It's breaking on CNN right now that police have surrounded Occupy Oakland and are probably preparing to evict people from it. Depending on where you wander when you're on cyberspace, I've seen reports claiming that Occupy Oakland has a rat problem, is massively unhygenic, has security problems and I've also seen plenty of reports denouncing those reports as right wing bunk. Truth, as always remains elusive in these matters and I tend to swing back between 'if they don't have a permit, arrest 'em' and 'talking is better than tear gas'- who knows what the right answer is?
While Oakland prepares for (possible) eviction, Occupy Iowa City has produced a statement of principles (full declaration here, courtesy of the Daily Iowan.) While I'm glad that they've talked and decided to produce an agenda of some kind, I think it misses some opportunities that could really build long term momentum for their movement.
First of all: all politics is local. If you want people to give a shit, you've got to speak to issues that affect them. This document does not do that except in the usual abstract ways. All the debate around the 21 only ordinance got annoying after awhile because people assumed that city and state officials could just wave a magic wand and change the drinking age. Inordinate amounts of people were bitching to the wrong people about the issue- all the ordinance wanted to do was enforce the existing law. If people want to change the drinking age (something I would support) they gotta talk to different people. (State officials probably could change the law, but the Feds back in the day threatened to pull highwway funding to states that didn't toe the line- and that blackmail worked. But government is the solution, not the problem, right kids?)
Second of all: the Tea Party gets this, so far Occupy does not- occupation needs to be followed up by organization. You're the 99%- awesome. That means there's more of you than them. Take over the Democratic Party and push the issues that matter. (Of course, that'll involve grunt work, hard work, victories, defeats, showing up to meetings, passing out flyers- all the unsexy, sweaty work of 'revolution' that's a lot less glamorous than a drum circle.) Granted, the Tea Party's takeover of the Republican Party has made for some uncomfortable gridlock and probably contributed to our credit downgrade, but give them credit: they were pissed because the government is pissing away money and once they got people in Congress they affected the debate. (You may not agree with how they affected the debate, but we can all agree that they did so...)
Third of all, the Declaration itself: points 1 and 2 are OK by me. No problems there...
Point 3: is interesting, because if you read the UN Declaration of Human Rights there's an interesting split between 'eastern' and 'western' conceptions of human rights, with the west focusing more on political rights and the east on economic rights. In principle, I can agree with this.
Point 4: if unions fall under the umberella of 'community' then I'm down with point 4 as well.
Point 5: Tell me more... what does 'the ecological implications of their actions' mean. Do we all have to drive Priuses?
Point 6: health care, food and clean water... all good things I can get behind. We might disagree on how to get their for health care, but I'm hip to the idea.
Point 7: Argh... pacifism? Really? I'm not a warmonger by any stretch of the imagination, but no wars at all? What if another Hitler type shows up? What then? (Just War Theory- read and discuss)
Point 8: Ummmmm... while I'm all for international cooperation and against colonization and imperialism, this is a bit vague.
Point 9: Nope. I say no to socialism, communism, capitalism and corporatism.
Point 10: Oooooh... I like this. 'Affordable' public eduction- not 'free' but 'affordable.' Kudos... two thumbs up and I can get behind this as well.
On balance... I'm solidly down with 6 of these points, solidly against 2 of them and could use a little more info on two more. Not too bad, Occupy Iowa City. (Whether you'll get to keep building willy-nilly all over College Green Park remains to be seen...)
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