@JustJim, I think you answered your own question. By you, and all of us still here, acknowledging that we need re-invigoration and by thinking of new ways to do this, we can re-invigorate it!

We've got a lot of ideas on this site, so lets put some of them into practise. These new methods may include beginning our own political party: http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2011/12/20111215181512578385.html

or, creative new protest methods: http://www.occupytogether.org/discuss/#/discussion/1630/evict-wall-street

or, unionizing more workers and perhaps starting an active new 'Union for the 99%': http://www.occupytogether.org/discuss/#/discussion/1774/occupy-the-labour-movement-form-a-new-union-for-the-99...

or, by paying attention to what else is going on in the world and continuing a global discourse in order to spread the best ideas from wherever they may have already taken hold: http://www.occupytogether.org/discuss/#/discussion/125/why-iceland-should-be-in-the-news-but-is-not

These are just some ideas I've put forth, but there are many other ideas. Keep thinking critically and discussing with occupiers and we will have our action.

Thanks for your ideas @justjim and the @therieldeal. Maybe we're just waking up to Realpolitik. I think that would be true here in Sacramento where people seem to have no problem cutting off their working groups to spite their GA. J

I think Occupy started with its back to a wall and was fronted by a wall built of its ignorance of feminist and womanist theory. I think we shattered both those walls and now find ourselves surrounded by a moat that will be harder to cross than it was to shatter the walls. Infesting the water is patriarchy. Beckoning on the other side is the Native American experience of beauty. Our boat is built of feminist and womanist theory. Our oars are the logic and math of a science conceived of as a feeding physics to balance Newton's force physics. Physics being provisionally defined as the study of physicality that has physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. The "physical" in the above that I am referring to is our physical bodies on Earth which are "fed" by women. The food she feeds with was developed by (for the most part) indigenous women. :)

Reinvigorating Occupy might be assisted by rehashing what happened to the Green Party. Sacramento is trying to do a community planning conference where such a rehash may or may not come up. Maybe a conference call could be set up to be a theoretical adjunct to the CoC (Committees of Correspondence) conference calls. Its next call is Feb 10.
Sea

@sea I think we need to focus on our common traits. In the words of the bard "If you prick me, do I not bleed?".

We all occupy (excuse the pun) this planet together. Man or woman, rich or poor, white or person of color ...

Whatever we do should start from this basis of commonality and proceed from there.

Is the Feb 10 call an interoccupy call?

Thanks

Jim

I think there is a lot of offline activity and collaboration. I have seen some fantastic projects emerge this past week. Http://www.occupyfirst.org is a democratic socially-conscious credit union being formed for occupiers, by occupiers. The g8/Nato summit is in May. Much more in the works...

I think people think that by mentioning women it means that somehow men are being denied. That is so wrong.

The wall preventing Occupy's success is a wall of ignorance. Learning about the world from the perspective of a woman reduces ignorance. Big time!

I think the fight against the SOPA took up a lot of oxygen, esp. in the on-line community. OWS itself is experiencing division over the events in Oakland, and the way that Occupy Oakland is handling it. Also, the easy wins are over- what's left is the hard stuff: overturning Citizens United, opposing the excesses of the War on Terror, doing something about the foreclosure crisis. All this will take time, and in the meantime, it can seem as if the momentum is gone.

Occupy exists to express outrage. That was it's purpose, and that purpose was fulfilled. The public has become aware of the way the government is in bed with financial interests, lefty-talk is no longer ignored, it's acceptable to doubt the excesses of free-markets and laissez faire policies again. To go any further it may be necessary to evolve beyond "Occupy". Now we need smart people to sit down and work out policy solutions to long-term problems and push those policies with the public.

I agree. We, rather OWS (cause I wasn't there) did good and Oakland represents our anarchists. The policies to push with the public will be hard to hammer out, involving various theories. I think we'd benefit from starting with a feminist and womanist view. One that is seen as supporting men. And Greed is both the enemy we fight and our own enemy to ourselves. "We have met the enemy and we are it." I think people will balk at complex ideas and say that they smell of top-down control. I think saying that greed is the problem, is too satisfying and universal, so that then people hesitate to look deeper. Let's look beyond "greed" to historical structural measurable issues. To fundamental causes and solutions.

