I got this from Glenn Beck Corrente:
A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street; “The Leaders of the allegedly Leaderless Movement”
On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.
According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS, the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000. Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process (90% majority) of the NYC-GA—which, despite its well-documented inefficiencies, granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12, and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.
At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so, even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds. Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.
Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.
The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council. What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly. A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council.
Daniel, a tall, red-bearded, white twenty-something—one of the six leaders of the teach-in—said that the NYC-GA needed to be completely defunded because those with “no stake” in the Occupy Wall Street movement shouldn’t have a say in how the money was spent. When I asked him whether everybody in the 99% had a stake in the movement, he said that only those occupying or working in Zuccotti Park did. I pointed out that since the General Assembly took place in Zuccotti Park, everybody who participated was an occupier. He responded with a long rant about how Zuccotti Park is filled with “tourists,” “free-loaders” and “crackheads” and suggested a solution that the even NYPD has not yet attempted: Daniel said that he’d like to take a fire-hose and clear out the entire encampment, adding hopefully that only the “real” activists would come back.
The main obstacle to the creation of the Spokes Council was that the NYC-GA had already voted against it four times. One audience member observed that no organization would vote to relinquish its power. Some of the strongest proponents of the Spokes Council responded that they had taken this into account, and were planning on creating the Spokes Council regardless of whether the NYC-GA accepted the proposal. They claimed that, in the interests of non-hierarchy, neither the Spokes Council nor the General Assembly should have power over the other.
In the minutes of the teach-in on Saturday the 22nd, the leaders recognize that usurping power from the NYC-GA might make people uncomfortable. The Structure WG’s eventual proposal was to keep the General Assembly alive and functioning while the Spokes Council “gets on its feet.” Working Groups could still technically get funding through the NYC-GA, but the “GA may stop making those kinds of decisions because people [will] stop going… To officially take power away isn’t necessary,” especially because the NYC-GA works on the consensus model. A small group of people aiming to delegitimize the NYC-GA could easily attend each session merely to block every proposal. According to a member of the Demands WG, this is already occurring in several Working Groups.
To placate the rest of OWS, the Structure WG amended their original proposal and gave the NYC-GA power to dissolve the Spokes Council. This amendment is irrelevant, however, given the 90% majority requirement in the NYC-GA, and the ability of members of the Spokes Council to vote in the NYC-GA.
But wait! There’s more!:
My Address to the General Assembly
After the Structure WG’s teach-in ended, I put together a short summary of what I’d heard. I waited for two hours while the General Assembly slowly got to the announcements–the only part of the NYC-GA open for anyone to participate.
When my turn came to speak, I brought up the plans of “the leaders of the allegedly leaderless movement” to commandeer the half-million dollars sent to the General Assembly for their new, exclusive, undemocratic, representational organization. Before I could finish, the facilitators and other members of the OWS inner circle started shouting over me. Amidst the confusion, the human mic stopped projecting what I, or anybody was saying. Because silence was what they were after, the leaders won.
Eventually one of the facilitators regained control of the crowd and explained that I was speaking “opinions, not facts,” which is why I would not be allowed to continue. He also asserted untruthfully that I had gone over my allotted minute. Notably, the facilitators and members of the OWS inner circle regularly ignore time restrictions.
This reaction shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is reasonable to expect any undemocratic organization to be co-opted eventually by a vocal minority or charismatic individual. On Friday, October 29, the proposal to create the Spokes Council was put to the NYC-GA for a fifth time, and finally received a 90% majority. The facilitators assisted the process by denying two vocal critics of the Spokes Council their allotted time to speak against it.
When all this started I said the whole idea that OWS was leaderless was bullshit. I asked who was really leading the movement and who controlled the money, which is essentially the same thing.
“You’re wrong” they said. “They’ve created a whole new horizontal open-source consensus twinkles method that is better than fluffy bunnies” they said. “Just come to a rally and try the Koolaid” they said.
I used to live next to a dairy so I know what bullshit smells like and I trust my lying eyes over what anybody tells me. You can call me a ratfucking fascist whip-kisser all you want but I still ain’t drinking from the communal punchbowl.
