The Occupy Wall Street Movement has brought up a crucial debate in the realm of left politics: can we reform

the political-economic system as constituted, or must we move aside from that system, creating our own alternative politics, economies, and power? Anyone who considers themselves a political activist (i.e. someone who thinks about their values and acts accordingly) has likely considered this debate many times before. I grew up political, in a political family in the well known liberal haven San Francisco, and for many of those years, I equated political action with protesting. There was much to opposethe 1st Iraq War, mistreatment of immigrants, police brutality, gentrificationand marches, building occupations, un-permitted street shows, wheat-pasting, and zines were my forms of protest. At a certain point (around age 16), my social crowd and I realized that we had plenty of vision about the world we actually DID want to see, and that (after years of seemingly ineffectual protest) it was on us to start presenting that vision in all our political actions. Since then, as a food justice advocate, media maker, and organizer, I have been acting to create alternative systems of human-human and human-nature interactions. I have invested in what some call prefigurative politics: action that creates a new world in the crumbling shell of the old, and you could say that this has been my unspoken theory of change. In fact, anyone who wants to make change at some point creates (whether consciously or not) a theory of change. How do things change? How does one participate best in making social change? Obviously there are many ways to answer this question, and the occupations have brought this question up again with urgency, striking up the old debate of reform vs revolution.1 Settling this debate seems crucial for crafting a theory of change coming out of OWS: is this movement working towards reforms, or trying to completely transform our political and economic institutions? Having a solid theory of change is also especially important for those who implore others to participate in a social change process. For entreaties to action to succeed, the goals of participation must seem achievable, and a participant must believe that change is possible. So whether you are arguing for reforms or revolution, you must be able to convince that one or the other is possible. This is one reason why the mainstream and liberal calls for OWS to have specific legislative demands are so persistent. Many Americans cannot imagine a complete shift in the way politics functions in this society, with good reason. So why would we place stock in a movement that seems intent on ignoring or circumventing the political system as it exists? The potentially transformative nature of OWS is lost on the many (likely a majority in this country) who believe in something like one or more of the following: 1. The individualist, meritocratic capitalist system works just fine; some people are just lazy. 2. The system is basically good; it's just broken. Particular policies, parties, or politicians are the problem. 3. Even if it is rotten to the core, we are powerless to stop the system, so let's just make it a little better, and to make things a little better, all we can do is petition those in power. 4. I agree with the concerns but don't like the tactics of occupation and protest; these tactics are too confrontational. I believe in the necessity of transformative systems change, but I won't bother to dispute these thoughts. Instead I would like to address ways in which we, as occupiers and non-occupying allies committed to transformational political projects, can envision and promote a course forward. The most important aspects to this course are a vision of the future we want to see, an experience of that future in
1

This debate may be better described as between affirmative and transformative reforms. Since relatively few people believe in actual revolution in the sense of taking state power by force, transformative reforms are those that completely change the underlying structures of institution(s) of society; affirmative reforms may change the conditions that result from those institutions, but the institutions remain, affirmed by the reforms. An example would be schools: curriculum changes would be affirmative, while allowing students democratic control of curriculum would be transformative.

