Occupying the Occupy Movement: Robin Morgan (Hurrah!)

Occupying the Occupy Movement

Robin Morgan   January 3, 2012   Women’s Media Center

An Occupy movement for 2012 could gain strength and staying-power with strategies suggested by an emerging feminist critique.

Mexico city collective, from Occuprint.org

As women of the Arab Spring are rediscovering, being participants, even leaders, of the uprisings hasn’t led to women’s equality—a depressingly familiar scenario, notoriously reminiscent of the 1960s aftermath of the Algerian revolution. In fact, the phenomenon is historically omnipresent (including the American revolution).

Here in the Global North, for example, women were active early in the Occupy movement. Yet that movement has presented an optic of being  predominantly male (and in the United States, white and young)—as well as indifferent to the fact that capitalism simply cannot be transformed without confronting its foundation: patriarchy, itself reliant on controlling and exploiting women. And women, by the way, comprise 51 percent of the 99 percent (and virtually zero of the 1 percent).

Who then is the real constituency in need of economic justice?

The United Nations acknowledges that the world’s poor are 70 percent female. Women’s unpaid labor is worth $11 trillion globally, accounting for 41 percent of the GDP in, for instance, North America. It could well be argued that, given women’s massive amount of unpaid labor—and since women are the means of reproduction who produce the labor force itself—most women exist more under feudalism than under capitalism.

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Equal pay, reproductive rights, maternity leave, childcare—all are economic as well as human-rights issues. So are sweatshop labor/maquilliadores, sex trafficking/slavery/tourism, and war’s impact on women, who with their children comprise some 80 percent of refugees and displaced peoples. Women are the primary caregivers for the ill, the young, the aged, and the dying—so health costs are “women’s issues.”

The pornography and prostitution industries each run into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually; China spends $27 billion just on Internet pornography. We only have statistics for a few “developed” countries on the staggering cost of domestic violence. We do know that domestic violence costs $5.8 billion a year in the United States alone.

One would think that such “women’s issues” would make unarguable the centrality to economics of female human beings. Wrong. Too often, the Occupy movement has betrayed its own vision by revealing itself as a sexist microcosm of the society it opposes. Harassment and assaults required women to define safe sleeping areas—immediate necessities yet questionable strategically, since these can become “ghettos,” while the problem, a  male sense of entitlement, goes unchallenged.

Nor does this happen only in the United States, although North American sites got more press attention. Incidents of sexual assault and rape have been reported not only in New York, Cleveland, Dallas, and Baltimore, but in Glasgow, Montreal, London, and more. In some locations, male site monitors were reluctant to call police for fear that negative attention would be deleterious to the Occupy “message.”

Brooklyn, Occupy Imnop, from Occuprint.org

Now, however, women are protesting that kind of protest. In Bristol, England, feminists called for “Carrying Our Safe Space With Us,” aiming to empower women to speak at Occupy general assemblies. On November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Feminists Occupy London took to the streets denouncing rape; that same day, Italian women marched in Rome, defining economic austerity measures as a form of violence against women, and citing policies that in effect force women to work multiple jobs, paid and unpaid. In Manila, Occupy was taken over by women, becoming Occupy RH (reproductive health), Filipina-led. Women in Slovenia, New Zealand, and Australia publicly decried the lack of safety for women at Occupy sites.

Such international groups as Code Pink, WomenOccupy, RadFem, the Filipina network Af3IRM/GabNet, and others raised women’s profile, thus challenging men’s hegemony. The Feminist Peace Network established the Occupy Patriarchy website, to  provide a supportive, global space for  feminist analysis, response, organizing, and networking within the global Occupy movement.

Having caught the world’s imagination with an admirable energy, seemingly spontaneous and seemingly grassroots,  the Occupy movement is now poised at a crossroads. It has enormous potential—but lasting change will require consciousness that doesn’t ignore the majority of  humanity. It needs to break free of being “a guy thing” or risk drowning in its own rhetorical generalities.

