As I observed in my last post, I think that an OWS focus on debt, as Pamela Brown has been advocated, makes a lot of sense. We discussed this in the Wroclaw seminar. I continue to think about that discussion and how it relates to American electoral politics.

The issue of debt provides a way to keep focus on the frustration of the American Dream as it is part of the experience of many Americans, from the poor to the middle class to even the upper middle class. It is an issue of the concern of the 99%.

Yet, there are many activists in and theorists observing the movement who council against this, such as Jodi Dean. Debt is too individualized a problem. It would be better to focus on an issue of greater common, collective concern (e.g. the environment). The issue of debt is too closely connected to the right wing concern about deficits, and criticism of student debt can too easily become a criticism of higher education.

This presents a serious political problem. There is no broad agreement on debt as the central issue, and no leadership structure or decision making process which can decide on priorities. And of course, there are many other issues of contention. Primary among them, in my judgment, is the question of the relationship between OWS and American electoral politics.

It is here where the activists in OWS, like their new “new social movement” colleagues in Egypt and the Arab world more generally, are not prepared for practical politics. Coordinated strategy is beyond their capacity. One faction’s priority, debt or the reelection of President Obama, is not the concern of another’s, or even a position which it is forthrightly against. There are too many different positions within the movement for it to present a coherent sustained position. People with very different positions were able to join with each other and act politically thanks to the new media, but also thanks to that media, they were not required to work out their differences and priorities. They never developed the means to decide them.

Thus, the secular liberal and socialist activists of Tahrir Square have not played a major role in post Mubarak politics, and thus, OWS is struggling as it approaches its first anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park. It is interesting to note that the serious comments to Brown’s recent article on debt discussed not the issue involved but the means by which the issue has been given priority (the other comments were by anti-OWS readers).  But the story doesn’t end here.  Activists continue their work beyond the glare of the attention of the media mainstream.

The problem of sustaining movements, as they are an outgrowth of the way they have formed, should be noted. Yet, while this all intriguing with interesting theoretical and practical implications, I do not think it is of critical importance. Movements don’t legislate and don’t elect Presidents and parliaments and members of Congress. Rather, they shape the political culture (something which I will reflect on more directly in my next post on new social movements in Russia and Israel). Indeed by helping shape the story people tell themselves about themselves, they lead to legislation and election, and sometimes this takes time. This is where the success of OWS is undeniable.

OWS changed the conversation. Inequality again became an issue of broad public concern in the U.S. and beyond. A simple calculation became a theme infusing discussion around the world: “the 99%”and “the 1%.” In lower Manhattan, a symbolic center of global capitalism, a small group of protesters globally unsettled things. While the speech and action within the movement is important, the way it influences the speech and actions beyond the movement is probably even more important.

This is quite evident in American politics. Under the influence of the Tea Party, the discussion in the midterm elections was about debt and deficits and the Democrats received a shellacking, as Obama put it. For a while Obama and the Democrats were humbled, influenced by the Tea Party movement and its momentum, and by the Republican victory. This changed thanks to OWS.

The President and his party found a new voice, often speaking of “the 99%” directly. There is a steadfastness when it comes to the issue of taxing the rich. Obama himself refused attempts by so called moderate Democrats to bend on the issue (instead of ending the Bush tax cuts for those making $250 thousand and over, ending them only for those making over $1 million), and now the issue of inequality is at the center of his campaign. Obama’s clarity, along with his party’s on the issue, along with the way they are trying to define Mitt Romney, all have an OWS accent.

The challenge for activists in OWS, such as Brown, is to extend and deepen this influence. She, like many others, is working to sustain the impact of OWS. I think she is right about this and about the substance of the matter. Debt is a key issue. For the last twenty years broad segments of the population have managed to keep the illusion of the American Dream alive by going into debt. Now payment is due, and the responsibility requires not only individual action, but concerted public efforts to change the rules of the game. And as the Tea Party is a force for capitalism and individualism run wild, it is important that a social movement works to present a clear alternative.

Social movements create publics. They make it possible for people to express and act on their common concerns together. This creativity of movements has not fully appreciated. It has a long history, and it is also a key characteristic of the new “new social movements.” We discussed this in the Wroclaw seminar, moving from history to the study of the movements of our times.

Our discussion reminded me of the work of one of my former students, Angela Jones. Her dissertation, now a book, is on the Niagara Movement, which preceded the NAACP. The movement established the first national forum for the discussion of African American concerns by African Americans. Until very recently, it has been viewed as little more than a footnote in the career of W.E.B. Dubois. Jones’s work fills in a gap in history, the first fully developed study of this early episode in the long civil rights struggle. The gap existed because of the insufficient understanding of the importance of creating free public interaction in social movements.

In the democratic opposition to Communist regimes, specifically in Poland, the goal of establishing independent publics was not overlooked. In fact, for quite a while, it was the major end of the social struggle. The constitution of a free public space for discussion and action became the primary end of underground Solidarność in the 1980s. Because the regime couldn’t be successfully challenged, the end became to constitute a zone beyond its control. The end was for individual and collective dignity, to create an area where one could express oneself, appear outside of official definition, consolidate agreement among diverse participants in an autonomous public, which could be applied at an appropriate moment. The goal was to engage in a long cultural march, as Adam Michnik put it in a 1976 classic essay, “The New Evolutionism.”

In the new “new social movements,” this movement feature has been cultivated in a new political, generational and media environment. New media forms have played an important role, for better and for worse, and the creation of new autonomous publics has been put forward as a primary end.

Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park were places where all sorts of people met. Many came to know each other virtually, and then being together became the important feature of square and the park. The demands in the square centered on ending the Mubarak regime and its corruption, and in the park the rally cry was for the 99%, but the meeting of Coptics, Muslims and secularists together in the square, and the coming together of students, unionists, young and old, employed and unemployed in the park were at least as significant as the ends of their actions. Indeed, the ends were not all that clear: An Islamic or a Secular Democratic polity, a rejection of the American Dream or the restoration of its promise? As the movements couldn’t answer these questions, they opened up opportunities for new sorts of public expression and action. They expressed a simple but powerful point: the way things have been is not necessarily the way they will be, as the people in these movements revealed themselves to each other.

Wroclaw seminar participant Fernanda Canofre of Brazil wrote her master’s thesis on the Arab Spring and Moroccan films. When we discussed the Arab Spring, she suggested that we review twenty of videos from Morocco posted on globalvoicesonline.org. The videos add up, pointing to the diversity of those who support the protests in Morocco and the breadth and depth of their concerns, and the importance of constituting a free public life. The videos present “the February 20^th movement” in action.