the now, and convincing examples of how disruptive action can lead to transformative reforms. Along the way, I'd like to also bring up some of the most contentious points in the reform/revolution debate: the role of police in social movements, the question of jobs, and the sense of urgency that drives many revolutionaries (but may turn off potential allies). Some of the critiques of OWS, especially those from historically marginalized people, focus on the idea that only now are many white, middle class, and otherwise well-treated members of society rising up in anger, because capitalism's failures are finally affecting them negatively. And this critique asks: why now? Did they not see that the system already wasn't working (for poor folks, communities of color, women, immigrants, etc)? Why weren't any previous disgusting governance atrocities enough to ignite a sense of moral outrage? It really seems to have taken the economic collapse (and resulting government response of giving away billions of taxpayer funds to those responsible for it) to elicit that outrageand even then it took 3 years for the anger to take hold! And so there are voices expressing distaste with what they see as OWS's denial that the system has long been broken. But perhaps this critique misses what is really going on: many people, both already heavily marginalized and oppressed (like poor people of color) and traditionally empowered (college students and non-elite professionals) have already been seeing our system as broken for some time; OWS is just the latest exhibition of the depth and spread of this frustration. Millions went out in the streets to oppose the 2nd Iraq War. People have been growing and demanding the right to organic foods, across many income sectors. The police murder of Oscar Grant caused near-riots. These are just a few examples of people rejecting the consensus that things were fine the way they were. Yet we did not see these actions as having an effect on our political structures: Bush kept on warring and industrial farming continued. Obama kept on warringand appointed pro-genetic engineering Tom Vilsack to head the USDA. BART police continue to be armed and have killed and shot others since Grant. These kinds of experiences can promote apathy and resignation. But occasionally, at critical points, the political system makes its patent corruption so obvious that people lose faith in so-called proper channels and start seeking others. When residual faith is swept aside but the moral outrage remains, movements like OWS arise. Voting, protesting, calling congress didn't and doesn't work; more people have realized this and are seeking on outlet for their outrage. To be sure, this defection from the mainstream varies from person to person and throughout time (that is, not everyone involved in OWS has certainly and totally rejected mainstream politics), but its existence is indication for hope. As long as defection from mainstream political investment is not associated with a cynicism that sees no hope for change, but is instead based in a positive experience of the potentials for new power created when publics gather, defection can be magical. We no longer focus on petitioning the president to end useless wars; we shut down sites of war-making, from recruitment centers to munitions transportation ports. We no longer expect food corporations to make healthy foods available nor do we rely on government to regulate those corporations to our specifications; we form our own means for self-provisioning the food we need and creating local good food economies. Sure, we protest and petition to dismantle the violent control that BART police hold over us, but we also come together in the re-named Oscar Grant Plaza to regain a sense of community and community control of our surroundings (and armed police, in this particular occupation, are not welcome to join that community). In defection (even partial), we begin prefiguring the world we long for. Somewho were used to prefiguring their utopian political dreams in actions, and were newly inspired by recent revolts across the worldcatalyzed OWS by calling for a new form of protest: the public space occupation, based in direct democracy. The organizers of OWS were versed in consensus process, mutual aid projects, and direct action, and these formed the foundation for the occupation meme that then spread around the country. These foundations reflect, and help to promote, the radical (transformational) political beliefs of the organizers. But the same tactics are questioned by non-activists and liberals, who due to the aforementioned views of the movement, hesitate to support the occupations.

