The Dominion - occupy

The Dark Knight Rises: Class War in the Dystopian Present

Miles — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:59:17 +0000

More than a movie review

This review only contains mild spoilers as it focuses on the political aspects of The Dark Knight Rises rather than plot per se.

TORONTO—The Dark Night Rises is a portrayal of a workers’ revolution from the perspective of the bourgeoisie. It is a profoundly authoritarian movie which includes severe criticisms of revolutionaries, but also liberal democracy, bourgeois charity, and the apathetic, ultimately offering a hopeless political vision that only the status quo is tenable and that one should look to one's own personal happiness.

Our first thought on leaving the theatre was, "What kind of society could produce a big-budget movie with such a completely hopeless message about the future of humanity and the inability of ‘the people’ to govern themselves?" Neither of us were able to remember a major motion picture made in our lifetimes that was as openly counter-revolutionary and reactionary as this one, though the politics of this movie are built up in the two earlier films of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and simply culminate here.

It seems that this movie is able to be explicitly counter-revolutionary because revolution itself is beginning to come on the agenda in the advanced capitalist world for the first time since the 1970s. Science fiction has often shown resistance and rebellion to fascistic societies, but “Dark Knight Rises” actually defends the dystopian reality that it presents, a reality not far removed at all from our actual present.

There was a large and visible security presence at the Scotiabank theatre in Toronto where we saw the film on Friday night, and people in the line were half afraid/half joking of the possibility of copycat shootings. During the film both of us wondered what it had been like for those who were watching a Batman movie and suddenly find themselves in the midst of a meaningless terror assault for real.

The movie's plot seems to the result of mixing a topical Occupy theme with a Batman movie. Unfortunately, Batman is the worst possible hero to have in a movie about class war, being clearly on the side of the bourgeoisie capitalists, as well as only being capable of individual vigilantism rather than collective action.

It is interesting however, that the movie has a particular kind of class politics which still presents the bourgeoisie class as corrupt, effete and powerless to change society. Bruce Wayne expresses a severe critique of charity balls, and Wayne’s own foundation fails to ensure that the orphan boys in a home that he funds aren’t simply kicked out when they reach 16, abandoned to work in the literal underground with Bane’s army.

The bourgeoisie are also often ignorant of realpolitik, thinking that money or connections buy power, a mistake when faced with the brutal fighting power and impressive human leadership qualities of Bane, or the combination of complex individual manipulation, stealth and fighting ability displayed by Selina Kyle/Catwoman.

Lower class people are presented as having special powers due their impossibly tough upbringings and lives, which is true for both Kyle and Bane, as well as an honest cop who grew up in Bruce’s orphanage (Blake). The only way that Bruce Wayne/Batman can gain equal powers and be able to fight the lower classes on their own ground is in a sense to commit class suicide. He can only gain/regain his special fighting powers when he is in an underground middle eastern prison among the lowest of the low, just as in Batman Begins, the first movie of the trilogy.

Only after he has gone through this trial and suffering can he fight the lower class characters as an equal, by experiencing equal suffering and overcoming equal obstacles, even though he is still fighting for the interests of capital (although not financial capital—the movie makes a venture capital vs. financial leeches distinction that is playing out in critiques of Mitt Romney’s history at Bain Capital).

At times it was left very uncertain who we were supposed to be cheering for. When Bane and his cadre go after the Stock Exchange, it was clear that the sold-out crowd in the Toronto Scotiabank theatre was cheering for Bane. When a stock exchange capitalist pleaded to the cops that the thugs could destroy the economy and wipe out everyone’s savings, a Black cop tells the capitalist that he doesn’t care because he keeps his savings under his bed, and when another stock trader tells Bane that there is nothing to steal at the exchange, Bane replies, "Then what are you here for?"