The first video presents the demands of the movement made by one of its young leaders, Oussama Lakhlifi. It stimulated a fierce debate about the planned demonstration on February 20th. A week before the demonstration, activists released a well-produced film, the second video clip, in which a variety of Moroccans, from apparently secular students and labor activists to a religious woman in traditional dress, explain why they will join the movement. (See video embedded below.) They want to have a chance at a decent life. They call for a constitution and democracy, an end of corruption, and a chance for a job and the dignity of labor, and lower food prices.

Other videos respond to the unfolding events. The videos counter official propaganda, document official violence and the response of officials to movement demands. Attractive videos include an animated cartoon Einstein giving a lesson on the power elite and music videos of Moroccan pop band, Hoba, Hoba, Spirit and rap video “Mellit!” (I’m fed up!).

An official referendum on constitutional reforms was held and the opposition presented video parodies of the enthusiasm shown on official media. Two other videos call for a boycott. Another documents fraud on the day of the referendum.

After the reforms were overwhelmingly approved. Videos followed, one expressing continued international support for the movement from a gathering of activists and bloggers at a meeting in Tunis. The last video shows a lonely singer with a group of accompanying musicians all but ignored on a busy city street. The post concludes: “What role will the February 20 movement be able to play next year as revolutionary fatigue begins to gain ground? Will it be able to be creative enough to keep pace?”

The February 20^th movement changed the course of Moroccan history even though the social order was not fundamentally changed. Reforms were enacted, though the King was very much still in charge, relatively popular, not a Mubarak figure. The demands for the most radical change were not realized. But in this far corner of the Arab world, the accomplishments of the Arab Spring are well documented in these videos.

We see from the inside an independent public, with links to similar publics in the region. They have established the important political fact of their existence. As long as they keep speaking, showing and sharing, their world is fundamentally transformed.

Canofre’s discussion of the movement, and the Arab Spring more generally, was not at all pessimistic. Her interest in the videos, and in film as well, is not only as they document a historical development, but also as they make history. When the Wroclaw seminar participants questioned her about her interest in the videos, it became clear to us that a fundamental transformation in Arab politics is revealed and enacted in them. The fundamental relationship between culture and power has been transformed.

More on this, extended to the case of Occupy Wall Street, in my next post.

I am preparing my class on the new “new social movements” this week. I will be giving it at The New School’s Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland in July. I am excited and challenged about the course, happy to be returning to our institute, which has a long history, related to the topic of my class. The seminar, also, will be an attempt to thoroughly address the complex issues in my May Day post.

In that post I noted the media obstacles OWS faced on May 1^st. Neither the serious, nor the sensational media portrayed a meaningful popular demonstration, a national commemoration of May Day demanding social justice. While some might see this as a kind of conspiracy, I, as a matter of principle, don’t, or rather won’t until I consider alternative explanations. In the summer seminar, I hope to explore the alternatives with an international student body. Here’s an overview, which is informing my preparation.

Social movements have generally been understood in two ways. They have been seen as non-institutional means of a group of people to pursue their common interests and achieve their shared goals. The traditional archetype for this is the labor movement. Alternatively, social movements have been seen as not only interest focused, but as well, and perhaps more importantly, as non-institutional means for the formation of a group with common identities, concerned with supporting the identities and acting upon them. Civil rights movements, the women, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender movements, environmental movements and the like, are understood as being newer kinds of movements, “new social movements.” To tell the truth, I never quite understood why the new social movements were considered new. They, like labor movements, emerged in the nineteenth century. They, like the traditional movements, pursue interests. And the traditional movements, like the new ones, are about identity. Yet, I know this is not central. Rather we need to note that new and old movements are not only about the pursuit of interests. Movements are important ends in themselves for the people who create and are active in them.

And clearly, this is still the case. Social activists in Tahrir Square in Cairo and in Zuccotti Park in New York have specific ends, and the demonstrations in these places also create identities that are as significant as the ends the demonstrators are seeking. But something else is important, quite apparent in these and other such places around the globe today. The coming together based on some shared concerns with different identities and even different goals has been a common feature of the movements in our most recent past. The demonstrators occupy a space and the way they do so, the way they interact with each other is an important end of the movement. The form of interaction, as well as the identity and interest content, is central.

Coptic Christians and Muslims protect each other with mutual respect in Egyptian demonstrations in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt. Radical anarchists and conventional trade unionists hung out at Zuccotti Park last fall and in Union Square on May Day. Their political ends may be different, radical critics of the American Dream, along with those who want to keep the Dream alive, but they have figured out ways to find common purpose and joint actions. The new “new social movements” are first about that commonality, the creation of independent public space, in New York and beyond, people with differences working together in the name of the 99%, creating an alternative free public space.

Communicating from this space to the dominant media and mainstream publics is a fundamental challenge, now evident for the Tahrir democratic activists and OWS. The quality of their public character, its social media constitution that facilitated the formation of the movement, also presents problems for moving beyond the newly constituted public space. Leading spokespersons are not evident, a strength but also a weakness, nor are clear ends and demands forthcoming. The new sensibility and purpose of the new “new movements” can get lost, as it was in New York on May Day, as is happening as the Egyptians are about to go to the polls to elect a president.

The summer seminar will be an exploration of this. We will try to discover any common cause of the movements. Is it the state of global capital and the breakdown of neo-liberalism? While I have my doubts, we will discuss the works of observers suggesting this. I think that there is a generational dimension to the emergence of the new movements: we will discuss my depiction of the “wisdom of youth” and reconsider the sociology of generations. We will analyze precedents such as the American civil rights movement and Solidarność in Poland. The old distinction between new and traditional social movements revealed as much about the old as the new, and we will consider the way the creation of independent publics were central to movements past as well as movements now.

And herein lies the irony of the course being given in Poland. It is the fruit of the alternative public of a major social movement past. The Democracy and Diversity Institute is an outgrowth of the Solidarność underground. Members of The New School, led by Democracy and Diversity founder and director, Elzbieta Matynia, and I worked with Adam Michnik, the great Polish “dissident” intellectual and later editor of Poland’s major newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, on a clandestine “Democracy Seminar” in Budapest, Warsaw and New York in the 1980s. The seminar was a small activity of the underground Solidarność cultural world. The Democracy and Diversity Institute built upon its legacy. I have always thought of my class as being explicitly a continuation of this activity, starting my classes where the discussions of the Democracy Seminar left off. This history continues in July, taking on very new concerns and experiences.

Last week, while observing the nationwide strike on May Day, and also the performance of a sociology student from The New School on Fox News a couple of days later, I wondered about the possibilities and obstacles of reinventing political culture. I was impressed that there was a significant attempt to bring May Day home, and also impressed by powerful media resistance to significant change in our political life.