Seriously, this hasn’t been fun or pleasant. It’s been painful. I find myself being insulted and shunned by people I considered friends because of my position on OWS. This isn’t the first time. A little over four years ago I suddenly became a pariah at a blog I had been a regular at for over two years because I wouldn’t drink the Obama Koolaid.
I left that blog because I would not cave in and worship at the Cult of Obama. I don’t care if I lose every reader at this blog but I’m still not going to cave in and worship at the Cult of OWS.
Four years ago I took a good look at Obama and was underwhelmed. I tried to see what everyone else saw but it just wasn’t there. The more I saw of Obama the less I liked.
When I first looked at OWS I saw things that concerned me. I expressed my concerns, hoping but not expecting to have my doubts relieved. Not only do I still have those same concerns but the more I see of OWS the less I like.
If that’s how I feel as a DFH liberal, then OWS has a tough row to hoe if they hope to win converts from people who aren’t already sympathetic to many of their causes.
In the meantime I’m gonna keep on being me.
The Crawdad Hole 
The entire OWS gives me the creeps. I have spent a little time over the past weeks watching the videos of this “movement” and reading their utter bullshit. It is running in close parallel to to the Obama/Chicago takeover of the Democratic party in 2007 and 2008. This time it is worse which I did not think possible. The video of the Daily Caller (yuck, spit) clearly shows trained agitators who behaved almost identically at caucuses and Democratic party meetings in 2008.
The tactics are to shut down dissent, threaten dissenters with name calling, expulsion, legal threats (lawsuits because they are frequently starving young lawyers), bald faced lies, and if possible the police. The Obama machine and it’s ancillaries are now targeting conservative groups and their meetings. Pushing people around physically is one of their favorite tactics. They are literally trying to scare (terrorize) people from showing up or speaking. They will continue to do this in Democratic states and cities as the police will be politically stymied from stopping it. The conservatives will hire their own goons or move to Republican cities and states where this will not be tolerated.
One of the hallmarks of Obama INC is that all funds are his. All party, labor, PAC, local, state, influence group etc belong to him. I thought perhaps the Democratic party learned in 2010 that he does not share and that every single Dem congress person could be defeated and he would not give one damn. So the info that OWS cash will disappear into the Obama maw is expected. And having worker bees that will jump in front of moving cars. That is power.
The original piece in which Corrente posts is posted at http://fritztucker.blogspot.com/ This little jewel is down a bit in the essay.
“My advocacy for radical democracy wasn’t particularly popular. Ironically, the predominantly middle-class, white men leading the movement claim that their hostility to democracy is in the interest of “protecting minorities,” referring to oppressed genders, races, classes, ages, and nations. Far from being “minorities,” these people make up the majority of the world’s population; the worldwide outcry for democracy vitiates the paternalistic notion that the oppressed need “protection.”
So the OWS dudes and dudettes are oppressing groups for their own good! Everyone is stupid, uninformed and backward except them. Paternalism, misogyny, classism, regionalism are its hallmarks. Funny how Corrente did not include this passage but only the one about money which is simply a byproduct of all of the other “isms”. Everyone is too stupid and backward to handle the moolah but them. Funny how that always works. It sounds suspiciously like our current government (think Dept of Energy loans to campaign bundlers in the guise of green energy for our own good).
The whole post is really good, but I stole the best parts.
Agreed. I am going to re-read it later today. It is funny how OWS started over the misuse of money and may possible end over it too.
That patronizing and paternal approach to taking care of (what they real think of as the “lesser”) minorities is common among white privileged academic type movements, including many approaches to socialism. It’s the “limousine liberal” types who think they know best. And of course their patronizing approach has another name. It’s called bigotry.
There’s a very good reason why OWS is less than 2% black in makeup.
Yeah, and it’s funny how a privileged few end up in the inner sanctum drinking the best booze and eating the finest food while they figure out how to get basics to the masses.
The most exciting thing about this is that FINALLY we are seeing critique from the left outside of CH. I’ve been seeing it more and more in the last week. It’s good.
