By Esther Kreider-Verhalle, November 30th, 2011 
Event Recap
The third session of the Flying Seminar offered an opportunity to deliberate possibilities for the next phase of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Bill Zimmerman, a self-described veteran troublemaker, gave an account of his many experiences with progressive actions in the United States. Not unlike the two earlier sessions, in which OWS members compared notes with Polish and Japanese troublemakers, the current activists were able to compare and contrast their knowledge and their ideas with yet another out-of-the-box thinker.
Bill Zimmerman was in New York City to give talks and promote his book, a memoir that recounts a history of American political activism starting in the 1960s through Zimmerman’s personal experiences.
When it comes to organizing people, Zimmerman opened a box full of tactics that he and his fellow activists have used over the years to spur and demand change. He started off with letting us in on a lesson he learned early on. After having been active in increasingly militant protests against the Vietnam War, he realized that this kind of activism did not resonate with the public. The movement was forced to reconnect with people or otherwise lose its essential support. As it turned out, Americans responded to the call for humanitarian aid and Zimmerman was able to organize the international charity Medical Aid for Indochina, which brought humanitarian relief from American citizens beyond enemy lines. This prompted a serious discussion about the need to connect and stay connected with ‘your audience’ and how to get people who are sympathetic to a cause to participate.
Inevitably, this also brought back the more strategic question of wanting to work within the current capitalist system or striving for an alternative scenario through a systemic social-economic change. Most discussants were in favor of the use of creative instruments within our current system. Of course, Zimmerman’s experience lies exactly there. He was active in electoral campaigns, organized populist movements, produced political commercials, and worked on ballot initiatives, an instrument of direct democracy that is allowed in 23 states. As Jan Gross put it, “The framework is not your adversary, it can be filled with friendly initiatives.”
The systemic question reminded those around the . . .
Read more: Dec. 3rd: OWS Meets Bill Zimmerman (Video)
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 26th, 2011 ![Adam Michnik during "Kolorowa Tolerancja" in Łódź © HuBar (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons](../../wp-content/uploads/2011/10/450px-Adam_Michnik_Lodz-150x111.jpg)
Event Recap
The second session of the Flying Seminar presented the opportunity for a comparative historical dialogue about key issues of radical political engagement. Adam Michnik, a leading Polish dissident intellectual of Communist Poland and founding editor of Poland’s major newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Occupy Wall Street activists compared notes. There was much that separated Michnik from the Occupiers, which gave the discussion its critical edge. But there was also much that connected them: a commitment to democracy and experimentation, a critical attitude concerning political elites disconnected from society, an understanding of the importance of creative social action.
Capitalism separated Michnik from the occupiers. They often invoked the term to summarize what they were against. This was also clear and shared at our last meeting between OWS and Shiroto no Ran. Michnik was quiet on this issue. Capitalism is a normal economic situation, what the previously existing socialist system was not.
There was also a difference in the assessment of utopia. Michnik spelled out three characteristics of Poland’s self limiting revolution. It was against violence. It was anti-utopian when it came to political ends. And it was geopolitically realistic, aware of where Poland is on the map. (Here he was referring to Poland’s proximity to Moscow and what then seemed in 1980 to be the solidity, overwhelming power and steadfastness of the Soviet Union.) The tension between taking up political activity versus remaining “splendidly isolated” from mainstream politics dominated the meeting, evolving in different directions – both pragmatic and philosophical ones.
Against his realism (he is the author of a brilliant essay “Grey is Beautiful”), an OWS activists asserted that being against utopia means accepting the unacceptable, rejecting the need for fundamental change. The struggle for imagination against realism, for achieving desirable change without new forms of tyranny provided a fertile field for discussion, with broad agreement.
Michnik recalled how the older generation was sure that the protests in Poland in 1968 and of the seventies lacked clear political goals and, therefore, was doomed to failure. But he and his fellow students and activists persisted. He told an interesting story about the rejection of a self appointed leader in a tram workers strike that occurred weeks before the emergence of . . .
Read more: Oct. 29th: OWS Meets Poland’s Self-Limiting Revolution in Conversation with Adam Michnik (Video)
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 25th, 2011 Event Recap
It was a flash seminar that led to deliberate dialogue. The first session of the Flying Seminar was remarkable.
