Occupy's Asshole Problem: Flashbacks from an Old Hippie

Thought some might be interested in this great guide for dealing with assholes at Occupy movements across the country. A guest editorial for CrooksandLiars/OccupyAmerica by Sara Robinson.






I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.

As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the -sshole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.

1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.


Much more here:

http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/occupys--sshole-problem-flashbacks-old

... if they don't share the same goals.


Better is to call them out. Have someone stand next to them with a sign that says "not with us".

In the 60s, we would call out the "intelligence" officers within the audience of a rally. Blowholes (various shades of ultra-Marxists, Stalinists, etc. who couldn't form a rally of half-a-dozen)? We would hang around (usually the arm-banded marshals) and keep an eye on them. At times, they were told to take a hike.

But it was a different era: The notion of vulgar-pacifism (don't do ANYTHING about a threat) hadn't taken old, and there were enough good 'ol boys who could handle the situation pretty deftly. Here in Austin, the problem has been with "transients" who have for years hung around City Hall. They can be rather punkish (some have violent felony records) and have a hard-on for violence. The "leaderless" consensus-based OWS group doesn't really know what to do with them. Then the cops move in.

I've always felt that the best way you deal with violence-prone punks and provocateurs, is not with pacifist folks but with folks who are familiar with violence, and who don't treat the topic as a dirty word.

and make sure the whole thing is filmed by multiple people so that some record will exist after the cops swoop in.

I don't suggest linking arms around the really violent SOBs, it's a good way to get hurt. However, it's still a decent tactic for the average right wing punk breaking windows.

Sara Robinson, was citing illegal behaviors such as drug use and violence. Her advice was 'Stop it or we call the cops.' And maybe then the cops will accept the fact that OWS is legit. After all, most of these cops are part of the 99%. But I'm not naive to believe that some of these cops like to bust heads just because they can.

I believe she is offering great advice to the leadership of OWS. Black Bloc can damage OWS's goals. Trying to destroy a grocery store in Oakland is NOT what OWS is about.

And for those who can't get the 'message' from OWS, maybe you are just not listening.

..."we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard."


If that were correct, then the banksters could ask OWS to "go elsewhere".

:dunce: ?

We are talking about WITHIN the MOVEMENT OF OWS.

OWS is AGAINST THE BANKSTERS....REMEMBER????

:wtf:

... ask people to go somewhere else if they are not part of the movement.


You can't do that. Those people are on public property same as the OWS protesters. To argue that the OWS protesters could somehow demand that people move away because they don't agree is folly. If that were true, the banksters could demand the protesters move.

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Do you get it now?

Many mouths, one voice?

Many heads, one neck?

Many names, one drivers license?



Am I getting warm?

you're PART OF THE PROBLEM, and you're not a "hippie", either.

What's being referred to isn't the difference between, say, socialists and anarchists. It's between people who are looking to reform the system through peaceful protest and people who just want to smash stuff without any concern for what happens next.

Another way to put it is that the writer doesn't mean "goals" in the sense of long-term objectives but rather, "What are your personal goals in being here at this occupation?"

If the answer is, "I want to provoke the cops into a violent crackdown in order to reveal the innate fascism of the state apparatus," that person probably can't be effectively integrated into the Occupy movement.

... it's a public space and they have the same right of assembly as anyone.

I mean, you can't say, "I'm going to go out on the street corner and assemble."

And you wouldn't call an bunch of unaffiliated pedestrians an assembly, either. An assembly is defined as "A group of people gathered together in one place for a common purpose."

That implies that anyone who is not there for that purpose is not part of the assembly. They're either a spectator, in which case they're expected to mind their manners. Or they're a disruptor and can be asked to leave.

This is true of any kind of gathering, and the fact that it's in a public space doesn't give random strangers the right to barge in and make trouble.

... since they are disruptors.

The disruptors who show up at OWS are not counter-protesters. They are infiltrators, there to get the movement off course and give it a black eye in public perceptions.

That's not at all the same thing as protesters chanting under the banksters' windows.

One of the things that has most annoyed me and caused me to have the most cynicism about the whole "Occupy" thing is the way that the organizers seem to treat it as a theoretical exercise in perfection. All ideas, attitudes, and groups have to be welcomed, everything is equally valid, etcetera. It makes the whole thing an ink-blot test, for anyone to see anything they want in it, and the organizers don't want to try and stick to a single vision. That results in a muddled message. Instead of a protest targeted at the things that can work--financial regulation, a transaction tax, higher taxes on millionaires, etcetera--you get people drawn off and distracted by effectively trying to deal with building a commune in the middle of a city, where every viewpoint and cause is considered just as important.

They tried to treat demonstrations as theoretical exercises in perfection in way too many cases. They let everyone be heard, even if they were drug-addled and did not know why they were there, or so far off the point of the demonstration that they might as well be on Mars. Someone has to set rules. Behavior and goals have to be defined.