But, but, but, it’s just like the tea party, or civil rights movement, or something.
Honk! And thank the gods of krazy klowns that you stick to your principles because otherwise I wouldn’t know where to go.
Amen!! Of course he’s right. Rule of law is all we really have.
And others who focus on babies and puppies are too stupid for words. Yeah, I said that out loud.
RTW!
In the meantime I’m gonna keep on being me.
I did it myyyyyyyy waaaaaay……………
🙂
PS thank you for not caving.
That intolerance or nastiness towards those who Refuse to Believe is a new symptom of our modern day liberals. Forget dissent, the free exchange of ideas, or tolerance. They don’t roll that way anymore. I don’t know what happened to flip that switch, but I don’t like it. That kind of closed mindedness is the reason I was never a conservative. Today things have flipped upside down, because some of the most repressive, controlling people happen to be calling themselves lefties.
Honk!
I saw a lot of it during 2008. It is worse now. The iffier Obama looks for re-election the worse it will get.
I’ve seen “predictions” and “theories” that the end game is martial law, cancel the 2012 election, bam, Obama stays President for Life.
But I’ll keep my powder dry til Tinfoil Tuesday 😉
I think it was never meant to get really big. And it didn’t. It was meant as a distraction from primarying Obama and a way to get the left focused on anything but Obama. But I think if it did happen to get big, chaos can be a very good thing for them as well. I’m sure they had a good plan of what to do then as well. So far it’s been really great for Obama, and now they’re just re-focusing it more directly at Obama’s enemies.
yep.. 🙂
Yep. And he’s hedging his bets with war in Iran, just in case OWS and the riots they will bring aren’t enough. http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/11/05/us-uk-israel-prep-war-against-iran/
I know what happened. Millennials aged into the voting block. And they are just like their late-boomer parents or their early-boomer grandparents. In a word: stupid. It’s a youth thing. How do I know? Because I was young and stupid. And the lies the boomers tell about their youth are very appealing, so I believed them.
LOL, not that anybody cares, but I haven’t got a clue about what time it is! To make matters worse, my husband very helpfully decided we were going to buck the trend and simply spring forward this fall. People have been running around setting my clocks all morning, some of which automatically set themselves. It is now somewhere between 5 and 9 in the morning.
:lol; 😆 😆
Yes, because keeping any police or other authorities away from their encampment is so much more important than dead women.
It was only a matter of time.
Sad.
There’s Donny Deutschbag’s “Kent State Moment” (even though a drug overdose doesn’t exactly qualify as equivalent to being shot by the national guard)
Did someone from FOX do this to her?
It had to be fox news. Doesn’t make sense otherwise. /snark
This is the second one by my count, and they are saying the same thing. “nothing suspicious” and the guy who died was also in his 20s. They eventually declared he died of “natural causes” but what is a “natural cause” in your 20s? Inclement weather? Heart murmur or other biological flaw? There’s not much. I wanna know more.
I bet they don’t try that shit at McClown Burger.
Of course not. They are:
Well congratulations! You guys just cost some low paid workers several hours off their paychecks and harassed the poor and working class customers who were trying to get something cheap to eat.
Next up, we occupy a food bank and harass some homeless collecting cans.
What’s the point? OWS is against junk food?!
is MO behind this???
I concur with your opinion of OWS, and the facts as they finally trickle down to corroborate those. It seemed obvious that as a Rorschach type cult movement with obviously someone behind the scenes controlling things, esp. money, that something was up. The tell has always been the cult approach, then non leadership bullshit, the non partisan approach that was meant to lure non Obama supporters in, among many things.
As we see that’s all starting to fall away. The efforts and activities against anything non Obama is now clear. And the real invisible non democratic control and leadership is finally rearing its ugly head.
The fact that many people were comfortable mapping their own ideas onto what was happening, exactly as was done with the first version of the Obama movement, is extra sad. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me trice, shame on me.
Next up, many of those sucked in will all the sudden wake up and start talking about how they always suspected, blah, blah, blah. Been there done that.
It’s extremely sad.