Bane’s cadre are often disguised as (or are) service workers, construction workers, shoe shiners, maintenance people etc, heightening the class war aspect of the movie (Selina Kyle/Catwoman sneaks into Wayne’s mansion disguised as a catering worker). The crowd at our theatre also seemed onside with Bane’s terrorists (at least at first) when they set up a people’s court for trying finance capitalists for their crimes. The court was clearly set up to be unfair and arbitrary, but we wonder how the bourgeoisie think their own courts look like to us.

If it wasn’t for Bane’s nuclear bomb and his ultimate plan to destroy Gotham with it, which clearly makes him a terrorist bad guy, it seemed like most of the crowd would have been openly cheering for him. In fact, without the nuclear bomb, he would simply appear to be a very authoritarian communist who believes in revolution from above by a people’s army that somehow requires basically no ideological preparation of the populace, and who are just supposed to follow their lead.

In the context of the movie, this would actually make him appear to be the most sympathetic character, and to be the clear good guy, regardless of the problems with his authoritarianism. However, given his plan to blow up the city no matter what, Bane isn’t actually an authoritarian communist but actually a reactionary in disguise. The plot reveals that he doesn’t even really care about the revolution that he pretends to lead, as his only goal is to blow up Gotham City to fulfill the wishes of his old master in the League of Shadows, Ra’s al Ghul, who believed Gotham’s destruction would help to restore order and balance to a world corrupted by money and greed. The revolution is just a way to toy with the people by giving them false hope before their ultimate destruction.

This has an odd third-worldist element to it as well, with Gotham representing the heart of capitalist decadence and even the majority of its lower classes being totally corrupted by money and greed, with this imperialist metropolis being seen by Ra’s and Bane as beyond salvation and deserving of punishment. Many of Bane’s cadre are shown as foreign, perhaps Russian or Middle Eastern, thus contributing to the othering of terrorism and the third worldist vs. First World theme.

Catwoman/Selena is the only major Gothamite character we meet who is at all sympathetic to Bane’s revolutionary army; she is in an ambiguous middle position of despising the bourgeoisie, but only working with Bane to some extent out of fear. Bane is ultimately also a counter-revolutionary for whom the people’s courts and the redistribution of wealth is only a method of toying with the population of Gotham before he fulfils his plan to liquidate the city and its population.

The movie’s position on the police is particularly confused, reflecting a general confusion about the police in the real world, especially in the wake of the Occupy movement (are they part of the 99 per cent?). The Occupy sub-theme of the movie makes the presence of the police especially weird, as the creators of this film have generally given up on pretending that ‘Gotham’ is not New York, with New York subway signs and the like being plainly visible. So, given the role of the police in brutally repressing protests in New York and elsewhere, how then are we supposed to view a police protest in the movie where these same cops advance as protesters on Bane’s army as heroes representing the population?

This scene is also very weird to watch because of its complete lack of realism, as the NYPD would never stand up to an army of the kind Bane had assembled, unless they heavily outnumbered them and had superior weaponry, which did not seem to be a case in the film. In police actions generally, cops will try to protect their own safety first, and do not generally charge on small armies with AK-47s without having any shields or riot gear whatsoever, and will even run away when faced with unarmed protesters at the G20 or in the Quebec student strike.

However, the heroism the movie cops display in TDKR visually links them with working class demonstrators who take on the actual cops in real life. The deputy police commissioner even wears a gold braid reminiscent of the retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis who took part in some Occupy protests. But anyone who has been to any protests in the past few years has seen charging police not as saviors but as attackers—during the movie it was at times unsure whose side we the audience were supposed to be on.

There were other contradictory portrayals of the police in the film: as incompetent stooges who refused to investigate anything that would make their statistics look bad; as goons who follow orders, blindly dooming civilians to their death; as brave representatives of the population; as keepers of vital secrets from the population in order to ensure long term incarceration without proper trial; and as representatives of the good people of Gotham. One cop decides to bury his uniform and hide with his family: this response is held up as cowardly despite the general message of the movie that the silent majority is what really represents "the people."

