Writing and Academic Research Spring 2012: Occupy Wall Street

Showing posts with label Occupy Wall Street. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

More on Occupy Oakland, etc.

So, interestingly, I may have been wrong about Fox News' reactions to Occupy Oakland. Rather than jump on the image of the burning American Flag, they actually played some of the footage showing the occupiers being attacked by the police; true, they also showed the aftermath of vandalism and interviewed the mayor (a "liberal" mayor--even a liberal is against them--they must have messed up) and then one person on the street who says, " "What they doin don't even make sense. Go home" I don't think its a coincidence that they chose one black woman's reactions to the events; I think, and this is a cynical take on this, that Fox thinks that if a liberal mayor and a black woman on the street thinks the movement is useless, that they are appealing to audiences that may be put off by the 'whiteness' of Fox--liberals and minorities. Maybe this is stretching it a bit--but they did have to select whose reaction to the events they were going to show. At the very least, we can point out that they did NOT get any perspectives of the protesters or sympathizers.

The thing I want to point out about this video is that rather than get up in arms about the movement's burning of the American Flag, the rhetoric Bill uses is that the movement is "finished" and "done," that they "blew it," and, even more surprising (to me) calling occupy wall street a brand. we can see here Bills' opponent talking about how the powerful thing about occupy wall street is that the message (the 'claim' in Fitzgerald's language) has made it all the way to the President; in a way, even if the individual occupations have disintegrated, it is clear that the movement has made the 1% visible--and this is half (or maybe more) the battle.

So this is why they don't go after the anti-American sentiment (although Bill mentions it once) to forward their argument--or at least why they do not have to-- and instead decide to encourage the reification of Occupy into a brand--a brand that the market has declared obsolete. Occupy, according to Bill O'Reilley and co. is now an off-brand, hanging tattered on a clearance rack.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Then again. . .

There's this on the official occupy page:

"On Saturday, Mayor Quan's actions again demonstrated that open war has been declared on the spirit of democracy and the people of Oakland and this nation. We call for the end of Mayor Quan's administration and a regime change in Oakland. We continue to stand in solidarity with Occupy Oakland and will support them as they continue peaceful protest and community building until this and all other authoritarian administrations have been ousted from their place of illegitimate power. Together, we are building a stronger world, a stronger community, a stronger promise for the next generation."

And this video of police brutality:

Occupy Wall Street--Flag Burning

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/occupy-oakland-flag-burning_n_1243232.html

"The images of the flag-burning went viral in the hours after Saturday's demonstrations on Oakland's streets, with Occupy supporters denouncing the act as unpatriotic and a black mark on the movement. Others called it justified."

In his article, Fitzgerald argued that the movement was becoming reifed as a particular group of people, rather than maintaining itself as a claim. Occupy Oakland, by burning the flag, has only reinforced the idea that Occupy protesters are anti-Americans, who engage in semi-terrorist like activities. Many have spoken out against this portrayal of the movement, but the fact is that this is now the static image we have of Occupy protesters:

The flag's been torn, the protesters have bandana masks on, and one guy is smiling and holding up what appears to be a occupy poster, essentially equating the movement with Anti-American sentiment. I wish I could see exactly what is on that poster, because it matters if it says "Occupy Oakland" or "Occupy Wall Street." More than any other photo I've seen, this solidifies the "us" versus "them" mentality. "They" are doing something and we don't like what "they" are doing, so they transform themselves into an isolated group of people rather than one part of a vast network of occupy movements. Occupy Oakland is now a fixed entity that now Occupy Wall Street in general cannot help but try and distance themselves from--this may be the first step in the breaking down of the solidarity of the network. Perhaps this was the danger inherent in occupying more than New York--the center of Wall Street.. .I am just not sure.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Response to Summary's of OWS article

I'd like to start with a question: Does the summary have to start with the introduction and follow the article linearly?

I would say not necessarily. Furthermore, summaries are really hard to sustain without moving into "interpretation" mode. I think most of you did a great job giving equal attention to about 3 main parts of the argument (most of you, in fact, divided up your response in 3 sections).

The first regarded the introduction, which pointed out the current status of occupy wall street as something that has become less interesting as we have begun to "understand" what the movement "is."

Many of you mentioned the analogy of the reality tv show and some of you defined and honed in on reification. The idea that Occupy has become a "thing" and that it can be defined is the main problem for Fitzgerald (most of you pointed this out).

Most of you decided to cite the difference between "it" and "us" and some of you cited or paraphrased Fitzgerald's idea that we need to understand Occupy Wall Street as a claim rather than a "thing" that can be easily defined. This is a main point of the argument.

All in all, I was happy with the summaries. I think that we need to keep in mind that while a decent summary can be written on the fly, it usually comes with several revisions, combining sentences and thoughts in order to make it as concise as possible. This will be especially important when you condense Geertz (30 pgs give or take) to a mere 300 words!! Sometimes it might be useful to write a rough sketch that is WAAAAY too long and then combine and condense afterwards. I know this is more work, but, trust me, it frequently pays off.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

My half-truth

Today, I made the claim that I wanted this course to work toward an "understanding" the occupy movement without necessarily swaying you one way or the other. While I still maintain this as my goal, I must confess my own political bias. Although I maintain the movement has its issues and problems, it is probably clear that I am sympathetic with the movement, although remain ambivalent about many of its particular practices. And yes, I probably lean a bit more to left than some of you--fulfilling the "English graduate student" stereotype. Despite this bias (and we all have our biases) I am open to debate and argument--some of you may even want to argue the uselessness of the movement. This is fine. I hope that we can use the Occupy phenomenon as a 'subject' to write about. That is, I hope that by using Occupy as content, we can focus on the form of your writing. The ideas and opinions will be important, but this is a writing and research course--not a political science course, not an English course, and not discussion group on current events.

That said, I hope that together we can become more aware of our own roles in society and culture. Writing is always a situated activity; even the "essay prompt" is a particular situation that calls for a certain type of writing. We always write for a purpose and the most useless and arbitrary purpose is to write merely for a grade. We will write for each other. Your audience will be the class and, potentially, other people on the internet. As I'm sure you all have heard at one time or another, writing is all about audience. What are strategies to convince people of your point? What do you want to say? These are some of the hardest parts of the writing process.

Example: What is the purpose of this blogpost?

1.) To admit my own political bias

2.) To further explain how we will "use" the occupy movement

3.) To reflect generally on the situatedness of writing.

What I just did there is reflect on my purpose. Reflection will be a key component of this course. We will read and re-read our writing and write more based on our reading. We will create a feedback loop, where thinking happens between the writer and the page rather than in the writer's head. I am a firm believer that writing is thinking rather than writing as an "expression" of thinking.

Some of you may be reading this wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Perhaps I have not taken my audience into account. But who is my audience?

The blog format is not merely for others, but for yourself. Your final projects will take a broader audience into account and indeed your blogs will be read by fellow students and me (so think of some assignments like that) but also think of your blog as a place for brainstorming or even as a digital memory--a kind of journal that compiles your own thoughts, quotations from texts or articles you read on the web, links, images, and videos. Hopefully, we all will look back at our blogs as a record and archive of our thinking and learning.

If you facebook, I encourage you to post a link to your blogposts for your friends to read--who knows, maybe they will be interested in what you have to say.

Good luck.