[act-ma] Sept 17 - #OCCUPYWALLSTREET: A Shift in Revolutionary Tactics

[pf soto]

*Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,*
**

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that 
bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of 
Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:

    "The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back
    then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There
    was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed
    behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of
    people."

    --- Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University
    Barcelona, Spain

The beauty of this new formula, and what makes this novel tactic 
exciting, is its pragmatic simplicity: we talk to each other in various 
physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies ... we zero in on 
what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, 
if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future 
... and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic 
significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen.

The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest 
corrupter of our democracy: *Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of 
America*.

On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower 
Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall 
Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one 
simple demand in a plurality of voices.

Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a 
straightforward ultimatum -- that Mubarak must go -- over and over again 
until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated 
demand?

The most exciting candidate that we've heard so far is one that gets at 
the core of why the American political establishment is currently 
unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain 
a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has 
over our representatives in Washington. It's time for *DEMOCRACY NOT 
CORPORATOCRACY*. We're doomed without it.

This demand seems to capture the current national mood because cleaning 
up corruption in Washington is something all Americans, right and left, 
yearn for and can stand behind. If we hang in there, 20,000-strong, week 
after week against every police and National Guard effort to expel us 
from Wall Street, it would be impossible for Obama to ignore us. Our 
government would be forced to choose publicly between the will of the 
people and the lucre of the corporations.

This could be the beginning of a whole new social dynamic in America, a 
step beyond the Tea Party movement, where, instead of being caught 
helpless by the current power structure, we the people start getting 
what we want whether it be the dismantling of half the 1,000 military 
bases America has around the world to the reinstatement of the 
Glass-Steagall Act or a three strikes and you're out law for corporate 
criminals. Beginning from one simple demand -- a presidential commission 
to separate money from politics -- we start setting the agenda for a new 
America.

Go to adbusters.org <http://www.adbusters.org> and tell us what you 
think. Post a comment and help each other zero in on what our one demand 
will be.

And then let's screw up our courage, pack our tents and head to Wall 
Street with a vengeance September 17.

*for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Adbusters/ #97: The Politics of Post Anarchism -- How To Live Without 
Dead Time (with a 12"x 18" #OCCUPYWALLSTREET poster inside), hits 
newsstands worldwide in ten days. Go to adbusters.org 
<http://www.adbusters.org/support_subscribe> and subscribe!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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