Dear occupiers, jammers, dreamers,
Three years after the May 1968
uprising that swept the world, the great French philosopher Michel
Foucault observed that a key strategy of power is to “appear
inaccessible to events.” Power, Foucault argued with a nod towards
1968’s failed insurrection, acts to “dispel the shock of daily
occurrences, to dissolve the event … to exclude the radical break
introduced by events.”
Forty years later, in light of
Occupy, Foucault’s observation still strikes home. Despite
achieving the impossible at unprecedented speed – sparking a global
awakening, triggering a thousand people’s assemblies worldwide, and
giving birth to a visceral anti-corporate, pro-democracy spiritual
insurrection – Occupy is now struggling through an existential
moment. Our movement has been dealt a blow: our May 1 and follow-up
events have been dissolved by power; the status quo has shown itself
to be far more resilient than many of us expected.
Now a passionate debate is emerging
within our movement. On one side are those who cheer the death of
Occupy in the hopes that it will transform into something unexpected
and new. And on the other are patient organizers who counsel that all
great movements take years to unfold.
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