Statement of Autonomy
Occupy Boston is a people’s movement. It is party-less, leaderless, by the people and for the people. It is not a business, a political party, an advertising campaign, or a brand. It is not for sale.
Any organization is welcome to support us with the knowledge that doing so will mean questioning your own institutional frameworks of work and hierarchy, and integrating our principles into your modes of action.
We acknowledge the existence of professional activists who work to make our world a better place. If you are representing, or being compensated by an independent source in order to participate in our process, please disclose your affiliation at the outset. Those seeking to capitalize on this movement or undermine it by appropriating its message or symbols are not part of Occupy Boston. Any statement or declaration not released through the General Assembly should be considered independent of Occupy Boston.
SPEAK WITH US, NOT FOR US.
We welcome all, who, in good faith, petition for a redress of grievances through civil disobedience. We provide a forum for peaceful assembly of individuals to engage in participatory, direct democracy, as opposed to partisan debate and representative democracy. We welcome dissent.
We wish to clarify that Occupy Boston is not and never has been beholden to any established political party, candidate or organization. Our only affiliation is with the people.
If you have chosen to devote resources to building this movement, especially your time and labor, then this movement is yours.
We stand in solidarity. We are Occupy Boston.
8 Responses to “Statement of Autonomy – consented to on 11/22/11”
Hell yeah, that’s wicked awesome.
Love it.
I also love this simple statement by Occupy Chicago on their Facebook page.
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“We are a peaceful, nonviolent, non-partisan movement. We are not a leaderless movement, we are a movement of leaders.”
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If OB adopted an attitude of “we are a movement of leaders” we would get a lot more done…there is a need to identify those who have the skills and organizational abilities to get from concept to results. These “leaders” would bring ideas where there is enough consensus to the GA for resolution. I look through the minutes of the working groups and there is no continuity from one mtg to the next, ideas come up then get dropped — just things thrown against the wall and hope that something will stick. The power is in numbers but you are refusing to capitalize on that to mobilize supporters towards some action. ONE person started a petition on change.org and on her own got enough signatures to stop Bank of America from having those new $5 fees. I do not understand why something like that is not done by OWS/OB?…
If you want to start a petition, you are welcome to do so.
However, petitioning the government implies that the government is actually capable of fixing anything, when it actually is not. The government would not, likely, make good on any promises and would more likely promise one thing and provide us with something else.
There are no leaders because leaders can be corrupted or imprisoned. If we put forward a “leader”, they would be quickly destroyed by the powers that be or they would be used to turn the movement in on itself.
Under the current structure, each proposed idea moves with the strength of its supporters. If the idea is not favourable, then it will be weak. If it is favourable, then it will be strong.
Finally, the government is more inclined to use our demands against us and try to label us as being one sided. The reality is that these protests are more of a device through which any person can have a voice regardless of what their belief system is. If you are a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Tea Party Member, or whatever you should use this as an opportunity to have your voice heard by the government by adding your voice to the GA’s.
The issue is ‘Too Much Money In Government’.
I haven’t seen one word on here about the failure of the SuperCommittee and that failure is a prime example of what Occupy was founded on. Congress’s masters on Wall Street decreed that there would be no additional taxes on the Rich and Republicans genuflected to their corporate gods and scuttled the talks.
What the hell more do you want for a talking point? What could better illustrate the anger and purpose of the Occupy movements? But people who read about that in the paper and then surf over to the OB website see only a bunch of narcissistic crap about your right to protest or how offended you are when criticized.
Have you noticed that the Tea Partiers never gave a shit about outliers who distracted from their message about Big Government? And look at where they are now! They’ve got politicians signing ‘pledges’ never to raise taxes on the rich. They control the House of Representatives of the United States of America!
Occupy has a much better message, but it’s being drowned in wishy-washy, utopia seeking bullshit.
I think you are lucky that people like Paul are still blogging daily to try to convince the movement to stay focused.
I do understand that the Long-term Vision may be seen as radical changes permeating our society including hopefully convincing people to live a more meaningful life and stop wathching the Kardashians, giving more, solving world hunger, world peace, a green planet and more… BUT radical changes start with SHORT TERM GOALS first.
The ONLY way you will get to more meaningful, radical changes is to first stay focused on the CORE issue – the ECONOMY, take some actions, which will build credibility and allow you to do some good. Even the greedy, “evil” financial institutions are actually doing some good, because they built their brand name, and have enought stature and some deep pockets to then help the communities (it would be great if they took better care of their own employees too).
I think you should support Small Business Saturday. Instead of convincing people not to shop for XMAS (UTOPIA…yes) – have a SHORT TERM GOAL first to promote that supporters boycott the big companies that have Black Friday and open at midnight or 4AM after Thanksgiving which should be about family.
So with a more feasible (non-utopian) short term goal you accomplish having a better society where more people (those who have Friday off cause I don’t) – stay with family on Friday and shop on Saturday. THIS WOULD ALSO SHUT THE MOUTHS OF ALL REPUBLICANS, AND SHOW YOU ARE NONPARTISAN.
https://www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday?extlink=ps-gabmd-2011SBS-GoogleSearch
So start thinking about the initial FOCUSED steps you are gonna take that have the MOST impact (money out of politics!!), which one day take you to the more ambitious and bodacious goals.
Rules of Engagement for Non-Profits and Unions Working with the #Occupy Movement
by Open Media Boston: http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/2102
on November 26th, 2011 at 7:20 am #
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