Occupy Wall Street: Polls and Demands
Rather than 2 discrete posts on OWS, it makes more sense to combine them.
First, I really don’t care whether OWS is losing popular support, as one poll suggests. While I suppose falling support might be rhetorically challenging because of the 99% rhetoric, the reality is that social movements should pay no attention to polls. They are not running for office. The power is in their ideas and their actions. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to what attracts or alienates people, but our poll-driven society is not useful for OWS or other social movements. Acting on your beliefs regardless of the vagaries of public popularity is what activists do. Conservatives are trying to pick up on these polls to discourage OWS. In a tweet today, Grover Norquist said he hoped OWS keeps it up since it was people like them who elected Nixon in 68. Well, shut up Grover. The situations are completely different and I hope no one listens to that gasbag.
In any case, I haven’t heard a lot of gnashing of teeth over these poll numbers so hopefully everyone is ignoring them.
Second, one of the biggest points of contention between OWS and liberals is its lack of concrete demands. I mostly share this critique, but at the same time, I don’t necessarily blame this nascent movement. The demands follow the development of collective experience and core leadership. OWS and labor have been dancing around each other for the last two months, with the AFL-CIO offering their experience and organizing skills and OWS rightfully being wary of being co-opted.
Still, labor has a lot to offer, including the ability to articulate and publicize broad demands that might be acceptable to most OWSers. This list of 9 demands (including #9 that you are supposed to fill in) is a good place to start. It includes broad goals that I think would solidify support for the protestors like relieving student loan debt, extend unemployment insurance, and passing legislation to help people stay in their homes. As for #9, I’d actually make 2 suggestions–treat immigrants like humans and press for clean energy. In any case, the 8 stated goals effectively sums up the vision of much of Occupy Wall Street and the openness of #9 suggests that many in labor understands this needs to be a bottom-up movement.
Instead of organized labor trying to woo #OWS, maybe organized labor should try to woo, y’know, labor. Maybe some serious attempts at increasing membership. Maybe actually publicly fighting. We’ve had some really bad examples of management-friendly unions here in the Bay Area, and such organizations have nothing to tell #OWS or anybody else.
+1
Gentlemen, you can’t organize in here, this is a Union Hall!
My main problem with OWS is that a lot of them seem to be more into the glamour of protests rather than the dull, dredge work of democratic politics like coming up with demands, convincing others, getting people elected into office, and passing laws. OWS is justifiably angry but without anything concrete, they can’t do anything but express their anger and even if they have politician allies, the politicans need some sort of guidlines on what they want.
Or to put in the context of labor and history, the labor movement of the 19th century always had a list of demands that ranged from the mundane and concrete, an 8 hour day, to the utopian, workers owning the means of production. There was anger against capitalism but they knew what they hated and proposed alternatives and solutions. The OWS group is not doing this and its really hard to get what you want if you can’t express it.
OWS hasn’t done those things themselves, no.
But they may have created a better climate for others to do that for themselves.
There’s more than one activist left.
Well, my biggest critique of OWS is that I can’t think of a single social movement in US history at all that did not have concrete demands. They might be utopian and they might be ever-changing but the demands were definitely there.
Can you think of a leaderless movement? I get where they’re coming from, in a way; but I doubt they have a leaderless movement. I would wager that they have unacknowledged leaders and that that will lead to burn-out and dwindling order.
I can think of movements that have diffused leadership structures, but not a successful movement or an unsuccessful but serious movement that intentionally eschewed leadership.
My experience at Occupy Boston:
Yes, there are people who are widely respected, have clout, are de facto leaders of a sort. So far I haven’t seen it leading to burn-out (and am not entirely clear why it would – it seems like an official, designated, leader can burn out as quickly as a de facto one).
There is a lot of fully-acknowledged role specialization, which is something that I’ve seen way too little about in media coverage of Occupy. In Boston, you’ve got working groups for Medical, Safety, Legal, Winterization, Food, Finance, Logistics, Sanitation, etc. These groups are allowed to form their own policies and operate pretty autonomously as long as they aren’t going against the ratified policies and values of the whole camp, and can also bring their own proposals regarding their own issues to the General Assembly (Safety, for instance, developed a procedure to evict violent people, which the GA ratified). I have seen increased order, rather than dwindling order, as these working groups get better at doing their own jobs and cooperating with each other. There’s also increased emphasis on everybody joining a working group and contributing to the upkeep of the camp, rather than working group people being a minority.
A big part of the recent poll changes might be because of the lack of concrete demands. Most people can take a bit of unfocused discontent (particularly if those people are not so certain about what is to be done themselves). In the end, though, most people are practical enough to look for a resolution, and are impatient if a resolution is not being worked out. In this case, a quick resolution is not possible, given how our political system works currently, but that’s what people are looking for.
