In Conference Call, Left-Wing Institute for Policy Studies Plans Post-Zuccotti #OccupyWallStreet Movement

This afternoon, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)–a left-wing think tank based in Washington, DC–held a conference call to coordinate strategy among Occupy organizers, activists and supporters in the aftermath of the eviction of demonstrators in several cities.

IPS Executive Director John Cavanagh posed the following questions:

1. “How do we support the actual Occupy movement at this time… especially when some of the encampments have been shut down?”
2. “How do we expand the space for the ideas…that have been opened up by the Occupy movement?”

Cavanagh discussed the daily conference calls that Occupy organizers have been holding to coordinate strategy across the country, and urged participants to join in a national day of protest in solidarity with the activists who had been removed from Zuccotti Park in New York.

One of the sites providing information about local protests is november17.org, which is apparently affiliated with Van Jones’s Rebuilding the American Dream organization.

Cavanagh compared the Occupy protests with the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression, and suggested that both were protests against difficult economic conditions that the government failed to address. He also claimed that the Occupy movement was taking on the small-government, free-market legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

In contrast, Cavanagh said, the Occupy movement is posing the following ideas:

1. The importance of inequality–“the 99% versus the 1%”–which allegedly is associated with racism, sexism, and homophobia;
2. Wall Street as the central problem in America today, as opposed to a “green,” Main Street-centered economy;
3. America is not broke, as the Tea Party claims; rather, there is “plenty of money out there” for public sector jobs.

Cavanagh also claimed that the “crackdown” on Occupy protests was timed to coincide with the deadline for the congressional Supercommittee’s recommendations on the federal deficit and national debt.

Next, IPS Trustee Barbara Ehrenreich claimed that conservatives had not been successful in criticizing the Occupy movement because the activists represented the “economically desperate” people in America today, as opposed to the privileged youth of the 1960s. She cited the presence of homeless people at Occupy demonstrations as evidence–and added that it is illegal to be homeless and “practically illegal” to “look indigent” in the United States today.

Ehrenreich also discussed strategic concerns that result from evictions: “This movement is becoming, perforce, more kinetic. It has to move.” She called for a “flying squadron, or even flash mob approach.”

Cavanagh then spoke again, describing the various different left-wing groups that had come together to support the Occupy movement, and applauded the labor movement for being involved without trying to “take over” the movement, as it had done 20 years ago.

In response to a question from a participant on the call, Cavanagh said that the Occupy movement should not oppose “capitalism” as such. Instead, he said, Occupy should try to change the “form of capitalism” to a “Main Street capitalism,” which he proposed to do by growing the size government and forcing Wall Street to “downsize.” Ehrenreich commented that the Occupy activists believed that they were creating that new form of capitalism in the Occupy encampments themselves, and that the challenge was to translate that experience to the economy as a whole.

In response to questions about the recent evictions of Occupy protestors, Ehrenreich called the police actions the “ugly, militarized side” of American government. Cavanagh cited a positive article about Occupy in the Washington Post style section as an example of how the movement had actually improved the use of public spaces. He noted the irony that Democrat mayors and “progressive” city councils were the ones shutting down the protests.

“Where is Barack Obama? Where are the Democratic leaders who celebrated the use of public spaces in Egypt… and Wisconsin…by ordinary people protesting injustice? How can they stand silently as mayors in their own party close them down?” Cavanagh asked.

He commended Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who had criticized New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for removing the encampment at Zuccotti Park, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who Cavanagh said was leading efforts among the “1 percent” to help the “99 percent.”

“Stage 1 was to create national outrage, and that’s been done. Stage 2 was to change the national conversation, and that’s been done. Stage 3 is to create meaningful changes,” Cavanagh said, and identified the specific goal of raising taxes on the rich–the same goal that is at the center of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and Democrats’ legislative agenda in Congress. Later, he also mentioned a transaction tax on Wall Street trades, which would have the specific goals of slowing down markets and providing new revenues for redistribution and for foreign aid to encourage “green” economies in the developing world. In addition to that legislative goal, Cavanagh added, Occupy should also aim at “changing what is acceptable in this country” in terms of societal norms about equality, moving closer to Europe’s disdain for high executive pay, for example.

Responding to concerns about the racial diversity (or lack thereof) at the Occupy protests, Cavanagh acknowledged that most of the protests were “predominantly white,” but said that there were more black people at protests in cities with higher black populations. He said the lack of Latino activists was the result of fears of deportation as the result of arrests at Occupy protests.

When a participant asked about how reports of crime at Occupy protests were being used as excuses to shut down the demonstrations, Ehrenreich said: “We should be very concerned about the sudden concern of these mayors…for health and safety.” She did acknowledge the presence of crime and violence at Occupy sites, including a man carrying an AK-47 at Occupy Atlanta. Yet she said that activists should use irony to criticize the way mayors have used such crime and violence as justifications for their actions.

Next, Cavanagh contrasted the Tea Party, which elected its members to Congress, to the political strategy of the Occupy movement. The Tea Party, he claimed, had never had “a critique that government was captured by elite corporations–in fact, they like the fact that government” serves those corporations. The Occupy movement, he said, would be more distrustful of the political process, even though some of its political supporters might embrace “anti-Wall Street” positions in the 2012 elections.

As for media coverage of Occupy, Cavanagh criticized the press for not covering the human effects of the ongoing recession. Ehrenreich added that the movement’s goal was to encourage the media to cover the forces that encourage poverty in America, and that it could do so by hiring journalists who had been laid off.

A participant in the call called on fellow activists to “Occupy Yourself”–that is, to exemplify in their own lives the changes that they would like to see in the world.

(Quotes may be inexact, as they were transcribed in real time.)