What Occupy needs is organization and a counterinsurgency strategy, according to one reader.
Occupy Should Organize
THE ARTICLE “Is Occupied Finished?” (Currents, Dec. 14) inspired me to write.
The author interviewed Kalle Lasn, who said the movement would fracture into myriad projects. Local spokesperson Andy Moscowitz essentially said that awareness and messaging of the movement was now “diffuse.” My answer to both is that I hope not and that you are both wrong.
I offer the following basic framework to assist in preventing this diffusion:
1. Now is the time to formalize and organize the movement and give it more structure. Stay with me a moment while I articulate the framework.
2. Formalize your support base; organize your alliances with organizations that you find common cause. Articulate the big picture agenda and define the agenda of what you want accomplished politically. This means “organizing” your message, purpose and actions with other Occupy groups. You still retain the diffuseness you need; you still retain the localness of the movement. This localness is essential to change politics and policy. But you can’t do it on your own because you don’t have the resources, political or social capital. Example: Let’s say your local agenda for “Occupy” is to change the foreclosure process with the banks. Team with organizations that support this as well as homeless organizations.
3. Grow the use of your intellectual capital. Find the professors and legal experts to “counsel” and guide.
4. Don’t bite my head off yet, but you need a counter-intelligence staff. For every pundit on Wall Street or city council that publicly slams you, you must have an immediate message as well; better yet, get your intellectual capital to “war-game” these scenarios. Your friend is heavy offensive messaging—in essence, guerrilla marketing.
Lastly, a little about me: I am a former counterinsurgency advisor and did this stuff for real in Afghanistan and other places. I have lots of experience with this. I am good at what I do. But it’s time for change in our own country and the Occupy movement stands the best chance of success.
The beauty of the movement was the ability to bring people together so quickly. Now, regrettably, you must do what you abhor. You must become an organization with formal strategy and structure. You caninfluence this election year but you must become a people’s movement with organization.
My reading list for anyone that’s serious: Field Manual 3-24. (You can download this for free, just Google “FM 3-24” use Google Scholar to get the pdf quickly.) Read the Selected Works of Mao.
Name withheld by request,
Marina
A Sorry Scene
YESTERDAY as I headed up Berkeley Way toward Branciforte to get to Hwy 1, I saw an incident that left me brokenhearted.
It was Tuesday, the day garbage is collected on Berkeley Way. Bent over in front of one of the cans was a frail white–haired man digging through the garbage. As I passed by him, he put what he found into his mouth and was chewing it.
My question to you, reader, is what should I have done instead of crying?
I’m still in tears as I type this.
Lucia Musso
Santa Cruz
