Occupy, the 99% Spring, and the New Age of Direct Action

[Dave Anderson]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/24-9

Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 by YES! Magazine
Occupy, the 99% Spring, and the New Age of Direct Action
Collaboration or cooptation? Expansion or dilution? Mark Engler on
what to make of the 99% Spring.

by Mark Engler


Over the past several weeks, a broad coalition of progressive
organizations—including National People's Action (NPA), ColorOfChange,
the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), MoveOn.org, the New
Bottom Line, environmental groups like Greenpeace and 350.org, and
major unions such as SEIU and the United Auto Workers—has undertaken a
far-reaching effort to train tens of thousands of people in nonviolent
direct action. They have called the campaign the 99% Spring.

Starting this week, many of these same groups will be rallying their
members and supporters to use newly honed skills to confront the
shareholder meetings of corporations across the United States—charging
executives with abusing workers, the environment, and communities in
pursuit of profits for the 1 percent. They are calling the drive 99%
Power. With prominent actions gearing up this week—starting with major
protests at Wells Fargo meetings in San Francisco—the campaign may
soon be coming to a city near you.

The Genesis of the 99% Spring

Although this month's 99% Spring trainings have taken place in the
shadow of the Occupy movement, the coalition building behind them
actually predated the emergence of Occupy Wall Street. Last summer, a
handful of organizers from groups such as Jobs with Justice, NPA, and
NDWA had discussions in which they lamented the lack of direct action
in recent years. As NPA Executive Director George Goehl explains, "We
felt what was missing in terms of organizing and in terms of the
broader fight was that there wasn't enough energy pointed towards
challenging corporate power: That's not going to government and
saying, 'Reign these guys in,' but actually going toe-to-toe with big
corporations."

The groups envisioned bringing together organizations to work across
single-issue lines, using more confrontational strategies. For the
fall, they planned overlapping weeks of action in eight major
cities—which resulted in arrests from Boston to Los Angeles of
activists demanding accountability for the big banks and protesting
foreclosures. Since the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park
exploded into a nationwide phenomenon at the same time, these protests
were largely covered in the media as part of the Occupy movement.
Participants from the Occupy encampments joined in the demonstrations,
and actions that had been organized by community groups, in turn,
helped to create a sense of national scope and escalating drama for
the movement.

The idea for spring trainings as a follow-up to these efforts
coalesced early in 2012, and a wide range of groups signed on to make
them happen in a remarkably short period of time. During the week of
April 9-15, more than 980 trainings took place, covering communities
throughout the country.

Coalition or Cooptation?

The plan for the 99% Spring was ambitious in several respects. First,
the organizers aspired to train a massive number of people: 100,000
total, roughly half in person and half through an Internet version of
the curriculum. (Final numbers are not in, but more than 40,000 had
signed up for the mid-April events. Online trainings continue.)


Second, the curriculum for the full training covered seven hours of
material. It combined elements that might typically be presented in
three different sessions: By way of introductions, participants
started with a version of the public narrative exercises developed by
Marshall Ganz. Public narrative provides a method for talking about
one's own experiences that motivate participation in collective action
and for identifying a common story of struggle. Next, the trainings
included a teach-in about inequality in the American economy and about
the growing power of the 1 percent. This information was similar to
that commonly provided by groups like United for a Fair Economy.
Finally, the events featured a brief history of nonviolence in the
United States and instruction in some skills that might be used in
direct action—the type of material that is often covered by groups
like Training for Change.

As the 99% Spring trainings neared, they attracted some controversy.
Significant debate arose about whether the drive was an attempt by
established organizations to co-opt the Occupy movement. In
particular, the involvement of MoveOn.org, which some occupiers
consider part of the mainstream political establishment, drew fire
from more radical activists.

The magazine Adbusters warned that the trainings were an attempt to
"neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money
and cooptation," and that the goal of the effort was to "turn our
struggle into a… reelection campaign for President Obama." Occupy
Oakland activist Mike King similarly charged that the true motivation
of the campaign was to neuter the movement and divert it into
electoral efforts. "We should not have our tactics determined by the
Democratic Party," he wrote.

Joshua Kahn Russell, a trainer and action coordinator with the Ruckus
Society and 350.org, responds, "I think it's healthy for grassroots
movements to question involvement of bigger organizations. At the same
time," he says, "we need to see that groups like unions who might
support the Democrats are not our enemies. We need to be building
across some of these differences if we're really going to be talking
about the 99 percent."

"Our main message is, 'We're all in this together,' this is about
working across geography, race, creed to build an economy and
democracy that works for the 99%."
The large number of trainings offered, and the fact that different
local groups were responsible for hosting different events, meant that
the tone of the trainings varied. While one participant reported
seeing Obama buttons for sale at an Upper West Side Manhattan
training, many other events, including one in downtown Philadelphia,
featured vocal criticism of Democrats and open airing of
disappointment with the current administration. For its part, the 99%
Spring curriculum did not include electoral material, and the economic
education video used at trainings showed Bill Clinton repealing
Glass-Steagall regulations on banks—an act depicted in a profoundly
negative light.

