[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Occupy LSX: What can be undone & how we may do it

[Justin Baidoo-Hackman]

Hi all,

I am a voluntary community organiser and software developer, I run a blog
called the Multicultural Politic. You could label my politics as Libertarian
Socialism. I will be at another meeting this evening so I am writing my
points to you all to raise points about how the UK Occupy movements could
organise itself.

I believe that the global Occupy movements from the Icelandic and Arab
Revolts to the Spanish Indignados to now Occupy Wall Street, are a necessary
and timely series of events.

I think the common thread throughout all these uprisings from below is the
willingness of the people to resist in a largely non-violent way in order to
bring about fundamental changes to their societies. I will now propose three
things about how this collective could progress.

I will state briefly these proposals for dissemination at a meeting, below
that will be an expounding of them.

1. Build open, non-hierarchial democratic structures ala Climate Camp. Too
much secrecy will kill support.

2. Resist sectarianism. Seek to gain support from beyond the usual suspects
including the mainstream right-wing public. Involvement of the 3+ million
strong Labour movement is essential.

3. Have concrete, realistic but imaginative demands. These are points of
unity and organisation. "End Capitalism" is laudable but not concrete and is
ambiguous about the agency that will achieve it. Do not legitimise the
existing dictatorial power structures. A few examples of concrete demands
are: "Stop all austerity measures like Welfare Reform" and "Enable real
workplace democracy in RBS and other state owned/controlled banks and
industries".

Ok so here are my proposals in more detail.

So what I propose first of all is that we are open, non-hierarchial and
democratic, build structures of responsibility and accountability.

Secrecy is a tactic that we should use sparingly and not as a cultural norm.
We should assume that we are already under surveillance, what Mark (Stone)
Kennedy showed that the infiltrators no longer always break movements now it
is movements that break infiltrators with their honesty and commitment. The
experience of climate camp is crucial, we can have democratic and
non-hierarchial structures that are effective. We must however agree as
organisers to stick and seek these principles and methods.

My second proposal is that we must move beyond ideological sectarian ghettos
and be actively seek to engage with ordinary people who hold right-wing
views.

We need to view this UK movement in the context of millions not hundreds or
thousands. If Occupy LSX will resonate with millions then we need to be
broad and open but not unprincipled and not without any ideological binding
principles.

The best and most concrete successes so far have been in Tunisia and Egypt,
where change has been precluded by a militant trade union movement that has
taken political and as well as industrial motivated strikes.

I am an active trade unionist, I will seek to get my union branch, region
and the Young Members committees that I am part of, to participate in this
movement. However there needs to be structures that will accommodate them.

This video has gone viral (100,000+ views) on the interwebs about a Wall
Street Protester: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQow0Fhua1A&feature=share.
It is essentially an anti-big state, anti-bailout argument, it resonates
because a lot of the analysis is accurate but his solution (Vote Ron Paul)
is abhorrent.

However this guy judging by YouTube comments has probably brought a lot of
right-wing libertarian grassroots support for Occupy Wall Street. Does that
matter?

I believe it does and is a positive step. I think if we rely on the
factional largely Trotskyist dominated radical left then the Occupations are
screwed, the direct action faction typified by Solidarity Fed and UKUncut
(which is to the right) is too small also. The unions represent the
organised workforce and the dominating ideas of ordinary people. Their
leaders tend to be right-wing Labour Party supporters, their members are not
radical left-wingers, if we do not speak to them in a way they can
understand and accept, then LSX has won. I don't believe we should propose a
new economic system or some ready made solution.

The third thing I propose is what our principles/demands could be: they
should be concrete and recognise that real power lies with the masses not
parliament nor the banks. Our demands should not repeat stagnant Leftist
rhetoric and it should demand nothing less than a fundamental break with the
existing economic system that has brought us to this point. We need to be
clear that this current system is the enemy though we can select individuals
that are leading proponents. In fact we should somewhat but not totally
personalise it to help communicate the problem with this system.

A key demand is for an end of austerity and attacks on living standards. No
more homelessness, etc. I guess some would call these "Transistional
demands", I don't care about the labels but some if not all our demands
should be "feasible" which means within the power of existing structures but
they should lead towards their abolishment and replacement of these existing
dictatorial/hierarchial power structures with new non-hierarchial/democratic
ones.

In relation to the 15th October I will publish more of my thoughts on this
website: http://www.tmponline.org

-- 
Justin Baidoo

Editor of TMP: http://www.tmponline.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/justinthelibsoc
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