I will tell you why Maddow's "Hubris" aired NOW and not back then. And you won't like it.

[patrice]

98. I'm not sure they did. There were some people around OWS who were close to others who

are racists, whether "OWS" knew that or not. The corporate personhood money is driving a bunch of freelancers. Gadsen's flag was NOT just a symbol; it is a rallying point for many people with legitimate social and economic justice problems, plus a small active committed and well funded minority moving toward states' rights possibly in the same manner as we have seen come to light in Wisconsin NRA activists recently.

I physically supported our Occupy with my presence for over a year. OWS is essentially anarchic (although I understand there are various shades and grades of anarchy, which I'm not familiar with); this means that what you see is not necessarily what anyone gets. Then there are many social drivers out there which can be exploited: long-standing authentic economic injustice; War CRIMES; police brutality; environmental change; ethnic and gender-based infringement of Civil Rights; immigration; 2A claims being made about militias armed with assault weapons of the sort that turned up in Wisconsin; Veterans' issues; anti-women's rights, not only choice to reproductive services, but another REAL biggie, pay parity; churches, a big one in our area, speaking in support of Civil War II; the war on drugs, especially as it is being affected by the possibility of the legalization of cannabis and hemp; homelessness; EDUCATION . . . .

Throw all of that together and tell them to do their GAs and get AUTHENTIC horizontal empowerment going on, which is a FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT KIND OF CULTURE and a RADICALLY different cognitive paradigm, and see what comes of it. Even if an environment like that wasn't being intentionally exploited in specifically organized way, it was extremely vulnerable and paranoid in ways that can easily produce violence. Some Occupies were homogenous enough to overcome these factors and put things together for horizontal empowerment and proceed. Others just generated more chaos and, whether some of the more destructive influence was intentional or just the effect of anarchy upon people with more or less (but mostly way LESS) personal resources to process it functionally, the fact is that dysfunctions don't get better in that kind of environment and in some cases whatever chance those who deserved a chance the most might have gotten in that environment, that chance can be (and was in a few instances) thrown away by other more or less intentional and not entirely manifest purposes, some of them with REAL options other than the Occupy.

So, I don't think it was OWS itself, whatever that was, that became a matter of concern and, btw, there are still some strong OWS relationships out there alive and functioning in other ways now. I think some doors are even still quite open for OWS in re specific issues. Different OWS had different experiences. There are some great ones that I have personally visited and met in our own camp.

But, as much as I try to be an authentic revolutionary for the people, there's a basic principle I CANNOT turn away from no matter how many times I reality test it: talk of violent overthrow of our government is fascism and those who engage in that sort of thing (for whatever their personal and private reasons) are WRONG.

Perhaps when people are reacting to what they assume is the Obama administration's negative judgement of OWS itself, they should consider a question as to whether that's a reaction to the principles and processes (AUTHENTIC horizontal empowerment), i.e. the identity, of OWS or a reaction to what some behavioral factors could, or possibly were, doing with it (e.g. Black Block), or is their reaction to others' reactions (e.g. Obama administration's reaction) a reaction to a label.

It is a true thing about OWS GAs, btw, that the Block-with-Intention-to-LEAVE was an essential aspect of the vitality of the revolutionary process itself, as a self-propagating function, whether any of it ever bears the label OWS or not (though I'd bet there was, on the average, no specific concrete commitment to Block-with-Intention-to-Leave, even though that is how things worked out in a de facto manner in our own Occupy). As a teacher, I approve of that trait, Block-with-Intention-to-Leave, for the potential that it creates for individuals to adapt appropriately in order to manifest personally identified values ir-respective of the politically charged labels that they wear. "Lather, rinse, repeat."