occupy wall street rediscovers the radical imagination
occupy wall street rediscovers the radical imagination
(2011) essay by david graeber via anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-occupy-wall-street-rediscovers-the-radical-imagination]
via nika dubrovsky tweet [https://x.com/nikadubrovsky/status/2080654869384610078?s=20]:
@davidgraebe “Everything we’d been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses.” — David Graeber, “Occupy Wall Street Rediscovers the Radical Imagination”
notes/quotes:
Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination
Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?
occupy movement.. occupy wall street.. contactcon.. et al
There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.
since forever.. and since that day
hari present in society law et al..
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
not surprising.. just cancerous distraction
Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.
what we need to be ‘brimming’ with.. (if we want the conditions for legit freedom).. itch-in-the-soul ness..
*But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a **conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world’s financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.
*i would say rather.. that we can no longer hear what’s already on each heart
need 1st/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
**conversation we’ve needed/craved/buried.. since forever: self-talk as data via idiosyncratic jargon ness
e: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
*Everything we’d been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. Even the Economist was running headlines like “Capitalism: Was it a Good Idea?”
*rather.. since forever.. and since that day we’ve known nothing but starving to death
It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; *to ask what an “economy” is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to **the way they’d been before.
*oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
**if we want legit freedom.. we have to go all the way back to that day
We might do well to consider the collapse of the European colonial empires. It certainly did not lead to the rich successfully grabbing all the cookies, but to the creation of the modern welfare state. We don’t know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers finally manage to break *the 30-year stranglehold that has been placed on the human imagination, as in those first weeks after September 2008, everything will once again be on the table – and the occupiers of Wall Street and other cities around the US will have done us the **greatest favour anyone possibly can.
*again.. but it’s been since forever.. we need a much deeper focus
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. in an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8b legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8b legit free
findings from on the ground ness:
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to facil the seeming chaos of 8b legit free people
**otherwise.. not a favor.. but yet another cancerous distraction
________
_______
_______
_______
_______
_______
________
be you. 