Ocuppy Boston, visit #2.5, 10/6/11

I went down to Dewey Sq. to find out the kinds of things you can’t learn second hand. A friend and I arrived at about 10:30 am. I left at 3:00 pm to pick up Jill Stein at Encuentro 5. My “goal mind” was intent on finding out why OWS has no demands; my other mind was asking if the gesalt of these college students and their movement was vastly different from myself and my ilk when we were young and demonstrating. 

My method was also of two minds; part of me knew that the people I wanted to talk to were the leaders of the leaderless organization and part of me wanted, in the spirit of the organization--Every Voice Heard! to listen to any one who wanted to talk to me. True to form I ditched out on the first person who asked to talk to me who seemed to me to be part of the 10% of people present who couldn’t organize their way out of a paper bag. Even when I was young I didn’t have that kind of patience. In other words, OWS is subject itself to the side effects of capitalist medicine. It is rife with people who didn’t get decent medical care many years ago. 

I felt for the leaderless leaders with whom I did speak; they’re over worked. When I asked why no one had facilitated a discussion on demands, the tart reply was “Because you haven’t done it yet.”  Good point. On Tuesday 10/11 I’ll give it my best shot. But yesterday I was still trying to add to what I had learned on my first visit. On that visit I learned OWS-Boston’s primary values are “horizontal democracy” (consensus), communication, patience and respect and that there’s a lot of white guilt floating around. Again and again I was hit in the face with the terminator seed, ‘We’re too white and privileged to speak for poor people of color. No demands until after we diversify.’ 

I was there when Movement for a New Society (which seems to have heavily influenced OWS) disbanded because it could not diversify. Now, and then, I think that if MNS had then, and OWS now, offered them something they want then poor people and people of color will join eventually join up. Endless yammering about politically correct language won’t do it. And stopping forward movement isn’t going to help either.

As for gestalt, I think Eric Francis, the journalist who writes the astrology column “Planet Waves” is right. This is not your parents’ revolution. While it has the energy and idealism of the 60’s, these (mostly) kids are not at all confrontational. They embody the anti-nuclear proliferation movement's (aka, the Clamshell Alliance) the creed of a living revolution. Another reason demands are eschewed is because the word is militaristic and seems to work against establishing a repoir. OWS Boston seems to know a lot about self-help, personal growth, and spirituality and not a lot about politics. A lot of them are not “political”, they just care.

To be fair, in response to the question about demands, one very tightly wound, very busy leaderless leader said to me, ‘It’s a process.” They’ve just gotten started. Stay tuned, the revolution is here.