It’s not as if certain models aren’t there. The women of England’s Greenham Common “occupied” turf decades before OWS—they endured, and won. Irish women barred doors to keep men from storming out of Northern Ireland peace talks. Women in Liberia sat singing for months in a soccer field to birth a revolution. Market women in Ghana brought down a government. Gandhi acknowledged copying the concept of  Satyagraha— nonviolent resistance—from India’s 19th century women’s suffrage movement.

These are  different—and long-lasting—techniques of protest, by which at first it seemed the Occupy movement was influenced. (At the risk of offending anarchists, I’ll paraphrase two of the Women’s Media Center slogans: “You have to name it to change it,” and “You have to see it to be it.” As a woman who once agreed “Level everything, then we’ll talk politics,” I recommend examples and clearly articulated demands as pretty good stuff.)

Christy C Road, Brooklyn, from Occuprint.org

It’s not too late. As the Occupy movement in many areas moves away from the tactic of claiming physical space, a change of protest style is in order: more hit-and-run, engage-disengage, morning-long, afternoon-long, or day-long (not open-ended) demonstrations—plus focused, doable demands.

Most women have far too many other responsibilities—including children—to spend months in tents playing drums, even if the tents were safe spaces. The Occupy movement needs women—the numbers, the economic analysis, the different strategic approach—to survive, let alone succeed. Yet women’s engagement with it might well require turning up in numbers massive enough to effect a de facto transformation of leadership and focus;:occupying Occupy in a “women’s style” could make all the difference.

At the minimum, it should be possible to demand that men become the change they claim they want to see.  (I mean,really, guys.) If Occupy men can dare be unafraid of that different kind of leadership—can even seek it out and welcome it—everyone wins and the paradigm is transformed.

If not, they will at least have radicalized a whole new generation of feminists.

The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author alone and do not represent WMC.  WMC is a 501(c)(3) organization and does not endorse candidates.

Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

A recent demonstration outside Sotheby's auction house in Manhattan was made up of Teamsters and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

• At Scene of Wall St. Protest, Rising Concerns About Crime (November 9, 2011)

Enlarge This Image

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Last month, Verizon workers marched past Zuccotti Park in solidarity with Occupy protesters.