I see any long-term political movement as a process of amplifying transitions between individuals' phases of political mentality. Imagine the four beliefs I listed as representing four main stages of an individual moving from politically apathetic or neutral, to transformationally committed. In a transformational political movement, efforts are made to convince people: 1. That there is a problem. 2. That there are structural barriers to addressing those problems, and thus they won't be solved at the level of symptoms. (in our context this means: Capitalism is problematic.) 3. That we are powerful as masses, to do things for ourselves as well as to contest the actions of economic and political elites. 4. That to achieve transformational ends we must use transformational means, including community building, prefigurative direct action, subversion, disruption, and the pursuit of transformational reforms. Each of these transitions require education, experience, and often struggles with self, to achieve. And there are roles for myriad projects, actions, and conversations to elicit them. Learning about the details of today's injustices, or the historical nature of their existence, can be eye opening for many individuals. But the danger for the transformation-minded is in conceiving of and acting out our political projects from the expectation that people at level 0 will jump to level 4 (or that a particular tactic will pull people into deeper radicalism, based on its radical nature, as some have thought in relation to a reified consensus process). We risk alienating many potential allies who are needed (to achieve the numbers/majorities necessary to effect policy, for example) by towing a party line that requires a critical analysis of the system that some only come to after years of experience or study. It is important, therefore, to know which stage of transition you are working to achieve in your work, depending largely on who you are and who your audience is. This is no argument that one transition is more important than another; clearly, all are needed. But as activists we are most effective when we have clear goals to achieve. My goal here is to convince that a general approach is possible which can accommodate both our transformational goals (our ends) and seemingly non-transformational work (which will compose some of our means). Some tensions within OWS reflect that many people involved in the same movement may have different analyses and theories of change, yet it is imperative nonetheless to figure out ways of moving forward together. We can't just be contented to a diversity of tactics if those tactics effectively oppose each other, and we invite factional infighting by working continually without points of agreement. A prime example of this is in the role of police. Some occupiers hate the police. Chants of No Justice, No Peace, Fuck the Police! attest to this. Others intend to extend the olive branch, with reminders to police that they are the 99%. How can we expect the police to react, when they are demonized by one half of the protest as defenders of the 1%, and thanked by the other half as protectors of the public? Any historical inquiry shows without fail that police indeed have always played the role of protectors of the elite, defenders of the status quo, and soldiers against social change. So to expect them, within this modern context, to miraculously switch sides and deny their training and socialization is nave. At the same time, who can point to a revolution which succeeded without the aid or allyship of the police and/or military powers? The reality for social transformation is that police are a crucial strategic source of power, and must be dealt with in some way besides by crude antagonism. The challenge of the police is that they genuinely are workers, and their work is to repress proletarian antagonism. This paradox is not to be taken lightly. Neither blindly defending them as fellow workers nor blindly attacking them as hated pigs will help us now. Any failure to understand their specific function is either a reformist danger or an adventurist error. -Asad Haider, viewpointmag.com Is there a way to reconcile these two perceptions and strategic approaches to police? I would propose that we hold reform and revolution in our minds as we craft this synthetic approach. We can

recognize, critique, teach each other the structural role of police as agents of the state and capital. But at the same time, we can plan our actions, craft our communications, and engage with officers on a personal level within the mind frame of getting individual police to join us. I don't mean join by infiltrating. I mean join the way the civil rights movement wanted southern racists and northern liberals to join their movement; the civil rights movement planned actions to appeal to the humanity of spectators and encourage perceptions of protestors as morally righteous, leaving a space for non-allies to become allies. Their marches in the deep south, led by children and set upon by dogs and water cannons, were strategically designed to exhibit the horrors and inhumanity of the racist state control apparatus. That exhibition (as seen in so many places, and in the run up to many a social revolt) was partially responsible for the wider spread and legitimacy of the civil rights movement. As seen in OWS, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, and the world over, people get really upset when they see such obvious, egregious displays of unequal unjust violent power. This is why non-violence is so crucial in our public actions (beyond its debatable moral correctness). Actions will happen and police will respond inappropriately: this is to be expected. But we might also present ourselves as reasonable, and interested in the widest base of support possible, including even individual police. This might look like a concerted effort to ask off-duty cops what they really think about the situation, and incorporate their perspective (when it has merit) into our critiques. Or it might look like occupypolice.org, an online hub for eliciting support from cops and solidarity with cops. It could look like more absurdist tactics which encourage