At the end of the film everything goes back to normal—Gotham normal anyway. Bourgeois charity ensures the orphans get a better orphanage, and the surviving characters retreat into family and their personal lives rather than trying to make any substantive difference. The silent majority gets their city back, having survived Bane’s attempted revolution through hiding in their homes, and Commissioner Gordon appears to be the most powerful surviving political figure and tries to rebuild the police force in order to guarantee stability. A secondary hero, the working class cop Blake, turns in his badge in frustration with the limitations of the police force to change society and act ethically.

Despite its reactionary politics, TDKR is a great summer blockbuster with interesting characters, a fairly complex plot and good special effects. The only other major problem is that the plot is a bit marred by trying to combine an Occupy theme with Bane’s plan to blow up Gotham, making this part of the story slightly bloated and more difficult to understand in terms of its logic (though still highly entertaining to watch as it plays out). The "fake" revolution is also often awesome to watch at times, especially in a big-budget movie on a big screen.

Ultimately, the movie seems to justify an authoritarian liberalism that is essentially anti-democratic and supportive of the status quo as the best of all possible worlds. We are supposed to trust a good progressive bourgeois like Bruce Wayne to look out for our interests as workers and even save us from our own revolutions as well as the limits of legal bourgeois democracy through their personal heroism and vigilantism.

Clearly, without these great bourgeois visionaries and benevolent protectors, we would all be lost. The political message of the movie is that we need progressive authoritarian leaders (some of whom work in secret) who will give us mild reforms towards a better life when we are ready, but that we should never attempt to take them for ourselves, as this will only result in tragedy.

Essentially, this is a kind of hopeless pro-Obama message considering the political context in which the film is being released, as the Democratic Party is supposed to represent the liberal, reforming wing of the bourgeoisie despite authoritarian and imperialist policies. The political messaging of this movie reflects the general confusion and hopelessness among liberals, and represents a failed attempt by the bourgeoisie to stabilize their ideological hegemony by discounting any positive possibilities for revolution.

Michael Romandel and Megan Kinch are members of the Toronto Media Co-op, where this movie review first appeared.

Batman versus Bane

Occupy Rape Culture

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:57:23 +0000

Confronting sexual assault and gender-based violence in the Occupy movement

MONTREAL—On the night of October 19, something happened at Occupy Montreal that would substantially change the mood of the camp.

Exactly what occurred is unclear. Some claim there was an attempted rape. Others shrug off the incident as nothing more than an invasion of a young woman’s personal space by an intoxicated man.

Incidents of sexual assault and rape have been reported in New York, Cleveland, Dallas, Baltimore, Glasgow...sadly, the list goes on. It is an unfortunate reminder that even movements seeking a more just world, free from oppressive systems such as capitalism, are not inherently free from a culture of rape and violence against women and other marginalized populations, such as trans- people and those with disabilities.

“It has nothing to do with Occupy. It has everything to do with the problems in the world that Occupy is trying to eradicate,” says Laura Boyd-Clowes, a philosophy student at Concordia University. Boyd-Clowes has been actively organizing with the Occupy Montreal movement since it began.

“Let's be clear. This is something that happens in society regularly and the Occupy movement is like a little microcosm for society,” she says.

According to the Violence Against Women Survey, published in 1993, 39 per cent of Canadian adult women reported having experienced at least one incident of sexual assault since the age of 16. This comprehensive study on gender-based violence also found that only six per cent of sexual assaults were reported to police.

It should not be seen as exceptional that sexual assault is being reported at Occupy sites. Rather, it seems to reflect a society rife with problems, one that so often silences, excuses or condones sexual assault.

Lucinda Marshall is the President of the Feminist Peace Network. Noticing the prevalence of gender-based oppressions in the Occupy movement, she created a group called Occupy Patriarchy. Based in Washington, DC, Marshall is hopeful that Occupy Patriarchy will spread to other sites and help to create spaces that explicitly address gender-based violence and oppression.

