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Taking A Stand, Across The Land With the goal of bringing people together all across the country to facilitate the building of solidarity, connections, collaboration, and empowerment of individuals and communities; we aim to spark dialogue, awareness, and momentum around multiple and diverse issues faced by Canadians and to create an alternative vision to the one presented by Harper’s Conservative Regime. Let us join together to walk from every corner of this country, gathering in service projects to strengthen connections, communities, and the environment; regional meetings to discuss, plan, and create; and demonstrations to make some noise about the injustices we are up against. Let us converge on Ottawa, bringing the people’s perspective back into power. The walk leaves Victoria, BC on May 1st, Windsor, ON in mid July, and Newfoundland on a date still TBA. These walk and bike groups will converge in Ottawa the weekend before Parliament reconvenes (Sept.17th). We expect that walkers will join for a day, a week, or even a few months – depending on their abilities and circumstances. Support vehicles will be available to transport exhausted walkers, and regional organizers are working on logistics as we speak. Interested in helping organize in your region? Join the Open Atrium planning group at occupys.ca/openatrium Consider joining this inclusive walk or providing support in other ways: Contact us at sos2ottawa@gmail.com |
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This was on Facebook, by Rob Torok Now we have three at the table. Problem one: image. Whether we like it or not, whether we agree or not, the unfortunate reality is that we are all politicians. By virtue of being in a movement which hopes to inspire change, we are politicking. This can only come from an admixture of inside the system and external pressure… North America is not the place where revolts happen; not since 1776 has anything been accomplished in such a fashion. (Okay, American civil war, but still… that’s not how it works, these days.) So we need to control the spin. We need to control the news cycle. Like politicians, we need to pull out plausible deniability for publicly unpalatable actions. Like politicians, we need to have carefully-crafted statements. Like politicians, we need to have a minority representative (as opposed to direct democracy, or consensus) so that we can act in a sharp, concise, and quick fashion. Like it or not, society is elitist – in that some people are better suited for some jobs than others. We may not all agree on a position, or a candidate, but in practice Canadian Occupy cities tended to be led by an in-group of intelligent and passionate people. Who else would facilitate through a GA that was going nowhere for an hour or two at a time? So unbind people from consensus. Let people (or groups) who think they can improve the image of Occupy work on their own terms. If the majority disagree, then conversations ensue. Otherwise, we need the image boost to attract people to the cause. Remember: this is supposed to be about the 99% – if people are against us, they don’t understand what we’re fighting for. Our job is to teach the people who don’t want to listen… and that’s hard. Problem two: conspiracy. If you believe in NWO, chemtrails, Soros, 9/11 truth, or whatever the fuck, I don’t care. The point is that “conspiracy” refers as much to “events that conspire” as it does to some sort of planned plot. Whether it’s intentional or not, events are conspiring to make the world a shittier place. The productive consensus would speak towards focusing on solutions, rather than outing causes. The way that the human brain is made up means that once people take sides on belief in a conspiracy, NO ONE is going to change their minds. So this is a waste of effort. Facts are disputed, and nonetheless do not sway people from their beliefs. Someone (in one of the groups) said “eyes on the prize!” yesterday… ish… and that’s what we need to be focused on. Problem three: endgame. None of us agree on what it looks like. What all of us are trying to do, as I understand it, is push towards utopia from whatever shit we have now. I’d need thousands of pages to go through all of that… what we all see as problems/solutions/utopia. So it seems that we ought to work on the most egregious of offences. Tar sands, (and re-frame so people stop calling them oil sands) and whatever we, as a community, prioritise. But we have to have a way to know what we prioritise. I hope to be helping with that soon. There is no “endgame” for making the world a better place, so this problem cannot be solved – only mitigated. Problem four: nutbars. I’m not sure we’ll agree on what these look like, either. I mean, I remember tasty pecan rolls with nougat in the centre. I don’t even like pecans. Still, we all know that there are people in any movement who don’t act rationally, who don’t listen to evidence, and who harass others. There needs to be a protocol for inclusion and disclusion that includes a rubric of some sort… one that is objective. Off the top of my head, I can name a few types that need to be… if not excluded from the group, then at least contained. a) mavericks – those who act on their own, despite group consensus. b) harassers – those who actually make people feel unsafe through their behaviour. c) conspiracists – those who waste time in groups through constantly bringing up their own pet issues… actually, this is a subset of harassers… anyone who brings up anything petty or not solution-oriented, time and time again – or abuses procedural quirks. There’s no easy solution for this, and we may want to look to other models. Between on-line and in-person, we’ve seen enough of all of these behaviours. I hesitate to say that we need to streamline, because things are much more complicated than that, but when time not spent pursuing solutions turns people off of GA… whatever the cause, we have a problem. Problem five: working together. Can’t we? I mean… really… can’t we? The answer is no. Not all of us can work together on any given idea/action/etc. People have different viewpoints. The answer is working apart – I don’t step on your toes, you don’t step on mine. Just like online discussion… it’s a sort of Darwinism of potential. If your idea works and mine is wrong, and we both have groups working on differing ideas, then I’m not going to attack you. Once an idea is the clear winner, I’ll either convert or keep wasting time on my own shit until I’m convinced that I’m being an idiot… which is a possibility that I’m open to. Don’t hamstring people. Don’t get entrenched in an idea “these people are my opponents.” We’re all the 100%. So give it 100%. A lot of people have the mindset “the 1% aren’t going to give up anything willingly.” Well, okay, maybe they need to be manipulated a bit… just like we’re manipulated… (advertising, etc.) but if you make a case for self-interest that the 1% can understand, then they’re likely to come over to our side… and a case can be made. IF we can learn to win over all the people who are against us; all the people who don’t understand us; all the people who have been won over by MSM misrepresentation of us. What do we need to look like? The Red Cross, or the United Way, or some other universally recognised force for the betterment of humankind. Because that’s what we are. (Image, again.) We need to understand how to work with the public at large and with business and with all of the things and people that we’re against… to understand how they’re stuck in their situation due to their own constraints, and how to offer a helping hand out of those situations. A portion of this needs to be grassroots. We need to understand the criticisms leveled against us, see the valid parts of them, and explain without excuses… while providing a view of the path forward. I believe that we can do it. Though… remember… we are politicians. Essentially, we are a political movement – largely deemed leftist – and that means we have an uphill battle, because politics is a blood sport. We are trying to curry favour, and if you follow elections at all (participation rates/voter turnout) you know that we are going to be in a serious struggle to get the population engaged. Someone please disagree with me, on any point… or add. I’d love to be wrong that any of these things are problems. |
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