A Global Manifesto as crafted by Occupy++

[Traitorfish]

Problem is, Kramerfan, the only explanation you're offering for your historical models is the very claim which you're trying to prove. "Human nature tends towards the corruption of ideals, for example, the Soviet Union was corrupted because human nature tends towards the corruption of ideals, for example, the Soviet Union was corrupted..." There's no real evidence being presented for anything you're saying, no reason for us to believe that the trends you identified are actually what you claim to be or even that they exist in the first place. It's fine to be a cynic, if that's what floats your boat, but if you don't have anything to back it up but intuition, it's not very reasonable to expect others to come round to your way of thinking.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Problem is, Kramerfan, the only explanation you're offering for your historical models is the very claim which you're trying to prove. "Human nature tends towards the corruption of ideals, for example, the Soviet Union was corrupted because human nature tends towards the corruption of ideals, for example, the Soviet Union was corrupted..." There's no real evidence being presented for anything you're saying, no reason for us to believe that the trends you identified are actually what you claim to be or even that they exist in the first place. It's fine to be a cynic, if that's what floats your boat, but if you don't have anything to back it up but intuition, it's not very reasonable to expect others to come round to your way of thinking.

But how would he prove it? Can you outline a method, as at first sight you seem to be asking the impossible of him.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well, I think he has in so far a point as that what historically has been promised to be gained by political upheaval by political figureheads hardly has ever matched the actual results of such. Though that is a comment on the empirical trust-worthiness of those promises rather than on what in deed is viable.

 

[kramerfan86]

My original point which has been lost in the language I used is that there is little reason to suggest their idealistic attempt to perfect capitalism is somehow idiotic compared to idealistically trying to replace it with something else. The history comment was meant to convey that throughout history its not as though the alternatives to capitalism have turned out any better, so at the end of the day if you are going to idealistically gun for something there is little reason perfecting capitalism is dumber than replacing it.

 

[Traitorfish]

But how would he prove it? Can you outline a method, as at first sight you seem to be asking the impossible of him.

I'm not asking for proof, because I don't think that you can ever really prove something like this, you can only offer interpretations that are more or less sound. However, that soundness is, generalising a bit, a measure of how well a given model explains the evidence, and I'm not really seeing any attempt at that in his posts. If it can't explain the evidence, it can't be considered sound, so whether true or not, it's no good to us as a basis for further enquiry.

My original point which has been lost in the language I used is that there is little reason to suggest their idealistic attempt to perfect capitalism is somehow idiotic compared to idealistically trying to replace it with something else. The history comment was meant to convey that throughout history its not as though the alternatives to capitalism have turned out any better, so at the end of the day if you are going to idealistically gun for something there is little reason perfecting capitalism is dumber than replacing it.

In that case, why do you assume that Cheezy is calling on us to pursue some alternative ideal? He is, you may be aware, a proponent of conflict theory, specifically the Marxian theory of class struggle, which holds that social development emerges not through an exercise of will but through a process of social conflict. His interest in the OWS movement isn't because he hopes it will serve as the vehicle for some grand new vision of society, but because it expresses that social conflict, and represents the political organisation of the subaltern class in pursuit of that conflict. Utopias aren't really his game.

A better interpretation of his post, then, would be that he prefers that the OWS opt for realism over idealism, and that he locates realism in class struggle and socialism, rather than in a benevolent capitalism which as far as he is concerned is a contradiction in terms.

 

[BasketCase]

I had a citation.

From a left-of-center newspaper, and only one newspaper. And, also, when I clicked on your link, I ended up getting a login screen that prevented me from seeing the article. Cut-and-paste the pertinent section of the article when you link.

I've done a fair bit of investigating China myself, and the answer is no. China is not a democratic nation. In action it's as much a dictatorship as Syria, and sometimes almost as violent.

Just like voting, yes.

Like voting in Iran, yes. Like voting in the United States? Not at all. Voting in the U.S. is very civil and orderly. The Occupy movement is not; the reason it exists is because its members can't get what they want within America's political process. Going outside the political process is only useful in places like Iran, where the Establishment violates basic human freedoms. In the United States, going outside the political process threatens those basic human freedoms.

