Published on Thursday, November 3, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English
Occupy Demands: Let's Radicalise Our Analysis
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems - replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help.
by Robert Jensen
There's one question that pundits and politicians keep posing to the Occupy gatherings around the country: What are your demands?
I have a suggestion for a response: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands.
The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognise, so that they can roll out strategies to divert, co-opt, buy off, or - if those tactics fail - squash any challenge to business as usual.
Rather than listing demands, we critics of concentrated wealth and power in the US can dig in and deepen our analysis of the systems that produce that unjust distribution of wealth and power. This is a time for action, but there also is a need for analysis. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/03-4