The
Birth of the 99% Movement
On
February 15, 2009, David DeGraw. editor of AmpedStatus,
posted the first part of a seven-part series titled "The
Economic Elite vs. The People of the United States of America."
Soon after the reports were released, AmpedStatus launched the
99% Movement.
Even
Good Movements Don't Always Get Support
While
the concept of the 99% may have come from David DeGraw, attempts to
grow it into a widespread movement were not very successful. He
merged his 99% Movement with a subset of Anonymous
to form a new group called A99 which, in turn, planned a course of
action titled “Operation Empire State Rebellion” They called
for people to occupy Liberty Park, but only 14 people showed up,
and only four of them were willing to camp out over night.
Enter
Adbusters, Along with Anarchism
No
further occupations were attempted until Adbusters came into the
picture calling
for an occupation on September 17th. Adbusters was able to rally
their network of 94,739
subscribers, providing a level of exposure that neither
AmpedStatus
nor A99 could come close to matching. And thus it was that Kalle
Lasn and Micah White burst onto the scene.
Micah
White was another of the forces behind the founding of the Occupy
Wall Street movement. A graphic on his home
page indicates an identification with the Black Bloc provocateurs
who have themselves “occupied” many of the Occupy movement
demonstrations, creating chaos and destruction. As a "mystical
anarchist" and the senior
editor of Adbusters,
he and Lasn established the name and date of the occupation of Wall
Street.
More
Plans; More Anarchists
On
August 2, 2011, a group of roughly fifty Adbusters
supporters, mostly
anarchists, met in New York to plan the September 17 occupation
of Wall Street. They agreed to a “horizontal” rather than
“hierarchical” organization and general assemblies in which
participants make decisions by consensus, which they refer to as
direct democracy. Both of these are based upon anarchist principles
They
were joined by former Yale professor of Anthropology David Graeber,
another anarchist,
who who helped facilitate the first meeting, The protesters planning
the September occupation met again, on August 9th, to finalize plans
for the September 17 occupation along with several other unidentified
anarchists who were referenced in an account of that meeting. Graeber
was among the facilitators, and one of the more prominent participants was Marisa
Holmes, a twenty-five-year-old anarchist and filmmaker.
Some Success at Last, but at a Price!
We all know what happened next. OWS was a major success in getting the message out and has spawned hundreds of similar movements across the country and the world. As Marshall McLuhan once said, "The message is the medium and the medium is the message." So far, that seems to be true of all the Occupy movements. They are long on medium (demonstrations) and on their message (inequality and corruption), but they are short on results.
How
does the Occupy movement embody anarchist principles?
There are four major tenets
described below that clearly identify anarchism.
1)
The
refusal to recognize the legitimacy of existing authoritarian
institutions.
The
Occupy movement prefers not to produce a list of demands that must be
met to meet their needs. There are two reasons for that. One is
that, if they were to be true to their anarchist roots, they couldn't provide a complete list without revealing their
long-term goals to do away with government as we know it and the political
institutions that control it. The other reason is because issuing
demands would mean recognizing the legitimacy of those of whom the
demands are made.Anarchists generally do not recognize existing governmental authorities.
(It
is worth noting that anarchists distinguish between protests and
direct action: Protest is looked upon as an appeal to the authorities
to change things. Anarchists do not protest, because they refuse to
recognize the validity of authority. They believe instead in direct
action, whether it's a matter of occupying or appropriating property
(or “liberating” it as they call it), shutting down businesses,
disrupting public meetings or government functions, all in defiance
of law and order, and in direct opposition to the conventions of our
society.)
2)
The refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existing legal order.
The
second principle, obviously, flows from the first. From the very
beginning, organizers in New York knowingly and deliberately ignored
local ordinances that stipulated that any gathering of more than twelve
people in a public park is illegal without prior written police
permission. These organizers apparently operated on a self-assumed
belief that such laws should not exist and, therefore, could be
ignored. It was important to them that they begin with what they
considered to be a personal moral order, and not a legal one.
