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Here's some excellent statements on the means and meaning of the OWS movement.
"Occupy Everywhere: On the New Politics and Possibilities of the Movement Against Corporate Power”
a panel discussion hosted by The Nation magazine and The New School in New York City
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/25/occupy_everywhere_michael_moore_naomi_klein
"OWS is not a campaign. Organizations have campaigns. Movements shift the public will."
- Rinku Sen, publisher of ColorLines, and author of The Accidental American
"There's been a current in American history, like an underground stream. And sometimes that stream gains force and emerges to change the nation. This is one of those times."
- William Greider, national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine and the author of The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, and Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country.
Response to Here’s What Attempted Co-Option of OWS Looks Like by Glenn Greenwald (which is one of Greenwald's typically poorly thought through commentaries).
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/19-5
Posted by Stone Nov 19 2011 - 5:40pm
The fundamental difference between 20th Century change and 21st Century change lies in the ARCHITECTURE of change.
Change in the 20th Century was CENTRALIZED. It is represented by a triangle where power rests in the hands of the few at the top, and was dictated downward to the People.
Change in the 21st Century is DECENTRALIZED. It is represented by an inverted triangle where power rests with the people at the top.
The architecture if the Internet is one of DECENTRALIZATION. Now, each participating Citizen is a potential publisher and participant. The DECENTRALIZED change process is vitalized by free and open communication in all directions by the participants. A VISION results from the free and open communication when the majority of the participants adopt an idea or concept in their minds and hearts. VISIONS are FLUID and will change as the minds of people evolve and change.
The speed of change spikes complexity. CENTRALIZED entities lack the numbers of intellectual talent (people) to compete with DECENTRALIZED intellectual talent (people) when making decisions. In hyper-culture CENTRALIZED decision making breaks down and fails, whereas, DECENTRALIZED decision making brings order out of chaos. The fundamental difference lies in the great numbers of people participating and sharing their ideas and beliefs. From this pool of ideas, the best ideas take flight and are adopted by the majority of participants.
The OCCUPY Movement is deeply decentralized and EVERY PARTICIPANT IS A LEADER. This process is highly useful when attempting to change or TRANSCEND the status quo. If one leader is isolated or eliminated by the status quo it has little effect because each person is a leader and each person has adopted the vision, so the Movement continues.
Another advantage of a decentralized movement is that it is strongly resistant to co-option. This is important. Political organizations or infiltrators have little effect on the movement once the vision is widely understood and shared by the participants. The adoption of a firm understanding and belief in the DECENTRALIZED PROCESS is first necessary to obtain the resistant nature required for successful transcendence of the current corrupt system.
A vision developed by the majority of people will survive traditional attempts to derail it. The participation of ORGANIZATIONS should be avoided, BUT individual participation encouraged.
Goals are a centralized decision making process. Visions are more complex and result from decentralized decision making. Many people feel that the current governmental and economic systems are so corrupt as to be unchangeable. Decentralized change can TRANSCEND the current system and establish a new system, and new pathways to better lifeways. One good example of this is the concept of sustainable living. Decentralized decisions will develop a new MYTHOS, a way of confronting the world as it is and developing NEW lifeways from it.
No one yet knows the shape of the future. What is sure IS the pathway to that future. It is in the process being envisioned by widely decentralized cooperating participating Citizens. As visions are developed and implemented, the old will be transcended as the visions take hold. WE ARE ON THE PATHWAY OF INVENTING THE FUTURE, A FUTURE THAT WILL UNVEIL ITSELF AS WE PROCEED. “ TRUST THE PROCESS.”
Finally, this is not a POLITICAL movement to be used by the media or political parties to divide us. This revolution derives from a deeper place in our minds, hearts, and spirits. Everyone is welcome to participate in this Movement and the greater the participation, the more meaningful and balanced will be the results. Seek to act with non-violence and unity as the system is transcended
______________________________
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller
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