Adbusters Trashes Occupy Activists Who Don’t Buy Their Line!
April 13th, 2012 - by: Danny
Guardian Eyewitness Photo LISTEN: Today, Friday 1 2-PM: News Dissector Radio Show with Rabbi Michael Lerner. (PRN.FM) NYTexaminer.com: Commenting on NY Times coverage of Trayvon and the housing foreclosure crisis. Late News from Washington Post: South Korea says North Korea has fired long-range rocket South Korea’s Defense Ministry says North Korea has fired a long-range rocket, according to the Associated Press. Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters in a nationally televised news conference that the rocket was fired at 7:39 a.m. There was no word from Pyongyang about the launch. This is the headline on AlJazeera: North Korea Admits Failed Rocket Launch But unity is hard to build, and that’s why progressive social movements tend to fragment, split into sects and otherwise focus more on internal enemies that external forces. It’s happened many times in the past and is driven by a kind of correct=lineism, inner-directed parochialism, and self-righteousness. Often the forces that try to impose their will are the more ideological ones who want everyone to embrace their views, often the sectarians of different stripes. But, something different is happening in the occupy movement. Some of the anarchist activists, wary of co-optation, and convinced that their approach is the only approach, are firing the first guns at activists from other traditions using a ‘my way or the highway’ rhetoric. Read this: The latest statement from ADBUSTERS, from CANADA!, the folks who issued a call to occupy but were hardly the only ones involved in challenging Wall Street power. They have decided that they now have no room for allies with other styles, and who don’t march to their drumbeat of horizontalism, (as if it is a holy canon) and denounce older activists who have been around longer than they are. This is a kind of old sectarianism with a new look. Alright you jammers, occupiers and Springtime dreamers, First they silenced our uprising with a media blackout… then they smashed our encampments with midnight paramilitary raids… and now they’re threatening to neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation. NOTE the enemy is the big THEY—the press, The cops, and now people who they seem to fear may be more effective than then! This is conspiracy thinking suggesting coordination among the faceless THEM—as if its all coordinated. There’s no mention of how the press ended its black out and how the cops were unsuccessful in ending Occupy. This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. Will the same happen with Occupy Wall Street? Will our insurgency turn into the Democrats’ Tea Party pet? (What is the evidence that the DEMOCRATS or its funding base is behind this “counter-strategy?” Is Ben Cohen now on the same level as the Koch Brothers–as a bad guy, someone to detest?) It’s up to you to decide if our movement goes the way of Paris ’68, the dust bin of could-have-been-insurrections, or something more daring, more inspiring, something not yet dreamed. (Again, setting up a “straw man”–Paris ’68—an uprising with many political tendencies and treating it as if its one thing and without mention how the para military police in Paris suppressed the movement. It wasn’t co-opted, it was crushed. Maybe there just wasn’t the revolutionary movement some activists hoped for. Some workers supported it, others didn’t. Just like here. By the way, I was there and this is a smear of the tens of thousands who fought in streets of Paris!) Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes on our Spring Offensive and turn our struggle into a “99% Spring” reelection campaign for President Obama? (Is this really what is happening or just paranoia?.MoveOn and Van Jones have denied they are trying to control the movement, and couldn’t if they wanted to. The Nation is just one magazine of many and Ben & Jerry are individuals, former business partners who want to help by raising money. Why is all this so threatening? Why this fearful and purist response? Can’t we respect people who are not like us? We are now in a battle for the soul of Occupy… a fight to the finish between the impotent old left and the new vibrant, horizontal left who launched Occupy Wall Street from the bottom-up and who dreams of real democracy and another world. (I like the rhetorical flourish. A “fight to the finish” But with whom? The.001% that run the country or two men who who sold ice cream cones. Come on. This is insane and can actually end up provoking violence by SPLITTING OCCUPY and starting a blame game to identify the enemy as within, not without. If I was the police, it is this type of internal conflict that I would want to fuel. Has Adbusters even considered this?) Whatever you do, don’t allow our revolutionary struggle to fizzle out into another lefty whine and clicktivist campaign like has happened so many times in the past. Let’s Occupy the clicktivists and crash the MoveOn party. Let’s #DEFENDOCCUPY and stop the derailment of our movement that looms ahead. (To me, as someone who supports Occupy, and who has covered it for international TV, AlJazeera.com and other outlets, this passive/aggressive rhetoric is a form of incitement and can only hurt this movement. Believe it or not, experience counts for something. Believe it or not, if Occupy is to succeed, it has to reach and appeal to to people of all backgrounds, beyond a hard-core base that seems to prize process over progress. And just for the record, I maybe one of those “old Activists” who does do some whining from time to time, and, yes, I have supported movements that lost many battles but I also have been part of movements that made a difference: the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and anti-apartheid movement, and I am disgusted by the arrogance and putdown posture of this polemic. I expressed some of the views in this blog when I spoke Thursday night at the Anarchist Film Festival that screened my film Plunder the Crime of Time. For my views on Occupy, see my book: Occupy:Dissecting Occupy Wall Street out soon from Cosimo Books.) Ventilating is not the same as making change.! Other stories of interest WP: On John Edwards–’Melinda Henneberger- Court of public opinion has its mind made up’ Slate: The Umbrage Wars Economy Fluent: ‘Goldman fined $22M over ‘huddles’’ Fluent: ‘IMF chief calls for U.S. mortgage relief’ Fluent: ‘Hints of lawbreaking at MF Global’ Media EJC: AP unveils new online video news service Associated Press on Thursday unveiled a new online platform delivering archive footage and broadcast quality video news to digital publishers. The AP Video Hub has been designed to give online publishers access to breaking news content selected and promoted alongside relevant footage from AP’s archive. AP said that the inclusion of archive footage will help build out stories, increasing page views and “website stickiness”. The platform carries a linear steam of video news as well as content organized by topics that will become more prominent on the service’s homepage according to the popularity of the story. The Video Hub is currently being trialed by eight online news sites in the UK, Germany and the US. AP is considering several payment models – including a system of AP credits – but has confirmed that access to the service will be by subscription only. (Press Gazette) Fluent: ‘Murdoch UK Hacking Scandal Comes to America’ •EARLIER STORY: North Korean Missile Fails On Launch Pad. Here’s a compelling and related photo from the Guardian’s brilliant new photoapp ICH Global Perspectives Russia Expecting Attack on Iran by Summer The Russian military anticipates that an attack will occur on Iran by the summer and has developed an action plan to move Russian troops through neighboring Georgia to stage in Armenia, which borders on the Islamic republic, according to informed Russian sources. Gary Leupp, The Irrationality of the Case against Iran’s Nuclear Program What is the logic of offering Iran a “last chance” to stop doing what it is legally entitled to do? Blackhistory.com: Teacher Fired for Teaching About Trayvon Case The Onion on Zimmerman’s Second Degree Murder Charges in Floriduh Now Up On Vimeo: NY Film Academy Student Short Film on Your News Dissector Your comments welcome: Write dissector@mediachannel.org
Occupy Schism Coming?
One of the strengths of the Occupy Movement has been its ability to bring diverse people of different political views together including socialists, anarchists, libertarians, independents and progressive democrats. Supporters of Ron Paul mingled with backers and critics of Obama.
F. Michael Maloof: Russia Planning Troops Deployment On Iran’s Northern Border
“The Stupidest Idea I Ever Heard”
Back “Home”
Also visit, http://mediachannel1.org
- About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
read more about The News Dissector →
- The Radio Show
 | New show every Thursday at 5PM ET from NYC at The Progressive Radio Network. |
Click here for the latest podcast.