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“Occupy Wall Street” & the Radical Imagination

Authors:

n/a

Published:

A thoughtful commentary by anthropologist and social movements scholar David Graeber in The Guardian of September 25th. One good source of daily updates is the Reader Supported News website at readersupportednews.org.

An excerpt:

The form of resistance that has emerged looks remarkably similar to the
old global justice movement: we see the rejection of old-fashioned
party politics, the same embrace of radical diversity, the same emphasis
on inventing new forms of democracy from below. What’s different is
largely the target: where in 2000, it was directed at the power of
unprecedented new planetary bureaucracies (the WTO, IMF, World Bank,
Nafta), institutions with no democratic accountability, which existed
only to serve the interests of transnational capital; now, it is at the
entire political classes of countries like Greece, Spain and, now, the
US – for exactly the same reason. This is why protesters are often
hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply
recognizing the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged.

The full article is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/25/occupy-wall-street-protest.