Why Occupy is a Leaderless Movement

[unionworks]

Take a look around. The minions of the 1% in their various guises are desperately looking for a way to collectively smear a movement of millions of people (including those who support the movement as well as those actively involved.) This desperation to smear is reaching the level of hysteria.

Could you imagine what would have happened by now if Occupy had elected national/local leaders? MLK and the Chicago Seven leap to mind.

Keep flailing at straws in the wind, you protectors of stolen wealth. You show us all who you are in the process, instead of us offering up our best to be sacrificed on the altar of greed. It makes America able to see ever more clearly how ridiculous and dangerous you really are.

[JamesDim]

1. I support Occupy

I support Occupy, if there is a need for me to sacrifice something I'd do it for the cause

[unionworks]

6. Welcome to DU!

And don't be in such a hurry to sacrafice for a cause - there has been too much of that already in the forms of maced eyes, broken bones, and jail time. I believe Occupy is a humane movement, not out to bring needless suffering to it's members. The better way is to get your message out with the least amount of suffering possible. And NONVIOLENCE is essential for that purpose.

[Voice for Peace]

2. Being leaderless it can move and expand in all directions at once

informing, informing, informing

[unionworks]

4. I believe it is based

On the strategy of Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. "Assume formlessness. Attack what is not defended, defend what is not attacked". His precepts are required study even at our West Point academy. And they can be applied to any form of struggle. It was brilliant of Occupy to adopt them.

[EFerrari]

3. Horizontalidad

Horizontality or horizontalism is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of management power. These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving continuous participation and exchange between individuals to achieve the larger desired outcomes of the collective whole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontality

[unionworks]

5. as always your posts

...hit the bullseye like an arrow! Thanks!

[Zalatix]

10. Wow, you learn a new thing every day.

Thanks for the info!

[xchrom]

7. Either it's a New Day or the Old & Dead day

With a prolonged post mortem - take your pick.

[unionworks]

8. they are flailing

...at straws in a hurricane, seeing only the individual straws of events, and completely missing the power and fury of the wind driving them.

[JohnnyRingo]

9. I believe Occupy would be better served if it adopted a leader.

Call me old fashioned, but it's my opinion that if OWS morphed into a dues paying public union it could wield the political clout the movement needs to affect real change for those who punch a time clock. What I see now are a half million voices airing their grievences into open space. What politicians see is a nuisance seeking a solution.

I'm reminded of a WalMart where 200 workers complain to management about their collective and individual gripes all at once. The company hears all, but listens to no one. With a national leader the movement can organize and prioritize the issues that affect the 99% and lobby for results. A national strike is an ultimate bargaining tool that, once deployed, will bring the 1% to the table with a decided disadvantage,

Leaderless occupations are not new in America, and to date all have met disasterous ends. The Bonus Soldiers after WWI, Hooverville in depression era washington DC, and the native American occupation of Alcatraz were all organic protests that sprouted on occupied public land. None of them found resolution, and all of them saw violent dispatch.

My vision of OWS is one where the movement finds it's Samual Gompers to inspire the 99% and bring a unified voice to Washington before everybody gets frustrated and goes home, or worse. By then, it'll be too late and a great opportunity to restore the working class will be lost to history.

It was the American union that invented the middle class to begin with, and the rise and fall of the American worker tracks exactly with the birth of collective bargaining, and the demonization and subsequent fall in the '80s that continues today. It's not a coincidence.

[unionworks]

13. That was an excellent and fascinating post

You no doubt already know many unions have participated in the Occupy movement. In the future I see something much like what you are talking about coming to pass. Occupy will eventually move from the protest stage to the political stage. If they elected leaders now, as the poster below points out,they'd all be jailed or worse. Slow and steady progress does it.

[JohnnyRingo]

17. You make an excellent point, both in this reply and in the OP

That a leader will give the 1% a target to tear down socially and even physically attack. There certainly have been enough leaders of social change that have paid the price for their good deeds over the years with their martyrdom.

Perhaps the time isn't right yet for organization, but I console myself that a form of Occupy will remain as long as the working class is exploited, and I don't see that getting better on it's own. I just hope that if and when a great leader rises from the camp that the movement doesn't shun him or her out of principle.

[unionworks]

16. What amazes the shit out of me

...after all these years, tptb still haven't realized that brutality - especially to the young - guarantees their political outlook many times for life. Ever since I can remember these violent tactics have come back to bite them on the ass, but they can't seem to help themselves. If the cops had just done what they should have done, Occupy would probably be much smaller and never would have won control of the national discussion like it did. When will they learn?

[sudopod]

11. If Occupy had a Nelson Mandela

He would be in jail.

[unionworks]

14. or worse

That is why they are smart to proceed as they are.

[donheld]

12. Everyone is a leader if they'll only lead.

[unionworks]

15. STAND

"There's a midget standing tall, and a giant beside him about to fall". - Sly Stone.

[unc70]

18. And everyone is a "creative type"

People are incredibly creative, individually and in groups. Have always thought that those who try to define artists, musicians, writers, and other creative types (traditional arts), or inventors types, or other arbitrary classifications miss the obvious. We are all creative types.

[unionworks]

20. you have hit on

...what bothers me most about the police brutality against Occupy protesters. These are not violent people, they are mostly gentle, intelligent people who have had little or no experience of violence in their lives. To see it visited upon them so horribly was sometimes more than I could bear to watch. This is Americas hope for the future being traumatized, it is a big middle finger from the 1%. It is ugliness in it's purest form.

[sabrina 1]

22. I have felt the same way. On the night that they nearly killed Scott Olsen and then

the same cop, which we found out later from the video, hurled a canister at the people who went to help him, I was horrified, watching it on livestream as it happened. When I saw the first photo of him I cried. He was wearing a shirt which had the word 'Peace' on it with a white dove. And the contrast of his peaceful and courageous actions, the white dove, the word peace, his wounded face against the darkness of the cowardly robo cop was very emotionally disturbing to many, many people.

Ugly is a good word for what they are doing.

[unionworks]

23. unfortunately

...we can expect more as summer nears. Let's hope Occupy plays it smart and ramps up the nonviolence training like they did in NYC.

[Norrin Radd]

19. kr

[unionworks]

21. thanks n/t