Power Systems Read Free Page B

then there will be more support for a revolution. That was the choice some people made in Germany, and you know where that led. So it’s a question you have to think about, but I don’t think you have to think about it very hard.
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    Do you think the Occupy movements should be involved in electoral politics or work from below without engaging in the system?
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    As they stand, they’re not an electoral force. First of all, I don’t think they can take a unified position. They have no mechanism for making a unified decision, and I think that’s a good thing. It’s better to have a variety of opinions and attitudes, as well as interchange and interaction about what to do, and to accept and tolerate opposing opinions within a general framework. I think that’s much more important than having a general assembly vote saying we support X or Y or Z.
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    What are some practical steps that you think the movements can undertake?
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    They’ve already undertaken practical steps. So, for example, they have substantially changed the general discourse in the country. There is now overt concern and engagement in questions of inequality, the extraordinary power of financial institutions, government subordination to financial institutions, the role of finance and of money in general in the buying and shaping of elections. And they can go further—and already have, to some extent. So, for example, they can ask: Why should it be up to executives and managers to decide to settle investment decisions about where things will be produced and what will be produced, how profits will be distributed? Why should that be the domain of the directorate of a corporation? Usually a bank is a small sector of rich people. Do they have some natural right to make those decisions? Not by any economic principle. In fact, there’s every reason to advocate that those decisions be made by what are called stakeholders—communities, the workforce, others affected by what’s decided.
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    But going forward, how are they going to be able to sustain themselves in the face of this propaganda system and an increasingly repressive police force? One of the things that a number of people have commented on has been the degree of militarization of local police departments. 27 They’re looking more and more like special operations forces.
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    Power doesn’t commit suicide. So yes, there will be attempts to carry out repression. But the repression that exists now is not remotely like it has been in the past. There’s nothing like Wilson’s Red Scare or COINTELPRO. As far as we are aware, there are no assassinations of movement leaders. But, yes, there is repression. And some of the tactics Occupy has used, which are good tactics, lend themselves easily to police repression. So occupying a space is a very good tactic. I think it’s good that Occupy has done it. But you have to recognize that it provides an opening to police attacks, which probably would be publicly supported to a large extent. So you need to find other tactics.
    The way to deal with the repression and denigration that will take place is to build more popular support. What the Occupy movements have to do if they’re going to sustain themselves is recognize that tactics are not strategies. A tactic may be a very good one, but tactics tend to have diminishing returns after a while. People get tired of them and they lose their efficacy, so you have to move on. I think it’s generally accepted in the movements that they have to reach out and engage other sectors of the society. There have been moves in that direction, like joining with anti-foreclosure movements. But again, active labor participation will be essential.
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    Let’s talk more about the environment. You say that “risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be