“The bottom line is that you cannot talk about economic justice unless you are going to talk about things like the wage gap, about childcare policies, maternity leave, all of those things that have a huge economic impact on women,” she says. “Those things need to be a part of the conversation if we're going to have real change that [would] impact 99 per cent of us, not just the male percentage of us.”

At Occupy Montreal, movement to address gender-based inequalities has been slow. Discussion of creating safer spaces and an anti-patriarchy committee has circulated in camp. However, after the disputed incident of October 19, no explicit gender-based policies were discussed at the General Assembly, and no statements have been released against sexual assault.

While there has been little concrete action to challenge issues of gender-based violence at Occupy Montreal as of yet, anti-oppression workshops addressing gender inequity have been scheduled and a call-out to organize around issues of consent and safer spaces has been circulated among many local gender advocacy organizations.

When asked if there was a need for a motion explicitly addressing gender-based violence, Occupy Montreal participant Vivian Kaloxilos stated that gender inequality was not an issue. “We try to look at each other not as men and women but as people just doing things,” she said.

Not all agree that a space that operates without acknowledging the existence of gender differences will be able to overcome gender inequality.

“Clearly, gender-based oppression is happening in our world and may be perpetuated even in these well intentioned spaces,” says Vanessa Fernando, External Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill’s Student Society. “I think explicitly acknowledging its occurrence is the first step towards making it better.”

Fernando says that the rhetoric of supposed equality might erase or delegitimize the experiences of those who experience gender-based violence.

For Fernando, identifying the existence of gender inequality and its intersection with issues of privilege, race, and ability is a key move in the creation of a strong movement for social justice. “We can't just be talking about the state and capitalism. We need to be talking about all of these other things together. Historically in these movements it's been like, 'Oh, we'll talk about this later, once we get these baseline things achieved,’ and then it gets further and further marginalized.”

In an effort to combat sexual assault, a handful of occupations have established gender-oriented committees and released statements explicitly condemning gender-based violence. Occupy Wall Street has created a safer-spaces committee that strives to create an anti-oppressive environment. The committee has established itself “in order to respond to threatening actions that continue systematic forms of oppression.”

Safer spaces frameworks have been employed to provide for a greater sense of safety within a community, while recognizing that notions of safety can vary from individual to individual. These spaces frequently challenge the way that dynamics of power, domination, violence, oppression, marginalization and inequality are replicated, and place a greater emphasis on processes of consent.

Fernando sees the creation of safer spaces as part of a process of recognizing differing access to power and privilege. She sees these anti-oppressive frameworks as powerful tools for change and self-reflection. “There needs to be that wholesale recognition that [social change] needs to be created in a way that people will be respected and supported if they critique something," she says. "Otherwise the movement is going to keep perpetuating [the oppressive system] we have.”

Despite the creation of safer spaces committees, controversy continues to surround protocol for dealing with instances of sexual assault. Whether or not to engage with police has caused much argument within occupation sites.

At Occupy Baltimore, a security statement released to the media without the consent of a General Assembly, caused an uproar in the press. The statement suggested that assaults be dealt with internally rather than through police involvement.

Police involvement has been criticized by some for its potential to cause greater harm or trauma to a survivor, particularly those with precarious legal status. The statement was later revised to express that while recognizing the flawed US Justice system, the movement will respect the desires and decisions of survivors when dealing with assault, and will provide alternative resources for those who don’t wish to engage with police.

Instances of assault at Occupy Montreal are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, says Eric Laramee, who acts as Occupy Montreal's negotiator with police. There is a mediation committee set up to deal with the accused, but ultimately the decision on whether or not to call police is up to the survivor.

“I think the key thing is that the ultimate decision is up to the person who was victimized,” feminist advocate Marshall says. “I think that [dealing with assault internally] should be seen as an option. If it's an option that might empower somebody, then, that's terrific. If it's intimidating them from reporting a crime to the police that they feel can better handle it, then that's not okay.”

