Against the Institution: A Warning for ‘Occupy Wall Street’

October 6th, 2011

Via: Andrew Gavin Marshall:

While I fully endorse the efforts and actions of the Occupy Wall Street protests, now emerging internationally, there are concerns which need to be addressed and kept in mind as the movement moves forward.

The process through which a potentially powerful movement may be co-opted and controlled is slight and subtle. If Occupy Wall Street hopes to strive for the 99%, it must not submit to the 1%, in any capacity.

The Occupy movement must prevent what happened to the Tea Party movement to happen to it. Whatever ideological stance you may have, the Tea Party movement started as a grass roots movement, largely a result of anti-Federal Reserve protests. They were quickly co-opted with philanthropic money and political party endorsements.

For the Occupy Movement to build up and become a true force for change, it must avoid and reject the organizational and financial ‘contributions’ of institutions: be they political parties, non-profits, or philanthropic foundations. The efforts are subtle, but effective: they seek to organize, professionalize, and institutionalize a movement, push forward the issues they desire, which render the movement useless for true liberation, as these are among the very institutions the movement should be geared against.

This is not simply about “Wall Street,” this is about POWER. Those who have power, and those who don’t. When those who have power offer a hand in your struggle, their other hand holds a dagger. Remain grassroots, remain decentralized, remain outside and away from party politics, remain away from financial dependence. Freedom is not merely in the aim, it’s in the action.

The true struggle is not left versus right, democrat versus republican, liberal versus conservative, or libertarian versus socialist. The true struggle is that of people against the institution: the State, the banks, the central banking system, the corporation, the international financial institutions, the military, the political parties, the mainstream media, philanthropic foundations, think tanks, university, education, psychiatry, the legal system, the church, et. al.

The transfer of power from one institution to another does not solve the crisis of our ‘institutional society,’ whereby a few have come to dominate so much, to concentrate so much power at the expense of everyone else having so little. True liberation will result only from opposition to ‘the institution’ as an entity. Placating power from one institution to another renders resistance ineffective. The power structures must be discredited, and power must be distributed to the people, through voluntary associations, communal groupings, and people-powered (and people-funded!) initiatives.

In order to survive as a movement, money will become a necessity. Do not turn to the non-profits and philanthropic foundations for support. The philanthropies, which fund and created the non-profits and NGOs, were themselves created to engage in ‘social engineering’: to ‘manufacture consent’ among the governed, and create consensus among the governors. The philanthropies (particularly those of Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller) fund social movements and protest organizations so as to steer them into directions which are safe for the elites. The philanthropies are themselves run by the elite, founded by bankers and industrialists striving to preserve their place at the top of the social structure in the midst of potentially revolutionary upheaval. As the president of the Ford Foundation once said, “Everything the foundation does is to make the world safe for capitalism.”

Money from philanthropies will organize the movement into a more professionalized entity, will direct its efforts around the promotion of legalistic reform, making slight changes to the system’s symptoms, promoting particular legislation, rallying around very specific issues removed from their global historical context. The effect is to turn anti-system revolutionaries into legalistic reformers. With such funding, movement organizers are drawn into the world of NGOs, international conferences, international institutions, aid agencies, and mainstream political participation. The leaders of the movement become professionalized and successful, both in prestige and finances. Thus, their own personal position becomes dependent upon promoting reform, not revolution; on maintaining the system (with minor changes to the aesthetic), not moving against it. The movement itself, then, would be institutionalized.

4 Responses to “Against the Institution: A Warning for ‘Occupy Wall Street’”

  1. Eileen says:

    I’ve never heard of Andrew Gavin Marshall before. I more relate to the older geezer of Howard Kunstler, which I think writes to the Occupy Wall Street movement more poignantly:
    http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-owsers.html

    But that’s just my opinion. In my not so humble opinion the domino’s are coming into play. If and when we see the other side of banks and countries too big to fail but did anyways, who cares whether the OWser movement is organized? At least it is happening. Thank you to those with the gumption to be there in New York.

  2. Miraculix says:

    Well slap a wig on me and call me Sally.

    I haven’t read truth that pure and simple in quite awhile. Is it just me, or is A.G. Marshall painting a very large, illuminated target on his back?

    No one who talks that way out loud in a public arena lasts very long in the industrialized, institutionalized western world.

    His message of the individual vs. the institution cuts to the core of the issue. Which is precisely why 80% (or more) of the population won’t even grok what he’s saying. Like the first comment above.

    Let me guess, long-time government employee, civil servant or similar?

    Yes, J.H. Kunstler’s curmudgeonly axe cuts deep and hard, but he too remains similarly invested in systemic power — and as a direct result most of his trenchant (and frequently accurate) observations fall short of resonant truth.

    Systemic reform in a top-down hierarchical structure is little more than a convenient delusion, an intellectual cul-de-sac. And an impossibility.

    Like the power of the vote, it is but one act in a three-act charade scripted to keep the mass convinced they have a genuine say in the decision-making process. When in reality they are simply selecting from a well-vetted roster of pay-to-play candidates.

    True reformers either buy in — or get run out of town. And if they keep at for too long, or gain too much traction and visibility, they often end up having some sort of tragic accident. Or an ever-so-convenient heart attack.

    Which is why my gut STILL doesn’t trust Ron Paul.

  3. simontzu says:

    Nice one! The young man makes a lot of sense!

    Every revolution dies into another orthodoxy.
    It has been always so.
    That’s why I am not for revolution:
    I am for rebellion.
    Rebellion is individual.
    But when many rebels are there and they want to live together, respecting each other’s individuality, each other’s freedom, each other’s uniqueness—that’s the meaning of a commune. It is not a society. It is not an establishment. It is not an organization in the old sense.
    A commune is a communion of individuals who have all rebelled against all kinds of stupidities, superstitions. That is their meeting point. But that does not mean that they create an alternative society, another establishment. Then it would only be revolution.
    Try to understand the difference clearly. If they don’t create any establishment, and start living intelligently together, howsoever difficult it is—it is going to be a little difficult; otherwise why have people chosen to make organizations and establishments?—because it is less difficult….
    I am an anarchist.
    I basically believe in the individual.
    I don’t believe in the society at all.
    I don’t believe in civilization, in culture. I simply believe in the individual.
    I don’t believe in the state, I don’t believe in the government. I don’t want any government in the world, any state in the world.
    I simply want intelligent people to live harmoniously out of their intelligence. And if they cannot live out of intelligence, it is better to die than to become robots, to become machines, to be nagged and to be imprisoned in all kinds of slavery. It is better to be finished. We should live intelligently, and our order will come out of our intelligence, not vice versa. – Osho

  4. prov6yahoo says:

    @Miraculix
    I am a Ron Paul fan, but I have to be realistic – it will be very difficult for him to grow in popularity because of his lack of exposure. Should he somehow gain as much popularity as Ross Perot did they will threaten the lives of his family members, just as they did to get rid of the Perot Problem.

    @simontzu
    I agree, but there seems to be no way to get there.

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