Occupy Wall Street, Year Two

[xchrom]

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-08-29/news/occupy-year-two/


***SNIP

Other disagreements are ideological and as old as Occupy itself. Who does this movement belong to? Is it the anarchists who played a critical role in getting it off the ground, and whose philosophical and structural underpinnings were central to what it became? Or is there room for a broader spectrum of the rhetorical "99 percent," for less radical perspectives that seek incremental reform?

Amid the conflict and tension, something is emerging from the frequently agonizing four-hour meetings. The factionalism that for so long seemed to threaten to tear the movement apart seems increasingly manageable. After a year of precisely these sorts of arguments, anarchists, liberals, and union stalwarts all know the contours of their disagreements, but they're also better than they've ever been at pushing through them.

They're also increasingly confident that whatever this thing is that binds them together, that keeps them coming back to the next meeting, the next hard-won consensus, whatever they call that shared project, it has a future beyond this first anniversary.

Having weathered a rocky first year during which police repression and its own growing pains led a fickle news media to write it off again and again, Occupy persists—in these meetings on 23rd Street, in a far-flung but well-coordinated network across the nation and the Internet, and, when the anniversary rolls around on September 17, right back in the streets of Lower Manhattan, where it all started.

[daeron]

1. xchrom, can you explain?

When I decided to become an 'activist' regarding Papua in 1994, I decided that I had to check the facts for myself. It took me 14 years to dig through the myths and misinformation, I also had to learn about Indoonesia, Freeport, Standard Oil, anti-trust law, the Rockefellers, Bechtel, the CIA, the NSC, the UN, and a dozen other subjects I had no interest in excepting that I needed them in order to understand who did what and how.

I can not understood how the Occupy movement can hope to help if it does not understand who the 1% are, or how the 99% are being exploited. Can you help enlighten me about the Occupy movement's understanding of the problem it is complaining about?