facilegestures

By Joshua Sperber

It’s notable that the protorevolutionary OWS campaign has generated part of its dynamism specifically by excluding itself from the institutional politics of the state and the Democratic Party. Voting, bargaining, and otherwise cooperating with the state are irrelevant to a movement whose message is perforce forcible occupation — other avenues have been cut off.

Democrats, unions, and other servants of capital will invariably attempt to co-opt what for them is both a threat and an opportunity for aggrandizement but for the vast majority is a rare opportunity to pursue freedom.

Many of the signs, statements, and sentiments at Liberty Plaza nevertheless reflect much confusion regarding the source of today’s crises, blaming increasing income disparities on “greed,” which of course implies that Wall Street brokers in the old days were simply kinder, and all that’s needed now are better attitudes, historical and political economic context be damned. Just the same, the mere act of collectively confronting the state — its militarized police, its duplicitous politicians, its arbitrary law — ensures that people will attain clearer conceptions of the system they’re trying to throw off.

Events continue today: http://occupywallst.org/article/10-15-call-to-action/