On the October Movement of 68 and OWS (Yes there are parallels)

[nadinbrzezinski]

When the student movement emerged in Mexico City the big question was... who are the leaders? When OWS started the PD asked who are the leaders? Anybody knows? I don't know yet.

The student movement was a summer of peaceful marches with people carrying book bags, and lunch bags... the OWS has been peaceful and carryng bookbags and preparing food.

Here is where it gets dangerous. And I doubt Obama will get involved like the Mexican President did, but Bloomberg is... we need a reaction, the powers that be need a reaction. So in mexico they tried to sell guns to the protestors and tnt. All they sold were two .22 and a little TNT... here the cops are kettling the protesters and forcing them onto the street, where they can be arrested.

In the end, the Mexican government used snipers to fire at the Army... for the army to defend itself. That was kind of a strange way of doing it, but it worked... here we will see agent provocateours enter the protest and get a response.

Powers that be have no idea what to do with valid demands that are mostly peacefully issued. This is universal, and powers that be do not know how to react to pressures from the people, nor do they surrender power peacefully. I much rather prefer peaceful revolutions... but Kennedy comes to mind... those who prevent peaceful revolutions ensure the violent ones.

UNDERSTANDING this reality does not mean one wants one... been there, done that, got the nightmares. I really do not want a violent revolution... but DC pretty much wake up soon... and the political elites realize that what we have is a pressure cooker that is starting to boil over. There are ways to release the pressure ... and if that is not done... we will have an explosion. That is what nightmares are made off.

Oh and the demands are not that hard to comprehend. Many of us have made them here... reforming the system so it is responsive to the people is not that hard to comprehend or articulate. Those who still claim that they don't know what the demands are... well are being coy quite honestly.

Nadin

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Some reading

As I wrote in another post, I read the "Introduction" to Gitlin's The Sixties yesterday. It was a sobering experience.

Mexico City in 1968 was at the end of the 60s' movement period, when things were already starting to fall apart. And marches and demands alone aren't enough. They've never been enough. You go to the march, you march, and you go home again. And the people you're making demands of are powerful enough, they ignore you, or they trickle the dregs of their champagne on your heads.

OWS isn't enough. It may be a beginning, but in and of itself it's not enough.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Once things like this start

they don't stop...

As to '68... the universities were occupied... it got ugly... of course it wasn't helped by the real paranoia of Diaz Ordaz.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. That's just it -- they DO stop.

We had the 60s, and then we had Nixon and Reagan. All the promise fizzled. And no one is talking about that.

It's like the discussions of Les Mis. "Do you hear the people sing?" Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. And the revolution lasted two days and they all died. "Glory" was the same way. And there are those who say civil rights didn't advance until white kids like Schwermer and Goodman were killed, and MLK became a martyr.

All the marches accomplish nothing. Demands mean nothing. If you can't build an economy, a politics, a culture in defiance to and independent of the ruling elite, you will be crushed and/or assimilated. And you will love Big Brother.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Yup, that is why Mexico kept it simmering

and it ended up in democratic elections... and it is still there, simmering by the way.

Movements do not come out athena like formed from zeus's head... and they remain there, festering... boiling...

This one is global... and if this is "crushed" it will further radicalize people. To give you a more familiar example... the American Revolution did not start in 1776... it more properly started in the 1730s.

[Tansy_Gold]

5. Some would say

The American revolution started in the 1630s.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. But clearly the movements that led to that started in the 1730s

Not to discount Bacon's revolt... it was a spark. But you see what I am saying... even if they manage to crush this... it will continue to simmer and it will further radicalicalize the population. Closing avenues for peaceful expression leave but one route. And for all our sakes, let's hope our political class buys a clue.

[Javaman]

7. I have been saying this for a while...

just like the jackboots at the RNC protests.

Agent provocateurs.

Oddly, sadly, tragically, if shots are fired that won't end the protests, I think it will usher in a whole new era.

one that won't be so easy to untie.

sometimes the most innocuous events are the trigger for wider clashes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. The arrests did that

shots will harden this even further.

[Javaman]

9. yes, shots would.

Sadly, I see it happening this time around.

society has been simmering for a long time.

the misguided tea baggers are full of rage, the left has felt left out in the cold.

and now the 99%'ers have the real possibility to become a unifying voice.

If that concept truly takes hold, then I see a violent trend. Not by us, but by the authorities who fear loss of control.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Why I made the comparison to Mexico in '68

the only way they felt they could stop that... was with the army... and disapearing people, and a dirty war.

[Javaman]

11. I thought it apt comparison.

I feel that kind of dirty tactics will be employed against the protesters at some point.

Or the ever classic of someone yelling, "gun!". Which is pretty much the same as yelling fire in a theater.

The effect will be the same. Shots will be fired but no ballistics tests will ever be done or results released. Just blame.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Or like mexico, where the students complained

of the constant parafin tests... done back then to make sure somebody did not fire a gun... of course none could say the tests were done correctly...