cops to see the absurdity of their position. Whatever it looks like, the operative point is to leave a space open for officers to join our movement, emotionally, rationally, physically, or however possible, while accepting that for the foreseeable future, police as a mass will not be our ally. The Jobs Question: do we really just want more jobs? Another realm we find the reform/revolution debate is with regards to jobs and work. Some popular reform appeals have been to a renewed commitment to state-led job creation, a la New Deal, via programs like the Works Progress Administration. During the last great depression, the country's elites capitulated to the working and unemployed classes with the New Deal, just on time to buy off an emerging transformative economy. As conditions worsened years into the depression, people took it upon themselves to create work and provide for their needs. Examples exist from across the country of these self-help societies and their reciprocal economies: Unemployed Cooperative Relief, Distribution, and Exchange Associations (UCRAs, UCDAs, and UXAs). The Oakland UXA was formed in 1932, organized bottom-up by general assemblies and consensus, and grew within its first 6 months of existence to over 1500 participants. By 1933, there were 100,000 members of 175 similar groups around California. [explain what was so great about UXA?] According to participants, federal intervention was what killed the cooperative movement. The feds sewed divisions by giving loans to groups with conditions that groups had to rid themselves of radical (communist) elements. But the nail in the coffin was the WPA, which gave UXA participants an option of actual money, instead of having their needs met by cooperation, and the more individuals took that option, the less possible it was to maintain the cooperative network. In short time, the WPA surpassed and effectively dismantled cooperatives nationwide. Many people are certainly hurting due to their lack of employment, or due to being paid so little that they cannot live comfortably. A critical mind sees this as a problem not of the pure numbers of people versus available jobs, but of the nature of work creation and allocation, and of the structure of profit and remuneration inherent in a capitalist-dominated economy. This may seem academic, but it's not. Our underpayment (for work we barely wanted to do anyway) and an apparent lack of personally meaningful, environmentally-friendly, and socially-useful work (which vexes even the most ambitious college graduates) are both undying patterns of capitalist work. They cannot be transformed by giving a percentage of the population (even a large one) temporary state-paid jobs, or by additional market or

government mechanisms to supposedly increase job creation. A new WPA could potentially improve living conditions for many, but it may also contribute to capitalism saving itself, from itself, again. If what we want is not just jobs but a transformation of work itself, we must attempt to address this contradiction. Granted, the WPA was a boon for many individuals! It also has had an important legacy, as an example of the role government could and can play in providing for its citizens. The New Deal altered norms of government support and improved people's lives, but as a reform considered in relation to transformative ends, it was deeply affirmative of the status quo. So how can we brainstorm, develop, disseminate and consolidate ideas for reforms that improve people's lives while undermining the material, social, or ideological underpinnings of the capitalist system? One way put forth is the notion of non-reformist reforms. These are reforms which change actual conditions, but also (by these new conditions) enable new possibilities and narratives, which may lead to new norms and make previously impossible visions seem possible. Some examples include: worker election of management in workplaces, a guaranteed annual income, and/or a 20 hour work week. Could worker-selected management change workplace values and operations, empowering workers in the process? Could a guaranteed annual income allow people to focus their energies on creating a new better society instead of continually reproducing the old one by necessity? These are certainly possibilities... However, it has been pointed out that there is no silver bullet reform to be found; reforms vary on a spectrum from affirmative/ameliorative to transformative, and must be weighted on their own merits: their possibility to be won, their efficacy to address symptoms, and their encouragement of further solidarity and action. Part of this process is the development and maintenance, as individuals and sectors of the movement, of a true north. A utopian vision offers guideposts against which to measure the success of the movement, vis-a-vis individual reforms and during subtle, long-term, cultural shifts. In the realm of jobs and work, my true north is generalized economic abundance and meaningful work under community and worker control. Our world and capacities are abundant and there is enough of everything we need for all to enjoy. Scarcity is certainly a reality of some physical systems, but is more so a conceptual frame promoted by capitalist norms and values. Some may argue it utopian to demand an economy that provides for all and is not destructive of people and the environment, but it is possible and necessary (as has been