Moreover, while the coalition that backed 99% Spring includes
MoveOn.org and major labor unions, which have significant involvement
in electoral politics, it includes many scrappier groups as well, such
as the Ruckus Society, the Rainforest Action Network, the National Day
Laborers Organizing Network, and NPA. "As an organization that's been
taking over bank lobbies and doing direct action for 40 years, some of
the criticism is a little tough to hear," says NPA's Goehl. "We’ve
been as critical of the president as basically any progressive group."


In many locations, Occupy activists were involved in organizing or
were active participants in the trainings. "This is not an Occupy
project," Kahn Russell says of 99% Spring. "At the same time, there's
obviously a lot of crossover because our movements are interdependent.
I personally have done trainings in support of occupations in many
parts of the country since well before the 99% Spring, and I identify
with the Occupy movement tremendously. I think there's a lot of people
who are playing that bridge role."

In an election year, it is highly unusual to see many of the larger,
established progressive organizations investing in training members
for wide-scale direct action instead of in electoral campaigning.
Given this, some have commented that it might be more accurate to see
Occupy as having co-opted MoveOn.org, instead of the other way around.
Particularly striking, as Josh Harkinson at MotherJones noted, is an
e-mail that MoveOn.org Executive Director Justin Ruben sent to his
staff earlier in the month. "It's clear that the sorts of tactics
we've engaged in in the past are no longer enough," Ruben wrote. He
subsequently stated, "We know that whoever wins in November, they are
still going to be listening more to the 1 percent than to the rest of
us because our political system is completely broken. So we don't have
the luxury of not engaging in this kind of action."
(via Adbusters)

Next Up: 99% Power

Apart from its engagement with Occupy, the 99% Spring brought together
a remarkably diverse collection of organizations. Many of these rarely
have occasion to see their work as part of a common cause. As Kahn
Russell notes, "The thing that's most exciting to me is that 99%
Spring is putting union members together in the same room with
environmentalists, with domestic workers, with peace and justice
people, and they're talking with each other for the first time."

"Big alliances like this are challenging," he adds. "So seeing so many
different groups agree on the need for street heat, to act directly
without having power-holders dictate to us the rules of engagement—all
that is remarkable to me."

Owing to the wide range of coalition members, organizers decided that
the 99% Spring trainings would not be intended as preparation for any
specific action, but rather to give skills that could be applied to a
range of campaigns. In some sessions, participants felt that the
actual nonviolence training provided seemed truncated (especially
since it came at the end of a long agenda) and that next steps seemed
unclear. This contributed—as one report back from a training in lower
Manhattan described it—to a sense of "aimlessness."

Yet, in other cases, the trainings led immediately into action. As one
example, in Des Moines, Iowa, more than 100 people—including a large
contingent of family farmers—marched directly to the house of Mike
Heid, a top official at Wells Fargo, to oppose the bank's investment
in private prisons and its mistreatment of immigrants.

"For some people, that's a pretty big step," says Goehl of the rally
at the banker's home. "It’s not getting arrested. But it is breaking
the 'be nice' rule."

While the 99% Spring itself did not agree on a common agenda for
action, many of the same groups are involved in 99% Power. This
campaign will involve confrontations at more than three-dozen
shareholder meetings taking place between now and May. The New Bottom
Line's Van Slyke calls it "the largest mobilization around shareholder
meetings in U.S. history."

Describing the campaign's goals, she says, "We want to go directly to
the board members and executives of the 1 percent who are behind these
corporations. We want to bring a unified set of demands that they stop
pillaging our environment, that they create good jobs, that they get
their corporate money out of our democracy."

Things will get started in earnest at Wells Fargo meetings in San
Francisco this week. There, Occupy activists and community groups
alike will be coming together to confront the corporate gatherings and
possibly even shut them down. Subsequently, major targets will include
meetings of General Electric in Detroit; of Verizon in Alabama; Bank
of America in Charlotte, NC; Walmart in Arkansas; and Sallie Mae in
Delaware—which student activists are making a special focus. "At a lot
of the meetings you'll see a thousand-plus people doing actions, and
at almost all the meetings there will people inside the meetings as
well as outside," Goehl explains.

Since these efforts are not exclusive with other spring protests, such
as Occupy's May 1 actions, the coming weeks promise to be a busy
season. Trainings will also continue, but some of the most pertinent
lessons may be gained through direct experience. "I believe the best
way to train people to do nonviolent direct action is to go do
nonviolent direct action," says Goehl. "And that's what's going to
happen."



Mark Engler is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and
author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global
Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via the website
http://www.DemocracyUprising.com

[Mary Beth]

Hi, Dave,

I must have deleted an email from you that had a link to a 7-minute video from a TED talk.  A young man was explaining about how people do not get activated/involved/connected, etc .  Hope you know what I'm trying to identify 'cause I'd like to ask you send it to me - again  - at your convenience. 

Thank you, and keep those cards and letters coming. 

Mary Beth

[cliffs...@netzero.net]