That’s what I’m hearing, to be sure. People get the anger, and they are sympathetic to both the plight and the cause, but they want to know what comes next.
I think that about sums it up.
The temptation is to compare OWS to the Teabaggers, but if you study the Teabagger phenomenon, you come inexorably to the inescapable conclusion that the framework for its demands and evolution (as it were) was put in place long before the “movement” started.
That it attracted people from outside that framework was by design, to mask the structure, like putting flesh on a form.
So when they had this ability to organize quickly, it should come as no surprise.
With OWS, a true grass-roots movement, the creative force was much more organic than organized and like any organism, it’s going to grow in spurts.
Give it time. They’ve been very disciplined so far, and very smart. I have no doubt they’ll make mistakes, but so far, they’ve demonstrated a wisdom beyond that of the Teaparty.
“Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”
-Rosa Luxemburg
So what. I’m not sure a random quote from a long dead revolutionary is very helpful here.
So what
From a historical perspective, change happens, no matter how many sclerotic white guys try to prevent it?
Who wasn’t a very successful revolutionary to boot.
You know what they are by what they aren’t. They are the 99 percent. They are against Wall Street pilfering the people and corrupting the Congress.
I think the most interesting thing about the movement is that they are expressly and purposefully focusing solely on issues. There is no horserace here, no flacking for candidates or parties.
Demands are for hostage-takers. The only hostage-takers recently have been the 1 percent.
Without some concrete goal, this is just several thousand people camping out in some major cities saying they’re unhappy with how things are. But lots of people are unhappy with how things are; people want a path to better things, not a bitchfest about stuff they don’t like.
Most people are on board for hating on banks and protesting that. But that gets old without some concrete plan for how things are going to change for the better. Again, it’s just a bunch of campers complaining.
I’m already hearing hardcore liberals calling the OWS people a bunch of hippies who need to move on and live in the right decade. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for success.
Hardcore liberal is an oxymoron.
Heh. I gotta think that once you get the liberals hating you, you are closer to winning.
You know, like the decades-long victory train that is the anti-liberal left.
the reality is that social movements should pay no attention to polls
Oh, brother.
I have to agree with Erik, at least in part. The purpose of social movements of this sort is not promote positions which are already popular, but to persuade and convince people to support ideas that are not so popular. I will agree with others, that some more concrete demands or positions would make that easier to accomplish.
I don’t want to infer too much from a 2 word reply, but I’m not sure you understand what social movements are supposed to do if you think that they should be paying attention to polls.
How about the reason there is a paucity of demands is that the party most likely to represent those concerns has been co-opted by the 1%. So what’s the point? A lack of political representation is at the heart of this problem. If OWS is successful in moving the Dems left, they will have done something that the electoral process has markedly failed at. But I have my doubts that this can or will occur – because right-slanted legislation seems to repeatedly pass without popular support while issues popularly supported are neglected. As for #9 on list, I suggest ending the senate filibuster. Let me know when a grass roots movement is able to change either party’s mind about that.
Then why do anything?
Your answer is paralysis in the face of the cruel, cruel world?
Why, yes, that is his answer to everything.
The hope is that OWS will develop into a credible third party movement, but we’re a long way from there. If you think the democratic party is going to pick up on this anger and promote the issues that are bringing people onto the streets, then I think you’re pretty clueless and Obama wants you to help him next year. Sad to see socialists still pathetically clinging to the Dems and aping the incomprehension of fools.
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Speaking of ideologues who don’t listen to polls.
Grover listens to polls. He listens very carefully to what particular lies poll best, and then he tells those lies over and over and over again.
I think you’re confusing Grover and Frank Luntz.
Frank Luntz writes the lies and poll-tests them. People like Grover listen to Luntz.
I merely treat the 99% movement as a symptom, not as a movement, since it’s functionally a scream of outrage and not some coherent dialogue of force or words. In that sense, I am an enemy of the 99% movement because, to me, it’s about people proving to themselves that the system is dysfunctional and not to be reasoned with. Not that any of this isn’t true, but genuine success is somehow getting the system to care about what we want without us having to use some randomizers like out and out conflicts and militant movements that gobble up people like they’re popcorn.
The writing is on the wall. It’s either acceptance of a miserable existence as our society slips into a pre-modern capitalist hellhole or grim fierce resistance.
Deprogramming is going to take awhile. People don’t even know the language right now to express their frustrations. Freedom has been trademarked and commoditized so many times that people don’t even know what it means. New ideas take time to assimilate.
I agree with that. During my last stint at a four year college it seemed to me that the left needed to spend some time in the library. Too much of the protest movements have been shaped by propaganda and mainstream media impressions about the movements of the sixties, instead of what actually worked to change the intellectual and emotional landscape of this country for the better. Too many protest movements and attempts of reform have revolved around fashion and exclusive group identity.