Union leaders, who were initially cautious in embracing the Occupy movement, have in recent weeks showered the protesters with help — tents, air mattresses, propane heaters and tons of food. The protesters, for their part, have joined in union marches and picket lines across the nation. About 100 protesters from Occupy Wall Street are expected to join a Teamsters picket line at the Sotheby’s auction house in Manhattan on Wednesday night to back the union in a bitter contract fight.
Labor unions, marveling at how the protesters have fired up the public on traditional labor issues like income inequality, are also starting to embrace some of the bold tactics and social media skills of the Occupy movement.
Last Wednesday, a union transit worker and a retired Teamster were arrested for civil disobedience inside Sotheby’s after sneaking through the entrance to harangue those attending an auction — echoing the lunchtime ruckus that Occupy Wall Street protesters caused weeks earlier at two well-known Manhattan restaurants owned by Danny Meyer, a Sotheby’s board member.
Organized labor’s public relations staff is also using Twitter, Tumblr and other social media much more aggressively after seeing how the Occupy protesters have used those services to mobilize support by immediately transmitting photos and videos of marches, tear-gassing and arrests. The Teamsters, for example, have beefed up their daily blog and posted many more photos of their battles with BMW, US Foods and Sotheby’s on Facebook and Twitter.
“The Occupy movement has changed unions,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “You’re seeing a lot more unions wanting to be aggressive in their messaging and their activity. You’ll see more unions on the street, wanting to tap into the energy of Occupy Wall Street.”
Unions have long stuck to traditional tactics like picketing. But inspired by the Occupy protests, labor leaders are talking increasingly of mobilizing the rank and file and trying to flex their muscles through large, boisterous marches, including nationwide marches planned for Nov. 17.
Organized labor is also seizing on the simplicity of the Occupy movement’s message, which criticizes the great wealth of the top 1 percent of Americans compared with the economic struggles of much of the bottom 99 percent.
A memo that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. sent out last week recommended that unions use the Occupy message about inequality and the 99 percent far more in their communications with members, employers and voters.
Indeed, as part of its contract battle with Verizon, the communications workers’ union has began asserting in its picket signs that Verizon and its highly paid chief executive are part of the 1 percent, while the Verizon workers who face demands for concessions are part of the 99 percent. A dozen Verizon workers plan to begin walking from Albany to Manhattan on Thursday in a “March for the 99 percent.”
“We think the Occupy movement has given voice to something very basic about what’s going on in our country right now,” said Damon Silvers, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s policy director. “The fact that they’ve figured out certain concepts and language for doing that, we think is really important and positive.”
Over the last month, unions have provided extensive support to Occupy protesters around the country, from rain ponchos to cash donations. National Nurses United is providing staff members for first-aid tables at many encampments, while the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s headquarters two blocks from the White House is providing shower facilities for the protesters occupying McPherson Square, 300 yards to the east.
Unions have also intervened with politicians on behalf of the protesters. In Los Angeles, labor leaders have repeatedly lobbied Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa not to evict the protesters. When New York City officials were threatening to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park, hundreds of union members showed up before daybreak to discourage any eviction, and the city backed down.
Like any relationship, however, the one between the Occupy movement and labor is complicated.
Dozens of Occupy protesters have joined union members to picket the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles and Verizon offices in Washington, Buffalo and Boston. (A Verizon spokesman said the Occupy protesters “do not have the benefit of any information about the Verizon issues except what they’ve been told by the union, which is obviously one-sided and most likely inaccurate.”)
In New York, the Occupy protesters have joined the Teamsters in their attacks on Sotheby’s. The art auction house locked out 43 Teamster art handlers on July 29, after the union balked at its demands for sizable concessions.
In addition to the lunchtime protest at the Danny Meyer restaurants, Occupy protesters also joined recent picketing against Sotheby’s outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Diana Phillips, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman, said the company had offered a fair contract and “is unwilling to accept demands that virtually double the cost of their contract.”
Arthur Brown, a mental health worker who is one of the founders of Occupy Buffalo, where 50 people camp out each night, said the Occupy movement badly needed labor’s backing if it is to change the nation’s policies and politics.
“Young people started this movement, but they can’t finish it,” Mr. Brown said. “They don’t have the capacity or the experience to finish it. We really need the working class and union folks, the older folks, the activists from the ’60s. ’70s and ’80s, to help make this a full-fledged movement that will change the political landscape of America.”
But some Occupy protesters worry that organized labor might seek to co-opt them.
Jake Lowry, a 21-year-old college student and an Occupy participant, said: “We’re glad to have unions endorse us, but we can’t formally endorse them. We’re an autonomous group and it’s important to keep our autonomy.”
George Gresham, president of 1199 S.E.I.U., a union that represents more than 300,000 health care workers in the Northeast, said his union wanted to help the Occupy movement amplify its voice.
“This is a dream come true for us to have these young people speaking out about what’s been happening to working people,” Mr. Gresham said. His union has offered to provide 500 flu shots and a week’s worth of meals for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
María Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said it remained to be seen whether the unions and the protesters could, by working together, achieve concrete change.
“Workers are with the Occupy movement on the broader issues; they’re with them on the issue of inequality,” she said. “The question is, can the labor movement or the Occupy movement move that message down to the workplace, where workers confront low wages, low benefits and little power? Can we use it to organize workers where it really matters, in the workplace, to help their everyday life?”

A version of this article appeared in print on November 9, 2011, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Standing Arm in Arm.

