Posts tagged occupy

Rochelle Gurstein, writing in The New Republic, covered a recent event with author Chris Lehmann speaking about his new book, Rich People Things - which details the hilarious (and patently scary) ideas of the kind of one-percenters happy with being labelled “elite.” What’s fascinating is the softness of today’s language, and how young writers and even activists often seem timid of giving offense. This captures it well:

The historians among us spoke of the radical labor movement that emerged in the last part of the nineteenth century and offered a number of examples of their compelling visceral imagery—plutocrats as “blood-sucking parasites of property”; the factory labor system as “a prison-house” or “chattel slavery”; the competition between men that underwrites capitalism as “bestial”; industrial cities as “inexpressibly base and ugly.” A young woman in the audience said that the nineteenth-century language did not sit well with her and that her generation did not feel comfortable with the language of 1960s “Up against the wall, mother-f-er” confrontation. She expressed some concern that her ivy-league college education—she had been an American Studies major—had made her so hyper-sensitive to speaking ill of anyone that she no longer had words that felt right to her to condemn those responsible for wrecking our country.

Yet as Gurstein noted, the Occupy movement has found a kind of potent street poetry - it reminds me most of Muhammad Ali - in shouts like: “We don’t see no riot here! Cops, take off your riot gear!” And she noted the sheer bravery of the words in the tense stand-off with university cops at UC Davis (an aside: why does the University of California employ heavily armed troopers?) when one young man used the “mic check” technique to bring ethical and moral concerns in the very air:

The one voice: We are willing The many: WE ARE WILLING

to give you a brief moment TO GIVE YOU A BRIEF MOMENT

of peace OF PEACE

so you can take your weapons SO YOU CAN TAKE YOUR WEAPONS

and your friends AND YOUR FRIENDS

and go. AND GO.

Please do not return. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN.

We are giving you a moment of peace. WE ARE GIVING YOU A MOMENT OF PEACE.

You can go. We will not follow you. YOU CAN GO. WE WILL NOT FOLLOW YOU.

Then, the students as a group shout, “You can go! You can go!” And the police as a group warily back away and leave. At which point the students, surprised by their victory, erupt into cheers and applause, followed by “Shame on you! Shame on you!” That this young man had the presence of mind, the poise and courage, to speak as he did at that frightening, chaotic moment astounds me. 

The words of Occupy continue to hold some real power.

Blimey this is good stuff. Chris Moody on the Yahoo News 2012 campaign blog The Ticket attended a Republican workshop given by über-strategist Frank Luntz about responding to Occupy. Expect these tips to start showing up in political discourse (and, I predict, not just from the right) about now. Moody quotes Luntz:

I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death, they’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.

And reproduces his ten do’s and don’ts for anti-Occupy speakers. The first one is the best: 

1. Don’t say ‘capitalism.’

“I’m trying to get that word removed and we’re replacing it with either ‘economic freedom’ or ‘free market,’ ” Luntz said. “The public … still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”

This is pretty much why we started this blog. To track the movement of Occupy through the language, through the wider culture. It’s a gripping story and Luntz’s seminar is primary evidence of the shift that Occupy has brought about. And you don’t need to be an occupier or even sympathetic to find this exciting. Read the rest of Luntz’s tips on The Ticket blog.

From Douglas Rushkoff, a poem against centralized banking. Is this the “cause” of the Occupy movement? Is this about “alternative currencies?” Might be. It may emerge that way. But Rushkoff is right not to push it too hard, and to write as a follower, not a sloganeer.

If you can stand firm in the streets

The rest of us can stand firm in our foreclosed homes

and stand with our neighbors in theirs.

h/t exiledsurfer  who tweeted:

Finally, A Mantra for the #occupy movement., by @rushkoff - Learn it. repeat it. mic-check it. flyer it. Live it

From the intrepid Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, a key document of Occupy Wall Street and the New York we live in right now - a New York Police Department Disorder Control Unit document picked out of a van by an arrestee. Key recommendation to cops in the unit:

“A strong military appearance, with sharp and precise movements, is a force multiplier and a psychological advantage to us.”

The Occupy people are prototyping new language and civic ritual. The lexicon of dissent is growing as we watch. Reuters’ Laird Harrison concludes that the ‘human mic; (or ‘mic check’) is established as a part of Occupy culture. I predict that it’ll be bigger. This awkward, kooky, consensus-building mechanic that arose because landlords and cities wouldn’t permit amplified sound will become a part of the wider culture. It’s about the unamplified voice, about patience, sharing and agreement. It’s fascinating. Kanene Holder, quoted in the Reuters piece, says:

I think it could turn America on its head… It’s such a beautiful thing if people do understand each other and hear each other’s voices.

(pic by Lorraine Murphy. Some rights reserved).

Something spookily unhysterical, unmilitant, unangry about the official language of Occupy. This is the measured language of the press release and the corporate web site thoroughly co-opted for the cause. Here are a couple of paragraphs from the press release-style post on the Occupy London site responding to a profoundly hysterical front page story in London’s Evening Standard:

Feeding prejudice and victimising vulnerable members of our society, as the tone and placement of this article did, is not a hallmark of quality journalism. To invoke the spectre of an AIDS scare on the basis of unsubstantiated speculation is as unprofessional as it is inappropriate, coming as it does just a few days before World AIDS Day on 1st December.

Many of these vulnerable groups who have been included in press reporting – including the homeless, those with mental heath issues, drug and alcohol addictions, those living with HIV and others – are already being victimised by the government via cuts to vital services. Reporting of this nature only serves to stigmatise people that are part of our society, however much discomfort that fact may cause to some.

“Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.”

- Edmund Burke

“A captaine? Gods light these villaines wil make the word as odious as the word occupy, which was an excellent good worde before it was il sorted.”

- William Shakespeare, The Second part of King Henry the Fourth