assigned aisles.”
4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Literary Minutia–Not At All What I Expected,November 20, 2011
I bought this book on the basis of a rave mention of it in one of the other books I reviewed, it might have been a year ago. It's been sitting in my airplane pile for a while.
At a professional level of erudite literary dissection and amplification, this is clearly both a supreme professional accomplishment and a labor of love. From the note to the bibliography to the chronology, this is one of the best constructed and presented “packages” I have ever held in my hands.
It leaves me cold. I simply do not see, feel, or comprehend the bru-ha-ha over this being a clarion call to flagrant abandon, an ode to homosexuality, a challenge to the ruling class, etcetera.
Second, although the “author” Duncan Crary takes great pains to minimize his role, I have dealt with massive transcripts and historical artifacts covering long spans and would say that he has done a heroic job–he has excelled–at pulling out “just enough, just right” pieces and ordering them into the following section (since Look Inside the Book is not available, I list them):
5.0 out of 5 stars Less Funny, More Provocative–Price is a WOW,November 20, 2011
First, a confession. I am 59 years old and had no idea who Paul Krassner was/is. The more I read through the book the more I marveled at his pioneering endeavors and their continuing relevance as Occupy struggles to find its voice and focus. So for all the folks that don't know who Paul Krassner is, at under $3.00 this book is a WOW value, and I recommend it for that alone.
This is NOT a funny book. There are a few places here and there where one can see the deep tragic comedy possibility, but more than anything this is a very provocative book that beats a single theme: the obscenity of all that we allow to be done in our name, to our bodies and our environment, to our families, schools, economy, and the Republic itself. Obscene, they name is a two-party tyranny and a Congress so corrupt they shame every dictator (all 40+ of them, all but two “best pals” of the US Government) in their craven greed and lack of democratic integrity.
“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.”
