As far as the Occupy Movement

As far as the Occupy Movement is concerned, well, here in Spain  we have the Democracy Now movement – or 15M  (15th of May 2011) Movement which preceded the OM and sparked similar protests in other parts of Europe.  I attended several of the encampment  meetings  and also went on two or three of the marches last year in my local city of Granada.  I posted some observations on the WSM forum at the time.I was quite frankly amazed by the sheer size of the turnout and the heterogeneity of the participants – not just your usual student activists. There might well have been one or two veterans from the Spanish Civil war there as well .  All this in a relatively small and conservative city such as GranadaThe protests were particularly directed against the banking fraternity and corrupt politicians and, of course, here in Spain,  which has been particularly badly affected by the crisis – unemployment is around 21% and higher in Andalucia where I live – almost every day we see on the news cases of protests against banks repossessing homes.  My partner, Ana, who is Spanish and a native of Granada, told me that apparently up until quite recently even if your home was repossessed you were still liable to make mortgage repayments which is absolutely outrageous when you think about it.  So if you default on a small mortgage these bastards not only took possession of an asset that could be worth several times the mortgage but continued to milk the unfortunate ex owner. Its only recently that the law has been changed and you now have the option of  “volunteering” to hand over your property to these rip off merchants and thus washing your hands of the debt. . You can kinda understand the anger people feel. Anyway I digress.  The thing is about the 15M movement  which incidentally made its presence felt throughout Spain  and of course particularly in Barcelona and Madrid  (and even in  little pueblos like Orgiva in the Alpujarras where I used to live) is that  the immediate impression one got was one of raw anger being expressed against the system.  There wasn’t much in the way of a clearly formulated list of demands to begin with – that came later.  There was also a clear determination of keep the movement out of the hands of political parties of all stripes and there was a scrupulous and very open commitment to democratic procedures which I witnessed myself at the big encampment meetings in the town hall square.  That, on its own, made the whole thing a quite positive experience.  But there was one other thing which I reported on the WSM forum which was perhaps quite significant.  At one of these meetings – and we are talking about many hundreds, if not thousands, of people participating – there was an extended discussion about the concept of a society without money .  Yes,thats right – you read it right in the first place!  A  society without money.  Bit different from the money crank schemes being discussed at Occupy London, eh?  I did not unfortunately attend this particular meeting –  I think I was still working at the time – but  Ana went and told me about it, afterwards.  To say I was gobsmacked  would be an understatement. Indeed the following day we met a young woman handing out  leaflets in the streets with whom we had a long and fruitful discussion about the previous day’s proceedings. Understandably, this has coloured my perception of the movement and it  has certainly convinced me that  the potential exists in movements like Democracy Now or Occupy to move in a revolutionary direction.  Inevitably though the list of reformist demands came to the fore.  The government must do this , the government must do that etc etc. Which is all very well but when the government does not do this or that  but ,on the contrary , with the crisis deepening, cuts back on spending even more as a way of getting out of the crisis, what then?This is what is so damnably frustrating about it all.  I personally don’t think just being there and saying that “reformism is not the answer” and that “only the revolutionary transformation of society will do”,  is enough.  This is the kind of glass ceiling approach  of the Party.  Its right  in one way but is wrong in another.  People may be come to accept  the abstract or theoretical argument but remain unconvinced and utterly  incredulous.  Its all very well in the long run but what  solution does it offer to our immediate problems in the here and now?Frankly,  I’m becoming more and more convinced that the way out of this particular  impasse lies in certain forms of direct action that get round the problem of reformism  and its ultimately futile cap-in-hand approach to governments.  I am not suggesting that this is something the SPGB should get involved in in a practical sense  – this is something for only individual socialists to get involved in, not socialist parties – but as with other things, its a question of political stance or attitude.  I vaguely recall an old issue of the Socialist Standard  (from the bad old says of 70s?) severely attacking forms of direct action such as the squatters movement in the most trenchant terms. In retrospect, such attitudes have no place in a revolutionary socialist  party. None at all.  I hope and trust things are different today The attitude of a revolutionary socialist party towards something like the squatters movement should be precisely the same as its attitude towards trades unions – they are a good thing and they are necessary. Here in Spain there are nearly 4 millions empty homes .  It is an absolutely disgusting state of affairs that this should be the case while thousands of families are being booted out of their own homes by the banks.  Instead of asking or pleading with governments to enact measures to regulate the activities of the banker barons we should go straight for the jugular.  Take possession of the homes they have repossessed. Make the costs of protecting these financial criminals too excessive for the state to bear and radically change the climate of opinion in which they are allowed to carry out their criminal acts with relative impunity A squatters movement won’t bring about a revolutionary change of society  – of course – but it does address something which a revolutionary socialist  party is unable by its very nature to address – which is what to do in the “here and now”.  And it does do  it . moreover on terms that do not draw it into the quicksand of reformism., I really think the time for a reassessment ands reappraisal of the tactics of direct actions is long overdue within WSM circles….