They’ll claim the movement was hijacked.
No, it was a charter flight to Unhappy Ending.
Bingo.
they play Bingo too? 🙂
Turns out it’s hard for people to realize and then admit that they were total fucking morons.
OT, but from AP
Remember that when you start seeing the unemployment rate “go down”. Whatever the “rate” is, it is in reality now almost double that. And as time goes on, the rate becomes less and less relevant, as more and more drop off the rolls of unemployment benefits. We may well reach a point where the unemployment rate only reflects about a third or less of the unemployed in reality.
I’m sure many in DC will be motivated to not extend unemployment benefits for that very reason. The “rate” will naturally go down to “re-electable” levels. I assume that’s been the plan all along.
They may try to extend unemployment by raising the deficit or taxes, so they can force the Republicans to vote against it. I say if the GOP get the extension in a clean bill, even with a tax or deficit increase, they should call the Democrats’ bluff and vote for it.
I’m with you, Klown..the OWS is too full of ‘new age’ buzz words for me. I learned that most of that is bs from 20 something years of teachin.
Agree with you on OWS. It is mainly a koolaid movement driven by OFA and MoveOn types behind the scenes, though the actual organizers this time may be closer to the far left MMT economic groupies. But apart from OWS, I am just as skeptical of sloppy talking points driven economic drivel from the Republican right.
Stay skeptical. Both sides play the same game. Duh. The Obama movements v. 1.0 and the new v. 2.0 are pretty out there. And it’s sad they’ve each taken in friends and divided people on the left. Likely part of the plan. Sadly.
Had that exact conversation last night with friends. It seems the possibility of dividing all of those who rejected BHO are being divided. The next step is clear as day.
EIther that, or OWS will work to make BHO appear to be under attack (a la Jimmy Carter), and the innate sympathy of most Americans might tug at their heartstrings to vote for the underdog.
mean “the possibility of dividing all of those who rejected BHO is coming to fruition”
This time change………..
Not sure if it was part of a plan exactly, but it sure does work wonders to divide the already divided left. Watching the infighting and namecalling between bloggers that actually are! on the same side truly is both sad and disheartening.
Hear, hear!
And worth repeating:
LOVE it. Please use in a post (anyone !?) just so I can tweet the hell out of it. 😉
LOL! I made that one, so anyone at all can use it in a blog post. I give it to the Crawdad Hole and its readers. It’s also on On the Fly. 😉
That one is funny. At least OWS hasn’t killed America’s sense of humor.
I’ve never been afraid of clowns, but these ows’ers scare the shit out of me.
An Open Letter to the Mayor of D.C. …. from an AFP attendee who didn’t stoop to fugly name calling towards the protesters, even though he’d probably be referred to a right wingnut anyhow by some of our “friends”.
http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-letter-to-washington-dcs-mayor.html
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vancover owies
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=32476
you can not make this up
a NYC teacher quits job to to school for puppetry. Goes into debt for student loans. Can not get a job in the new field. Goes back to try and get old job back, can not do so . Gets job as sub and half the salary.
Is now an owie
http://www.thenation.com/article/164348/audacity-occupy-wall-street
Someone paid tuition to learn puppetry? Isn’t that one of the apprenticeship/intern opportunities The Klown, Inc, LLC offers 😉
I guess no one in his family knew the underwater basket weaving joke. Whew….that OWS came along!
Instead of being the punchline to a joke….he has found his bliss camping and doing art projects.
My church, which was all-Obama-all-the-time, is now super pro-OWS. Today it was mentioned in community prayer that the Occupy Oaklanders had been tear gassed twice. And I’m like “maybe they should behave better.” But I’m an outlier, for sure.
Even if I disagreed with you on OWS, I’d still respect the fact that you spoke your mind and held your ground. Then again, I’ve never been the type to only read things I agree with.
In any case, I happen to have agreed with your questions about OWS from the start. And that’s coming from someone who lived in that part of the political spectrum… from a sort of progressive apostate, you might say.
Keep on keeping on.
Great post, thanks for everything Klown, I can see this one cost you a lot.