Occupy Wall Street: Spokes Council Tries to Assume Control of Occupod’s Money

Ever since OWS started, many observers have been predicting that the movement would become totalitarian. The reason is simple, they propose empowering government to unprecedented levels, and to do that, they must concentrate power. When power is concentrated, power hungry people will gravitate to that power-like moths to a flame. Also, since touchy-feely, smelling hippie activities will not achieve the goals of the movement, more “rational” members of the movement will become frustrated and take over, because they are the ones that are “fit” to lead. Of course, such a movement mus become totalitarian to concentrate power. Then, once that power is concentrated, the new regime must become even more totalitarian to maintain that concentration. This is how, “peace, land, and bread” turned into a murderous regime that killed over 50,000,000 Soviet citizens. That is how Mao’s promises of a “Great Leap Forward” turned into tens of millions of starved Chinese. In essence, OWS is becoming a microcosm of the “utopia” that they want for us, a very small few dictating every aspect of human life to the rest of us.

We’ve seen signs of this already. The movement has started to exclude more and more constituencies within the 99%. The homeless, obvious victims of the 1%, are out. Prisoners? Well, they just don’t fit in, so they are out too. And, in DC, they’ve shown that people in wheelchairs and elderly women aren’t above being detained or injured. And the Jews? Well, they apparently have to be “disposed of.” Any way you slice it, the movement seems to be evolving into a centrally controlled, exclusionary, and increasingly totalitarian entity.

As we have previously reported, OWS has $500,000 in the bank. There have been many questions in the movement as to how that should be spent. In a response to this quandry, the Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group created the Spokes Council. How this council works is far more indicative of the true nature of the occupods, as well as their future operations. Here is some coverage of this development, from Smitty at the Other McCain…

This is more than a little chilling:

On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.

And, toward the end:

When my turn came to speak, I brought up the plans of “the leaders of the allegedly leaderless movement” to commandeer the half-million dollars sent to the General Assembly for their new, exclusive, undemocratic, representational organization. Before I could finish, the facilitators and other members of the OWS inner circle started shouting over me. Amidst the confusion, the human mic stopped projecting what I, or anybody was saying. Because silence was what they were after, the leaders won.
Eventually one of the facilitators regained control of the crowd and explained that I was speaking “opinions, not facts,” which is why I would not be allowed to continue. He also asserted untruthfully that I had gone over my allotted minute. Notably, the facilitators and members of the OWS inner circle regularly ignore time restrictions.
This reaction shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is reasonable to expect any undemocratic organization to be co-opted eventually by a vocal minority or charismatic individual. On Friday, October 29, the proposal to create the Spokes Council was put to the NYC-GA for a fifth time, and finally received a 90% majority. The facilitators assisted the process by denying two vocal critics of the Spokes Council their allotted time to speak against it.
Sometimes it snows before the leaves have fallen.

Read the whole thing.

I did read the whole thing. You see all of the classic indicators of what we regularly see from the left. The discrediting, and silencing of dissent, and the concentration of political power in the hands of a few. Because, as we all know, having six people in charge of the 99% is far more equitable that allowing people to freely purchase goods and services from corporations, right?

Memeorandum thread here.