Thursday, November 24, 2011

the HIDDEN logic of the Occupy Movement

globalguerillas | This is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population James Fallows, the celebrated American author and columnist.

It appears that Occupy's extreme non-violence/passivity has finally generated a social system disruption. Videos and pictures showing policemen using violence against passive protesters have gone viral (UC Berkeley students, Grandma, and open mouth were the leading examples). Stories about this violence are now sweeping the media (7,910 news stories over the last 24 hours). Is this going to have a strategic effect?

Let's look at this from the late, great American strategist John Boyd's perspective. The dynamic of Boyd's strategy is to isolate your enemy across three essential vectors (physical, mental, and moral), while at the same time improving your connectivity across those same vectors. It's very network centric for a pre-Internet theoretician. Here's more detail what disconnection looks like:

  • Physical isolation is accomplished by severing communications both to the outside world (ie. allies) and internal audiences (ie. between branches of command and between the command organization and its supporters).

  • Mental isolation is done through the introduction of ambiguous information, novel situations, and by operating at a tempo an enemy cannot keep up with. A lack of solid information impedes decision making.

  • Moral isolation is achieved when an enemy improves its well being at the expense of others (allies) or violates rules of behavior they profess to uphold (standards of conduct). Moral rules are a very important reference point in times of uncertainty. When these are violated, it is very hard to recover.
Was it effective?

Using John Boyd's framework as a guide, this media disruption did have an effect across all three vectors:

  • Physical. No isolation was achieved. The physical connections of police forces remained intact. However, these incidents provided confirmation to protesters that physical filming/imaging of the protests is valuable. Given how compelling this media is, it will radically increase the professional media's coverage of events AND increase the number of protesters recording incidents.

  • Mental. These incidents will cause confusion within police forces. If leaders (Mayors and college administrators) back down or vacillate over these tactics due to media pressure, it will confuse policemen in the field. In short, it will create uncertainty and doubt over what the rules of engagement actually are. IN contrast, these media events have clarified how to turn police violence into useful tools for Occupy protesters.

  • Moral. This is the area of connection that was damaged the most. Most people watching these videos feel that this violence is both a) illegitimate and b) excessive. Watch this video UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walking from her building after the incident. The silence is eerie.
This can be counted as a win for Occupy and a loss for totalitarianism. However, we've been sliding towards totalitarianism for decades (from caged protest zones, storm trooper attire, urban tanks, bans on pictures in public spaces, a plethora of laws/regulations against assembly, Presidential assassination lists, closed courts, no warrant searches, CCTV coverage, attempts to ban private ownership of weapons, SWAT for even tiny cities, indefinite detention, rendition, etc.). So, in relative terms, this is a very small win.

18 comments:

Lester Spence said...

I ask the same question I've asked elsewhere--and I do this as an Occupy supporter. What happens when they stop Bull Connoring protestors? Police officials aren't stupid. They too communicate successes and failures through networks. As it appears mayors have already done. It may take them a minute to make the turn, but they'll make it. 

cobb said...

The easiest solution, something I read in an Air Force policy manual on crowd control, is to use female officers when the crowds get violent. Currently, there is a simple knee jerk association between street protests , the will of the people and the good of the people, with instant martyrdom for anyone harmed by cops. It's shallow.

CNu said...

Everything depends Les, on what exactly folks choose to begin occupying next. There are so many options - much depends imoho - on how pervasive and sophisticated occupy mass communications become. As for popular discontent remaining non-violent, I wouldn't count on that. I expect angry right wingers and nationalists to begin making false flag attacks on governance nodes any time now. Quiet as it's kept, their ranks have exploded over the past three years and the way they did their run on firearms and ammunition, given the failure of military family support systems, and given the failure of the ATF to ever put taggets in feed stock for low explosives like ammonium nitrate - I believe it's only a matter of time before things heat up dramatically.

Ed Dunn said...

Why would the police back off? Didn't the mayor of Atlanta originally backed off and the Occupy group decided to get a little out of control?  The police as well as the city are fearful of this movement becoming any bigger and will try their best to crack down as early as possible.

 
 

brotherbrown said...

1.  They will stop Bull Connering protesters.  It's bad public policy and expensive for cash-strapped cities.
2.  Watch for an uptick in Occupy activities on US college campuses. When I graduated from college in the early 80s, I stepped into a job in corporate america that more than paid back (almost doubled) the cost of my education in the first year, and so did all my classmates.  What percentage of college students can say that today?  Is there anything you have observed about the mood of students at Johns Hopkins?3.  This movement is like a newborn that barely knows how to walk.  I actually expect a lull through the coldest months upcoming, but in the late winter/early spring of 2012, get ready for Occupy the polls.

4. No one knows where the Occupy movement is headed.  Attempts to pigeon-hole it are futile.

CNu said...

Though said attempts continue in frequency, density, and uniformity http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/anarchy-usa_609222.html?nopager=1

(daily standard been dipping in the cool, clear waters of the subreal)

Lester Spence said...

Ed why do you assume I'm suggesting the police will back off? I'm assuming the police won't continue to use violent tactics. They may be slow, but they aren't stupid. Crack downs INCREASE support.

Lester Spence said...

