viz.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

Last Thursday afternoon, I borrowed a video camera from the Digital Writing and Research Lab and headed down to Occupy Austin, a gathering intended to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. If you've been following the media coverage of Occupy Wall Street, then you know that people are confused about what exactly it is the protesters in New York want, and in Austin it doesn't seem to be much different.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

There were certainly people at Occupy Austin who fit some of the stereotypes coming out of conservative media outlets: there's a hippie playing a flute, people in suits doing yoga, and a bunch of kids who looked like they could start a drum circle at the drop of a hat. And there were plenty of signs proclaiming non-political messages of love and solidarity with others in the movement. Some aspects of Occupy Austin seemed more like a love-in than anything else.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

But, as Jon Stewart touched upon in an episode of The Daily Show, there were also many parallels between this and Tea Party protests. Many of the protestors despise the Fed, are angered by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and think Barack Obama is evil.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

During the General Assembly portion of the first day of Occupy Austin, tensions were obvious between those who wanted their occupation to be about community solidarity and those who wanted the group to move to political action. The General Assembly is the portion of the day in which anyone can raise issues for discussion in the group. Organizers depend heavily upon Robert's Rules of Order, voting on who can speak and limiting how long they can speak.

I recorded a lengthy portion of the General Assembly in which speakers raised issues--solar energy, forming political action committees, even forming cheerleading groups--and then voted upon how many minutes each speaker could have. What I found most interesting was the reliance on Robert's Rules of Order, a system of rules intended for deliberative assemblies, in an atmosphere in which political deliberation seemed unacceptable.

I edited the following video down in order to show just how many times the organizers took the floor back (or forceably took the microphone back) from people proposing issues. While the proposers are breaking the rules of order by going beyond thirty seconds to raise their issues, it also seems like the man in charge of the microphone (the guy in the brown shirt), likes to take the microphone back whenever someone proposes political action. Note that at 1:13, he tries to take the microphone back from the older gentleman, and he throws up his arms to show that he has a "block" to what is being said. In Robert's Rules of Order, and as explained earlier in the general assembly, blocks are used only when one thinks that whatever is happening will be disastrous to the group as a whole. What you can't hear the man in the brown shirt say because of sound quality is that "This movement is not about partisan politics."

Video Credit: Marjorie Foley

It's pretty clear that there are some people at Occupy Austin who do think that the movement is about "partisan politics," especially if partisan politics means issue politics. But it seems like the "leaders" (here, brown-shirt guy and white-shirt lady) of this non-hierarchical organization want to prevent the movement from moving in that direction.

There are two readings, at least, of this situation. The first is that, as Jason Fitzgerald argues, while there's no "message" coming out of the movement, there's certainly a reason behind the protests: people are protesting or occupying in order to bring attention to income inequality and corporate influence in government. Instead of debating "issues," these protesters want to express solidarity with other in the community without moving to political action because they believe that the political system is broken. Some people at Occupy Austin certainly fit into that category. The second reading, I think, is something more like what happened with the Tea Party. In order to build a populist movement, groups shy away from being overly ideological, focusing too narrowly on social issues, or focusing too narrowly on identity politics. They build a following first, build solidarity with their communities, and use the General Assembly to hash out what the message is, whatever it is.