ALB wrote:It’s not easy from

March 28, 2012 at 8:30 am #86555

Participant

ALB wrote:

It’s not easy from over here to work out exactly what’s been happening in Oakland. Here’s a rather different analysis, from some “ultraleftists” on the spot (taken from one of their discussion forums I’m on). Don’t know if there’s any truth in their allegation that the movement there has been hijacked by a bunch of varied vanguardists (and of course any contacts with the organised trade-union movement would be anathema to ultraleftists even if not such a problem for us and a delight to vanguardists):http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/30/18706115.php

“Regardless of the million problems that existed in Occupy Oakland (whether from the abuse of modified consensus, or the lack of willingness to discuss what it means to reclaim public space and move toward disrespecting private property, or the naïveté of most of the regular folks), the active participation of those regular folks was the only thing keeping OO from devolving into yet another absurd Leftist spectacle of half-assed dissent and truncated opposition.”I agree with the authors: this is what is most exciting about the Occupy movement, even in its smallest and most isolated incarnations. If the authors are right that the “regular folks” have abandoned OO, then that would be about the worst thing that’s happened to the movement (in America) so far. That’s not at all what seems to me to be happening more generally, but, as you say, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re not actually there.