Judging by the media attention it has received and polls that show large numbers of supportive Americans. it is touching a global nerve and changing the national, even international conversation. It seems to be doing a lot that's right!
Not only have they survived mass arrests and continuing harassment, they showed they could brave what Mother Nature threw their way. They are in the best tradition of the post office which still projects this creed despite the spectre of cutbacks:"
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"
Occupy's "couriers" have self-appointed rounds in self managed occupations run by work groups and guided by participation in a daily General assembly where activists listen to each other and disagree without being disagreeable.
They have raised a war chest of several hundred thousand dollars. They keep their sites clean with their own sanitation department. In New York, they feed their own with their own kitchen that also serves homeless people in the neighborhood. They even have their own "people's library."
In many ways, they are creating ways of cooperative living that they want society to be like. The key to it all is commitment and engagement on the individual level. This way of fusing pragmatism and idealism is what makes it so impressive.
Movements that function from the top-down are more controlled but not necessarily more effective.
At this point, the Occupy movements is still growing, and still spreading its aura more than its message. When you think of how many unemployed people there are and how many others are coping with foreclosures or student debt you can see its potential for organizing and outreach.
Already activists in Oakland where attacks by police from 19 different jurisdictions has galvanized a mass reaction, are calling for November 2 "general strike."
Are they well organized enough to pull this off and to shut down a whole city?
This may be a case of overreaching in reaction to a brutal police action. But, bear in mind that since it occurred, no one is cheering. The City's Mayor says she now supports Occupy. The Police are now supposedly investigating their own conduct, and the occupiers are back in the plaza they were forced to abandon.
Thee police attacks often boomerang with the public siding with citizens, not cops.
There is a lot to be optimistic about.
Slavoj Zijek writes in In These Times, "The Western Left has come full circle: After abandoning the so-called "class struggle essentialism' for the plurality of anti-racist, feminist, gay rights etc., struggles, "capitalism' is now re-emerging as the name of THE problem.'
Let's put the emphasis on words like "emerging" and "awakening," Politics is always a process. Give people time to distinguish their friends from their enemies. Let's trust the wisdom of the people. They seem to "get it" much more than the media or the pols.
It is significant that there has been talk of National Convention in Philadelphia on July 4th next year.
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