Carefully sidestepping assignment of blame, Farber wrote that Occupy's avowedly “anarchist” refusal to formulate a program of demands “might have been beneficial initially in that it might have created a more welcoming atmosphere to newly radicalized people.”
As I noted repeatedly during my own involvement with Occupy Tacoma, encouraging the articulation of grievances is the first step in any effective organizing campaign.
“But as movements develop and mature,” Farber continued, “they need to state more clearly what they stand for and not only what they stand against. Movements need to develop some kind of theory to guide their actions, not as an obscure, technical body of thought only accessible to the select few, but as the clearest possible ideas about the nature of the enemy and of the movement.”
Again, Farber is absolutely correct. And it was in these pivotal functions – formalization of grievances into demands, formulation of supportive ideology – that Occupy failed so abysmally, betraying not only its initial promise but the (briefly) bolstered hopes of the 99 Percent it claimed to represent.
Which brings me to the one huge flaw in Farber's work: his obvious reluctance to forthrightly address the broader reasons for those betrayals. Thus – apparently as a byproduct of an admirable but misguided effort to avoid confrontation – he omits the two most vital factors in the historical and psychodynamic processes that, in retrospect, probably made Occupy's downfall inevitable.
One of these is global, the fact the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has removed all the restraints that previously compelled the capitalists to ameliorate or conceal their innate savagery.
Though the U.S.S.R. was never the workers' paradise it claimed to be, its official Marxism nevertheless provided an obvious alternative to capitalism. The socioeconomic democracy promised by Soviet-backed Marxian revolution so terrified the denizens of Wall Street and comparable enclaves elsewhere, they cunningly erected a seductive facade to hide capitalism's darkest and most murderous reality – the fact it is based on the overthrow of all humanitarian morality and, in its place, the elevation of infinite greed to maximum virtue, with Ayn Rand's impossibly turgid prose as the latter-day equivalent of Mein Kampf.
Underlying the Ruling Class response was its fearful recognition the Soviet intelligence agencies – the variously-named KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or Committee for State Security) and the lesser known but infinitely more formidable GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye or Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff) -- were genuine cadres of professional revolutionaries. It is in this context Communism's explicit threat to capitalism – backed not just by rhetoric but by the overwhelming might of the Red Army – explains all the humanitarian successes of the 20th Century. What empowered organized labor, gave birth to the New Deal and fostered the now-forever-dead American Dream, what enabled the victories of Gandhi in India and King in the U.S. South, was not the (nonexistent) beneficence of capitalist overlords but rather the capitalists' terror of the violent consequences were the forces of non-violence defeated.
Painfully ironic as it may be to admit, the Red Army was thus the ultimate protector of the American experiment in constitutional democracy, just as organized labor was the only real defender of the American Dream. Hence, with the labor movement nullified and the Soviet Union consigned to history, we suffer the unabashed brutality with which the capitalists now routinely suppress their adversaries, particularly here in the allegedly "democratic" United States. Such (steadily intensifying) brutishness would never have been allowed when the Soviets were prepared to foment revolution whenever the Big Lie of "capitalist democracy" was revealed, as it nearly was, for example, in the Bankers' Plot or 1934 or in the atrocities committed against the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.
The second factor Farber omits in explaining in Occupy's failure is implicit in his mistaken choice of “anarchist” to describe the movement's primary ethos. Anarchism, despite the capitalist propaganda that associates it with maniacal bomb-throwers in Tsarist Russia, is an avowedly humanitarian ideology developed logically from approximately 2,600 years of grievances; one of its exemplars was Mikhail Bakunin, who no doubt would have been appalled by Occupy's fanatical rejection of reasoned analysis.
Precisely because it generally despised intellectuals and angrily rejected intellectuality in any form, Occupy was therefore not “anarchist” at all. It was instead a nationwide uprising by nihilists, a typically short-lived expression of the self-centered nihilism unique to the United States. It embodied the widespread USian belief human society has become so oppressive – or so evil – we can achieve liberation only by its total destruction, and it shared with the Ayn Randers the fervent conviction that self – and selfishness – are the only truths. But the latter is not just a singularly USian restatement of the existential paradox that meaning is meaningless; it is also – what else? – the enabling precept of the moral imbecility essential to capitalism and capitalist growth.
