UPDATE: Upon an examination of the Occupy Sacramento Facebook page, I have no idea as to what Anonymous finds so objectionable. The SEIU postings that I encountered last fall are nowhere to be seen, and, even if they were, the movement can surely find a way to engage the union in a way that does not entail acquiescence. As t stated the other day in relation to Occupy Chicago:

By patiently engaging the unions in the city and getting them to talk to Occupy (and one another), the working group has been able to instigate interesting discussions about challenging Rahm and the Democrat Machine in the city, about the need for independence from the Democratic Party, about the need for strike action, about organizing the unorganized and allying with anti-racist and immigrants rights struggles. There was recently an Occupy convened city-wide labor conference that drew Postal workers, bus drivers, subway conductors, nurses, teachers, teamsters from UPS and elsewhere, and many others. The discussions that happened at the conference were politically sharp and very interesting. They would not have been possible if Occupy Chicago had taken an undifferentiated anti-union perspective and derided all of these groups as nothing but tools of the system. The fact is that workers are interested in Occupy and what's needed is patient organizing work and political conversation between radicals, Occupiers, and labor.

Perhaps, Anonymous has already swiped the Facebook page clean of purportedly offensive material, material centered around the purpose of exploiting Occupy for other agendas, but, if so, who gave Anonymous the right to decide what people can post in relation to Occupy and what they cannot?

INITIAL POST:

Living here in Sacramento, I just had to post this. I will check out the Occupy Sacramento Facebook page when I get a chance, and see if it is as bad as claimed by Anonymous, although it may already be too late. One gets the impression from the video that the participants in Anonymous who engaged in this hack of the Occupy Sacramento Facebook page believe that any use of an Occupy page for anything other than direct action is illegitimate.

My guess is that Anonymous specifically objects to SEIU postings on the page as part of the condemned other agendas, given the notorious business unionism associated with the union. I haven't had much contact with it recently, but, last fall, my impression of Occupy Sacramento was that it was more influenced by progressives involved with the Democratic Party and the unions aligned with it than some other ones.

For example, I encountered people in November who were critical of Occupy Oakland and anarchists, foreshadowing the current line now emerging against Occupy more generally. Even so, if I am correct, it may also be indicative of a reductionism within Anonymous, whereby the ephemeral Black Bloc assumes the features of a monolithic enterprise and the participation of unions at the Occupy Sacramento Facebook page is necessarily considered a corruption of the movement. As recognized by t at Pink Scare in the comments section here, there are better ways of reaching working class people than by maligning unions as incorrigibly compromised.

Labels: Activism, Occupy Wall Street, Sacramento, YouTube