 

Hedges: No way in US system to vote against banks

Between Occupy Wall Street, in New York, and the other cities it's spread to, as well as the October 2011 movement that just began here in D.C, something seems to be happening in this country. Earlier at Freedom Plaza Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, tells us what this could lead to. 

A Report from Freedom Plaza> Occupy DC

A Report from Freedom Plaza> Occupy DC

Dear Friend,

We have now passed our first month on Freedom Plaza!

The first week of our second month is filled with great activities. Please join us!

On Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 Ben and Jerry’s is bringing ice cream.  That night, Andy Shallal of Bus Boys and Poets will serve dinner to celebrate our first month on the Plaza.  We’ll have discussions about the month and where we go from here.

On Wednesday we are having our own “Occupied Super Committee Hearing for the 99%” to contrast the congressional super committee that is preparing a deficit-cutting report for the 1% at the expense of the 99%.   One week after the hearing we’ll issue our own report which will put the interests of the people before the corporatists and militarists.  The “Occupied Hearing” begins at 11:00 AM – you are welcome to attend. The event will be live streamed on www.OccupyWashingtonDC.org.

Thursday is Environmental Protection Agency day – Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, an EPA whistle blower who wrote “No Fear: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA ,” and John Grant, another EPA whistleblower, will be on Freedom Plaza.  They will speak at a rally at noon and then we will march across the street to the EPA to protest. Ms. Coleman-Adebayo has a petition asking Obama and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to reverse their position on the Clean Air Act. Sign here.

On Friday, Veterans’ Day, stop by Freedom Plaza to speak with veterans who are occupying and for a donation you will receive a copy of “The Bonus March” by Georgia Lowe.

On Sunday, at 11:30 am we will have a forum on alternatives to commercial banking, specifically a discussion of time banks and local currencies.  Then at 2:00 pm, Rev. Grayland Hagler of Plymouth Congressional Church will visit us and his congregation will bring pie and coffee to Freedom Plaza.

If you aren’t in Washington, you can watch some of these events through the ustream channel on the website and you can organize solidarity events where you are. Please share your news with us for our weekly, “The Occupied Washington Post,” at Newspaper@october2011.org.

We’re looking ahead to Winter.  We’d love your involvement.  Come join us!

#occupymn - one week later (updated)

Re: #occupy

I hope this will lead to a growing militant uncontrolled movement - that is not led into the Democratic Party elections and seems to be developing into a new international force.

Old lefties like me and the new people have yet to form a clear ideology.

Reports from all over (Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Hong Kong, et al) show that it, (occupation) goes fortunately beyond the usual suspects in those nations.

The little left sects are occupying in Mpls, but I hope to ignore them as they are subject to nonpolitical flattery - and instead see and enjoy the new activists. Some disturbing elements have been there, but will they stay and learn anything?

This are many youthful high-energy activists who know what the ISSUES TRULY are and excite me. But I don't go to see someone's "Circle of Love" or do Buddhist meditation.

We shall see how this movement proceeds with a cold winter coming, few logistical details taken into account - and what it will be like next Spring.

Since there will be no serious Democratic Party presidential primary elections, the
chances of co-option by the Democratic Party operatives will be less next Spring and perhaps by then most will have little interest in the 2012 elections and will be focused on building NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS that can link together including in large united actions against capital and its operatives - and the presstitutes. 

Meanwhile I can pray real affinity groups on economic democracy, social media that works, ecological awareness will coalesce - ever sharpening our demands.

Who would have thought it, after the Nov. 2010 U. S. elections that with the sparks of Tunisia, Egypt, Madison - and yet so little shutdown ACTION in MN this summer that this could happen!!!

I have a (hopefully) big action for Saint Paul SOON and moveon is getting into high action mode. We don't need camp counsellors coming out to make up activities; we merely need to stay ON POINT.