“Well, shut up Grover. The situations are completely different and I hope no one listens to that gasbag.”
Powerful, powerful argument there Erik. /eyeroll
Your concern trolling is making me very concerned about myself.
What, suggesting you clean up your dribble is concern trolling now? I’m on your side, nincompoop; I just would have higher standards even for a blog post than “no it isn’t neener-neener”.
I would say that the similarities between OWS and the protests of ’67 and ’68 are pretty striking, starting with their desire to be visibly anti-establishment. Although OWS is far less focused (making them even easier to turn into a bogeyman).
How dare liberals refuse to respond to Grover Norquist’s arguments with the respect and consideration they deserve.
A broccoli bomb?
I figure at the least Erik should’ve told Grover to go fuck himself, too.
With a rusty chainsaw.
I thought Erik had, in fact, responded with far more respect and consideration than they deserve.
I am very interested by the contrast between the discussion and general outlook here and that over on MakingLight, best exemplified by TNH’s characterization of the call for concrete demands and leaders as “Please install receptors in your cell walls that can be targeted by our standard antibodies.”
Not sure which side of this divide i fall on as of yet. I am in contact with some members of the local #Occupy group and have donated them some food, but I also am sympathetic–if not 100% convinced–of the need to see how occupying as a tactic fits into a larger strategy. And yet, there is something compelling in the power it has to compel stupid acts on the part of its opponents.
I don’t disagree with everything in that post, particularly the need to keep the media’s attention. But the idea that somehow people saying that a movement needs leaders is akin to society telling you to obey your parents and get a job makes absolutely no sense at all.
The idea that “the establishment is uniting” to destroy OWS is a little much. Ok, ridiculous. The establishment is uniting to destroy anything that blocks Joe McVoter’s commute to work and access to hot dogs at lunch. That’s it. There’s nothing that will bring on The Man like 10,000 phone calls whining about being 15 minutes late to work.
If you’ve got the LA City Council (the “we’re going to give out ponchos to protesters” people) and Berkeley (the “we’re going to wholesale pot” people) trying to clear you out, the only sure thing is the “establishment” isn’t against your message, but your tactics. If OWS wants to turn this from a lot of stories about inequality and employment difficulties into a lot of stories about trash, crime, and dirty hippies messy up the lives of ordinary working slobs, they’re going about it the right way.
Your concern is noted.
Hippie punching will be the story no matter what the OWS movement does, depending on where you get your news.
Hippie-punching will be the story pushed by the movement’s enemies, yep.
But whether or not it works will depend on a lot of factors, and yes, the tactics of the protesters is one of them.
Books are your friend. Or go talk to someone who was there about the police raids on Berkeley and UCLA in the Vietnam era. You challenge authority in a way that isn’t polite and they sweep through your area and smash you.
There’s never been anything democratic about it. This has never been a very democratic country. Just a permanent oligarchy that had to share their power a little bit from 1933-1981.
I would like OWS to have more success than the Vietnam protesters in California. And if at all possible, I’d like to avoid a repeat of the 30 year episode in which the influential members of the left – the people actually in a position to effect political change – were forced to differentiate themselves from those protesters.
I have tried for years to explain to young adults that the “Aw, Mom” response I’m hearing isn’t about me wanting to be or trying to be their mother— nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that the source of that response is the fact that they are being childish, they do not want to take responsibility for their own lack of initiative and unwillingness to try something new with the attendant risk of doing poorly or failing, and do not want to make the effort to rise to the challenge of dealing with the fact that once they leave their parents’ home, the world around them stops revolving around them and the greater good comes into play.
I can have any four year old chanting “practice, practice, practice”, believing it, and doing it instantly and from then on—but tell that to a 20 year old and it’s “Aw, Mom!” time. Fucking-A.
And yet, there is something compelling in the power it has to compel stupid acts on the part of its opponents.
So long as it can continue to do this, it will need nothing more than it has right now in terms of functionality. Indeed, I’d argue a central leader is the last thing they need because that person will be held responsible for the OWS actions when the victim gets blamed.
OWS is losing popular support
Never underestimate the power of the impulse to blame the victim.
Re: demands I’m kind of amazed that anyone imagines that any demand the occupy people could issue wouldn’t at best be met with a token response which would then immediately be used to attack the OWSers for not packing up and going home.