That doesn't take into account the shenanigans of the plutocrats to engineer elections to their work in their favor.

Gremlins in the fridge. There's no way to see any actual evidence of said shenanigans. "The plutocrats" were unable to prevent Obama from getting elected; Obama was unable to prevent the loss of Congress in 2010. Currently, neither side can get its agenda passed. The only evidence we can see is that attempts to engineer elections are having no discernable benefits for anybody.

You make a claim which is impossible to prove or disprove. Such a claim is not worth considering.

 

[kramerfan86]

In that case, why do you assume that Cheezy is calling on us to pursue some alternative ideal? He is, you may be aware, a proponent of conflict theory, specifically the Marxian theory of class struggle, which holds that social development emerges not through an exercise of will but through a process of social conflict. His interest in the OWS movement isn't because he hopes it will serve as the vehicle for some grand new vision of society, but because it expresses that social conflict, and represents the political organisation of the subaltern class in pursuit of that conflict. Utopias aren't really his game.

A better interpretation of his post, then, would be that he prefers that the OWS opt for realism over idealism, and that he locates realism in class struggle and socialism, rather than in a benevolent capitalism which as far as he is concerned is a contradiction in terms.

Im not around enough to know people's ideologies off the top of my head. For me personally both goals are idealistic, so I figure there is nothing wrong with pursuing this idealism over the other. He clearly disagrees and doesnt even think his goal is idealistic. Neither has a history of success, so to me pursuing one over the other isnt any more foolish than the other.

 

[Traitorfish]

Im not around enough to know people's ideologies off the top of my head. For me personally both goals are idealistic, so I figure there is nothing wrong with pursuing this idealism over the other. He clearly disagrees and doesnt even think his goal is idealistic. Neither has a history of success, so to me pursuing one over the other isnt any more foolish than the other.

What are you actually mean to when you say that Cheezy's politics are "idealistic"? Generally speaking, the term isn't a subjective measure of realism, it's a fairly neutral description of an ideology as being based in the assumption that it is possible to make the world conform to a series of preconceived ideals, which wouldn't be a particularly fair or even useful description of Cheezy politics which lie in terms of praxis (and he's entirely free to correct me if he feels this to be inaccurate) somewhere between the Eurocommunist and Front-orientated Trotskyist traditions. If, however, you're simply using "idealistic" to describe any ambition for radical social and politicla change, than I can only say that you're muddying the water of the debate by taking as an unstated your premise the impossibility of real change in one direction or the other, and from this concluding that all politics orientated towards radical change are equally (in)valid, rather than actually making a case for why this might be so.

 

[innonimatu]

Well, I think he has in so far a point as that what historically has been promised to be gained by political upheaval by political figureheads hardly has ever matched the actual results of such. Though that is a comment on the empirical trust-worthiness of those promises rather than on what in deed is viable.

But what has ever not been gained by political upheaval, or at the very least the credible threat of it?

I'm not claiming that every person in power is a greedy self-centered bastard, but I am claiming that if people do not occasionally fight for their own share - of power, income, whatever - those few who are greedy self-centered bastards will be left unimpeded in their attempts to accumulate ever more power and wealth. And they will do it.
Meaning that getting everybody to be willing to fight both for already acquired rights and for better conditions when possible becomes a necessity just to offset the actions of the excessively greedy ones. Only by getting everyone - or at least a majority - engaged in politics, up to and including the occasional "political upheaval" if things get too skewered in the direction of some particular group - can some kind of fair social distribution be maintained.

We don't need political upheaval all the time. Ideally we'd never need it, never allow things to get bad enough to need it. But we're living now with roughly three decades behind up of gradual wealth concentration in the hands of a small ruling elite... things are skewered! And only "upheaval" can fix that, because they're not going to meekly give up their power. Just how much upheaval, it's yet to be determines.