[socialist_n_TN]

13. ALL "issue" protests will die down eventually

die down. And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with "issue" protests. I've been a part of them. But the lesson I took from the 60s/70s protests in the USA was that they were focused too much on the Vietnam war and not nearly enough on system change. System change will be the only way to build a lasting movement.

The one step up that the OWS protests have over the protests of the 60s/70s is that they HAVE, at LEAST, made the connection between economics, politics, and power. That's a connection that too few anti-war protesters made back in the day. Some did, but not enough. This movement is PREDICATED on that basic premise, not just one issue that can be resolved or ameliorated by the power structure.

My biggest criticism of the OWS protests is that they don't make the systemic connection that their list of abuses STRONGLY hints at by the widespread nature of the abuses. They don't WANT to see that it's the system that's at fault, not the individuals or individual companies.

[Javaman]

14. I think the protesters do see it being a systemic issue...

However, I don't think they have articulated it as such.

What I think really needs to be emphasized is that these protests aren't from the left only. That it's everyone.

That simple fact would state that it is a systemic issue.

There in lies the rub.

I personally have come up with my own protest sign that I plan on using, which tries to emphasis that fact.

"it's not red or blue it's bruised. We are the purple" ;) goofy, I know, but I'm trying my best at encapsulating not only our problems and the misguided rights problems, but it's something we all have felt.

This is why I the OWS 99%'ers should adopt the color purple as their color. For unity and also to highlight the beating the middle and lower classes have taken at the hands of the 1%.

And frankly speaking, isn't the 1% the system?

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. And they are starting to make that connection

[socialist_n_TN]

19. The problem with the 99% argument is that

OF that 99% you have a LARGE segment that still carries the water FOR the system. You see them on here daily and they were ESPECIALLY vocal the first few days of the protests.

Trotsky said, "A worker who's part of the capitalist state (read: system) is not a worker, but is a bourgeois cop." That's a real "Whose side are you on?" comment. Too bad people aren't seeing it as such yet. Until they DO see this basic fact, I don't have much hope for any change in that list of abuses the General Assembly of NYC put out.

Trying to get the system to change itself is hopeless, UNLESS they feel there's a REAL chance that they might lose it all. IOW, until they're scared like they were in the 30s. Only militant socialism and organized working class action scares them enough because only militant socialism and organized working class action threatens their ENTIRE system.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Forgive me for laughing, but all revolts never see all on one side

against the other... never... the American Revolution, where it was the clearest, 1\3 was for it, 1\3 was against it and 1\3 could care less...

You could say the same about the Mexican Revolution and even the Russian Revolution. Yes, Trotsky never quite understood that either.

[Javaman]

22. +1.

kind of breaks down to basic societal opinion.

those for 33%

those against 33%

don't know or don't care 33%.

it's when that 33% for or against take charge of the message, then the stats change to...

those for 33%

those against 33%

don't know or don't care 33%.

LOL

[socialist_n_TN]

24. Of course they don't and I think that's the essence of the

Trotsky quote. But the 1/3 who could care less eventually has to pick a side or stay on the sidelines. There will be 33% who are "bourgeois cops". And that's exactly WHY the 99% argument doesn't really hold up.

[Javaman]

21. I still think it's early.

The OWS movement is still in it's development phase.

In a few weeks, you will see leaders emerge.

That's what scares me.

Because when that happens, then the attacks by the MSM begin.

There will be fake leaders put in place to derail any thoughtful discussions. They will get a lot of air time to try and misrepresent people.

There will be agent provocateurs who will try to create problems legally by inciting violence, etc.

it will be during those coming days, that the message must remain clear and unified.

One thing that worries me above all, right now, is the weather.

Starting a protest in the fall, especially in NYC, is not for the faint of heart, it's going to get cold. really cold. I used to be a street performer down in that area back in the 80's, when that wind blows down wall it cuts through you like a knife. It is brutal.

If they can hold out through that, then the movement, at least in NYC has a chance.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Here is where Mexico ´68 and this is closer

that was not an antiwar protest. It was against the system.

[Javaman]

17. Yes, too bad the protesters in the US only aimed their anger at only the war...

This time around, it certainly is aimed at the system. wall street controls everything, from the food we eat to the bullets that are shot.

If we can now pick up more of the people on the right and unify, this will be a force to be reckoned with.

I suspect, aside from the halfwits on the news trying to push, "they don't even know what they are protesting about" meme, I believe we will see a concerted effort by wall street and the like to maintain the divide between the left and the right.

the very last thing they want is a unified voice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. It's emerging and that scares them to no end

[Javaman]

23. To me, the tool that posted "we are the 1%" in the window

was the reaction I was hoping for.

that just shows me, 1) the ignorance of the toadies 2) they have to prove themselves as being worth something 3) hoping that their ultra wealthy overlords take note around raise time.

And besides, if they have an office in that building, especially one that is located way below the top floor, they are just lying to themselves.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Yup

why is said in another thread... balsy... wrong, but balsy.