Is this a joke?

I pretty much agree with Boots on this re: getting out and getting involved.

The problem I see developing in OO is the fact that we're losing support because the people who want to be down with us but don't "Occupy Aggro" see our Saturday Night Fever/Fuck The Police march as something they actively want nothing to do with. And right now, that's our highest-profile ongoing action.

I know one Oaklander particularly who came out for last Saturday night and is not coming back, and that decision was made before the bottles started flying. I know more who don't come out at all because they feel the energy at OO events...

It's like the Henry Ford school of Protest: You can have as diverse a set of tactics as you want, as long as it's Black Bloc. And because OO doesn't subscribe to "Action Agreements" (because that would be "self-policing"), many people can't trust that the person next to the won't start throwing bottles suddenly.

And people who don'tfeel they can trust the person marching next to them aren't gonna come out in support.

It's not just academics who are sitting back and criticising. Oakland has a well-deserved reputation as the most militant of the American Occupys. But not all Oaklanders who support the Occupy Wall Street movement are militant.

And a lot of them are starting to feel that non-militants have less and less of a place at OO.

Oakland came out EN MASSE for Nov 2 because of the scenes of the OPD riot on Oct 25. But the all the good mojo was burned up in the flaming barricades and flying bricks on Broadway later that night. Much fewer numbers came out for #D12. I think those facts are related.

And I believe that the January 28th building occupation, the way it's being planned/executed, will alienate a lot of Oaklanders further.

So if the criticism is "Get off your ass and be a part of the movement you don't think is going in the right direction", I'm down.

But we can't brush aside the fact that a lot of people feel that way get the message "AGGRO MILITANT OR GTFO!" when they try to be a part of OO, and change the direction it's taking.

"Don't split the movement" is fine, but disingenuous when coupled with "Occupy Aggro is not up for discussion".

And as we are fond of saying, "The World is watching".

See y'all at Saturday Night Fever. Bring cameras.

"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." -George Washington

If you want people to join you, try doing something worthwhile. Otherwise, piss off.

I agree with Boots that it is way too easy to make comments of inclusion while distancing yourself from OO in general. I think this stems from a desire to be critical of certain aspects of Occupy Oakland, but a reluctance to do so out of fear that the critic will be called out by the "PC police".

All you have to do is attend several GA's to get an idea of who may be dissatisfied, and who they are dissatisfied with. 

It is not as simple as black block vs non-violent.  I am in favor of Occupy Oakland being non-violent. Not because I "beleive" in non-violence. That ideal fell by the wayside for me back in the 90's during my many tussles with nazi skinheads.  There simply are circumstances where a violent response is the only genuine option. Anything else is being a coward.  I see a man beating a woman I stand up. I see ANYONE beating a dog I stand up.  There is no non-violent response in those situations that I am willing to entertain.

However, dealing with OPD, non-violence is a wise tactic. Because to do otherwise is to further enable their excessive crowd "control" tactics. As someone pointed out acouple months ago, there generally isn't any violence at Occupy Oakland events until cops show up.   To be sure, OPD will continue to show up for no reason, and to make unprovoked illegal arrests. To respond with violence and vandalism is to incite them to higher levels of brutality and higher numbers of arrests.  We are having a hard enough time making bail for those already in the joint. Let's not facilitate the City of Oaklands tactics of bleeding us dry through bail. 

There is some classism in OO. Progressive middle class liberals like the idea of solidarity with working poor. They are kind of at a loss for words when actual homeless poor show up for the party. They have no exclusivity on this class thing.  I have been witness to plenty of middle class bashing. 

One more time, just becuase someone owns a house, works a day job or drives a new car does not make them the 1% or even the lackeys of the 1%.  We shuold be trying to elevate all of our sisters and brothers to a similar level of safety and self determination. Not lowering everyone to the bareminimum of possesions. I am happy as hell that these middle class jerks show up with their bourgie Canon EOS Rebel 2Ti's and capture the brutality of OPD in precise, undeniable detail.  Then use their college educated grammar and vocabulary to blog this on their middle class Macbook Pros. 
Thsi is what makes Oakland's Occupy great. We are upper middle class business owners, homeless vets, web developers, teachers, working poor, students, people of color, angry white males and everything in between.