3)
The
refusal to create an internal hierarchy, but preferring instead to
create a form
of consensus-based direct democracy.
From
the very beginning, organizers made the decision to operate
not only by direct democracy, without leaders, but by consensus, in keeping with anarchist principles. The
first decision ensured that there would be no formal leadership
structure that could be co-opted or coerced; the second, that no
majority could bend a minority to its will, but that all crucial
decisions had to be made by general consent. American anarchists have
long considered the consensus process to be crucial.
4)
The imposition of
a totally new and different society.
Virtually
all encampments became spaces of experiment with creating the
institutions of a new society - not only democratic General
Assemblies but kitchens, libraries, clinics, media centers and a host
of other institutions, all operating on anarchist principles of
mutual aid and self-organization, without any institutions to
enforce rules, regulations, and laws.
Anarchy
is more than just a grass roots movement.
Most
Americans share a deep dislike for their government and its political
system. However, few are likely to want to resort to actual anarchism.
Indeed, few even know what "anarchism" truly means. It's
not clear how many, if they did learn, would choose anarchy over a
democratic republic. Anarchism is much more than simple
grassroots democracy: It ultimately aims to eliminate all forms of
government and authority (including public services such as streets
and highways, sewers, police and fire protection, and our system of
justice), except for what is approved in general assemblies.
Why
did this movement catch on?
The
people of America bought the movement's basic message – that the
American political order is absolutely and irredeemably corrupt, that
both parties have been bought by the wealthiest one percent
of the population, and that if we are to live in any sort of
genuinely democratic society, we're going to have to make some
radical changes to our political and governmental order .
Unity
can be found in misery and outrage.
But
overwhelming numbers of Americans do feel that something is
terribly wrong with their country, that its key institutions are
controlled by an arrogant elite, and that radical change of some kind
is long since overdue. They're right. It's hard to imagine a
political system so systemically corrupt – one where bribery, on
every level, has not only been made legal, but soliciting and
dispensing bribes has become the full-time occupation of every
American politician. The outrage is appropriate.
Civil
disobedience and disruption precipitate violence.
As
the history of past movements all make clear, nothing terrifies
those running our country more than the dangers of anarchy. The
immediate response to organized civil disobedience is a panicked
combination of concessions and brutality. How else can one explain
the mobilization of thousands of riot police, the tear gas, the
beanbags and rubber bullets, and the mass arrests of the disruptors?
Things
Are Not Always What They Appear to Be
When
the Occupy Movement first started, its organizers publicly stressed
that their protests would be peaceful, and that they were open to
people of all political persuasions and at all social and economic
levels. They also said that their actions would target Wall Street
and the wealthiest 1% of our country and the disparity between them
and the bottom 99%. However, they didn't publicly state that their
origins were rooted in anarchy.
Many
members who were initially drawn to the movement's message of
inequity and inequality in our social order became disaffected as
they saw the movement drift increasing toward anarchy and
lawlessness, especially when Black Bloc insurrectionists wreaked
havoc on small businesses and provoked the police and other
authorities into taking extreme action against them. This was not
the type of movement they expected.
Meanwhile, Back at the Movement ...
Many others have succumbed to the spell of the movement and have
fallen prey to the Groupthink phenomenon that binds the remaining
members together. They seem to think that they – and only they –
are right, and anybody who disagrees with them is wrong. They
determine for themselves what is right or wrong without regard for
the wishes and needs of the 99% they purport to represent. Few
protesters know the real roots of this movement, one into which they
have poured so much of their time and effort.
Yes, the Occupy movement still
has its followers. And, yes, the concepts of anarchy feed it at its
every turn. For better or for worse, anarchy is the very heart of
the movement, but it is also a well-kept secret from the average
citizen who supports the movement.
The Final Word
“Perhaps
before setting out to tear down government, we should establish
rules. The potency of the anarchist argument is the freedom to
dismantle a government that fails to protect citizens’ rights. The
challenge facing anarchists is to know what to do with the broken
pieces of the system they smashed.”
– Mimi
Marstaller,
Anarchy
still needs rules
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