Sympathy for the Rebel: Translating Grassroots Tactics into Mainstream Success

I was talking with someone today about the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the Occupy Chico group. We touched on several different points, but I felt like the most interesting part of the discussion centered around the outsider perception of the movement.

My own experience has been relatively limited to some sympathetic news coverage about OWS, and some overheard conversations between members of the Occupy Chico movement. I don't really consider myself a part of the movement. I haven't participated in any of their events or anything, although I did help put together a flier for them. Because of all of this, I think my perception could be categorized as that of an outsider.

I agree with a great deal of what I've seen so far, such as the call for things like universal healthcare, improving the education system, more environmentally friendly practices, criminal justice reform, among other things,. I think many people agree with a lot of the grievances that have been voiced by members of this movement.

I do think, however, that members of this movement need to be cognizant of the fact that some of their demands and practices may alienate potential sympathizers. This is what I touched on in my conversation earlier. One of the specific issues is the Guy Fawkes masks (the V for Vendetta Mask) that people have been wearing. I can understand the sentiment--the oppressed rising up against the system--to a point, but ultimately that guy was a terrorist. He planned to blow up Parliament. Movement members should stick with non-violent revolutionaries like MLK or Ghandi; people who didn't want to kill scores of people to get their way.

We also talked about the structure of OWS groups. Generally, from what I've seen, these groups have been working under systems of consensus voting. This super direct democracy is great, to a point. There's the obvious problem of making such a system feasible for a population of 300+ million Americans, but there's also a more pressing problem for the OWS movement. Consensus voting can be slow, very slow.

The groups that the OWS movement are pushing against don't operate under that system. I suspect for the most part that they'll have have some sort of hierarchical system (Board of directors, CEO, etc.). This sort of structure, while not as democratic as what OWS is doing, is certainly better for executing quick, wide reaching decisions. If the company I work for wants to do something I disapprove of, which it certainly has, I have virtually no say. While that sucks for me, and is terribly undemocratic, it works well to make sure decisions are made quickly. If a corporation or an opposing group to OWS does something to hinder OWS, consensus voting is likely to be far too slow to create an effective response. The flip side of that is not true. A top-down system will be able to quickly respond to any changes or challenges thrown its way.

Another point we touched on was about effecting change. My view of OWS is that it doesn't want to work within the current institutions to create the change it wants to see. Heck, the most recent poll done had congress with an 18% approval rating. I get that--our current system of governance is terribly ineffective at getting legislation passed. I can understand the desire for a new system that is more responsive to the needs of average people, but I think that such a change is not realistic.

Now, I can hear the yells about being "realistic" and how social movements in the past weren't being realistic at the time, but I feel like they were, in at least some way, being realistic. Calling for the abolition of our current form of government is sort of a big deal. The civil rights movement, women's suffrage, just to name a few, may have all been deemed "unrealistic" at the time, but they all worked within the existing framework to achieve their ends. Women vote because the constitution was amended, minorities have (mostly) the same rights as everyone else because of legislation that was passed as well as SCOTUS rulings. And these movements had very clear goals.

The Tea Party, which I've heard the OWS being compared to over recent days, did work within the current confines of existing institutions. They were mad over a list of ambiguous subjects including, big government, runaway spending, debt, and they let everyone know they were mad. But they didn't stop there. They mobilized, they got their candidates on the ticket, they went out and voted in 2010, and now the House is, unfortunately, paralyzed by their efforts; but that's sort of what they wanted, to grind government's "growth" to a sudden halt. I know that some people may say that the Tea Party wasn't really an organic movement and was really just a bunch of rich people getting underlings to do their bidding, and they may be right. But that doesn't really matter. There are groups sympathetic to OWS that could help to fund wide calls to action and get the vote out in 2012 for candidates that OWS put on the ticket.

Anyways, my stream of thought is now over.

TL;DR version: Remember OWS folks, try not to alienate people, don't idolize terrorists, don't ask for too much, try and effect change in the current institutions, and ... yeah.