May Day is celebrated around the world as Labor Day, everywhere, that is, except where it all began, the United States. The holiday commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago and the struggle for decent working conditions and the eight-hour workday. It is an official holiday in over eighty countries, recognized in even more. Yet, until this year, it has been all but ignored in the U.S., except by those far to the left of the political mainstream. Thus, the calls by people associated with Occupy Wall Street for a nationwide general strike was notable, and it was quite striking that there were nationwide demonstrations including many in New York, capped by a large a mass demonstration at Union Square Park, right near my office. Not only leftists were there. Mainstream labor unions were as well. In many ways, I found the gathering to be as impressive as the ones I saw in Zuccotti Park last fall. Yet, it did not attract serious mass media attention.

The New York Times was typical. It had a careful article on May Day in Moscow, but reported the American actions as a local story, focused on minor violence, arrests and traffic disruptions.

The events’ significance did not reach beyond those who immediately were involved or who were already committed to its purpose through social media. Where OWS broke through to a broad public in its initial demonstrations downtown in the Fall, it failed to do so on May Day in demonstrations that were both large and inventive. Beyond the violence of the fringe of those involved in the movement and the provocative actions of police, and beyond traffic disruptions, the first major American May Day demonstrations in years were pretty much invisible to the general public, other than those who were already convinced of their importance before the fact and those who were quick to dismiss and demonize them. The demonstrations in Zuccotti Park resonated. May Day didn’t. As Daniel Dayan would put it, the task of monstration, of showing a broader public, on May Day failed, and things even got worse, apparent right here at Deliberately Considered.

On May 3rd, I noticed a lot of activity here. An old post was getting many hits, and there were unusual replies being posted. At least at first, the character of the replies was upsetting, not with the deliberately considered tone. The post was by Harrison Schultz on his experiences as an Occupy Wall Street activist, and the replies were aggressively and vilely critical. -“They are just a bunch of little crying little girls. Grow up have some nads and get a job,” “Fucking Retard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,” “You my friend are an idiot. I’m I feel sorry for people like you.” “What a Dipshit you are. Good luck working at Starbucks after Grad school. RTARD!!!” and the like.

I was at first puzzled, but soon realized that Harrison had appeared that evening on the Sean Hannity show and Hannity fans googled Harrison and were using Deliberately Considered to give him a piece of their minds (if that is what it was).

I initially wanted to delete these comments because they clearly run counter to our comment policy and represent all that I oppose when it comes to political debate. But because of some technical problems, I couldn’t, and, after thinking about it for a bit, I decided that the comments should remain because they so clearly reveal a very significant cultural problem. They are a part of the Fox script, which I fear Schultz couldn’t escape.

Schultz went on Hannity and tried to do unto Hannity what Hannity would do unto him. Harrison came out aggressively, attacking Hannity for labeling him as a radical hippy. Hannity responded in kind, and for his audience, the exchange demonstrated the truth of all their preconceived notions about OWS and those who would dare to criticize the prevailing political and economic order. To be sure, on Harrison’s Facebook page, his friends congratulated him for standing up to the man, though some, including me, had doubts. Clearly, for the convinced, Hannity and Schultz were applauded by their supporters (with Schultz’s numbering in the hundreds, Hannity’s in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions). Clearly, Hannity solidified his viewers opinions about May Day and OWS. Harrison did not break through. The comment by David Peppas to the Deliberately Considered replies gets to this central point cogently.

The May Day demonstrations presented Hannity with an opportunity to vilify OWS and Hannity played his role. And the dominant mass media, such as the Times, didn’t recognize and show the demonstrations, didn’t even explain why they had been called and their deep historical significance. If I weren’t as a matter of principle the last one to recognize a conspiracy, I might suggest that there is one.

More on this later this week

In early October a “Think Tank” sprung up in Occupied Zuccotti Park – Liberty Square. This wasn’t the average think tank; there were no wealthy private donors, no agenda driven research topics, and not a cushy chair or mahogany desk to be found. We had a blanket and eventually a carpet, some signage that we’d rummaged up from stray things left about in the park, and a small space that had to be reclaimed/cleared and cleaned every day for our 12pm start. This was nothing like the pristine halls of the Brookings Institute.

What we did have, though, were ideas and a seemingly endless number of people excited about them. Random passers-by, stalwarts of the occupation, lunchtime bankers, after-work social workers, they were all present, and all had a voice. We talked about race relations, corporate personhood, OWS finances, whether this new world of Liberty Park could ever be anything but a microcosm of the larger society as a whole. Anything was up for discussion, and there was always something to talk about, something to listen to, and always a way to feel engaged in the new revolutionary dialog that had been sprouting up all over the country and world.

Unlike a typical think tank, the People’s Think Tank became an institution organically. We didn’t sign a corporate charter, file any legal registration papers with the state, or even hire any academics (they came organically as well). We handed in a piece of paper with our email addresses on it, a paragraph about what our working group would be, and just simply sat back and let the energy of the people involved in the occupy movement take us wherever it did. It didn’t take long before the Think Tank was a fixture in the park, a place where many were introduced to Occupy, its topics, and its horizontal discussions, dialog, and discourse.

The Think Tank has changed mightily today. It is no longer fixated on the park. We no longer meet every day for six hours either. The movement has changed gears, changed its mechanisms. The working groups are the apparatus that many things are getting done through now: direct action, occupy the SEC, the outreach cluster, pop-up occupy town squares, teach-ins. And after all, the Think Tank really is about dialog and horizontal dialog at that, something easy enough to replicate amongst occupiers. While the Think Tank is becoming more involved in the needs of the internal groups within Occupy Wall Street, it seems very clear that the future of the Think Tank is in outreach – just as the future of the movement itself seems to be.

Who are we?

Occupy is a global movement, synonymous with a certain type of social, political, and economic discourse much bigger than the “hallowed” walls of Wall St. Groups within the movement’s many occupations have formed to work on the movement’s dialog, hone its discourse, and communicate with each other as well as community based organizations and communities themselves. The Think Tank has been working to become more intertwined within this network as well. The core group of organizers within the Think Tank have themselves been branching out into other working groups and other occupy related endeavors. This seems to be the pattern of the movement right now. As its landscape changes, so too do its avenues of discourse and action.

The Think Tank has cut down to two scheduling times every week for topical think tanks (see NYCGA.net for current schedule). This means our time has been freed up to work on expanding the process of dialog outside of lower Manhattan and to work more in concert with OWS’ other outreach actions. We have a steady Think Tank working with the Queens General assembly, and have worked with a community partner, Urban Rebuilding Initiative (URI), on setting up regular Think Tanks in the Bronx. In New York City we have done mobile Think Tanks in Times Square, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Staten Island ferry terminal among others, and are working to continue being a fixture at as many occupy events as we can, such as the pop-up Town Squares,  the City-Wide Assembly, and May Day. We have also been to Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and even had a Think Tank in Cairo. We are working with multiple occupies to help them set up their own discussion forums: Poughkeepsie, Harvard, Boston, Santa Fe, Washington DC, Oakland, etc. We are looking into radio, TV, and multiple online platforms. We want to capture the essence of what the Think Tank was in the park, and continues to be – an entry point into the ideas and discourse of Occupy.

