Knabb provides an excellent assessment of the recent activist phenomenon called the Occupy Movement in the US. I think after reading this, you will understand that the Occupy Movement has had an important impact on the consciousness of many people which will become manifest in many other modes of expression in the days to come. It also created new organizational forms which is likely to shape political organizing in the future:
Instead of relying on a few leaders or specialists, we could draw on an incomparably vaster pool of human knowledge and creativity that no one was in any position to dominate. For any problem, any number of people might come up with a workable solution. At its best this reflected a sort of “communism of ideas” in the sense that people were less concerned with who “originated” some idea, let alone who might “own” it, and more involved in the practical use of ideas, rapidly weeding out the ones that could not pass the test of experience and refining those that could. This collective process also reduced the traditional emphasis on “authors” and “texts.” ....
This manner of spreading also had the unforeseen effect of creating an unusual degree of autonomy among the different Occupies. ...“each of the new occupations and assemblies remains totally autonomous. Though inspired by the original Wall Street occupation, they have all been created by the people in their own communities. No outside person or group has the slightest control over any of these assemblies. Which is just as it should be.” .... Amid all the differences between the Occupies in different cities, no one ever dared to suggest that any Occupy should defer to any other. ...this had two great advantages: “the proliferation of autonomous groups and actions is safer and more fruitful than the top-down ‘unity’ for which bureaucrats are always appealing. Safer, because it counteracts repression: if the occupation in one city is crushed (or coopted), the movement will still be alive and well in a hundred others. More fruitful, because this diversity enables people to share and compare among a wider range of tactics and ideas.”