Like the Teabaggers, Occupy was thus a manifestation of the psychological condition unique to the United States, something I long ago labeled the Moron Nation syndrome – the carefully induced anti-intellectuality intended to guarantee We the People of the most oppressed realm in the industrial world never again formulate an effective program of humanitarian change and resistance to capitalist tyranny, much less evolve an ideology of actual revolution.
We are brain-soaked in these anti-intellectual reflexes literally from birth, so much so they have become the defining characteristic of the U.S. population. Venomous even in its most casual everyday expressions, it is the toxic legacy of the political purges that began the moment World War II ended, peaked during the McCarthy Era and continued well into the 1960s. Though the targets were presumably only Communists, in bitter truth the victims were socialists of every persuasion. Eventually (and obviously just as the Ruling Class intended), the persecution was expanded to demonize anyone deemed an “egghead” – that is, an intellectual.
"Intellectual" thus eventually became synonymous with "subversive" and even "traitor," a hostility so intense during the 1950s, the children of families with substantial home libraries, myself included, were instructed by our parents never to publicly admit the presence of books in our homes. The cultural result (or more aptly the anti-cultural consequence) is one of the major psycholinguistic perversions of all time – the intellectual as a bad guy, intellectuality as a sin if not a demonic trait – shibboleths that rule even avowedly secular U.S. society to this day.
The national mindset so imposed includes unconditional rejection of ideology, analytical thinking and even logic itself. As already noted, the same irrational bigotries – and bigotries is precisely what they are – are found on both Left and Right, whether in New Age, Deconstructionist, Teabagger or Christian fundamentalist movements. And the associated fanaticism is again increasing, just as it did during the years of the Purge, perhaps now fueled by our species' (impotent) rage at its betrayal-unto-extinction, seemingly by all modern (logic-based) institutions.
Not surprisingly, the same kinds of frenzies appear to have motivated the nihilistic disruptions that nullified Occupy as any sort of meaningful force for change, whether ameliorative or revolutionary, which soon silenced the movement's ability to express the common grievances of the 99 Percent it claimed to represent.
This was as dismayingly apparent in Occupy Tacoma, in which I was among the earliest activists, as it was elsewhere throughout the U.S. Unlike many local Occupy groups, we did – after exceedingly bitter infighting – produce a statement of purpose, never mind by the time of its publication it had been reduced to meaninglessness by nihilistic obstructionism.
We also managed – just once – to confront an eel-slippery politician with a well-formulated list of demands.
But we were already discovering any thoughtful exercise of our constitutional rights invariably came at a price of internal hatefulness many of us were unwilling to endore. The following excerpts are from “OT Blues: a Clash with 'Important' Helps Me Occupy My Mind,” published via Blogger on 7 December 2011, during the time Outside Agitator's Notebook was banished from TypePad:
When
I heed Occupy Tacoma's best slogan to date – “Occupy Your Mind” (for
which thanks to Nikki Weatherhead, Joy Bonney and Autumn Jacobs) – the
resultant introspection insists that above all else I am still a
journalist, whether with camera or keyboard or both.
My commitment to journalism is nearly lifelong. It dates from 1952, when my father gave me a Kodak Brownie Reflex for my 12th birthday. Two years later he gave me a Polaroid Land Camera. In 1955, via the what-will-I-be-when-I-grow-up unit of my 10th grade English class, I declared myself a future reporter and photographer. Late the following year I was hired by The Grand Rapids Herald, a Michigan daily. I was a combination copyboy and stringer, in the latter role a regular contributor to the sports and youth sections. That's also when I got my union card, becoming – at age 16 – a fiercely proud member of the American Newspaper Guild.
Since then I have tried to live in accordance with journalism's oldest creed: “to comfort the afflicted...and afflict the comforted.”
It was in the latter context I wrote a blistering retort to two posters on the OT Forum.
