Day 4

Occupy Missoula has gotten a little soggier (rained all night) and a little more complicated. Which is only natural given a new social body is being invented day by day. I have noticed that a small band of core "facilitators" keep working the Assemblies, people with knowledge and experience which could all too easily turn into coordinator power.

The biggest issue has been messaging: What Are We and What Do We Want? If we were simple people like some I know we could just say : Kill All Rich People/Commies! But these gathered are generally thoughtful people who realize the world is complex. Trouble makers such as myself and Che Bob tried to introduce an anti-capitalist critique but most people wanted to follow New York's lead and single out Corporations.

This is problematic and no doubt a great relief to the ruling class that heard Zizek's speech on Sunday. (Liberals were critical as well, demonstrating which side they will choose when push comes to shove). But the problem with fighting corporatism is the end game. Do you wish to re-try Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific? (county where I was born, by the way) Do you want to re-try Dartmouth College vs Woodward and go after their person-hood? Interestingly, the guy who drafted our message statement is a lawyer. Does he want to argue this before the Supremes?

Or do you just want go after Limited Liability or Charters? I think this strategy is a dead-ender for movement building and that in fact, corporations are a straw man. My local barbershop is a corporation. They sell stock and retain the right to transfer ownership. You can become a corporation yourself for fifty bucks in most states. Do we just hate big corporations? How big? Just rich ones? How rich? This focus on corporations is the result of populists like Bill Moyers or Thom Hartman who believe capitalism can be reformed.

16,000 children will die today of causes related to malnutrition while tons of food is wasted or lies rotting. This is not because of corporations but because of capitalism.

I suggest instead we think of Wall Street or Corporations as symbolic of capitalisms propensity to hollow out democracy. It's not the money junkies themselves, but the structure they represent. Now is the time to re-claim the imagination the system has crushed (primarily speaking to progressives), to give up on the obscene Profit System and, to quote Zizek again, not be "afraid to want what you desire."

If Herman Cain calls you anti-American for being anti-capitalist all the better. He is a bigger moron than Rudy and Trump and Palin put together!