Occupy: What went wrong, and how to make it right

Why bother outlining my problems with the Occupy movement? Bill Maher did the job brilliantly a couple of weeks ago, as the embedded video clip attests. If you've seen this riff before, see it again. After you do, try to come up with a solution for the great problem of what to do about a very necessary protest movement that has entered its death throes because everyone involved considers it a point of honor to do everything in the least effective way.

I can guess how my audience will respond:

At least one person will say: "Bill Maher is a sexist because he said something I didn't like four years ago!" Oh, grow up. This is about Occupy, not Maher.

Others will say: "We can't work with Democrats! They're just as bad as Republicans!"

No, they aren't -- and if you think otherwise, you've gone nuts. (Or you're a paid ratfucker, in which case I'm curious to learn about the going rates. I mean, do online ratfuckers earn minimum wage, or has the job been offshored?)

Now, instead of clobbering me with those two otiose cliches, perhaps you can favor us with your Big Scheme as to how we're going to improve the situation. A lot of the people who come here seem to favor a plan that goes something like this (and please excuse me for borrowing a riff):

1) Bitch bitch bitch about Obama.

2) Continually insist that all Democrats are as bad as (or worse than) Republicans.

3) ...

4) UNICORNS! (Or world revolution. Whatever.)

That little scheme ain't gonna accomplish nuthin', so screw you and your delusions of purity. If you want to get things done, then at a certain point you have to sully yourself with politics -- partisan politics.

The Democrats aren't going to commandeer and co-opt the Occupy movement, or whatever movement rises up to replace Occupy. Just won't happen. But the protest movement could take over the Democrats, if the activists finally come to grips with the fact that you can't get anything done unless you attain some power.

Politics isn't about raising consciousness or feeling good about yourself or eating lots of tofu or singing folk songs. Politics, like it or not, is about power.

Maher has it right. The Tea Party thing worked, god help us all. That's your template.

Has the current "pure" Occupy course accomplished anything? Well, here we are, in an election year, and lots of people are feeling miserable -- yet Occupy is nowhere on the map. What does that fact tell you?

This writer has it (mostly) right:

The hallmark of the Occupy movement was its commitment to open, consensus-based decision-making. “This is what democracy looks like,” its supporters proclaimed.  Anyone could attend one of the Occupiers’ general assemblies and block a proposed decision if they felt that it violated an ethical principle. Of course, this made it difficult for assemblies to agree on policy demands, manage life in the Occupy camps, and condemn vandalism by fringe elements. Many sympathisers quit the movement out of frustration. Some said that Occupy’s problem was actually too much democracy.

But was Occupy really what “democracy looks like”? To answer this question, we need to be clear what democratic politics is really about...

It was this conception of democratic politics that the Occupiers rejected. The movement believed that it would be possible to achieve social transformation without really engaging with groups or individuals who had power to help or hinder its cause. One of its most prominent philosophers, David Graeber, said that the movement refused “to recognize the legitimacy of existing political institutions.” This was not merely a swipe at politicians corrupted by Wall Street. It was a rejection of the entire political order, including many people who were prepared to work with Occupy because they sympathised with its goals or simply found it politically expedient. “We don’t need politicians to build a better society,” boasted an Occupy Wall Street website.

Indeed, Occupiers had a habit of alienating potential allies. When Occupy Denver was asked by the city’s Democratic mayor to choose a representative to negotiate about policing of their camp, its general assembly responded by electing a dog. When Representative John Lewis, an icon of the American civil rights movement, asked to address the general assembly of Occupy Atlanta, he was blocked by an Occupier who objected that “no singular human being” was entitled to special treatment. “They were rude, they were hostile,” Atlanta’s Democratic mayor complained to National Public Radio about the Occupiers. He shut down the camp two weeks later.

Occupy’s relationship with the labour movement was also difficult...

This hostility to messy deal-making was also evident inside Occupy itself. The consensus model that was used in assemblies gave an assurance that no Occupier would be required to bend principles because of membership in the movement. The universal right to veto was defended as a core element of anarchist philosophy. But it could also be described as an application of the principle of consumer sovereignty within the realm of politics. As they say at Burger King, you could have it your way—even if this promise crippled the effectiveness of the movement as a whole.

Supporters called the Occupy model “pure democracy.” Indeed it was pure, in the sense that it reduced the need for horse-trading with adversaries and fair-weather friends. But because it was pure, it was not democracy.

Occupy failed, at least in its original incarnation. But the movement cannot really die because the conditions that created it have not changed.

So do it again. Do it better. My suggestions:

1) NO FUCKING "CONSENSUS" DEMOCRACY! That "consensus" bullshit is a loser idea foisted on the progressive movement by spoiled brats and spooked-up infiltrators. For decades, lefties have driven me nuts by insisting on that one ultra-shitty notion. It never works for very long.

Consensus is always undemocratic, because it gives an unfair advantage to college-aged whiners who love to talk all night and don't have to work for a living because Mommy and Daddy are paying the bills. Real democracy means that the votes of 50-percent-plus-1 suffice to win the day. Yes, the majority will often vote for things that piss you off. Suck it up. Keep articulating your views in a calm but steadfast manner. Next time, your vision may prevail.

2) You need leaders. Leadership is not a bad word; anarchy is an obscenity. Gandhi, Malcolm X, Margaret Sanger and JFK were all leaders. If and when leaders fail, replace them quickly. When your point man (point person?) falls, the next soldier moves into place.

3) Engage the Democratic party. Do more than that: Take over the party, seat by seat, district by district, argument by argument, day by day -- the way the teabaggers took over the GOP.

4) Presume that everyone who tells you to follow another playbook is a Republican ratfucker. In particular: Presume that anyone who insists on consensus is a Republican ratfucker.

5) Identify libertarianism as the enemy. Our problems were caused by libertarianism; more libertarianism is not the solution. The goal is a return of what I call New Deal Normal.

6) In the end, you won't get unicorns. But you will get improvement. Got a problem with that?