Lessons from the 1960s: An Essay by Andrew Feenberg

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What can the Occupy Movement learn from the 60s? How did the New Left fail to mobilize a mass base? How did sectarianism divide them into weaker and weaker factions? Why could not they effect the changes they set out to make? Santayana says: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Therefore let us take a look at history and heed the warning.

Professor Andrew Feenberg provided an analytical account of the New Left Movement, as both a witness and an active participant. This essay, Paths to Failure: The Dialectics of Organization and Ideology in the New Left, is not only informative but also insightful. His dissection of psychological, emotional, as well as ideological pitfalls will have a sobering effect on enthusiastic members of any civil rights movement who wish to learn from the past.

The PDF file can be downloaded here

This article was submitted by Librarian Amy.  Thank you, Amy!

Journal: New Digital Media and Activist Networking (a brief history and analysis)

The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti−Corporate Globalization Movements
Jeffrey S. Juris
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2005 597: 189

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ABSTRACT:

This article examines how anti–corporate globalization
activists have used new digital technologies to coordi-
nate actions, build networks, practice media activism,
and physically manifest their emerging political ideals.
Since the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle,
and through subsequent mobilizations against multilat-
eral institutions and forums in Prague, Quebec, Genoa,
Barcelona, and Porto Alegre, activists have used e-mail
lists, Web pages, and open editing software to organize
and coordinate actions, share information, and produce
documents, reflecting a general growth in digital collab-
oration. Indymedia has provided an online forum for
posting audio, video, and text files, while activists have
also created temporary media hubs to generate alterna-
tive information, experiment with new technologies,
and exchange ideas and resources. Influenced by anar-
chism and peer-to-peer networking logics, anti–corpo-
rate globalization activists have not only incorporated
digital technologies as concrete tools, they have also
used them to express alternative political imaginaries
based on an emerging network ideal.

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The Future of the Occupy Movement with Michael Stone

A brilliant speech with Michael Stone at Occupy Vancouver