A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:
The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people.
— Raimundo Viejo,
Pompeu Fabra University,
Barcelona, Spain
The beauty of this new formula, and what makes this novel tactic exciting, is its pragmatic simplicity: we talk to each other in various physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies … we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future … and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen.
On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat our one simple demand until Barack Obama capitulates.
Spanish Indignadows Join Occupy Wall Street
A bit of profound strategic news to lift your sails: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET will now happen simultaneously on two continents! Occupy Wall Street Gone Viral We call on jammers across the world to occupy financial districts on September 17: Inspired by the visceral potential of the Wall Street occupation, the Indignados of Spain just sent us word that on September 17th they too will set up camp outside the Madrid Stock Exchange. The surprise announcement, that their #TOMALABOLSA will join your #OCCUPYWALLSTREET, may embolden other cities as well. A rumor suggests the financial district of Paris may be next … or will it be Toronto's Bay Street, Sydney's Martin Place, or some yet to be chosen site in London? Then on October 6th another kind of encampment begins in Washington, DC. With a bit of luck, and the right mix of nonviolence and tenacity, S17 just might cascade into a Tahrir Moment on an international scale - wouldn't that be something? Source: Ad Busters August 11 Update - Occupy Wall Street We are living through a rare crisis and moment of opportunity. Western industrialized nations are now being masticated by the financial monster they themselves created. This is triggering a mood that alternates between angry denial and sudden panic. It looks like something is about to break, opening the space for a necessary transformation and a total rethink of global economic affairs. Events are playing perfectly into our September 17 occupation of Wall Street. So … can we on the left learn some new tricks? Can we head off to lower Manhattan with a fresh mindset and a powerful new demand? Strategically speaking, there is a very real danger that if we naively put our cards on the table and rally around the "overthrow of capitalism" or some equally outworn utopian slogan, then our Tahrir moment will quickly fizzle into another inconsequential ultra-lefty spectacle soon forgotten. But if we have the cunning to come up with a deceptively simple Trojan Horse demand … something profound, yet so specific and doable that it is impossible for President Obama to ignore … something that spotlights Wall Street's financial capture of the US political system and confronts it with a pragmatic solution … like the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act … or a 1% tax on financial transactions … or an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the corporate corruption of our representatives in Washington … or another equally creative but downright practical demand that will emerge from the people's assemblies held during the occupation … and if we then put our asses on the line, screw up our courage and hang in there day after day, week after week, until a large swath of Americans start rooting for us and President Obama is forced to respond … then we just might have a crack at creating a decisive moment of truth for America, a first concrete step towards achieving the radical changes we all dream about unencumbered by commitments to existing power structures. So, let's learn the strategic lessons of Tahrir (nonviolence), Syntagma (tenacity), Puerta del Sol (people's assemblies) and lay aside adherence to political parties and worn-out lefty dogmas. On September 17, let's sow the seeds of a new culture of resistance in America that fires up a permanent democratic awakening. See you on Wall St. Sept 17. Bring Tent. Source: Ad Busters Is September 17 America's Own Tahrir Square-Style 'Facebook Revolution'? Protests in the Middle East and elsewhere capitalized on the spontaneity of social media, but can it also be deployed deliberately? Starting September 17, the publishers of Adbusters want 20,000 people take over Wall Street for months, until their demands are met. The campaign's nerve center urges protestors to "set up tents, kitchens [and] peaceful barricades," apparently in anticipation of settling in for the long haul. This isn't a weekend protest -- it's an attempt to launch a Tahrir Square-style occupation. On Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, the protest's organizers are trying to whip their followers into a frenzy. Logistics are being coordinated; social pressure is mounting. Will people respond? Will #occupywallstreet rank as a trending topic on Twitter? Will this loose coalition of young people pick up allies among disaffected, under- and unemployed members of the middle class? For a million reasons, from Americans' seeming learned helplessness to the organizational skills of the NYPD, it seems inconceivable that the folks behind this protest will pull it off. If it happens, technology will not be an enabler, it will be the enabler. Unlike protests in Egypt and riots in London, there are no temporally distinct precipitating events for America's still non-existent protest movement. There isn't even a clear purpose for the protests, yet -- in typical Internet fashion, the "one demand" of protesters" is still being crowdsourced. (As of this writing, "revoke corporate personhood" is leading by a wide margin, and "abolish capitalism" is a distant second.) There is, however, exactly the sort of steady, grinding economic agita that has inspired protests elsewhere in the world. America tried to avert an economic catastrophe, and it's possible we failed -- that all the quantitative easing in the world can't stop the algorithmic traders on Wall Street from crashing the pensions of whichever Americans still believed they possessed any wealth. Is that enough to inspire 20,000 people to show up in downtown Manhattan after having encountered one another nowhere but the Internet? Looks like we've got a month to find out. Source: Technology Review
by Christopher Mims