In the early weeks of Occupy Wall Street, there was an easy media narrative observing that the group had "no demands" and that mocked it for being a leaderless organization. Over the course of months, the movement grew and is presently reshaping American political discourse, bringing credence to policies that (before OWS) would have been considered unmentionable: student debt forgiveness, foreclosure protection, and general income inequality, to name only a few.
Unfortunately, though, that media narrative of disorganization and lack of specific agenda persists in the minds of those who have had no direct contact with Occupy Wall Street (or the Occupy in their own city, for that matter). It is true that there is not a set of universal demands called for by every branch and member of the movement, presenting a unified political front. The Occupy movement operates under a wholly different philosophical framework and is structured in such a way that it resists a traditional approach to politics.
I was speaking this past week with someone who expressed to me that they were "struggling with what the message is [of OWS] and who has authority to speak for the group." The following is my response.
In brief, there is no message, nor does anyone have authority to speak for the group, nor is the “group” well-defined. But this answer is kind of a cop out. In order to give you a better answer, we need to talk about the structure of Occupy Wall Street.
Generally, when the term “Occupy Wall Street” is used, unless it specifically refers to the Occupy at Zucotti Park, it describes a loosely affiliated network around the country and around the world. That network consists of more than 2000 Occupy’s, over 200 of which are located in the US. (You begin to see the problem with trying to pin down a single agenda held by a global network. Within a particular country it may prove to be slightly easier, but that comes later.)
Let’s zoom in though and look at an Occupy in a particular city. Any particular Occupy consists of two general elements: the camp (ie the occupation) and the General Assembly. The camps are what are making the headlines for getting busted by police in a coordinated national effort. They are the primary tactic used by any particular Occupy, and occupations have a rich history in protests -- from the sit-ins at Woolworth’s lunch counter in the 60s (and long before that even) to the Egyptians’ takeover of Tahrir Square earlier this year. The General Assembly (GA), however, is where decisions and policies are made. If there were such a thing as a “message” that a particular Occupy wants to deliver, then it would come from its GA. The GA is a space of direct democracy and consensus decision-making.
There are no written rules proscribing this, but functionally the GA only makes certain types of decisions. It a) endorses certain actions (generally those to be taken by protesters), b) lends resources to those actions, and c) announces policies. In Oakland, proposals are brought before the GA each meeting (quorum is 100 attendees) and must pass with at least 90% approval. That is 9 out of every 10 members of the community must stand behind any statements, messages, or agendas resolved by the GA. The process of decision making looks different in every city (though it is generally based on direct democracy and consensus), and any decision made by an Occupy in one city does not reflect the views of any other city. I would note, however, that thanks to the internet, policies/actions decided by one city are heard about quickly across the country and similar policies/actions sometimes get passed by other cities in rapid succession. Sometimes representatives from one city go to GA’s in other cities to encourage them to pass similar proposals.
And again, there are no written rules, but the GA is not meant to describe or endorse every action taken by its Occupy or opinion held by its members. Heavy emphasis is placed on individuals’ autonomy and general autonomous action. If you think there should be a website for the Occupy, you don’t ask the GA, you just make it and encourage people to use it. If it catches on, it becomes the de facto “official” site. Or if you want to organize a march, you can make an announcement about it, and if people show up for it, you have a march. In this sense, Occupy is kind of a vortex of people and action, swirling around the GA at the center.
Participants in a city’s Occupy can be wildly divergent in their political beliefs. One participant may have joined because she wants to end the wars; another to support Ron Paul’s call to “audit the Fed.” The GA, like I said above, functionally only endorses beliefs held by all (or almost all) of its participants -- and which someone thought was important enough to bring to the group as a proposal. (What can you get 90% of 3000 people to agree on? Well, 95% of a group that large decided to endorse and organize a general strike in Oakland!) Demands that get made by specific Occupy’s can end up being very localized. In Oakland, public school shut-downs are a big motivator. Across Ohio, there were statements that denounced a state ballot measure to bust unions. In New York, they felt it was important to pass a statement condemning police violence. These are the kind of policies that are getting passed at GA’s -- not necessarily national-level (or international-level) political agendas.
Remember also, that Occupy Wall Street (by which I mean that global movement) is in a state of evolution. Every day it grows and changes as new participants join and learn. In order to start to guess at what a more or less unified political agenda might begin to look like, you would need to take polls of a GA’s participants about what motivates them to be there and compare those with polls of other city’s GA participants. A few reporters have started doing this, in an effort to guess at a national agenda that might emerge eventually (like I said before, popular proposals spread like wildfire across the network). (Hint: In the US, these preliminary polls indicate more interest in the cozy relationship between the finance industry and government than taxes or big government.)
Returning to your questions, there are policies and messages that many Occupy participants may agree on. Perhaps some of them will come up as proposals at a GA. We have discussions about them, about society and politics, and what we agree with and don’t agree with. The GA is a forum in which we speak openly about these with people who are willing to listen and share their own beliefs. Any participant in Occupy is free to speak to the media or to politicians about their beliefs, but the media must realize that this person speaks only for themself. So when you see someone on TV who claims to speak for OWS (Van Jones, I’m looking at you), know that he is a charlatan. When politicians (or SEIU, apparently) market themselves as fighting for OWS, know that it is cynical branding. Occupy Wall Street (again, used in the global sense) is an experiment in radical democracy, in which every voice is heard equally.
[Author's Note: Since I wrote this, DailyKos is now attempting to speak for OWS (along with a group of nationally prominent unions and Democratic organizations). We are better than that.]