pointed out, it is those who think we can continue on our current path to no end who are utopian). Against this total demand, imagined WPA programs for building highways, and green jobs economies divorced from worker control, are both incomplete affirmations of a system that doesn't work. How does this play out in reality, beyond rhetoric? Well, for example, there are so many wage-, work-, job-related issues to address on local bases, like raising minimum wages, forming unions, or fighting for the rights of immigrant day laborers. While these fights may be about achieving reforms, the process of fighting them across lines of identities through coalitions can be avenues for conversations about peoples' visions of the truth north, and their ideas for how to move towards it. Solidarity from a transformative perspective means participating in reform work, while arguing for and integrating in transformative values. Another example would be forming new kinds of UXAs; locally, we have the Bay Area Community Exchange and its time hours program for systemic barter and mutual aid (see BACE.org). We don't just stop at creating alternatives however: we fight for government support for such projects that doesn't risk compromising their transformative potential; we also focus on having such projects serve the most marginalized by the current economy. Having non-radicals experience other forms of economy which are based on a true north vision might be one of the most valuable tactics we have for growing as a movement. This kind of tactic, of integrating transformational discourse into reform efforts, especially into reforms addressing affronts to the most marginalized, can be useful one other way. Some argue that a radical approach to work issues is racist or classist, since most poor people do really want income, more than they care for political discussions of what could be way better. I would argue that this argument denies the complexity of the character and desires of the masses, along with their capacity to be

politically sophisticated. But even giving this argument some foundation of truth, I hold that it is possible to accept ameliorative reforms but still challenge them (and those who advocate for them) to do more. A great example of a place where being poor does not mean accepting degrading, alienating, or destructive work as better than no work is found in Brazil and its Landless Peasant Movement (the MST). Successfully settling millions of Brazil's poorest (including both urban and rural poor) onto lands owned by the 1% by creating grassroots settlements, agroecological farms, and schools modeled after the teachings of Paulo Freire (all run by direct democracy), the MST has led the global South as a movement with a clear post-capitalist vision, prefigurative action foundation, and a non-hierarchical structure. All this, yet they still engage in state-level reform protest efforts. In the camps, people self-organize everything: from set-up, to defense, to internal services, to farming, to education (most settlers come into settlements illiterate), and to political organizing. As their actions are organized from the ground up, by people whose education is self-led and directed at political self-awareness and empowerment, the MST's program is simultaneously transformative, utopian, and reformist. It is important to note that their program of land occupations and settlement construction has been made possible not just by their transformative vision, but by an article of the 1988 Brazilian constitution which mandates that Brazilian lands serve a social function. Though they still have to fight for the settlements against police and hired security (and many have died in the process), the legal basis for their program of land occupation has allowed them some recourse in dealing with the state and large landowners. Thus, this sort of land-for-social-function law can be seen as a kind of non-reformist reform that could be fought for in other places, and could address work issues without being either too affirmative or utopian. Lastly, I would like to point out that through their self education, MST members learn about complex political topics like international neoliberal capitalism, environmentalism, and gender oppression. So if you think that the masses only care about having a jobwhatever it may beyou may want to consider what factors are at play (social, economic, and ideological forces like values, rent imperatives, and socialization from schooling) which limit more ambitious thinking; conversely, you may want to consider what factors can be changed, and how, to promote that ambitious thinking. Do poor folks in the US really want to work at Walmart, or do they just not have any foundation for seeing any other options? And, how can we make those options apparent and seem worth fighting for? Dissensus and Disruption: opportunities for having effect on political structure There are two competing narratives about social change in the USA. One describes some sort of golden age when government didn't serve corporations and the economic elite, and the story ends with us reviving this mythical age. The other sees our current political system as a continuation of its long and relatively consistent history (wherein elites have always been in charge of, or in cahoots with, the state) and the most positive outcomes from that system as capitulations of the state/elite nexus to the dedicated