As the Occupy movement has progressed over the
past few years I have been the most impressed with our foundation building.
Most movements take several years to develop the kind of coordination and
coalition building that we accomplished in a matter of months with most of this made possible by the Internet. Social media has got to be the best
organizing tool ever devised by humanity. In just a few short weeks tents were
being raised in public parks and streets were being taken all around the world. Occupy Wall Street
became Occupy Everywhere within a matter of months. Why? Because we have been
able to communicate and collaborate on a mass scale almost instantaneously. As
a result, our ideas have spread like wildfire. However, connection is not
always the X factor in successful coordination: there must also be an
infrastructure.
In my experience, InterOccupy has been the most
consistent and prolific so far.[1]
Early on in the movement we were not satisfied with communicating in messages
on walls. We wanted to hear the voice and passion of our sisters and brothers
around the world. To that end a group out of Occupy Wall Street's Movement
Building Working Group put together a conference call to attempt to get
occupations from Seattle to Kalamazoo to Atlanta to Toronto to talk to each other.
it worked. That first Monday night call there were more than 200+ Occupiers
fresh from their newly formed General Assemblies who came on the call to hear
how things were working elsewhere and offer any advice they'd gleaned. These
conversations were so long and fruitful that they became a weekly staple.
Then we realized the potential. If we applied
the principles of the movement (i.e. transparency, openness, and democracy) to
these services then we could create a virtual organizing space in which we
could organize statewide, regional, national, and international actions and
campaigns. In the months that followed the movement had used this system to
organize the November 17th national day of action, the west coast port
shutdown, the National Gathering, the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street,
and most important to date—IMO—Occupy Sandy.
But those of us who have been involved since
those first couple of conference calls realized the potential of building this
network so we sought to develop it. First, we came up with the Committee of
Correspondence network. On October 20th, 2011 the Messaging working group of
Occupy Philly sent a communiqué to the rest of the movement. In the words of
Nate Kleinmen, one of the penmen of the document, it essentially expressed,
"that we should try to organize ourselves nationally as we do
locally." Therefore, just as we sought to abide by our principles on our
calls we also wanted to appropriate our ideas in our organization. Therefore,
working groups were formed all over the country that were dedicated to
inter-occupy communication. We ended up forming bonds that will last the
rest of our lives. The Committee of Friends may even be a more accurate title
for the network.
We have used this network well. Inter-occupational campaigns are far
more common these days. Even local on-the-ground disaster recovery became a
national affair. What once was a group of loosely connected allies has evolved
into an international network of activists committed to the same goals with the
same principles. In short, we have built an underground network for a
revolution. All that's left is to utilize it.
From listservs to wikis to online forums and calls, InterOccupy has
packaged a tool kit that can plan coordinated national actions or mass
gatherings from the bottom up... for free. If we are going to win the battle of
titans then we are going to have to unify in purpose and in spirit for to fight
the battle with the enemies weapon is to lose the war in principle. Thankfully,
InterOccupy has developed and continues to develop an Occupy created, owned,
and cooperatively operated social network which the world can use to organize
itself into a People's Revolution. The time has come for the people to take the
power back. I'll meet you online to discuss how to do it.
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