{"id":72515,"date":"2011-11-26T02:15:08","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T07:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/72515\/tactics-strategy-play-lose\/"},"modified":"2011-11-26T02:15:08","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T07:15:08","slug":"tactics-strategy-play-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/72515\/tactics-strategy-play-lose\/","title":{"rendered":"TACTICS versus STRATEGY: We Can’t Play Not to Lose"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is so much I admire about the Occupy movement. Without it\u2019s amorphousness, without it\u2019s puritanical simplicity when it comes to specific goals and being leaderless, it may not have had the endurance it has had\u2026 Mind you, it\u2019s endurance has encompassed 10 weeks, but it\u2019s impact as a demonstrative movement has surpassed the Tea Partiers and is something like we have not seen in this country in 40 some years.<\/p>\n

I can imagine that there are several dozen talented, socially conscious and influential members of the OWS movement who are pondering the following question: What to do next?<\/p>\n

\"\"See, 84 year old women getting pepper sprayed in Seattle is shocking, Iraq vets suffering brain damage from the Oakland police is shocking, having the rights of assembly curtailed in score of sites throughout this country\u2026 all of these cause outrage and actually increase support and sympathy for the cause of the Occupy movement.<\/p>\n

At the same time, if these tragedies are pointless and create no change, then they are truly tragic.<\/p>\n

The story of Mohammed Bouazizi is perhaps the most important single story of 2011.\u00a0 He was the Tunisian fruit merchant who, in protest of the government corruption which he was powerless to prevent while alive, proved unparalleled in his influenced in his death.\u00a0 He lit himself on fire, dying to spark the Arab Spring, a populist demand for change for is ongoing in another of the region of the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"It might be hard for some Americans, we, the cradle of democracy, to recognize that the OWS movement is itself and outcrop of the Arab Spring.\u00a0 We\u2019re the inspiration for freedom throughout the world, not the ones being inspired.\u00a0 I think who influenced who is a matter for history to decide, but the important thing is that we are getting our Mohammed Bouzizi\u2019s in this country everyday now from Davis, Oakland and Seattle.\u00a0 What do we do with them?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying anyone commit self-immolation for this movement. That said, there was a lot of power in\u00a0 Tunisia in the idea that Mohammed\u2019s death would NOT to come to naught. Now is the time for us to capture that spirit it the OWS movement.\u00a0 Every pepper spraying, every tent ripped down, every cannister of tear gas is a little bit of Mohammed Bouzizi for America.\u00a0 It\u2019s a reflection and intimation of the Kent State shootings in 1970.<\/p>\n

Unlike the anit-war movement in the USA 40 years ago or the Arab uprisings which are ongoing, the American Occupy movements are an expression of the same tactics but without an overall strategy.\u00a0 The very amorphous aspect of the movement that has been a key to it\u2019s tenacity, now, as actual political oppression exhibits itself as a reaction, becomes a risk factor to make the suffering futile and pointless.\u00a0 Sure, the establishment reaction to tear down the visible aspects of the OWS movement HAS resulted in increased support, but that support means nothing if something isn\u2019t done with it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Grandma Dorli Rainey of Occupy Seattle and Iraq Vet Sergeant Scott Olsen of Oakland will be footnotes in one of thousands of\u00a0 failed peasant revolt unless\u00a0 the Occupy movement actually gets something done.<\/p>\n

To do that, there needs to be more than tactics.\u00a0 See, this movement has been great at tactics.\u00a0 Leaderlessness. The People\u2019s Microphone.\u00a0 Simply the act of occupying without time limits. Uniting people via new media like Facebook and Twitter. Yeah. We\/they got that tactics stuff down. It\u2018s been key to a survival.<\/p>\n

I believe that it is now time to push for specific and actual change.\u00a0 Create goals.\u00a0 Find leaders to push those goals.\u00a0 We are a nation of laws.\u00a0 There are means by which popular movements create change and that is through the process of influencing our governance.\u00a0 The protests inspired and lead by MLK created the Civil Rights laws of the mid-sixties. The anti-war protests of the late 60\u2019s spurred our withdrawal from Vietnam.\u00a0 Even the anti-Apartheid divestment protests of mid-80\u2019s had a significant role in that country\u2019s entrance in modern world a few years later.<\/p>\n

Point being, each of these movements spurred something specific.\u00a0 It is time for the Occupy Movements to demand specific legislation to change the playing field of out sociopolitical environment.<\/p>\n

If it were up to me, I\u2019d have every march, sit in and demonstration have one simple goal: legislate Americans United<\/strong>. Amend the Constitution to keep corporate money out of elections!
\n<\/strong><\/font>
\nThat\u2019s it. That the goal.\u00a0 That\u2019s the best way to keep the 1% from dominating the 99%.<\/p>\n

See, without defining a goal which would indicate success, the OWS movement can neither succeed nor can it fail.\u00a0 I dunno if this insulation from failure was part of their tactics to begin with, but not having a strategy also means you cannot win.<\/p>\n

When I was in high school, in gym class, they taught us wrestling.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like losing.\u00a0 I found that it was very easy in wrestling to wrestle \u201cnot to lose\u201d.\u00a0 A stalemate was possible every time.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of like government today.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it also seems to be like the tactics of the most important popular uprising of my generation.<\/p>\n

There is too much at stake to play not-to-lose.\u00a0 We have to tick our necks out and try and win.<\/p>\n

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There is so much I admire about the Occupy movement. Without it\u2019s amorphousness, without it\u2019s puritanical simplicity when it comes to specific goals and being leaderless, it may not have had the endurance it has had\u2026 Mind you, it\u2019s endurance has encompassed 10 weeks, but it\u2019s impact as a demonstrative movement has surpassed the Tea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1428,25],"tags":[4567,81,4565,4564,4563,4566,1538],"class_list":["post-72515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-politics-2","category-world","tag-dorli-rainey","tag-joko","tag-mohammed-bouazizi","tag-oakland","tag-ows","tag-scott-olsen","tag-seattle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}