activist efforts of many. The division between these narratives, in terms of theories of change, is that one seeks to reform and improve the system (progress historically being ever-larger spread of franchise and recognition, a.k.a. political and economic rights), while the other seeks to dismantle the collusion of state and elites, and replace the model with something more accountable to masses of people composing the 99%. This contrast leads to different theories of change because, if you believe in a fundamental antagonism of the state/capital nexus with the 99%, then you don't assume to change conditions through deferral to that nexus. You see fighting as crucial to making change. Recognizing that the state is an adversary, however, doesnt mean moralistically ignoring it. It wont wither away if we just refuse to engage with it out of principle. The lesson from our labor history is not only that alliance with political parties is treacherous, but also that meaningful reforms were won by the labor movement as a result of militant and antagonistic strategies, extending from the 1919 Seattle general strike to the 1934 San Francisco general strike. It would be the worst sectarianism to reject reforms; they alleviate suffering and advance the position of the working class. But the question is

whether meaningful reforms can be achieved within the political limits of capitalism. If the political apparatus is controlled by the capitalist class, this means that those limits are not external limits that can be overcome by a stronger program. Instead, they are internal to the strategy of reform. The only way to force the capitalist class to concede reforms is to confront it with an antagonistic agent, a unified working class. Lets not delude ourselves into thinking we can convince them with our better ideas. -Asad Haider Political scientist Frances Fox Piven has been a champion of this more sobering interpretation of US history. Her book Challenging Authority makes clear, by using research on the founding of the nation, the abolitionist movement, the 20th century labor movement, and civil unrest in the 1960s, that only by manifesting disruptive power have social movements achieved major change. She also shows that, in those times in betweenwhen social movements lack the moral outrage, urgency, creativity, and action that defines them, and people fall back into conventional, system-affirmative modes of action, often because they have been bought off by achieved reformsmost changes are rolled back. This is clearly the case for the US since the 70s, as the neoliberal project has effectively supplanted almost all the past century's advances for labor, democracy, and the environment. Piven believes that the power of disruption stems from a self-realization of interdependent power among the masses; this realization can result in actions (rent and labor strikes, boycotts, mass protest, economic disruption; essentially any actions decried by Fox News as class war) that dismantle the public's apathy and reduce their assent to institutions, which actually scares the elite. Outside-thenorm radicals threatening tenuous political party majorities (with the threat of mass voter defection of growing radical groups) are also key drivers of the political system's adoption of radical or previouslyhard-to-imagine reforms. Piven offers the following examples: 1. The ardent egalitarianism and democratic principles of the original colonists, which were tempered by colonial elites into the rather conservative U.S. constitution (a document whose eliteserving, anti-democratic provisions included the Electoral College and no direct election of Senators). These provisions were at most balanced out by the Bill of Rightswhich passed only due to public pressure and the threat of mass defection from the emerging federation. 2. The radical abolitionists refused to compromise, and their various attempts to gather political force (including their Free Soil Party) forced the up-and-coming Republican Party to adopt antislavery rhetoric and combined with a rebellion-scared and party-divided South to lead to Lincoln's victory. 3. Labor insurrections over a 50-year period (which, let's not forget, were often violent and very often destructive of property), and the concurrent creation of labor unions; both militancy and organization lead to the state's capitulation in the New Deal. 4. The civil rights movement created a cleavage in the Democratic Party, wherein southern reactionary whites were threatening to leave the party, while protests, sit-ins and such raged on in the south, and race riots and protests moved northward. This disruption was the push that caused Kennedy and Johnson to finally pursue long-discussed Great Society initiatives. Following this history to create a logic of social change, we can argue that radicals aren't the problem with making change, they are essential to it. Someone out there will always temper radical critique into reforms, whether from the inside (for examples, modern efforts at greenwashing and Corporate Social Responsibility rhetoric) or the outside (moderates who push new policies which are more palatable to the masses or to elites). Someone in the 99% will help the 1% shift in accommodation, so those of us concerned with transformation may have a better role in creating radical disruption than seeking mitigating reforms. Shutting it Down, Disruption, Reaction, and Questions to Ask.

