this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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I think the point was to occupy places where powerful people were, to show them that they're not untouchable. One thing I've heard Anark talk about is that communes that separate themselves from society don't tend to have much revolutionary potential. They're just kind of checking out.
Also, David Graeber said something very interesting about Occupy, that although the narrative was that they failed, the main thing they were trying to draw attention to was the IMF and the World Bank, and how their structural adjustment policies were laying waste to whole societies. He said that despite the fact that Occupy ended and was driven out by cops with bulldozers, the IMF and the World Bank don't have anything like the power they used to, and that has a lot to do with the visibility that Occupy brought to them.
Who knows how much death and suffering was averted globally thanks to their actions? If they had focussed only on making a place to live within the US they wouldn't have been able to achieve that. I think that's a pretty good legacy.
Also with the coops, Anark has covered a different federation of coops in Venezuela called Cecosesola: https://youtu.be/xfE6Nsuaf50?si=MbXZ3kpTNI2-mTUm
It might be a better template than Mondragon, who seem to have reduced membership considerably, with non-member workers making up a huge percentage of their ranks.
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https://piped.video/xfE6Nsuaf50?si=MbXZ3kpTNI2-mTUm
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