Martin Luther King repudiated the pressure to develop lists of demands in his 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here?:

“”This argument, by explaining everything in terms of the presence or absence of programs, illuminates how the insistence on programs can be used as a sophisticated device to evade action….

“Underneath the invitation to prepare programs is the premise that the government is inherently benevolent – it only awaits presentation of imaginative ideas. When these issue from fertile minds, they will be accepted, enacted and implemented….This is fable, not a fact. Neither our government nor any government that has sanctioned a century of denial can be depicted as ardent and impatient to bestow the gifts of freedom.

“When a people are mired in oppression, they realize deliverance when they have accumulated the power to enforce change. When they have amassed such strength, the writing of a program becomes almost an administrative detail. It is immaterial who presents the program: what is material is the presence of an ability to make events happen….

“The deeper truth is that the call to prepare programs distracts us excessively from our basic and primary tasks…. We are in fact being counseled to put the cart before the horse. We have to put the horse (power) before the cart (programs)….

“We do need certain general programs for the movement, but not for use as supplicants. We require programs to hold up to our followers which mirror their aspirations. In this fashion our goals are dramatized and our supporters are inspired to action and to deeper moral commitment….”

The Civil Rights Movement clearly faced the same challenge. What is important is to maintain the initiative to make things happen and keep the “Re-Imagining” moving. The only limitation is our own imaginations. There are myriad ways to extend the Occupation.

King never demonstrated without making a demand on the state. The state is distinct from the government. It is comprised of bodies of armed men who defend the economic system – police, courts, army ICE etc. Since the state is far from being a wise and benevolent power, it is the major block to changing any economic system. Thus movements must batter it into paralysis.

A revolution is not a single act. It is not a sporadic and emotional release of anger. It is an entire period of organizing diverse protests and directing them against the state. There is a strategic direction here.

The government and the state spend public money. “We are the 99%” translates into specific demands on local, state and federal government: For every dollar you spend on the 1%, spend $99 to directly benefit the public!

People before Profit! The state must guarantee the needs of humans before the needs of  corporations, elevated today by the law as “Corporate Persons”! By forcing the state to respond to constantly respond to concrete Occupation demands, we can keep it off-balance, ever more ensnared in promises or refusals to deliver, where either option serves to politicize and mobilize ever more people.

This requires a political movement, the kind we are all reaching towards at this very moment. We are beginning to learn the art of realizing new forms of class struggle… of a new class – a global working class that is increasingly prevented by law from being ableto work or have a political voice.

Steven Miller

nanodog2@hotmail.com