The idea of disruptive power, of creating dissensus, of shutting it down may have merit, but important questions remain of not only where and how to do so most effectively, but also of how to go about such actions in ways that don't alienate potential allies, those 99% folks who are still in stages 1, 2, and 3 of our earlier list. While we need to strategically consider the effects of our disruptive actions on the 1% and attempt to predict their reactions to us, it may be more important to consider the perceptions of our actions of the 99%. Sometimes the sense of urgency that activists have and our uncompromising vision of complete societal transformation may work against us, but it shouldn't. In the globalized, just-in-time mode of production and distribution, there are certain clear system vulnerabilities like ports, truck depots, and communications infrastructure. We could hold actions that target mega-retail chains, both on their retail floors (as mic-check Walmart protests have done) and on the back end, where logistics failures at key distribution points can have great impacts. But then we must think: what will this action do to those currently enmeshed in the retail network? What will the workers think, or are they involved in this action? How will shoppers engage with an indoor protest? Will it be seen as an affront to their choice of shopping place, or an entreaty to consider their own role (as both victims and collaborators) in an economy which makes no sense? Will those affected be offended, enlightened, irritated, intrigued, disgusted, entertained, or what? These questions may lead us to more creative actions which are affective in order to be effective. The role of art and story in activism shouldn't be downplayed, since for many what inspires and motivates, enrages or engages, is not hard intellectual analysis but appeals to conscience and emotion. Similarly (and I know I'm asking a lotthat we ask ourselves a lot of questions) we might question even our most sacredly-held tactics up to scrutiny. Besides jettisoning tired tropes of old tactics that obviously don't work anymore (the mass protest march with slogans and placards? ech), we should consider that tactics which once worked wonders may no longer be appropriate. I'm talking specifically here about the public space occupation, a la OWS. An occupation can never be the long-term focus of a political movement, for many reasons. While the O in OWS was clearly crucial for its success in its first months, it may be what prevents growth and future success if the occupations continue for their own sake, and in disregard for other potential avenues for movement. Many immigrants and people of color are understandably hesitant to engage in potentially police-involving incidents like these public space camping-focused occupations. If we intend to create solidarity among many, especially the most affected by capitalism's failures, we cannot afford to hold onto tactics which preclude that solidarity. Part of building that solidarity goes beyond, alongside, and perhaps before the focus on disruptive action. This is the necessary, but decidedly less sexy process of community organizing, also known as talking to people. We must admit that our societies are far too complex to expect everyone to be on the same page, but we know that to get people on track to creating change requires at least getting more people talking about the same book. The Occupy moment has offered us a new space in which to have conversations with all sorts of people about our values, our goals, and the world outside which effects us all. If we squander this opportunity, by acting from a sense of self-righteous urgency and refusing to listen to the as-yet-unradicalized, we will once again be preaching to the choir and locking the doors to our church. We can't expect every person we engage with to become part of the solution, yet just the same we cannot afford to not engage on a more grassroots, community level, with people who don't necessarily see the world in the same stark terms we use. A new strategy to build upon OWS, especially in the cold winter months and into the new year, is that of building and indoor space occupations. Out of all the suggestions made, this one seems to have the capacity to bring together a lot of the critiques into one unassailable tactic. When we focus on reoccupying (or liberating) foreclosed homes for those who have been evicted, and recreating abandoned commercial properties as new community centers, we tackle issues of inclusion and cross-sector solidarity. We confront the value of property above community, of profits over people. We produce a meaningful resource of actual use (space to live), and we (hopefully) engage participants in another process of prefiguring that world we want to see. We present a story, like the civil rights movement, that

appeals to basic moral outageeasily elicited when one sees a 70 year old grandmother being kicked out of her home. We can, additionally, relate these actions to policy goals on multiple levels: locally, on community control of zoning and planning; regionally, an end to predatory lending in poor communities; internationally, of housing as a human right. This tactic has the potential to link with other issues as well: by installing gardens at the re-occupied homes to address our food sovereignty issues, or by providing childcare and education in spaces to address community- and capacity-building. Eventually, I can imagine (though fantasize may be a better term) agricultural land occupations, and an emerging MST for the North... The most exciting thing for me is to think of thousands of people losing hope in electoral politics, gaining instead an appreciation that there has never been a better time to be political everywhere. Knowing that we will invariably effect the system-as-constituted means we can concentrate on what is important: changing the conditions of our existence here and now, changing minds about what is possible, and creating new solidarities and institutions. We will demand transformation, though history indicates that we will likely fall short and will end up with reforms. Whether those reforms are useful, non-reformist reforms, and whether they last, will depend on the strength of our ongoing movement. And the more we believe in ourselves first and foremost, and temper the righteousness of our analysis and our tactics with an openness to true dialogue, the stronger we will be.