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"Student Leaders" at UC Berkeley Sabotage Occupation
At one point, a student managed to convince these "leaders" to allow the reading of the occupation statement issued by students at UC Santa Cruz. The crowd was visibly moved, and roared in support of the UCSC students, before chanting "Occupy! Occupy!" for several minutes. As the occupation committee sought an immediate vote, the self-imposed leadership insisted that the reportback procedure continue for a full hour more (yes, there was a vote, but both options led to the same continuation of procedure). The energy and momentum of the room was not respected, this was not democracy: it was proceduralism in an effort to prevent any strategy or tactic that the leadership disagreed with. Members of the occupation committee began to secure the building with locks and chains (while leaving doors open for those who wished to leave), while continuing efforts to bring the proposal before the crowd, whose energy was now waning as a result of a thousand reportbacks. This was when the real ugliness began. Ricardo Gomez of CalServe took the stage and began barking at the crowd, ironically seizing the bully pulpit to denounce the occupation effort as "undemocratic." What was undemocratic was the proceduralism of the leadership which refused to respect the will of the people present. Gomez knew what he was doing: he was consciously destroying the radical energy of the people gathered there. Rather than calling a vote on occupation, he pushed the gullible to tears by insinuating that they had been taken hostage when this was not the case. This was a disgusting and despicable case of the worst form of opportunism, the effects of which are only beginning to be felt. |
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Passivism at Berkeley
Passivism at Berkeley University
Berkeley is run by nothing but a bunch whiny progressive liberal pacifists who do not have the intellectual capacity nor the courage to revolt in any such a way that challenges or confronts capitalism or the state.
Yeah great you sat in the middle of the road and momentarily blocked traffic but not long enough to get your asses handed to you by the pigs to bring adequate attention needed for your support. I'm sure your parents would be able to afford bailing you out since they can afford putting you all through college during these hard economic times. Good luck finding a job in this dead economy after your graduation. You all will be living back at your parent’s house and will wish you had done something more hardcore when it counted while it still could have made an impact, just another generation, just another slipped opportunity. There will be a new batch of liberal pacifists to fill your chairs with nothing new, challenging, and inspiring to offer the statuesque.
So far the only people willing to do time for what they believe in are the non-privileged hardcore radicals like the anarchists who are fully aware and see the full scope of hopelessness not just on school campus but the entire globe.
People who don't stand up deserve to be oppressed imo
This article is total BS.
This article is total BS. But it shows exactly what those who built the general assembly at Cal hope to change. The model of recent activism in the US has for the most part been: Some activists get together, decide everything, then try to get people to do it with them, no discussion, no debate, everything decided by the initiators of the action. People are only allowed to vote with their feet.
This is in fact the model that the "anarchists" who attempted to initiate a building occupation were following. But inside Wheeler hall, 200 people were intently following a discussion of what to do next, and preparing to vote, as a body, on the proposals they were working out.
The power of the General Assembly is to allow the undecided, the curious, the newly activated students and workers to discuss, debate, vote, and feel ownership of their decisions. When people make their own decisions they make a commitment to and become organizers for their own plan of action. This is fundamental to anarchism, no?
Was the General Assembly disorganized? Yes. Did it need better facilitators. Hell yes. Was it stupid to break out into groups and then read every last proposal? Yes, that is the consensus. However, while two hundred people were in the middle of a general assembly, deciding collectively what to do, these "anarchists" began to initiate a building occupation by chaining the doors shut, without consulting anyone except themselves. When this action was announced to the assembly the overwhelming reaction was outrage, disgust, frustration, and even fright.
This sort of putsch by a group of self-selected individuals acting in the name of people without consulting them or winning their consent is authoritarian, sterile, and destructive. This is not the anarchism of Durruti, Bakunin, and Malatesta. This is puerile bullshit reminiscent of the worst actions of the Maoist sects of the 60s and 70s. Our movement will need to occupy buildings, initiate strikes, and take militant actions, but it must be with the participation, consent, and full support of people through democratic discussion debate, and democracy.
Luckily for those who hoped to build a bigger movement beyond the UCs, the students who came to the General Assembly were able to regroup and vote on the most important proposals of the evening: to continue holding mass democratic meetings, and to plan a conference of all who are effected by the budget cuts to be held at UC Berkeley on October 24th. All activists, radicals, revolutionaries, true anarchists, socialists, and concerned individuals who participated in that decision can be proud that people's desire for real self-organization and democracy persevered despite the best attempts of some stupid or malevolent individuals to disrupt it.
For more on October 24th see: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/25/18623233.php
-A Participant in the General Assembly