Perhaps some day the Think Tank will produce actionable policy options, it is for now, really a platform for bringing together voices not usually heard – especially not heard in the same spaces. A white construction worker from Brooklyn, an African-American lawyer from Wall St., a Latino restaurant worker from Queens, a retired veteran from Staten Island, a college student from Indiana, all sitting in the same place, taking about issues relevant to our times. All these conversations are recorded and archived at NYU’s Tamiment Library Labor Archives, and starting to find their way onto the Think Tank’s new website occupythinktank.org.

The beauty of this working group is that it is just one of many doing the same things. Virtually every working group is doing the same things. They are all working to expand their and our reach. There are groups spending weekends in East Flatbush, Brooklyn going door to door, listening to neighborhood concerns and trying to bring people together. The Facilitation Working Group is working with General Assemblies through the city and country to help facilitate meetings and assemblies. The list goes on.

This has been the direction of the movement over the last few months – quiet expansion. While the mainstream media would have had us withering away into the ethernet, what we’re really doing is settling in for the long arduous process of social change. The activists and mechanisms of Occupy are finding stable ways to produce continued and sustained efforts, to hone our mechanisms and messages, and to plan events and outreach that will bring in new people both in person and in spirit. It could be argued that the most powerful weapon in the world is thought. And that – to me – is what Occupy is: the thought that another world is possible.

Occupy’s six-month birthday celebration last Saturday at Zuccotti Park was first spent in celebration: the scene was joyous with friends reuniting after winter hibernation. “Spring training” regimes were conducted. The drum circle was back, and mic checks once again created a collective voice.

But when protestors undertook a spontaneous, albeit brief, reoccupation, they were met with the most violent and unrestrained NYC police force to date. MTA buses were commandeered and over seventy arrests were made. The significance and power of the park was clear once again.

Police violence was immediately challenged with solidarity marches in New York and throughout the country on Sunday. In spite of a winter predicting our demise, Occupy is alive again this spring. Not that we were ever really dead, but since the cops evicted Zuccotti the first time last fall, OWS has been struggling to find a way of staying meaningful without the spectacle of the park. Liberty Park offered a sense of commonality, a point of access, and a feeling of empowerment that has been difficult to replicate.

In fact, as the winter approached, the occupation had already started to weaken. Social problems appeared within the park. The influx of those bearing the stigmas of long-term homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness had already created divisions, cutting across the usual lines of class, race and “mental status.” Neighborhoods and maps developed to segregate social groups, restricting movement within what was established and claimed as a space of “openness.” Just after the fall storm, a woman pushed past me rushing from one side of the park to the other, and I heard her say to a friend, “Oh noooo, we don’t want to get caught in that part of the ‘hood.’ ” That comment stuck.

Many of us felt relieved that the police closed the park – that the occupation went out with a bang, rather than slowly disintegrating in front of an increasingly disinterested television audience, suggesting the movement’s ideals as being fundamentally in conflict to the wider public.

Nonetheless, the movement did continue. The loss of the park meant that all activities became based in working groups. We moved inside to 60 Wall Street, but the conditions were less than ideal – especially once they shut off the heat and locked the “public” restrooms. By mid January, the numbers of attendees at the popular Empowerment and Education meetings had diminished to the point that the loss of our status as a working group was threatened. Participants, seemingly seeking social relationships more than social goals, easily disrupted meetings. The Occupy Student Debt Campaign spent hours dialoguing with the Mediation Working Group in hope of resolving an internal conflict that led to a member being asked to “step back.” Euphemisms aside, it turned more into “step out,” and I’ve never seen this person again. In spite of the challenge of moving forward with this member, the fallout of the conflict seemed equally difficult.

Some active members believed that openness was primary. We needed to relearn how to interrelate with people, undermining a key value would be counterproductive and not very OWS. Other, equally active, members believed that complete openness was impossible, and worse, an illusion. Those uncomfortable in certain environments would naturally self-select to leave, and those comfortable with restrictions on rejection would always find a way to run the show by refusing to conform. For many of us openness in practice could be a lose-lose proposition, in spite of the fact that it had all the appeal of a winning ideal. After all, we are the 99%.

It seemed that the majority of working groups were actively grappling with these questions throughout the winter. Conversations had turned to community agreements, step up/step back, authority and horizontality. The focus had shifted off of the corporate take over of our democracy, unsustainable inequality and the nefarious activities of the big banks. Increasingly, it seemed as if we were engaged in an impossible struggle over the meaning and conditions of one of the fundamental premises of OWS – namely that radical openness is both possible and desirable.

Many of us felt that the principle needed revision. Prefiguring a society of total openness seemed to deny the current existence of many very real problems that our actions toward social change were attempting to address. Prefiguring a future society often seemed incompatible with taking action toward creating a new one.

Were we hypocrites? Was this an admission of a certain kind of defeat?  And, if in theory there’s no way to think outside of capitalism, and if our conception of openness is restricted by capitalism, then why on earth have we been spending so much time talking? Many of us were becoming increasingly frustrated by endless talk, and wanted to get down to some action.

By way of compromise, Occupy University meetings were divided:  two hours for talk that had no specific purpose, but could be purposeful nonetheless, and two hours for talk that had ends in mind. What could not be resolved by conversation was ultimately resolved through attrition, as members simply drifted, and the people who simply had the wherewithal to keep showing up ended with a the consensus. Is this really openness? It felt like the best we could hope for, so we carried on, sensing that our struggle might be more important than anything we created in the end.

In many ways the distraction of the Battle of Oakland came as a welcome relief. But once a proposed solidarity statement was circulated stating support for a “diversity of tactics” strategy, the Battle of Oakland seemed to expose a new problem with openness as practiced. Many of us believed that OWS was fundamentally a non-violent movement, and even with all this talk of openness, it came as a shock that it might not be possible to denounce violence without compromising this ideal. If we’re open, then we must be open to a “diversity of tactics.” But what about the idea that if we’re open, we cannot be open to violence, since it’s the ultimate way of closing everything down? But violence comes in many forms – it can be economic and psychological; why should we focus on the form of violence used by the victims of economic violence? Maybe some of that’s true as a matter of metaphor, but as a matter of definition, violence is physical. But that’s only because of who gets to define. Such was the conversation, and it became clear that many activists would leave the movement if violence were denounced. It was equally clear, however, that many would leave if non-violence were not practiced.

