Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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Markin comment January 15, 2012
In several recent comments (in late December) in this space my old radical friend and alternative newspaper commentator, Josh Breslin, noted that the Occupy movement seemed to have lost energy and was , as he vividly described it, a movement of generals without a army. I, initially, argued with him about that characterization saying that this was just a period of growing pains and things would sort themselves out over the next several months. Then a series of disturbing events occurred topped off by what I will here call the “sex registry question” to make me thing that old Josh, once again, was right. Only I would characterize things, unlike Josh, as a succumbing to the circle spirit and as yet another example of the revolution devouring its own. In either case not a healthy situation.
With that said, I have long noted that although I believed that the General Assembly concept was potentially the embryo of an alternate form of government that would drive our vision for a new society there were some structural problems with the concept as practiced. Among those criticisms were the simple notions that majority rule and representative government based on political positions were concepts better suited to the struggle. Well, apparently others have, in the crucible of struggle, learned some of those lessons. Lessons that, perhaps, needed to be painfully worked through in practice before their shortcomings could be exposed. In any case this latest news from OB about a willingness to think about other governing forms is welcome news. Whether we remain generals without an army can now be hashed out but one thing seems certain this will go a long way toward breaking out of the circle spirit.
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OB Consents to Trial of Weekly Action Assembly
January 13th, 2012 • mhacker • Passed Resolutions No comments
The General Assembly of Occupy Boston consented to the following proposal on January 12, 2012:
Modify Sunday GA, creating a Strategic Action Assembly
Purpose:
1) To help Occupy Boston develop thoughtful and powerful messages that speak to the entire 99%.
2) To provide a time for Occupy Boston to come together, reflect on, and plan targeted direct actions and campaigns that will help maintain the occupation of the public conscience in the post-Dewey era.
3) To provide a more appropriate meeting format for the discussion of political, economic, and societal issues.
4) To enhance collaboration across and between working groups in movement-wide outreach and direct action campaigns and to aid the formation of affinity groups.
Proposal: We propose that Occupy Boston radically modify the format of the Sunday GA, creating what will be called a Strategic Action Assembly (aka Action Assembly or SAA). The new assembly format will experiment with new forms of process in order to brainstorm, facilitate, and organize direct actions. The SAA will not seek consensus on proposals or make decisions on behalf of the Occupy Boston movement.
Because it has the potential to reshape our GA process, we are proposing it with a 3-week trial period and an opportunity to reconsider afterwards. There will be a time to give feedback and an 80% temp check to continue this change.
The SAA working group will continue to explore space options that will work best for this meeting type.
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