Thirteen years ago today, a thousand demonstrators descended on Wall Street, occupying Zuccotti Park and kicking off what came to be known as the Occupy movement. Revisiting that moment, we can see how dramatically the terrain of social movements has changed as our society has polarized. The organizers of Occupy Wall Street proposed to create a movement that could bring all society together against the ruling order and the few who profit from it, mobilizing under the slogan “We are the 99%.” Today, the divisions that cut through our society have only deepened, rendering it more difficult to imagine social change. Now, the capitalist order is not stabilized by the illusion of general consent, but rather by the looming threat of violent conflict. Yet if anything, this only renders it more important to learn from and experiment with the legacy of the Occupy movement today.

CrimethInc.

Reflecting on Occupy Wall Street, Thirteen Years Later

Revisiting the Occupy movement today, we can see how dramatically the terrain of social movements has changed as our society has polarized.

As the news cycle focuses on the latest apparent assassination attempt, the real story here is that arms profiteers have flooded the United States with weapons—while social crises have intensified—to such an extent that even billionaires like Donald Trump are experiencing the consequences. There have already been hundreds of mass shootings in the United States in 2024. Trump is just getting a small taste of how the rest of us live. The difference is that the rest of us don't have the Secret Service and millions of dollars in security to protect us. As usual, the ruling class create a threat to us, profit on it, then pretend to be the chief victims. The solution is not more police repression, nor more state-imposed gun control (since that would only be enforced via more police violence). We have to organize collectively and horizontally to defend ourselves against arms profiteers, police, and politicians.

CrimethInc.

Their Guns Won't Protect You, but They Can Get You Killed

Neither Republican calls for more policing nor Democrat demands for more gun control can put an end to the epidemic of mass shootings in the US.

The attacks that took place on September 11, 2001 left much of the US population more stunned than bellicose. Yet politicians had prepared a flood of new legislation and military interventions in advance for precisely such an opportunity. They initiated a new round of colonial wars and crackdowns on domestic dissent. More than a million people died as a consequence of the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the resulting turmoil. The rise of the Islamic State and, later, the disorganized withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan showed how little these operations achieved their professed objectives. Yet by creating this disaster, George W. Bush managed to ride the coattails of war to another term as president. Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli government has pursued a similar course, taking advantage of the opportunity to destroy Gaza and butcher tens of thousands of Palestinians. This will not make anyone safer in the region—neither Palestinians nor Israelis nor anyone else. It is calculated to create an ongoing crisis that will keep the most chauvinistic Israeli politicians in power at everyone else's expense. Today as in 2001, our leaders will not protect us, but they can get us killed. Stop the genocide in Palestine.

The French 9/11

A dialogue with the French news source Lundimatin about the Terror War, state security, and what the aftermath of September 11 can teach people in ...