The conversation continued at The Winter of our Discontent event sponsored by The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU and The New School. Former SDS member and New School Liberal Studies Department Chair, Jim Miller, came out of the gate by challenging the panel to take a stand against violence. But instead, David Graeber, the admired intellectual hero of the movement, disclosed his own involvement with black blocs. But, I wonder if it will be David Graeber or the young black kid brave enough to participate in a march, who will be the one to do time?

What sort of openness are we really talking about? Here, class and race intersect, but end up in the pile of other easily brushed off accusations that OWS is elitist, just another version of the same old thing, a different form of special interest, and not really the 99%. When a young woman took the mic and challenged the ideology of the 99%, arguing that compassion is also needed for the 1%, as they are equally held hostage to capitalism, the audience laughed and many of the panelists who were just espousing openness scoffed. Radical openness? Not so much. Personally, I’m okay with that. Sometimes, ideas are incompatible with each other, and there’s almost always a gray zone. For me, openness seems to be an ideal that can serve different masters. Are there any ideals that automatically create freer or more equal or better material conditions in any real way?

In spite of what seems to be an ideological impasse, a sizable group of us have continued to work on projects and build important ties. For us, the problems that OWS addresses are multifaceted, sometimes indescribable, but completely necessary. For us, continuing to grapple with inconsistencies is the path toward a truly democratic society. Fundamentally, we believe that people do have power. Call us idealists, but we believe that a better world is within our grasp. Our evidence is that Occupy Wall Street has already changed the national discourse on inequality, foreclosures, student debt and democracy. Our evidence is that the movement has remained non-violent and the + Brigade emerged out of the “diversity of tactics” crisis. Occupy University has launched our first course: Studying May Day and the General Strike, and Occupy Student Debt Campaign is organizing a national day of action on April 25^th.  Surely, issues around openness will continue to arise.

Now that spring has arrived, the movement seems stronger than ever.  It seems likely that the issues around openness will be addressed in practice, as we collectively envision and challenge our future.

Monday morning, I took a bit of a break from my plan for the day. I decided my class preparation and work on some overdue papers would wait. After I replied to Corey Robin’s response to a critical passing comment I made about his book, The Reactionary Mind, on Facebook, I put off until later in the week my search for interesting conservative intellectuals. I decided to ignore the Republican madness, and not worry about the ups and downs in the upcoming Presidential race, and didn’t read the reports on the Super Bowl (the annual sports media event that I usually ignore but did tweak my interest this year, New Yorker that I am). Instead, I opened my computer and watched the video of the Flying Seminar meeting with Bill Zimmerman (which I missed because I was at that time at a conference in Sofia). It was a particularly interesting meeting, very nicely captured in the video (thank you Lisa Lipscomb). I entered a different world, beyond the mundane, considering the connection between radical hopes and practical projects.

This is what the Flying Seminar is. Recall, Elzbieta Matynia and I developed the Flying Seminar in response to Occupy Wall Street. OWS reminded us of our days observing and participating in the Solidarity (Solidarność) movement in Poland, and the great independent academic project of Solidarity times, the Flying University of the Polish underground. We started with a meeting with activists in Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolt), a counter-cultural anti- nuclear movement which came to take part in the occupation of Zuccotti Park. We then arranged a meeting with Adam Michnik, the outstanding Polish critical intellectual and political activist, who also visited the Park. Our third meeting was with Zimmerman, an old New Leftist (it takes one to know one), author of the recent book, Troublemaker: A Memoir From the Front Lines of the Sixties. Last month, after a technical delay, we posted the video recording of that meeting.

The seminar discussion got me thinking about a crucial problem: the relationship between challenging social movements and the broader public. This issue is most apparent in the Arab uprisings, in Moscow, Bucharest and in Warsaw in democratic movements, and in New York and beyond in OWS and related occupations. We have been reflecting upon these developments in each of these locations at Deliberately Considered, but there is a general problem common to all of them, which was discussed at the Flying Seminar. The starting point in the discussion with Zimmerman was the anti-war movement in the sixties.

Zimmerman and the seminar participants covered many areas. He reflected on the problem of a radical anti-war movement, too distant from the judgments of the general population to lead a popular movement against the war. They discussed election initiatives, legalizing marijuana, prison reform, the racist quality of the war on drugs, the need to treat drug abusers rather than arrest them, and the protests against U.S. intervention in Latin America. Zimmerman explained a variety of different innovative strategies he has used to reach the public, to make his radical commitments consequential. The use of the ballot initiative and the production of anti-war and anti-Bush and Company T.V. ads, made for moveon.org, were particularly interesting.

Zimmerman discussed a series of innovative victories in his long political struggle. “I have been struggling against capitalism for fifty years.” He celebrated the Internet, the only limit to reaching the public now is our imagination, he asserted. He was thinking particularly about the costs of emailing versus the cost of postage. He recalled throwing $100 bills on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange back in the day. Wall Street was then and is now both the symbol of the problem and site of the problem itself. His was an earlier innovative dramaturgic act in the belly of the beast, meant to show radical criticism to a mass audience. Zimmerman applauded OWS for its major discursive success. “It has stimulated a broad public to fundamentally question capitalism.”

There were differences of judgment at the meeting. All knew that connecting with the public is important, but there were different opinions about how this could be achieved. Some saw a global capitalist order on the verge of collapse, confidently sensing that people are waking up and a significant victory is on the horizon. Others were less optimistic, more concerned, believing that the forces of the old order are still alive and very able to defend their interests. Some were less sure of popular support.

The discussion sometimes lingered on generalities that make me impatient and uncomfortable (specifically broad criticisms of capitalism and celebrations of socialism), but they moved beyond empty rhetoric, impressed as the participants were both by Zimmerman’s long history of bringing major issues to the public’s attention, leading to political action, and by the recent successes of OWS in doing the same thing. The discussion was among colleagues. The OWS people say comrades, a term that makes me feel uncomfortable given my experiences around the former Soviet bloc.

The relationship with more conventional politics was an issue, as was the intersection of race and class in and out of the movement. One seminar participant, Jan Gross, strongly argued for a position that I find attractive. Prevailing political institutions, in the close connection between the government and the corporate powers, enforce inequality, but the system is open to cooptation (unlike the situation in authoritarian dictatorships). The liberal order’s democratic qualities can be utilized for progressive change. Lawrence Weschler passionately argued for a specific course of direct action, a mass boycott of under water loans mortgages and student loans, and extensive discussion about the boycott. Radical pragmatic action would both engage the public and address some severe problems, which affect many people. This led to the discussion about the relationship between the social movement, and class and race. An African American OWS activist forcefully argued that the problem of the poor is not about student loans and mortgages but community schools and drug arrests. Class and race divides society and social movements, but he suggested also the people around the Flying Seminar table. The problems of the middle class and the poor are related, but they are also different.