The two were trashing a thread-starter who was trying to alert us to the huge danger implicit in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is wending its way through Congress bearing a concentration-camp provision that would turn stateside-stationed armed forces into national police, enable the imprisonment of citizens without trial and thus move the United States that much closer to becoming the de facto Fourth Reich.
Because the trashers' onslaught against this latter-day Paul Revere seemed not only unfair but vindictive, I opened the ball accordingly:
“The reactionary anti-intellectuality implicit in (the first respondent's) attack is surprising even here in the region of the United States most noted for its vindictive xenophobia and venomous anti-intellectuality.”
The first trasher, clearly enraged, misquoted me to the forum's moderator, then withdrew in a huff after the moderator pointed out the distortion.
Meanwhile the second trasher, whose screen name is “Nobody Important” and who claims to be an Occupy Seattle website moderator, was already boiling over with self-important arrogance.
Important had been subtly protecting the One Percent by denying the ruined state of our constitutional democracy, telling us the system was working and we had nothing to worry about – a tactic typical of capitalist-party operatives whether DemocRat or GOPorker.
My response was intended to end what I already recognized as pointless confrontation: “It seems – please correct me if I'm wrong – your underlying purpose is to defend the status quo, including the infinity of betrayals perpetrated by Barack the Betrayer. That being the case I see little point in debating you.”
But this gentle rebuke provoked an on-line tantrum that lasted nearly two days, with Important repeatedly proving the screen name to be not just devoid of its implied humility but a classic example of passive-aggressive camouflage.
In the parlance of the old-time newsrooms in which I learned my craft, obviously I drew blood.
Important then asserted a despotic sense of privileged entitlement, demanding ever more fiercely I be banished for “hate speech.” Apparently Important searched not just the OT Forum but even Outside Agitator's Notebook to cobble together a less-than-literate denunciation based on my characterizations of our neo-feudal politicians (Barack the Betrayer, Christine the Cruel); our treacherous political parties (DemocRats, GOPorkers); and my factually correct, historically proven statement Nazism (and fascism in general) are logical fulfillments of capitalism.
But one brave moderator persisted in defending my right to write as I see fit, and Important finally left in a hissy, still spewing venom, a trail of petulantly self-deleted posts littering the path of departure.
My commitment to journalism is nearly lifelong. It dates from 1952, when my father gave me a Kodak Brownie Reflex for my 12th birthday. Two years later he gave me a Polaroid Land Camera. In 1955, via the what-will-I-be-when-I-grow-up unit of my 10th grade English class, I declared myself a future reporter and photographer. Late the following year I was hired by The Grand Rapids Herald, a Michigan daily. I was a combination copyboy and stringer, in the latter role a regular contributor to the sports and youth sections. That's also when I got my union card, becoming – at age 16 – a fiercely proud member of the American Newspaper Guild.
Since then I have tried to live in accordance with journalism's oldest creed: “to comfort the afflicted...and afflict the comforted.”
It was in the latter context I wrote a blistering retort to two posters on the OT Forum.
The two were trashing a thread-starter who was trying to alert us to the huge danger implicit in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is wending its way through Congress bearing a concentration-camp provision that would turn stateside-stationed armed forces into national police, enable the imprisonment of citizens without trial and thus move the United States that much closer to becoming the de facto Fourth Reich.
Because the trashers' onslaught against this latter-day Paul Revere seemed not only unfair but vindictive, I opened the ball accordingly:
“The reactionary anti-intellectuality implicit in (the first respondent's) attack is surprising even here in the region of the United States most noted for its vindictive xenophobia and venomous anti-intellectuality.”
The first trasher, clearly enraged, misquoted me to the forum's moderator, then withdrew in a huff after the moderator pointed out the distortion.
Meanwhile the second trasher, whose screen name is “Nobody Important” and who claims to be an Occupy Seattle website moderator, was already boiling over with self-important arrogance.
Important had been subtly protecting the One Percent by denying the ruined state of our constitutional democracy, telling us the system was working and we had nothing to worry about – a tactic typical of capitalist-party operatives whether DemocRat or GOPorker.