Like do we seriously believe that if OWS were to go like
the response wouldn’t be to prosecute the shit out of like, an hourly-wage temp employee from one of the banks’ robosigning outfits, then turn around and scream at the Occupy people WE DID WHAT YOU WANTED DIDN’T WE, WHY WON’T YOU GO HOME NOW, WE KNEW ALL YOU HIPPIES WANT TO DO IS CAUSE A RUCKUS AND MAKE TROUBLE
I think you and others misunderstand how demands would work. You are right–the demands aren’t realistic per se, they are used to galvanize people. People were striking in 1886 for the 8 hour day. Everyone said they were crazy. It took 50 years of striking over this very issue for the government to finally force through an 8 hour day. But the 8 hour day was tremendously inspiring to millions of Americans. It got them on the streets and got them agitating for all sorts of changes.
I think this is exactly what’s about to happen at OWS for a couple of reasons:
1) As you point out, ancillary issues are starting to bubble up as people feel freer to speak on the primary focus, income inequality. No issue exists in a bubble.
2) The nature of OWS demands a majority vote on major issues presented. This means that important-but-not-majority issues remain underaddressed. The people who want to work on these issues will splinter or at least start side movements.
3) OWS seems built for the longer term. This means fresh blood will keep coming on board, particularly if the economy fails to heat up.
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[...] Occupy Wall Street: Polls and Demands : Lawyers, Guns & Money [...]
The other problem with the Occupy Wall Street, as Yglesias noted, is that they ignore electoral politics. In democracies, even in flawed democracies, you can’t really change anything by ignoring electoral politics. The great liberal reforms were created by a combination of agitation and electing the proper politicians to the proper office. OWS seems to be intent on ignoring the importance of actually electing sympathetic politicians to office. This seems to be a fatal flaw of large parts of the American left, especially the parts focused on economic and labor issues, since around the 19th century.
There is more to politics than electoral politics, though.
Electoral politics happens in an environment. Influencing that environment is important, too.
Yeah but the tendency is to completely ignore the electoral part of politics even during an election year. Even if you don’t want to directly canvass for a particular party or politician, you need to have a somewhat clear set of demands for politicians to react to.
I think it is a mistake to assume that none of the Occupy people are also involved in electoral politics.
It is true that this is not generally the focus of Occupy itself (though Occupy The Hood-Boston, supported by Occupy Boston, did have a big “Occupy the Polls” event to re-elect a sympathetic local city politician). But there’s room for more than one tactic in the political landscape, and opportunity for people to engage in more than one tactic. Every group doesn’t have to focus on every tactic. I participate in my local Occupy, but I also do phone banking and canvassing and such during campaign season.
I’m not sure I agree with Matt, and the evidence is in our lifetimes.
The anti-war movement of the sixties failed to get an anti-war candidate elected (altho two were nominated), yet managed to sway public opinion against the war.
All without much electoral pressure.
No one mentioned that in a global economy, the OWS has inspired movements in 80 nations. In Rome, recently, 200K demonstrated in solidarity; even in tiny Portugal, 200K have protested the “austerity” programs promoted by both the socialists and now the conservatives.
OWS is both decentralized and worldwide. That is its greatest strength, which polls of perhaps 1000 Americans cannot gauge except to reflect American corporate media propaganda effects.
OWS has 4 times the approval of our elected congress and as much as any prominant policitians, with twice the approval of Congressional leaders.
All statistics have to be viewed in context: in a world where all politics is disapproved, the support for the OWS is pretty amazing, considering it is still in the “ridicule and demonize” phase of treatment by the media. Then come the attacks, then we win (paraphrasing Ghandi).
The attacks galvanize even more support and more participants worldwide.
Meanwhile, the same youth-led movement in Egypt is rebelling against the military rule. All these movements are now globally connected: wired youth, excluded from the neo-liberal consensus, are revolting. Those who criticize from the sidelines are like hecklers at a show they neither understand nor are part of. They, not the OWS protesters, are moved by envy of those with the guts to stand up for their beliefs (summarized as economic justice) and sacrifice their bodies for the sake of the 99%, whether many in the 99% appreciate it or not.
The demands are very clear: a just economic system which is based on democratic politics, an end to plutocracy and corruption of government by the corportocracy; the transformation of economic fascism into economic democracy. This is a revolutionary demand, for it struggles to dismantle one system and replace it with another.
Obvious first targets are the domination of politics by the power of private wealth and
the consequent engineering of funneling all wealth to the 1%. Economic justice (prison for those responsible for the fraud and theft) and shared prosperity (in which both workers and owners and investors all profit from economic growth).
The goals and the first steps are obvious. Pretending their is no clear focus is blindness.
To quote Jefferson: “We must crush the moneyed aristocracy…” before they destroy the nation.
And: “Banks are even more dangerous than standing armies.” Jefferson was an original OWS protester against the power of the corporatocracy.
[...] assist in the protest, so long as those in the community don’t get confused as to who their real friends are. But in the end, the critics missed the point: the ability of people to govern themselves, to [...]