I got this response from a friend occupying in DC: 

   Old lefties like me are kinda confused... The only issue I can get excited about is the war issue and that gets me plenty excited! All the rest is intellectualizing and posturing to make yourself feel good and to show how smart you are and ends up a diversion. I say the more complicated we make it, the more watered down the movement gets and we lose the force and fire and the strength in our hearts that we must demonstrate to prevail.. I have been feeling lackluster these past three-four days and I finally figured out why. All the passivity is boring! I want to run through the streets with a drum and banner cadre, moving double time to the beating drum. I want to strike fear, to appear and then vanish. I want impromtu demonstrations blocking streets at rush hour then leaving before the pigs get us. This ain't no game. it is serious business. Occupation D.C. in Freedom Plaza has done excellent work but more on the diplomatic level. I will to step it up on the emotional and psychic level and so I will. If it pleases the cosmic, so I will.

And I could not resist from replying:  

My friend- - with a few excellent exceptions, I cannot even hold a discussion of this caliber w/most of the MN "occupiers" - you're a regular and know my aim is to bring people to a higher level of knowledge about economics mostly and celebrate empathic human values. (I did my "time" as healer and got over it and the kind of People Pleasing to be more hipster/New Age rather than anti-corporate is making me ill.) I am not into symbolically holding an action to protect "transparent" tents. I want to watch Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Raytheon, Lockhead, the Kochs, the lobbyists eat shit, instead of me and the rest of humanity. I want to avoid addiction to excitement and adreline rushes. Solidarity based on REAL vaues, not pics for media ops. I see an awful lot of mic hogging and few real symbolic anti--System photos so far. A sort of infantile infatuation with a new kind of authoritarianISM ha emerged, an anti-intellectualISM I cannot stomache. I sort of feared the Kevin Zeese organizing methodology, it left me cold at first. Now, however I am seeing what a few brains can do to get focus.

What Cornell West did is absolutely awesome, symbolically. THis junta of five is, indeed, the Real Enemy along w/their cohorts the Chamber of Commerce and anyone who takes their ca$h. The whole addictive corporate/ruling elite delusionary system is hard to bust.l This addiction to stuff, property, prestige and privileged life style of the West (now bitting the dust) is part of The System. Its emotionalISM is part of the adrenalated call of the addictive system engendered by capitalISM itself. 

 How to fight back? I am not sure of The Answer, but I do know the question. Maybe the next few months of "occupation" will provide an answer but I think "getting on the page" and knowing what rattles your cage is the absolute first step. It's NOT fighting the cops for lack of "something better to do" - or a Camp Counsellor facilitator who keeps you busy, busy, busy w/2nd grade art projects. I still strongly believe it's the women like myself of the "old" left ilk who are vocal and outraged who should be leading .. and singing our way into a better future. I adore the Latvia/Lithuanian women who brought down the USSR by seizing the media and making tons and tons of noise against a totally dysfunctional syste that produce Chernobyl. 

Someone made a remark on a thread that resonated and echoes your sentiment about feeling lacklustre. The person said that our MN occupiers did great demos - if you are into standing still demos. (the SEIU showed how poweful we CAN be when fighting The System.) Here, they don't even have outreach flyers! Only a handful hold the megaphones and have access to the livestream chat line where they discuss pizza and how sexy various "leaders" are. I ask myself - why risk indictment for THAT. 

No! No! No! i want actions that make the Supremes sleepless at night, the Kochs terrified of going to the Four Seasons for dinner, Obama ashamed at every single $26,000 pancake breakfast, the banks going broke as accounts are withdrawn . . . I want the damn addiction to TV and sports exposed as unsatisfying addictions. And I don't want a new codependent occupation delusion taking over. I want decentralization and an end to worker exploitation. Can this movement get there? Can WE get more dependent on VALUES inspiring it than emotion or the proper list of "demands" ?. I think the Nazis won in Germany due to shit values. They (the middle/working class) feared crime and chaos and becuz they did, they got even MORE of it. the insane ran the asylum. 

