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“world revolution of 1789,” followed by the “world revolution of 1848,”

break out almost simultaneously in fifty countries

In no case did the revolutionaries succeed in taking power, but afterward, institutions inspired by the French Revolution—notably, universal systems of primary education—were put in place pretty much everywhere.

The last in the series was the world revolution of 1968—which, much like 1848, broke out almost everywhere, from China to Mexico, seized power nowhere, but nonetheless changed everything.

a revolution against state bureaucracies

birth of modern feminism

Revolutions are thus planetary phenomena.

transform basic assumptions about what politics is ultimately about.

ideas that had been considered veritably lunatic fringe quickly become the accepted currency of debate

Until 1968, most world revolutions really just introduced practical refinements:

in most cases, the rebels didn’t even try to take over the apparatus of state; they saw that apparatus as itself the problem.

It’s fashionable nowadays to view the social movements of the late sixties as an embarrassing failure.

The ironies are endless. While the new free market ideology has framed itself above all as a rejection of bureaucracy, it has, in fact, been responsible for the first administrative system that has operated on a planetary scale, with its endless layering of public and private bureaucracies: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, trade organizations, financial institutions, transnational corporations, NGOs.

the Global Justice Movement that peaked between 1998 and 2003, was effectively a rebellion against the rule of that very planetary bureaucracy.

I’ll take an obvious example. One often hears that antiwar protests in the late sixties and early seventies were ultimately failures

But afterward

they refused to commit U.S. forces to any major ground conflict for almost thirty years.

Clearly, an antiwar movement in the sixties that is still tying the hands of U.S. military planners in 2012 can hardly be considered a failure.

What happens when the creation of that sense of failure, of the complete ineffectiveness of political action against the system, becomes the chief objective of those in power?

When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint?

The theorist Michael Albert has worked out a detailed plan for how a modern economy could run without money on a democratic, participatory basis.

Myself, I am less interested in deciding what sort of economic system we should have in a free society than in creating the means by which people can make such decisions for themselves.

in solidarity with labor struggles

public education taking place at the occupation

display of direct democracy practiced in the camp.

we speak a new language, one we have to translate it for them

not enough grassroots organizers fromNew York

was pushed away by some of the cultural norms being adopted

lack of demands

over-emphasis on process

I didn’t see how this would aid in the overarching aim of building a movement, beyond a single uprising

But I was wrong about some of those assumptions

things have steadily improved

the occupation has lasted more than two weeks and it’s growing every day

slept out

marched

pizzas ordered for us

thousands of dollars sent our way

livestream

emailing

calling

tweeting

occupations being planned in something like 70 cities in theUSalone

Next, we have taken steps to define ourselves, to write documents to that affect, and to move toward a collective consciousness that is bold and uncompromising.

we have been able to continue to grow and bring new communities in despite a lack of demands

our demands really aren’t as mysterious as some people are letting on

our critics are playing dumb.

have an implicitly unifying message: We hold the banks, the millionaires, and the political elite they control, responsible for the exploitation and oppression we face

we have planted ourselves in the financial capital of the world because we see it as one of the most deeply entrenched roots of the various systems of oppression we face every day.  Come on. The clue is in the title: Occupy Wall Street.

Every day, the occupiers see themselves more and more connected to a movement – a movement around the country and the world, but also a movement through time, stretching from the giants who came before us to the future giants we will be. Every day more people from different communities join,

This deepening of consciousness and realization of the connection between the different struggles we wage will be among the most important things to come out of this.

new forms of democratic participation

self-management

a new narrative – one that refuses to accept the myth that Americans don’t struggle, that we can be bought off with TVs and iphones, that things really aren’t so bad and we’re willing to let injustice happen because we get a bigger piece of the bounty our military and capitalists extract from others.

the story will be an important force

Occupations are an incredibly important mode of resistance, an expression of a dual power strategy.

they give us the space and time with which to create an alternative, to practice, to learn, to create new relations, to become better revolutionaries, and to experience community

they serve as a base camp from which to wage a struggle against the institutions that oppress us

Both are important. And yes, we face challenges in each realm.

We have to make sure that the de-centralization we are fostering actually empowers those who aren’t already conditioned by this society to speak a lot and lead and give directions. We have to find and create a new and diverse ways for people to participate

work to formulate a message together

continue to educate ourselves and each other

And perhaps even more important than learning about the ways we are kept down, is learning and exploring the world we might want instead, one without capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism – an economic, political, and social model that is solidaristic, equitable, self-managing, ecologically sustainable, liberating, intimate, warm, and creative.

developing the values

imagine the institutions we will need

We have to draw clear lines from the oppression heaped on this society to the agents responsible for it.

LibertyPlazais not the struggle; it is the home for the creation of the alternative, and the staging ground for the fight that takes us out into the streets, to make business as usual truly untenable.