A constitutional amendment was discussed (money does not equal speech), as was a national student strike. One person declared that capitalism had to be saved from itself, while others reflected on the “S” word, socialism. (This reminded me of discussions on the left in the 1930s.) The broad strategy of building alternatives “on our own” was measured against active engagement with more conventional political institutions and the possibility of a third party.

Different tactics reveal different commitments, Zimmerman observed in his closing reflections. But, acting together is the key imperative. The path to power and radical change is paved by organizing, to which he has dedicated his life.

I regret missing this interesting discussion. As I was watching the video, I imagined how I might have spoken up. I may have expressed my conviction that all the talk about socialism, as some kind of systemic alternative to capitalism, is silly. I might have asked people to explain how it is they imagine a modern economy can be organized. But that probably would not have improved the discussion. But there are issues I would have liked to discussed: how a protest movement can move from saying no to injustice to figuring out how to do something about the injustice, what role do political leaders play, and what social activists can accomplish and how that relates to more conventional political agents in parties and states?

There is a proposal before the OWS General Assembly in New York today concerning a statement of solidarity with Occupy Oakland. In it, there is the declaration:

“We affirm Occupy Oakland’s freedom to use whatever means necessary to further
your [and our] struggle. A diversity of tactics is necessary, and it
means that there is no correct method to resistance. We trust our
comrades to make your own choices for your own community.”

Really by any means necessary? Aside from the questionable ethics of such a statement, I wonder how the people who consider it think it relates to the broad American public. How does the movement, which speaks in the name of the 99%, relate to the 99%? I think that the statement will be rejected. But it highlights the importance of the issues and experiences discussed at the last meeting of the Flying Seminar, and it suggests what we should examine in our next meeting.

It seems to me that it is crucial to think about the relationship between the movement and more conventional politics. I think that the relationship between OWS and Obama and the Democrats is similar to the relationship between the Civil Rights movement and Kennedy and Johnson and the Democrats, and some Republicans. It would be interesting to reflect upon how that worked. I am hoping that we will discuss this at the next meeting of the Flying Seminar, perhaps on the legacies of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement as it might inform the future actions of OWS.

“Protestors have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags. Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments.” -M. Bloomberg

I find this to be the most interesting component of Bloomberg’s statement today. On its face, it appears to be an appeal to the virtues of public discussion and critical public debate. Bloomberg suggests that if the Occupy Wall Street movement is in possession of the most truthful account of our current collective predicament, then it will be proven in the so called marketplace of ideas.

Yet, in my judgment, Bloomberg’s appeal to the tenets of deliberative democracy is nothing more than cynical, and, in fact, a strategic attempt to silence protest and squash democracy. At the forefront of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is a critique of the inequality of voice within the public sphere. The kinds of arguments members of the political elite, such as Bloomberg, are even capable of hearing is precisely what is at issue. Take, for example, Bloomberg’s recent critique of the association of Wall Street Bankers with the 2008 economic collapse. Bloomberg blames the collapse on government housing policy that encouraged the expansion of the home owning class in the United States. In Bloomberg’s mind, the federal government put pressure on lenders to lend to unqualified borrowers. Yet, as Michael Powell of the New York Times points out, all available evidence proves this argument to be baseless. Bloomberg cannot even imagine that Wall Street banks could possibly be at fault for the great ongoing economic calamity we are all suffering through.

A fundamental critical point of OWS is that political elites have difficulty even hearing certain kinds of arguments. The fact that the elite commentators and politicians continuously prove their myopia by misunderstanding the basic structure and symbolics of OWS movement demonstrates the movement’s ongoing critical importance. Some, such as the Times’ David Brooks, acknowledge that the OWS movement has successfully “changed the conversation,” but they still decry the movement’s lack of leadership and what they perceive to be its loose agenda. They see the movement structure as being chaotic and even amateurish. Such criticisms smugly assume that OWS’ open structure is the accidental result of incompetence, while, in fact, the openness is reasonably organized to maximize responsiveness to new and varied voices. The daily repetition of the general assembly registers continuous discussion, and the resistance to a hard agenda leaves the movement open to ever new and expanding participants (for instance see this).

OWS’ open structure is a substantial aspect of its labor to be exactly what the general public sphere dominated by elites is not, open to critical discussion. Organizing a hierarchically vertical movement structure with a cadre of leaders might make the movement more legible to elites and it might enhance the movement’s ability to broker deals. However such organization would too specifically define the movement’s constituency and close the organized movement off from the vastness of the real 99%.

In this vein the vital importance of the symbolics of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park should be recognized. The sometimes small, sometimes expansive tent city sits in the shadows of the great vertical skyscrapers of financial capital. The horizontal conversations that occur on the ground stand out against the private hierarchical maneuverings of grand capital furiously unfolding within the shiny glass facades. The OWS movement does not promote alternative living, or the right of individuals to live free of a certain kind of social system. It is not about styles of life. OWS necessarily sits in the canyons of financial capital in order to bring attention to the globally integrated economic system in which the narrowly self-interested decisions of a very few determine the living conditions of everyone else. What OWS has shown is that one could not practice a separatism of life style today even if one chose to. We are all directly affected by the decisions of a small elite whether we like it or not. The changed conversation of the past two months has revealed that so many among us do not like it one bit.

Clearly it is symbolically important for OWS, in fact, to occupy Wall Street. Yet more should be said about the occupying of public space. On the face of it, such occupying is a contradiction in terms. How can one occupy a space that is by definition universally accessible? But the occupation of public space is also symbolically necessary to the OWS movement. By indefinitely camping out in a city park (that is absurdly privately owned), the OWS movement makes itself about the idea of the public itself. That a group would have to resort to occupying a public park to have their voices heard, and that thousands more would rely on this group to become the soundboard by which they could finally participate in a “changing conversation,” reveals the structured myopia of our public conversation. In other words, without unmasking the current deficits in our elite versions of public debate, the Bloombergs of the world will continue to see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear. The little encampment in Zuccotti Park was, until this morning when Bloomberg violently swept it to the side, the living representation of our right to democratic expression, our right to be listened to, the right to “change the conversation” when elites chatter on in their glass fortresses while the rest of us are being bled dry by systematically enforced inequality.