On Saturday, we had a teach-in, proposing the seminar. From the floor a proposal was made to have a meeting between activists in Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolt) and Occupy Wall Street. We contacted the Japanese activists, who were camping out in Zuccotti Park. They agreed to participate. It was later reported to me that this is one thing they hoped to do coming to New York. I met with Harrison Schultz, the sociology student here most involved in the occupation, about the event. He spoke to friends. I went to the park to talk up the seminar, particularly with the OWS Think Tank group. It seems that there will be an ongoing relationship between this group and the Flying Seminar. We asked Jonathan Schell, given his long term focus on direct action and issues nuclear, to join us. We hoped people would come. And a diversity of interested people did, taking part in a fascinating serious discussion. As the video of the proceedings posted here reveals.
The event was defined by the people taking part. The New School provided a space for free thoughtful exchange and much was discovered. I will post my sustained thoughts about the discussion early next week. For now, I will just outline what happened.
I opened the seminar with a brief statement introducing our project. Then we started with the seminar participants introducing themselves as individuals. After which, the activists of Shiroto no Ran gave an overview of their political engagement through a slide presentation.
It turns out that they are a group of self-styled misfits, non-conformists centered in a kind of second hand retail store, where some live along with others who eat, drink, dance, sing, and exchange goods, all supported by the kindness of neighbors. Their small countercultural world (I would describe it as a quintessential example of the politics of small things), engaged a large public when they organized mass demonstrations after the Fukushima disaster. They took us through their experiences, how they reached people, where they stand in Japanese society. They explained how the size . . .
Read more: Oct. 25th: OWS Meets Japanese Anti-Nukers in Conversation with Jonathan Schell (Video)
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 23rd, 2011 
The Flying Seminar is taking off! At the teach-in yesterday, Elzbieta Matynia and I presented our idea (described in my last post) to a group of Occupy Wall Street activists and New School colleagues. It was received with strong support and also with creativity. We are already working to turn the idea into a reality.
We want to create a setting for making intellectual and political connections. We recognize that OWS presents something unique. We hope to learn from it, and we also think that experiences “past and present,” and “from here and elsewhere,” can not only inform our understanding of the world wide occupation movement, it can also help the occupation and other social movements act in an informed fashion. Our seminar is dedicated to this learning and informed action.
Elzbieta and I worked together once on such an activity in East and Central Europe, the Democracy Seminar, which she describes in her book Performative Democracy and which is also described briefly in my bio here. The comparison excited great interest yesterday from OWS activists and New School students, as did other comparisons that were discussed around the room.
One seemed particularly pressing and interesting. Kei Nakagawa, a graduate student at The New School from Japan, informed us that a number of prominent Japanese activists from Shiroto no Ran are now in New York to observe and support OWS, and that they will be here until the middle of next week. Shiroto no Ran is a leaderless, network oriented social movement organization, which focuses especially on anti-nuclear issues, responding to the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. By using the tactics of sound demonstration and non-violent action, the movement successfully mobilized people, especially young citizens, who have never previously participated in political demonstrations. On September 11th, the half-year anniversary of the disaster, Shiroto no Ran played a key role . . .
Read more: Occupy Wall Street, The New School and The Flying Seminar
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 21st, 2011 
Occupy Wall Street reminds my friend, colleague, and frequent “co-conspirator,” Elzbieta Matynia, and me of our long term engagement in the democratic opposition and alternative cultural movements in East and Central Europe. There and then, we coordinated an international seminar, before and after 1989, between scholars and activists, concerning the theoretical and practical problems of democracy, “The Democracy Seminar.” As we observe Occupy Wall Street with a great deal of interest, appreciation and in support, we are moved to act.
We therefore have proposed to The New School community and the activists in OWS the creation of a new seminar, as a place for mutual learning and discussion that can inform action, The Flying Seminar (the name inspired by a dissident academic program during the late 70s and 80s in Poland). The idea came out of an informal chat with one of OWS’ outreach people at Zuccotti Park. Tomorrow at 3:00 pm, we will have a planning meeting and a first conversation, as part of an Occupy Wall Street Teach In at The New School.
We propose to organize a series of portable conversations with key participants and dedicated observers in various movements and actions in the United States and beyond, which could help to crystallize the differences and parallels between projects of resistance then and now. We had in mind, for example, the Civil Rights Movement , SDS, the 1968 movements in Europe, the second wave feminist movement in the States, the Solidarity Movement in Poland, The Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa (its peaceful and its militant side), the Green Revolution in Iran, and the Arab Spring. Our goal will be to facilitate discussion about movements past, from here and elsewhere, as a way of guiding the future of movements present. The hope is that this discussion could help address the key question of what is to be done now.
We agree with many . . .
Read more: A Flying Seminar and Additional Reflections on the GOP, BHO and OWS
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