1. Yes. They'll come up with some other less expensive non-violent thing. Although as I think about it, it's very possible cities will get private donations to cover the police costs from the 1%. I know Oakland did.

2. Schools are organizing occupies as we speak. Room and board at Hopkins is 51,000/year. But come to think of it I don't think this is the key group. When you're in school you don't quite realize how dire the circumstances are. The folks who just graduated on the other hand are in a different category.

3. Besides CNu's own work, there are two folks I've been following over the past few years who've hit the nail on the head more than once. One of them is John Robb (Global Guerrillas, the blog from which this particular post came from). I think it would've taken me a bit longer to understand Occupy without Robb's work. I do know that it is much more of an API than it is a real sixties style organization thing. Which means it can take a variety of different forms simultaneously, as long as there are folk willing to use the label and attach it to their own stuff. But with that said there is still a risk that various occupies will--even as the weather is getting colder--engage in activities that are designed more to attract police attention than they are to be truly productive/disruptive. 

4. see above.   

brotherbrown said...

Regarding the current students, I'm sure those borrowing to pay tuition think about it every day.  I am curious what the children of the 1% think of this.  They probably don't face generational downward mobility due to family wealth and estate planning, but if they have friend across the socio-economic strata, they have to be sensitive to the climate around them.

I live in a poor county demographically.  It's interesting to note that we didn't see much of a Tea Party movement and so far, the same can be said for OWS.  I may have to go find out if I actually do possess all these leadership skills my resume claims.

Dale Asberry said...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/2/students-protest-Ec-10/

Ed Dunn said...

The police and others will continue to exploit the Occupy Movement biggest flaw - not having a defined platform to support. As long as the Occupy movement does not have a defined platform, then there is no platform to establish public empathy over. The police will push, shove and agitate but I doubt they will move into violence.

It is the OWS group who are holding the cards and they are the ones who continue to state they are willing to be arrested and as a result,  making themselves look more like gadflies than activists to the public.  The OWS advantage is to continue to keep these cops working overtime, hurting the city budget but the police will allow crime to go on in the Black community and claim they are too busy policing the OWS hippies to patrol the urban communities.

I believe the script by OWS is to encourage unprovoked violence to escalate the issue and my problem with this strategy is the misdirected belief that America will care, especially since they don't care about troops dying in Iraq and Afghanistan or coming home to a marginalized environment as a veteran.

CNu said...

LOL, it's not a business plan Ed...,

Let's assume the obvious, OWS spreads and diversifies the "base" of those subject to the whims and the entrenched methodologies of the corporatist fascist state.

That by itself is enough to accomplish the mission of fundamentally altering (broadening/diversifying) the mainstream governance narrative. Right?

brotherbrown said...

Good stuff,  particularly the comments.

Lester Spence said...

Couple of points:
1. The police already have escalated to violence. They aren't as violent as if they were quelling a "riot" but they HAVE been violent.
2. The flaw isn't the lack of a platform. We know what the occupy platform is. You and Craig are the tech gurus. What do you two think of the idea of Occupy as API? 
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/11/a-guide-to-the-occupy-wall-street-api-or-why-the-nerdiest-way-to-think-about-ows-is-so-useful/248562/

3. I think you're right about the script. But it isn't about whether people care or not. It's about whether the care will translate into the change occupy folks wish to see. And there is no reason to think that it will. 

CNu said...

The law is more and more often being used as an instrument of violence. I believe that occupation of foreclosures and occupation of courts needs to happen next, so as to disrupt the steady drumbeat of "law as violence". Enhanced communications, recordation and support will be crucial the success of these more decentralized occupations.

I want to see pervasive use of looxcies http://youtu.be/FBRR2BUSMls kickstart bailraising http://www.kickstarter.com/ and coordination of occupation witnessing and support.

Cute euphemisms for the movement are just part and parcel of efforts to apply a narrative and redirect the movement to mainstream status quo applications. I'd like to see the movement embrace an enhanced level of truthiness about what's really going on underneath the covers of the global economic collapse, as well  http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=797&Itemid=1&mosmsg=Thanks+for+your+vote!

CNu said...

Less, if there's a euphemism to apply to what happens down the line a piece, I think it's encapsulated in what we see happening in Af/Pak http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/to-stop-afghan-bombs-a-focus-on-pakistani-fertilizer/2011/11/23/gIQAg6j0wN_story.html the cost and level of skill required to generate massive personal commuting malware is utterly trivial...,

Ed Dunn said...

Regarding  #2, I believe the Occupy movement represents the Tragedy of the Commons more than an API.

Even an API requires one good "controller" or a "bus" to control the message and OWS does not even have that.
 

makheru bradley said...

I was riding my bike through downtown Charlotte on Saturday when I heard some noise filtering through the buildings, so I circled the block. In front the the Duke Energy building I saw about 40 demonstrators from Occupy Charlotte, all of them white except for one Afrikan American male carrying a toddler. As I rolled up on the demonstration they were doing the Hokey Pokey--"you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out..."  Six or seven police officers were enjoying the dance.  I couldn't pick up the refrain, but it said something about Duke's proposed rate hike in NC.  I've been in numerous demonstrations and I've seen countless others, but this Hokey Pokey demo was a first.   Every movement has its own idiosyncrasies.

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