The OWS movement is not about a specific policy agenda or in defense of a particular social group. The OWS movement is a desperate amplification of a silenced and ignored expression of broad based and deep social suffering. The metastasizing ills and injustices of social inequality can be ignored no longer. Although born of desperation, OWS has peacefully organized an open structured movement that threatens to create a public space of discussion in perpetuity. It is precisely the perpetuation of public discussion that has been so threatening to elites. This is why they want what they see as the smelly rabble to ordain a leader, i.e. because leaders have to be accountable to constituents. Leaders have to develop programs that favor some at the expense of others, and because in the ever returning crises, fiscal and otherwise, leaders can be told to “get real” and take the crumbs that might otherwise go to some other group, and go home. But it is precisely the amorphous never ending occupation of the public, in Zuccotti Park and beyond, that is threatening to make democratic debate live up to its own principles.

If Bloomberg were truly open to the arguments and ideas of the 99%,, he would acknowledge and respect the meaning of Occupy Wall Street and promote the continued democratic occupation of Zuccotti Park. If Bloomberg and others want to “get real,” they need to listen to the conversations unleashed in that little park, because they are the multiplier effects of democracy, the messy, chaotic and real voice of the suffering of the 99%.  If they are silenced now, we will suffer an unbearable cost.

What do these people want? What are they advocating? In the opinion of many, including Gary Alan Fine in his last post, it is easy to discern what OWS is against, but unclear what they are for. They know how to say no, he knows, but he wonders if they can say yes. He thinks this both about OWS and The Tea Party, as a detached but sympathetic observer of both.

Looking at OWS up close, taking part in a small but significant activity, I think the positive commitments of OWS are actually quite clear, and in marked contrast to The Tea Party. As I maintained in The Politics of Small Things, the democracy is in the details. I had an opportunity to look at some details in a corner of Zuccotti Park, joining the OWS Think Tank.

Many of the OWS activists who have taken part in The Flying Seminar sessions are active in the Think Tank. We started working together at The New School teach in. They have been among the active members of the seminar. I have visited them a couple of times in Zuccotti Park, and earlier this week, on Monday, I joined them in their work there. It was an illuminating afternoon.

From noon to 6:00, the Think Tank conducts discussion sessions of a special sort on a variety of topics.  Many different people facilitate the discussions. I responded to an email call for help and volunteered to do my part. The workshop topics range from the quite general, to the immediate and practical. They hope to inform decision-making in the park and to further understanding of problems of broad public concern, and even contribute to the formulation of policy positions and recommendations. It’s one of the spaces where the big questions about the occupation are being answered in daily practice, a striking case of the politics of small things. It confirmed for me that in politics the means are a significant part of its ends, the form at least as important as its content.

At the session I facilitated, the topic of discussion was mental illness and Occupy Wall Street. The subject was put on the agenda by a very practical activist. He wanted to discuss the problems of mental illness, substance abuse and health problems and Occupy Wall Street. He had a pressing need to address these issues, as significant social problems of the city are appearing in the park and dealing with the problems is quite challenging. We focused on mental illness and we talked about it both as a general issue, and as one in the park that required action.

We talked for about two hours. There were multiple voices, presenting different positions, revealing different sensibilities and experiences. Two people talked about their own struggles with diagnoses of mental illness, one thought of himself as a survivor of misdiagnosis and the madness of the mental health establishment, the other, a young woman, as a healed person, thanks to proper medical care. She spoke about how she would have been attracted to the occupation when she was deeply troubled, how she would have wanted to be where the action is, but how her response would have been off, more about her own internal troubles, less about public affairs. The critical young man reported that he was subjected in rehab to drug treatments, which were far worse than the drugs that got him institutionalized. The healed young woman spoke empathetically for people who suffer, about the need to empathize with their situation and to treat them with compassion. The man and the woman didn’t debate. They joined the discussion drawing upon their different experiences. While they didn’t agree in their general assessment of mental illness, they both pointed to a course of action that started with respect for the dignity of troubled people. But of course, this did not settle the matter.

Others joined in, including a woman who worked on mental health issues (I never quite got precisely what she did), the activist who was seeking insight to address difficult problems of aggression and fights in the park, and a woman who emphasized the need for practical action because of a case of sexual assault a few days ago.

The discussion moved back and forth between the general question of approaches to the mentally disturbed and very pressing matters concerning the peace and good feelings in the park. There was the occasional disruption also, particularly an older man who very much wanted more to talk than listen and had his own agenda, criticizing the focus of OWS and the Think Tank, maintaining that the first imperative is to fight against corrupt politicians, including, perhaps even especially, Barack Obama. I really wasn’t paying close attention to his words. Mostly as a novice Think Tank facilitator I was focused on keeping the group on the topic as they were developing it.

But generally speaking, staying on topic was not a problem. The competing progressive approaches that were discussed, I believe, were more or less like what one might come across in a discussion among psychiatrists, from those who are deeply committed to pharmaceutical solutions to those who are radically opposed. No policy was suggested. We didn’t come close to that. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for many reasons. But major issues were highlighted: to turn or not to turn to the professionals outside the park, love and compassion versus safety, treating people as equals versus addressing clear disabilities. There was a realization that general social problems were appearing inside the occupation, inevitably, leading to a need for responsible action.

Nothing was solved. I don’t want to overemphasize the importance of this discussion. It was one among many, without apparent immediate consequences. But, on the other hand, it revealed, at least to me, the answer to the question about what OWS wants. The participants in our OWS Think Tank session were all there because they were saying no to the way corporate power has distorted democracy. They see increasing inequality as a moral, political and economic scandal. They have a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the prevailing order of things. Saying no brings them together. This is of crucial importance, as Adam Michnik underscored in his dialogue with OWS at the Flying Seminar. “At a certain point you have to say no and the ability to say no is a revolutionary ability.” Yet, once they are together, they are moving beyond no and saying yes, as they act in each other’s presence and consider complicated problems together. The way they interact reveal their positive commitments. Careful mutually respectful discussions, open to opposing political positions, focused on pressing problems in practical ways, not forgetting primary commitments to democracy: social, cultural and economic, as well as political. I saw this at the Think Tank. I don’t think that this is what I would see at a Tea Party meeting. I await Fine’s or a Tea Party supporter’s response.

I know this may still appear to be of little consequence beyond the immediate interaction. But I think it has, involving the media representation of OWS and the deep task of reinventing political culture. I will turn to these issues in my next posts. Hint: involved will be my thoughts on the Occupation and Obama, and the Democratic Party more broadly, and the link between the Occupation and other social movements, especially labor unions. I will consider the problem OWS has in its relations with a broad public, not only speaking in the name of the 99%, but also in a language that the 99% can understand, so that it can respond and act.