We arent gonna make it across the finish line as the 15% or even the 45%. 

Humboldt County has seen lots of career-level falseflag protesters picking fights with police, media and the public in an attempt to discredit occupy and squeeze out real occupiers. There is a lot of money and a lot of fear-energy working to squash legitamate dissent at the moment, and some of it takes sneaky forms. 

So let's help each other stay true to the better world that's in our hearts.

Occupy Oakland asks a lot from us:

- participate in a movement we think is going in the wrong direction

- don't criticize, at least publicly, because it "looks bad"

- don't question tactics except if the tactic is non-violence

- if you critique, only critique according to rules set out by some members of the movement

- if you don't like the direction, just change it, except of course you can't, because you're not one of the people who actually decide the direction

- stop being difficult

More and more, OO feels like the City of Oakland or OPD itself.

Hey. I did not choose the headline to this article, and it is somewhat misleading. This article is not against people criticizing OO. 

This article is specifically about academics who feel their work is about helping the left build a mass movement. It says that they should be in "some kind of mass movement" (Not necessarily OWS) if that's the work they're going to do. This way their critique will be more on point.

This titling makes it look as if I'm criticizing folks for having a critique of OO. I'm not.

I think criticism is important and necessary.

There are aspects of OO that I'm not down with and some that I think turn folks off. But, the way to handle that at this point is for folks to create campaigns that they do agree with and get folks in OO to be part of that.

We recently helped out with the Licorice workers strike. I wish more folks that don't agree with the FTP marches (I don't agree) came to the strike. I hope folks that don't agree with the FTP marches help folks move into foreclosed homes.

The name OO or OWS is just the stone in the stone soup. The various people in the world that want to make a movement are the actual soup. 

If you don't want to be involved because a disagreement with one faction of OO is not resolved, you're basically saying that the left can't work together before we all agree. And that will never happen.

Wise comment: "The name OO or OWS is just the stone in the stone soup. The various people in the world that want to make a movement are the actual soup. "

But one faction of OO is also actively telling people they can't be involved unless they agree with everything that faction says and does. "Tryouts", "culling" and "interrogating people" are all actual words used by people from within OO.

I'm not saying those individuals have any right to speak for a movement or cull or interrogate anyone, all I'm saying is that it's disingenuous to say "join us" and "fuck you" at the same time.

Since there are thousands of people involved in OO, I'm sure you'll get crazy people saying all kinds of things. There may be someone who thinks extraterrestrials run the world. They don't make the rules for OO. We can't just complain that their are a few folks saying crazy things. There is no way to stop that. I haven't heard anyone use those terms, and folks should be quick to critique them when that happens.

"Since there are thousands of people involved in OO..."

Thousands?  Really?  You wouldn't know that from the sparce numbers of people at Frank Ogawa Plaza or the fact that OO GA barely makes quorum and has a perpetual twitter feed begging and pleading for people to come down because...you know, there's no support there anymore.  I think you need to spend a little more time on the OO page or actually down at Frank Ogawa Plaza, Boots.  You seem to be a little out of the loop on how Oakland residents are actually responding to you.

Link to Occupy Oakland GA minutes.  The minutes include the number of people present -- which seems to be between a hundered or so folks.  I guess all of those "thousands" of dedicated members of Occupy Okaland just have something better to do than show up at their own GA?

http://occupyoakland.org/generalassembly/ga-minutes/

You're right.

MANY people in OO don't go to the GA.

We go to working groups, sub-committees, and come out for actions that we agree with- and even some that we don't agree with. There are 4 or 5 GAs per week, that is too many for most folks.

There are thousands who are involved in OO at various levels.

I'm in OO, and I barely go to GA lately.

Many of the people that agree with the tactics that you may disagree with don't go to GA much either.

I was just recently at an OO working group meeting where 75% of the folks hadn't been to GA in a while.

GAs are small for a lot of reasons- some of them being disagreements with the tactics of some folks, as I think you're implying, and some of the reasons are the weather and scheduling- (4 GAs per week, and then your working groups, or sub-committees, and then actions? That's alot), some of it has to do with people getting exhausted from the various debates, and MUCH of it has to do with people's frustration with the process of direct democracy itself.

But most of the folks are still involved, just not as much at the GA.