My response was intended to end what I already recognized as pointless confrontation: “It seems – please correct me if I'm wrong – your underlying purpose is to defend the status quo, including the infinity of betrayals perpetrated by Barack the Betrayer. That being the case I see little point in debating you.”
But this gentle rebuke provoked an on-line tantrum that lasted nearly two days, with Important repeatedly proving the screen name to be not just devoid of its implied humility but a classic example of passive-aggressive camouflage.
In the parlance of the old-time newsrooms in which I learned my craft, obviously I drew blood.
Important then asserted a despotic sense of privileged entitlement, demanding ever more fiercely I be banished for “hate speech.” Apparently Important searched not just the OT Forum but even Outside Agitator's Notebook to cobble together a less-than-literate denunciation based on my characterizations of our neo-feudal politicians (Barack the Betrayer, Christine the Cruel); our treacherous political parties (DemocRats, GOPorkers); and my factually correct, historically proven statement Nazism (and fascism in general) are logical fulfillments of capitalism.
But one brave moderator persisted in defending my right to write as I see fit, and Important finally left in a hissy, still spewing venom, a trail of petulantly self-deleted posts littering the path of departure.
***
Despite the Occupation Movement's outspoken commitment to transparency, the forum incident was not my first encounter with OT's would-be censors.
When OT was formed, Tacoma's First Methodist Church offered its facilities as an indoor locale for meetings of OT's governing body, the General Assembly. The offer was gratefully accepted; the frigid rains characteristic of winter on the Pacific Northwest Coast are of such monsoonal intensity as to discourage extended outdoor meetings – and GA sessions tend to last two, three, even four hours.
But not long after OT took its first collectively approved policy stance – a list of formal demands it presented to Washington state's U.S. Sen. Patty Murray – the church withdrew its offer, forcing the GA outdoors in the rain and cold and thereby effectively excluding most elderly and disabled people from the decision-making process.
The reasons for the church's sudden reversal have never been adequately explained, though it should be noted most OT activists emphatically assert the cause was nothing more ominous than administrative error and organizational confusion.
Nevertheless it's difficult to overlook the fact the excluded seniors and disabled people had been amongst those most active in shaping the demands OT addressed to Murray. Citing Murray's position as co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, OT insisted she block proposed cutbacks in Social Security and prevent further slashing of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits and federal aid to education.
Coincidence? Probably – though the demographic identity of the chief victims of the church's sudden denial of its meeting facilities surely arouses my investigative reporter's suspicion.
***
Since the beginning of my involvement with OT I have sensed – particularly amongst its younger leaders – an underlying bias against those of us who are elderly, especially those of us who are lower-income elderly.
What brought this into sharp focus was OT's decision to center itself on a 24/7 on-line presence and on computer technology in general.
Recognizing the prohibitive nature of computer costs, I spoke up at several GAs citing current statistics that fully half the nation's lower-income households are economically denied computer access and thus remain cut off from an increasingly computer-oriented world. I myself, I admitted, am nearly at the economic bottom of the 99 Percent; I live in constant fear my computer will die and leave me irremediably isolated. I have no funds with which to replace a computer and short of a miracle will never have such funds again.
To exclude me and all the others who are in these dire circumstances, I said, is to nullify the core purpose of the Occupy Movement.
Again I was told I was being divisive.
The expressions on the faces of those around me left no doubt it was the majority opinion...
***
Thus, by fomenting intellectual and physical vandalism – whether under the mindless banner of "anarchy" (as in Occupy's suicidal hostility toward analysis and ideology), or in reflexive obedience to the Ayn Rand doctrines with which we in the United States are conditioned from birth (as demonstrated by the foregoing indifference of self-proclaimed “progressives” to legitimate concerns of elderly, disabled and lower-income people) – does the Ruling Class sustain its ever-expanding despotism. Thus too, at least partly because of Occupy's nihilistic rejection of politics, we are once again allowed only the most limited electoral choice, the greater evil of the unapologetic neo-Nazism offered by the Republicans versus the lesser evil of the stealth fascism the Democrats hide behind compellingly progressive but demonstrably untrustworthy slogans. Such is “change we can believe in.”
LB/17 September 2012
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