@DeMarquis and @Sea: "Now we need smart people to sit down and work out policy solutions to long-term problems and push those policies with the public."

http://occupytogether.com/forum/discussion/2206/outline-of-the-otc-grand-assembly#Item_3

Please come and help us^

@Sea, "The wall preventing Occupy's success is a wall of ignorance. Learning about the world from the perspective of a woman reduces ignorance. Big time!"

I suggest you describe clearly, and accurately what you mean by "perspective of a woman". Before even reading your response I suggest that there is no such a thing in reality, i.e., there are enough women with a wide range of "perspective" to make the notion of a "perspective of woman" unreal, and sexist (i.e., offensive to most men as if there is something inherently "good" about being a "woman"). Such sexist roles / "perspectives" have long been exposed to be illegitimate courtesy of capitalism with its destruction of traditional roles for the sexes, races, ethnicities, etc.

A little humour:

@Sea, to rehash what slave said, I think there is no reason to bring women into this. It's about men and women equally. Also, there are as many women's perspectives as there are women and there are as many men's perspectives as there are men. What we need are ways to unify, not divide. We are not just two sexes, we are one humanity. One humanity includes anyone of any gender, colour, ethnicity, disability, the LGBTQI community, etc. So let's not exclude anyone by just talking about women specifically.

The video clip displays that if we let ourselves get bogged down in petty debates over minor issues, we get distracted from, and lose sight of our major goals. Let's not hit THAT wall.

@JustJim,
those who make reform impossible, make revolution invevitable.

OWS is still a predominantly reform movement despite it's still superficial exposure of the "class war". With all aspects of survival most likely and inevitably due to worsen for the 99%, it's reformist proposals will appear increasingly as "too little, too late". They will also inevitably prove impractical and idealist due to effectively asking the thieves (i.e., the thieves of labor and environment, the capitalists in general - who have almost all the means within the framework of current socioeconomic structure) to regulate themselves.

We should not assume that reform is always more "practical" than "revolution". There is a time and place for everything. Context is everything. It is much easier and less costly to build a new house with sustainable materials on a solid foundation than repair a house built as a Ponzi scheme with shoddy foundation and framework that is falling apart faster than can be repaired. Today's "normals" are tomorrow's "abnormals". With capitalism so hugely costly to maintain judging by the extent of externalized COSTS endangering life on the planet itself as well as the diabolic destructive FORCES developed and used in its offense and defense, it has become an overwhelmingly "UTOPIAN" socioeconomic system to maintain in reality, requiring siphoning of incredible amount of resources and energy from the biosphere. This malignant parasitism is unsustainable and no reform, however "radical" and impossible to "succeed" at this historical stage would not save us from its ultimate fundamental drive to "maximize profit" which would get us back to exactly where we are now, at best.

P.S. Real revolution is about replacing the economic system (which also controls the superstructural political / cultural / spiritual / moral / ideologic system). Whereas reform / including rebellion (often confused with "revolution") is much more limited and about changing the regime (i.e., the political system).

I wonder if slave wants to state openly if his "revolution" is a violent one? The woman's perspective he seems ignorant of is the perspective of being at the receiving end of male brutality. A womanist and feminist revolution is a non-violent revolution. Has slave not read Mary Wollstonecraft?

Aren't the common traits we need to focus on those limited by, or within the scope of, Earth? And what's to stop strong "men" from seizing control and doing the wrong thing, even as a social service? Only our GAs — if they are guided by the best of the past. In other discussions on this BB though, the historical examples cited as being worth emulating, haven't been able to balance economy with the Earth's ecosystems. And the people doing it hadn't the strength to put such reforms or revolutionary occurrences into sustainable practice.

Yet the USA has the strength in spite of the "decline of the West", because that decline doesn't refer to the decline of our leading and stronger ideas. It refers to the decline of our ability to lead, beyond merely in the ability to accumulate toys or gadgets which the Chinese are better at. But whereas China respects the West's leading ideas of which Marx is the exemplar — because his work is consistent with physics and women — China's historical experience can't bring forth what the USA has partially brought forth. They and the rest of the world can't support us or help us lead — even though they know we have the best and strongest ideas — because the rest of the world knows that there's a rotten core to what we've achieved. It is our treatment of Native Americans which is symbolic of the treatment of women. The destruction of our feeding ecosystems.

Occupy's GAs can lead the world if they reform the USA's rotten core by honoring — through a "truth and reconciliation commission" — what instead we continue to genocide. The world will follow us — we the stronger — if our GAs recognize the power of women feeding. Its manifested as a social system that Native Americans represent.
— é ÷ × —