Occupy Part 5: What the Movement can Learn from Mao Zedong

Politics for Joe
October 23, 2011
By: Hubert O’Hearn
For: Lake Superior News

The Occupy Movement Part 5:

What The Movement Can Learn from Mao Zedong

If you give me credit for nothing else (which would be a shrewd decision on your part), you have to admit that’s a pretty catchy headline. Oh it’s intentionally misleading with only a  kernel or truth to it, but it got you reading this far, so it therefore has proven the utility of its existence. I do admit to a certain pleasurable fantasy of Twitter or Facebook or Reddit readers running across the eight words above and yelling out, “I told you Margaret! Them Occupiers is a bunch of commies!” (pause) “Where’s our little red books from back when we was students?”

Let’s leave the amusing sitcom fantasies aside however, and deal with the reality of the Occupy Movement. It’s doing quite nicely as of this writing. The tent villages are still intact; the police attacks seem to have eased back, and Occupy has passed from ‘ignorable novelty news item’ to a seemingly fixed demographic on the political map. I know that this is deniable, and any Pentagon spokesman or White House Press Secretary would react in shock worthy of Claude Rains if faced with the hypothesis, but I would be willing to bet large and give good odds that the American pull-out of all troops from Iraq by the end of the year is a direct reaction by Barack Obama to Occupy.

Make no mistake, Occupy is pretty much as pissed off with the Democrats as it is the Republicans. This is the fascinating overlap with the Tea Party in terms of attitude and a sense that the System, the grand old military-industrial complex Eisenhower defined and warned against near the end of his Presidency, is both broke and broken. The Tea Party/Occupy is composed of nominal Republicans/Democrats who think the mainstream of their party is spineless and corrupt.

So Obama has had to give them something. He couldn’t give Occupy financial reform even if he wanted to, which I’m not so sure he does. He thinks he needs the Wall Street money for his re-election - he actually doesn’t, by the way. If Barack Obama stood up tomorrow and announced that the amount of money spent on elections was an absolute corrupting vulgarity. He therefore states for the record that his campaign, starting tomorrow, will not air a single paid TV commercial or billboard. The campaign will disperse to charity all funds already raised in excess of normal operations: offices where people can gather and talk about solutions. He, Barack Obama would otherwise trust the much-maligned media to do an honest and balanced job of reporting his positions to the American people.

He would sweep to an FDR-size landslide re-election.

FDR with advice for Obama...

Of course he won’t do that. That would require a willing acceptance of risk and if there is one thing we have learned about Obama is is that Hilary Clinton was right. He talks a very good game but he is conservative almost to the point of paralysis.

So give the people Iraq. It will save the Treasury a hell of a lot of money. My only surprise is that Afghanistan didn’t go first, unless Afghanistan is being strengthened to keep troops in the region close to Pakistan and Iran. We have not seen the end of regional wars - they may just be shifting their battlegrounds to the East.

All of which puts Occupy in the U.S. in a very interesting position. I will talk about Canada in a moment, but as always, American politics are for grown-ups. As well, this may be the last time America will ever actually lead on a political movement. Watching the U.S. in 2011 must be how it felt to watch Britain in 1946. The song is over, but nobody’s told the singer.

I think Occupy may be about to make a massive mistake. I’m not sure of this - it’s a 55/45 proposition to me. So I’ll put my arguments out and let you make your own mind up.

It seems that there is a convention being planned for, in effect, the first Occupy Plenary Sessions in July of 2012. It will of course be democratically pure. Each individual Occupy group would send one delegate to put together a platform and/or list of demands that would be put forward to each candidate. A full endorsement of Occupy’s policy by the candidate would be required to receive Occupy’s endorsement of the candidate.

Here are my two problems with that idea. One, politicians lie. Two, it’s boring. If it is one thing of many that Occupy does, I have no problem with it. Every trade association, professional association, labour union, right-to life, pro-choice, etc. etc. group already does candidate surveys, which ultimately is what we’re talking about.

No, that would be a trap. It would prove divisive and would make Occupy too inward-looking rather than engaging in a conversation with the greater community. Occupy needs to communicate. It needs to engage. It needs to us its most charming quality - that it listens politely yet speaks firmly - to educate.

So this is why I mentioned Mao Zedong. This must be seen as a Long March in order to succeed. Retreat in order to advance. Accumulate a great enough force then the victory, when it comes, will be swift. Occupy must not make its focus the 2012 elections. They will prove important, but they are not the entire game either.

Here is where Canada and all the other countries with Occupy chapters come in. Build from the ground. Retail politics. Congressmen, Senators, MP’s in Canada or the UK, who happen to really get on board with Occupy are great, but view them as a bonus. Instead, get Occupy members elected onto school boards, town councils, credit union boards, union locals - the true grass roots.

In that way, if the Democrats cannot be reformed - or in Canada the NDP or Greens strengthened - if the situation is such that Occupy needs to rise as  a Social Democratic Party - then it will have actual practiced candidates to take forward to higher levels. Build the team, then take Capitol Hill or Parliament Hill.

This is nominally the end of my Occupy Series. My intention however is to keep writing about it. I haven’t yet got to the interviews I have lined up. So look for more. And please, please feel free to forward to me your thoughts, comments and questions. I’[ll get to them.

Be seeing you.