[Street] Action goals - a brainstorm

Ravi Mishra ravi at occupyboston.org
Wed Dec 7 00:35:38 EST 2011


Hi all,

Writing that last email made me think that it might be fun (and useful) to
have a theoretical discussion of what various goals of action should be? In
my mind (please chime in here), a valid goal for an action is any
ideal/value or outcome that aids our overall movement. For example,
education is a very obvious goal - if people know more about the issues,
they're more likely to support our cause, which makes it easier for us to
change the status quo. Conversely (and this could be controversial, again
please chime in), something like "agitation" if often thought of as a goal
in of itself, but I think it probably needs more qualification to be truly
accepted as a goal. Shutting down a street in a financial district could
definitely be a goal because it hurts the operations of those who are
behind the problems that plague our society

Anyway, without further ado, some goals off the top of my head - please
discuss and add yours!

1) Education - teaching people about the issues and what is going on today,
for example
2) Fun! We're not going to be here in the long run if we're not enjoying
ourselves. :)
3) Targeted systems disruption - making it harder for the opposition to do
stuff in a manner that helps our cause

Any particular action can aim to achieve one, some, or all of these goals.
The point of this thread is to create a list of what action goals should
be, and the hope is that we can use these later to more effectively analyze
actions and their efficacy.

Finally. this article by author John Robb frames some basic Conflict Theory
quite well and could serve as a framework to think about what goals of
actions should be.<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/11/how-to-win-a-modern-conflict.html>

Thoughts?

--
Ravi
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