I think the people in Iowa City have done good job in setting boundaries and having a coherent OWS. Take a look at what they are doing. Of course, I have always had enormous respect for Iowans. They just get it done, whatever it is, without a lot of fanfare. They got in early on allowing interracial marriage. They allowed gay marriage without a lot of fuss. They are fighting the extremists, and have Steve King and some teabaggers, but they will deal with it.

This article brings back memories. The assholes will always be with us. And we have to understand that we have our assholes, just like the opposition!

The usurpers and infiltrators have always been a problem for organized movements. Of assholes there are always plenty.

Somewhere on the web (don't that narrow it down) is a post about dealing with a-holish behavior in covens, definitely nongoverning, nonorganized groups. The message is similar: We do NOT have to put up destructive behavior, no matter how inclusive, welcoming, sister-embracing we are.

"This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group."

This is exactly how we've handled problems at Zuccotti. It's time consuming and sometimes requires seriously steady nerves.

Years ago I volunteered for Indymedia, that had this totally dysfunctional system where organizational decisions were based on consensus. Not democratic majority, but consensus. So you always had this one stubborn jerk who would not consent, that collapsed everything when people ran out of patience trying to convince him. When I heard that the accounts were all messed up and the accounting volunteer had gone, I just left. The whole scene was just too frustrating. I also knew people who were really effective leftist activists, who had left the scene to work in business. They talked about how the dominance of corporations was an inevitability, because of how effectively they were run in comparison with other movements.

So it makes sense to me to look at any movement as a kind of lab, for finding the answer to the question: How can we create an effective, reality based organizational structure that preserves the values we are fighting for in the first place?

I remember reading this declassified CIA memo from the cold war era once. It said something like "Though we wish differently, many of the people who defect from the USSR because they can't assimilate into communist society also find they can't assimilate into US Society, while many of the people who were content with good party standing in the USSR, tend to be content and successful when transplanted into the US as well."

The line suggested that even across the differences between communist and capitalist systems, a great divide, there were over-arching personality traits that dictated an individual's ability to be successful in ANY organizational system. So the the takeaway for any movement from this is not to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater: perhaps the majority of business organization traits are in place because they are effective and work only some work to creat the inequality and stagnation. The task is to sort out which is which, emulate the former and replace the latter with something better.

openly in support of the protests and many marched with us. Which meant that everyone was on their absolute best behavior- no way any of us were going to jeopardize that relationship by acting badly and putting cops in an awkward position where they might have to arrest us. I saw many, many instances of people taking it upon themselves to surround and talk to someone who was out of line or appeared to be agitating - ex: a guy with a sign "the only good republican is a dead one", another guy who was about to punch out a T partier, etc.

I have been wondering why this same phenomenon has not been happening more in other places - it's hard to believe Wisconsin cops are really all that different. Maybe the union-busting opened their eyes and changed their attitude in a way that hasn't happened in other places. OR.... maybe it was the fact that everyone loved the cops and showered them with profuse THANK YOU'S everywhere they went. I have no way of judging what's going on in other places but I can't help but think that a little bit of alliance building could go a long way.

This is a GREAT!!!!!!!!!!! topic that deserves MUCH more attention & discussion - could we have a forum sub-group here at DU having to do with movement strategizing/ problem solving/ what works/ what doesn't.

(Editted to add - there have since been arrests as part of a civil disobedience strategy, and yeah there have been folks just behaving badly who have been arrested but - the alliance is still strong.)

but your situation is definitely different.

Here's a video interview of CHirs Hedges (I keep passing it around because I want everyone to see it):

10/19/2011 Chris Hedges: "This one could take them all down
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x626281

And in that interview he says (paraphrasing here) that in the movements that have won what they were after, the cops reached a point where they could no longer defend the status quo. YOUR cops were brought to that spot early, I think, by the overreaching actions of your fascist Governor.

Cops in other places aren't there yet, haven't been so personally affected that they recognize and identify themselves as part of the 99% instead of the staunch and ever-willing defenders of the status quo. But Hedges is pretty sure they will get there, and that beautiful eventuality will mean we win!

were causing all the "badness" in their gatherings ... which involved the violent acts of ... misspelling signs.

Now, compare that "disruptiveness" to what possibly could be rightist "disrupters" in any gathering of lefties ... knocking over trash cans so that they can get "evidence of the dirty, filthy liberals", and breaking windows and throwing things at cops ...

shouldn't appoint herself in charge of dictating "norms" to a large, free-functioning, organic protest movement like OWS.

If the chaos, freedom and (gasp!) coarse language upsets her so much, she should be the one staying home.

Had a security force, wearing black tee-shirts that were printed with large white letters... "KARMA CONTROL"

Perhaps OWS groups should elect some. The made me want to behave myself :)