 

[BasketCase]

Having observed Afghanistan and the Second Iraq War very closely (and watching human reactions to both), I know that's a bluff. The political left has been trying to avoid shooting wars at the expense of almost everything else--they're willing to give up womens' rights, gay rights, the right to vote, even life and liberty itself rather than fight another war.

There won't be an actual political upheaval, because the Occupy movement doesn't have the gall to start one.

So here's where we stand: I just called Occupy's bluff, let's see if they're willing to raise the stakes.....

 

[Flying Pig]

But how would he prove it? Can you outline a method, as at first sight you seem to be asking the impossible of him.

I'm pretty sure that if a proposition can't be proved, it's not to be seriously entertained - see Russell's Teapot.

 

[Dachs]

I'm pretty sure that if a proposition can't be proved, it's not to be seriously entertained - see Russell's Teapot.

Thanks for dismissing my entire field of study.

Whether a "proposition [...] is to be seriously entertained" is less about proof that it is about the accumulation of relevant information.

 

[Leoreth]

But couldn't a proposition in the field of history theoretically be proven, and the problem is just that in almost all situations we lack the necessary information to do so?

There's a difference between a practically impossible proof and an inherently impossible proof.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@innonimatu
I didn't mean to question if political upheaval was in general a necessary or important political element. To the contrary, I would find that very hard to argue against considering what such upheaval has already accomplished in human history. I merely wanted to comment on how there can be - based on history - be made a case that advices caution when it comes to the supposed merits of any particular political upheaval. Caution, not necessarily rejection.
As to the need for such today - I am interested how you came to observe the following:

But we're living now with roughly three decades behind up of gradual wealth concentration in the hands of a small ruling elite...

Is there a three decade trend in gini-coefficents suggesting so, or any other statistical data?

 

[Murky]

Gremlins in the fridge. There's no way to see any actual evidence of said shenanigans. "The plutocrats" were unable to prevent Obama from getting elected; Obama was unable to prevent the loss of Congress in 2010. Currently, neither side can get its agenda passed. The only evidence we can see is that attempts to engineer elections are having no discernable benefits for anybody.

You make a claim which is impossible to prove or disprove. Such a claim is not worth considering.

Just because they failed doesn't mean it was for lack of trying. They did manage to get George W. Bush into office and even got him a 2-term.

 

[Flying Pig]

Thanks for dismissing my entire field of study.

Whether a "proposition [...] is to be seriously entertained" is less about proof that it is about the accumulation of relevant information.

OK, 'proved beyond reasonable doubt' - I messed up a bit; Russell's Teapot is saying that an idea which can not theoretically be proven wrong should not be seriously entertained - so, I could prove the idea that 'the Great War began in 1940' wrong by finding references to it from before that time (disproving the idea that 'the Great War began in 1814' would have to be a reasonable doubt job, but so is everything)

 

[Traitorfish]

You could say that the Great War began on such-and-such date, but you couldn't explain why it happened or what the significance that held. It would reduce history to a series of discrete statistics, lacking any of the narrative interpretations that it's actually intended to produce.

 

[brennan]

Surely the purpose of History is to give us Civ?

 

[Flying Pig]

You could say that the Great War began on such-and-such date, but you couldn't explain why it happened or what the significance that held. It would reduce history to a series of discrete statistics, lacking any of the narrative interpretations that it's actually intended to produce.

True, but you could theoretically falsify statements as to why it happened or about its significance, at least to the level of 'pretty sure' even if not 'scientifically rigorous proof'. We shouldn't entertain propositions which cannot theoretically ever be shown to be wrong.

 

[Neomega]

whatever. This document in no way represents the occupy movement, as it says before it even starts. Most of this stuff is far from the minds of American occupiers. And very few educated occupiers have any love for the U.N.

If you don't believe me, go to any of the local occupy websites: none of them have posted this or reported this.

At occupy, there were the campers, and the general assembliers. the campers did the work, the daily and frontline marching, etc, the general assembliers would come and try to make the rules, then go home. They liked to talk about how they were going to change the world, and all their world changing solutions, and then they would tell the campers how they should do it.

There is nothing wonderful about this manifesto. It is written poorly, and clearly written by a bunch of student activists.