Here we fight old stale "utopian" values and resist process which is tedious sometimes but rewarding in the end as it produces stability (not addiction to a resistance to change) and a sense of safety - ultimately providing the bedrock for real creativity. MurKans so fear looking at the real lack of safety here engendered by Shock CapitalISM. Terrorists aren't the problem - but failure to look at how much that technique cost us in the past decade or more. Fear HAS worked for "The Bosses" - time now for courage, which is an inside job. Provoking police - as inexperienced politicos are trying to make us believe the past few days is the mark of the rebel is really an immature REACTION position. I will write more about the need to talk long and loud about foreclosure, homelessness, huge bank profits being made off the poor, cuts to disability,covert sexism and racism, ecodamage, fucked water - the entire klusterfuck in fact - in upcoming days I am sure. These and more, much more are the End product$ of an addictive financial "system." 

But right now I am interested in what VALUES are we demonstrating and communicating to those who are still in the trance who might join us IF we showed all the things in our hearts, not just sentimental rhetoric and mislead "actions" that don't communicate VALUES. And THAT is, indeed, serious business cuz the Kochs, the Clintoni$ta$, the bank$ter$ behind Obomber, the K Street flesh merchants of the Death Culture do not want it coming to the fore .. I think much stinky, horrible stuff lays ahead the more we get across where/when our hearts and minds and HONEST emotions are clear. 

Friend, we are after the same damn joy - the joy of resistance that leads to enrapturing EMPOWERMENT. We should not settle for less. Being one of the 99% ain't enough for me. I wanna be in the 99% who Make a Difference by outsmarting, out flanking, out planning and out loving that elitist hog sty at the top who stole OUR money!

Joint Solidarity Statement by US Day of Rage and the October2011 Movement

Posted by European Revolution on 08/09/2011 

Joint Solidarity Statement by US Day of Rage and the October2011 Movement: Our struggles are interconnected and so we organize in mutual support and solidarity with each other.
The Freedom Plaza beginning on that day to nonviolently disrupt the disloyal, incompetent, and corrupt special interests which have usurped our nation’s civil and military power, spawning a host of threats to our liberty, lives and national security.
The October2011 Movement protests corporatism and militarism because they prevent solutions to our current crises which would create a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world from being implemented. Instead concentrated corporate interests rule our elections and political process so that wealth continues to be funneled to the top 1%.

US Day of Rage is calling for free and fair elections, not elections manipulated by the economic elite, special interests, or corporate media, where choices are limited to bought candidates and two corrupt parties. US Day of Rage is organizing with OccupyWallStreet to create a tent city in the financial district of New York beginning on September 17. October2011 and OccupyWallStreet have endorsed each others’ actions.
Legitimate government is born of the people expressed by its citizens in free and fair elections. It does not spring from a tyranny of special interests, crony capitalism, or a system or ideology that runs counter to the aims of life.
Free and fair elections inspire good citizenship and public service, because they engage the intelligence and genuine good will of the American people. They produce the kind of stewardship our nation desperately needs, because they ensure that citizens can influence their destiny, and make genuine contributions to society unlike our present system where the government moves in directions the majority of Americans oppose putting the profits of campaign donors ahead of the wishes of the American people.
Free and fair elections are steps towards remediating the myriad ills and abuses of a corrupt and illegitimate government, which preys on the resources and spirits of citizens, and violates rights of the other peoples and nations.
The October2011 Movement and US Day of Rage know that abuses of the people and planet will end when we take unified and persistent action. We stand in solidarity with each other and with the growing nonviolent movements around the nation and world to call for democratization of our society.
October2011 Movement, october2011.org
Margaret Flowers, 202-688-2444
Kevin Zeese 301-996-6582/ 518-543-6920
US Day of Rage, usdayofrage.org
Alexa O’Brien, 917-568-3966