Tag: Atlee

Dear friends,

This is the first of a series of postings I'll do about the sources of the Occupy movement, from a number of angles.  Each mailing will cover one or two of them.  They are, of course, not definitive or complete, but I find them all intriguing.  Some of them have been touched on in – and are augmented by – previous posts.

The Occupy movement seems to have come “from nowhere”, appeared “out of the blue”.  But a lot of events, people, writings, social movements and social conditions developed over extended periods of time and combined to trigger its emergence at this time.

Since our society is what scientists call “a complex living system”, it embodies the principles of complexity science.  One of those principles is that, while we can IN RETROSPECT often identify chains of causation leading up to some event in a complex system, the web of causation is actually so complex and dense with interdependencies and feedback loops that we cannot PREDICT that event ahead of time.  We can estimate the probabilities of it happening, but we have no way of knowing exactly what is going to happen.  And sometimes with such events, we just didn't see it coming at all!

So I'm looking at the emergence of Occupy in retrospect and will be offering factors – new ones in each mailing – that seem to lead up to it because it helps me to understand it, respond to it, participate in it.  But I have no illusions that it will tell me or anyone else what will happen next.

For that, we have to step into the flow.  Our roles in such complex living systems are not so much to predict (as spectators) but to co-createe (as participants).  How consciously do we want to do THAT?

Coheartedly,
Tom

*** CONSIDERING ANARCHIST IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS ***

Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots
by David Graeber

Excerpts:

The easiest way to explain anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society – that is, one where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence. History has shown that vast inequalities of wealth, institutions like slavery, debt peonage or wage labour, can only exist if backed up by armies, prisons, and police. Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants….

How, then, did OWS embody anarchist principles? It might be helpful to go over this point by point:
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Source of the Occupy Movement Part I”

Where did the Occupy Movement come from and where is it going?

The following New Yorker article is a good complement to the Bloomberg Businessweek article on David Graeber that I referred to in an earlier blog post.  It gives more background on how the original Occupy Wall Street idea emerged from Adbusters magazine.  It describes some of the de facto leaders who became particularly influential in OWS's LEADERFUL unfolding.  (Note that I believe the adjective “leaderless” misses the whole point of the Occupy movement's power, which involves inviting anyone and everyone into whatever diverse and often ad hoc leadership roles they have passion or competence for.)

I appreciate the article's concluding insight that the recently forced evacuations of so many Occupy encampments – particularly the Wall Street one – is stimulating the Occupy movement to shift gears into new form(s) that are currently barely perceived and largely unpredictable.  The author helps us see all this through the eyes of the anarchists who have been its visionaries and facilitators.  We begin to sense how they can face the uncertain future of their movement with such positive – even thrilled – expectation.

It seems to me that OWS has for months been an inkblot – a Rorschach test – upon which diverse commentators project their individual hopes, fears, judgments and assumptions.  I wonder if now OWS is about to become an empty loom upon which diverse actors weave ten thousand strands of transformation that we can only vaguely sense but not fully see.  I suspect that loom, being merely an idea and an invitation, will not be readily suppressed.

Blessings on the Journey.

Coheartedly,
Tom

============

Pre-Occupied:  The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street
by Mattathias Schwartz
November 28, 2011

#OWS => New forms of Nonviolence and Leadership emerging??

Something remarkable has been going on out there – especially at UC Davis. I have a hard time figuring out how to articulate it. I haven't yet seen anyone talk about quite what I'm seeing, so I'll give it a try.

Here's what it looks like to me: Nonviolent activism is evolving rapidly right before our eyes. The level of spot-on – and often spontaneous – nonviolent creativity that's showing up exceeds what I've seen before, to an extent that I wonder if a fundamentally new and more powerful form of nonviolent action is emerging.

. . . . . . .

While my initial response was to appreciate the students' powerful use of silence, I realized today another significant aspect was the speed with which this innovative response was born and implemented: It happened just one day after the incident that triggered it.

Then I saw an 8 minute video that showed what happened IMMEDIATELY after the pepper spray incident

Read a powerful summary of facts and analysis of potential.