Contingency is of the essence for creativity. The Flying Seminar session with members from Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolt), an anti-nuclear and counter cultural social movement group from Japan, and Occupy Wall Street, I think, was not an exception. What started as a rash decision by the Shiroto no Ran to come to New York to show their support to the OWS protest and to experience the heart of the occupation first-hand took an unplanned change after a chance meeting. Through a New School effort to create the time and space for deeper and meaningful dialogue, a valuable Japanese – American encounter occurred.

I heard the news about Shiroto no Ran’s visit just a day before their arrival. During their short stay at the Liberty Square, we met and talked about OWS. From our conversations, I began to realize how difficult it was for them to actually get the opportunity to really meet and get to know the people who are most engaged in the OWS movement. The activists in Zuccotti Park were too busy and things were changing too rapidly there. I realized that there was a need for creating a space that would facilitate a dialogue between these two groups of activists. A teach-in session organized by two New School professors, Jeffrey Goldfarb and Elzbieta Matynia, not only opened a door of opportunity, but also gave a concrete structure to my vague idea. From listening to their ideas about the Flying Seminar, I realized that we could have a serious conversation between these movements from different cultures. Just two days after I proposed the event, we all met, and my sense that it could be worthwhile, proved to be correct.

As a participant in both movements, I see my contribution in creating a space for dialogue as a modest one. But on the other hand, as a researcher who is working on the Japanese 1968 movement from a transnational perspective, I am especially interested. I am fascinated how such a dialogue is now possible in contrast to the impossibility of transnational – transcultural exchanges between activists in the sixties, and I think that such dialogue can have significant consequences. We learned from both our similarities and our differences.

Similarities and Differences

On capitalism: although not all participants involved in these movements are anti-capitalists, many, if not most, do consider capitalism as the source of profound problems. Both countries are in the stage of late capitalism and are currently facing the consequences of the great recession. In both countries the activists see the need for radical change.

With this in mind, both movements regard zones for alternatives as especially important. They work to create spaces where people can gather and live through an alternative life style, different from the ones which capitalism demands. For example, the urban commune filled with love and thoughtfulness at the Liberty Square and various shops in Koenji, Tokyo run by Shiroto no Ran that are organized through creativity and support from the people who share their ideas. Even though both movements believe in drastic social change and use the word “revolution” to describe their aspirations, their immediate aim is not to forcibly take over the government, but to create a “post-revolutionary” space inside of capitalism. They wish to change the society by inventing new tactics and demonstrating to the public that “another world is possible.” Persistent activity and the desire for creativity is the key to both movements. Their primary task is to expand their space and penetrate their thoughts into the existing society.

Despite these similarities, there are also important differences. In OWS, the goals are vague and also diverse. On the other hand, after the disaster of 3.11 in Japan, Shiroto no Ran is now focusing on a single issue, which is the abolition of nuclear power plants. Their tactics are also different. OWS occupies public spaces, while in Japan, since the use of public space for political purpose is highly restricted, Shiroto no Ran has rented  and runs several small retail shops, creating an alternative micro-economy to sustain their movement. Another difference is the consensus building process. Direct democracy is crucial for the OWS, but not for the Japanese movement at this moment. Lastly, judging from our discussion, principled opposition to violent action is more central for the Japanese activists than for the Americans.

Other than these differences on the level of issues and tactics of the movement, there are also the differences in the way they conceive capitalism. As I have mentioned earlier, both groups are against capitalism, but it seems that they are focusing on different aspects of capitalism. The OWS movement is struggling against the system that creates the deep disparity between the rich and the poor and the winners and losers that is rooted inside the American capitalist culture, which have become extreme especially after the great recession of 2008. On the other hand, after listening to the comments made by Shiroto no Ran’s members, it seems that their target is more toward the high mass consumption culture in everyday life that has been deeply embedded in the Japanese society since the 1970s. This difference came about partially from the impact of the 2008 recession on the labor market in each country. In the States, unemployment rate skyrocketed from 5.80% in 2008 to 9.28% in 2009. On the other hand, although the recession actually did affect the Japanese labor market, it was still within the limit of 3.99% in 2008 and 5.09% in 2009. Overall, a large part of the Japanese society is still living off or surviving from the post-war rapid economic growth reserve. Shiroto no Ran’s criticism is of the consumer culture supported by the post-war economic growth.

Hybridity: Central for Sustainable Occupation

In our global era, it is even more important for social movements to learn and be empowered by one another from both our similarities and our differences. While there seemed to be ambivalence about violence among the Americans, there was complete rejection of violent action among their Japanese counterparts. Japanese experience of the recent past accounts for this difference. Violence against the police and brutal infighting among the activists during the late 1960s and 1970s in Japan not only isolated the movement from the larger society, but it also left a deep cultural trauma, creating a negative image of social movements for almost forty years. Violence was the beginning of the end of social movements in Japan, and it seems to me this is something our American colleagues, who may be attracted to the communicative power of violent projects, should bear in mind.

On the other hand, the Japanese movement can learn a lot from the Americans about consensus building. As Hajime Matsumoto, one of the members of Shiroto no Ran, has accurately pointed out during the dialogue, it is hard to build up consensus through the open assembly in Japan. Instead problems are solved during unofficial situations such as the drinking session after meetings. Of course, direct democracy, which is practiced by the OWS general assembly, is not perfect. Words are power and people who can use the words effectively tend to prevail. Thus, we should acknowledge that there are voices that are being suppressed. However, it seems to me that the consensus building tactics practiced by the OWS is based on the notion that people are different and have different opinions and this needs to be consciously worked on through a persistent effort as the precondition of common agreement. Compared to the U.S., Japanese society is less diverse, especially in terms of race and ethnicity, and therefore, people tend to think that others share similar ideas, although in many cases they may not. Since different ideas are an important source for creativity and since Japanese society is becoming more diversified, it is essential to self consciously create a more democratic and open way for building consensus. This does not mean that the tactics of direct democracy and its tools of human microphone and hand gestures can or should be directly transferred to and implemented in Japan as it has been practiced in the U.S., yet these technics can be modified and rebuilt by applying appropriate resources in a different culture. Tactical hybridity is inevitable and desirable.

Lastly, in order to achieve a social change within capitalist society, it is crucial for movements to endure without losing the support from the general population. To do so, the tactics of Shiroto no Ran that creates an alternative economy inside the capitalist society and maintains relationships with the existing and surrounding society is instructive. But to really make a difference, it is crucial for us to keep pushing creatively, to draw the attention of the media and to surprise, indeed astonish, the public at large, to provoke them to think that the way things are is not the way things must be. For such purpose, the practices of OWS can be adapted and used in many different ways by the Japanese movement when they try to expand their movement.

I believe the coming together of these “amateurs” from different cities and continents will be a source of creativity sustaining an occupation. I hope and think that this Flying Seminar session made its small contribution to an ongoing transnational relationship between the two significant movements.