OWS #4

OWS: The Fourth Time's the (Maybe Lucky) Charm

We are not seeking to gain recruits for anything, nor trying to building an organization. Rather, we only want to share a perspective thus far not articulated here, though implicit in the collective, practical organization.

The mayor, a true member of the ruling capitalist class, who literally bought his three elections, has decided that enough is enough, so, after conferring with his long-time girlfriend, who sits on the board of directors of Brookfield Office Properties, which supposedly owns the occupied park, has decreed that the park be cleaned.

Apparently, the bankers and landlords are worried that the presence of food and drink will attract rats. Bankers, landlords, politicians complaining about rats? You can't make this up. Is there no species loyalty among these brothers of the fur?

New York is what it is, it has become what it is only because it's been home to the rats, vermin, plague vectors of capitalism for two hundred years.

And now the mayor says he wants to clean up a park.

This movement must move explicitly against the private ownership of public space by resisting any attempts at eviction and allowing the so-called owners to use the cops to impose their made-up rules. All open space should be commons, as this space is in reality now, not private nor even municipal, but of and for the common people, which is, first and foremost, the working class, coming together.

The mayor has repeatedly declared New York a "luxury brand," thus openly stating that the working class should not appear in it. Yes, they have to be in the kitchens, run the subways, and clear the ridiculous amount of trash this society produces, but they—we—should be as invisible as possible.

Two points here: (1) All capitalism produces in its center these days is its trash (junk food, junk bonds, useless packaging, etc.), and this has to end; we need to create situations that momentarily create more unemployment, both high-end and low-end, by obliterating brokerage houses and banks and fast-food joints, as well as so much more, so that we can start creative, collective action that begins to transform this fucked-up world; and (2) we need to extend the commons as far as is possible, taking the collective, practical activity of this occupation back into our daily lives, else the leftists and the union bureaucrats they support (and often are) shall turn this all on itself—and Bloomberg's class will win again.

Many here are too young to remember that in Paris, in May 1968, while eleven million workers occupied their factories and other workplaces, the bourse (the Paris stock exchange) was torched. As we have previously said, Wall Street needs to be abolished for human freedom and dignity to advance.

And the mayor must be physically driven from office, but not allowed to leave this city. We cannot shift our burdens onto the backs of the workers in Bermuda, London, etc.—wherever this martinet has a home, an apartment, or access to a hotel. Only through the public defrocking of this minister to finance can the ignominy of his being able to buy his moralistic dictatorship be removed.

Practically, if the cops move to evict, seniors/retirees and so called 'tweens—symbolic grandparents and grandchildren—must move to the periphery, so that all can see the assaults on them, thus causing students and teachers and workers of all sorts to join . . . and push these fucks into the river.

R. Ryder

Oct 13, 2011