In the case of the October 19 incident, the police were called and the accused individual was removed from the site. It is unclear whether or not charges were laid.

While the occupations outwardly focus their battle on economic injustice, an important struggle towards gender equity and against a culture of rape continue to be fought within the Occupy camps.

"The problem is still there,” says Marshall. “We have a lot of work to do, specifically to make male people aware of the damage that misogyny and patriarchy cause."

Dana Holtby is a feminist, environmental activist and indy media lover.

Get Consent

Occupons Edmundston

hillarybain — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:10:10 +0000

Edmundston workers, pensioners and students have many reasons to occupy

EDMUNDSTON, NB—The Occupy movement has spread to the small, francophone city of Edmundston, in northern New Brunswick. Occupations of public spaces have been ongoing since October 15 in cities across North America, but many smaller cities and towns have now joined in.

Around 50 people, mostly students but also workers and retirees, demonstrated in front of Edmundston City Hall on October 29.

"I'm here today because of social and economic inequality," said Nicole Ouellet, a caregiver for the elderly who is making the same salary today in Edmundston that she made 30 years ago in Montreal. "Food prices are going up all the time but not our salaries," remarked Ouellet.

At an age when she should be planning her retirement and enjoying time with her grandchildren, Ouellet has gone back to work in caregiving, a sector traditionally dominated by women that is today considered underpaid by pay equity advocates. Caregivers like Ouellet and her male co-worker, who also participated in Occupons Edmundston, would benefit from long-awaited pay equity legislation in the province. Pay equity is equal pay for work of equal or comparable value. Skill, responsibility, effort and working conditions are factors long ignored in jobs predominately done by women.

"My husband must work in Alberta. One of our kids is forced to work outside the province. We wish we could live near our kids so that we could get to know our grandkids," said Ouellet.

France Ritchie, a friend of Ouellet's, said, "They take $30 away from the poor all the time instead of ending the war. I'm old enough so it doesn't affect me to protest. A lot of people are afraid to lose their jobs or their reputation and that's why they're not out in the streets. We're here to support the people occupying Wall Street. We will not take it anymore. It started in Egypt. I knew it was only a matter of time before it spread here."

André Charest, who came out because his 15-year-old son, Emmanuel, felt it important to attend, said, "I'm against the model we have. The majority pays while a minority puts it in their pockets." The father and son held signs that conveyed this message. They were greeted with many honks of support from passing motorists. "I may be young but I'm going to feel the consequences," said Emmanuel.

The majority of the people who participated in the Occupons Edmundston protest were students from the Edmundston campus of Université de Moncton. They sang protest songs that warmed the crowd during what was a chilly October afternoon.

Two targets of protest have appeared at most Occupy sites: one being corporate greed and the banks, with the other being the system, namely capitalism. Opponents of the latter target argue that equality will not result from tweaking the system, regulating the banks or policy reform. They point out that the oppression of workers and crises are inherent to capitalism. The latest crisis, its effect on workers, and now the Occupy movement have created opportunities to question capitalism and discuss another form of economic and social relations where in which every worker is able to control their lives and realize their full potential, dreams and capacities.

"I'm here to protest against capitalism," said Sebastien Levesque, one of the university students studying philosophy, politics and history. "It's an important contemporary problem. The system is destroying everything including the environment." Étienne Rousseau, another university student, who held a sign with the popular Occupy slogan, "Capitalism isn't broken, it was built that way," agreed with Levesque. "I hate the system. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. It's expensive to study right now. We are the next generation. We have to do something," said Rousseau.

Dominic Duval, an arts and social sciences student, organized Occupons Edmundston after waiting for someone to organize it and no one did. "The Occupy movement has spread to over 80 countries and 1,600 cities. It is important for Edmundston to do its part. We don't want to promote the status quo. We want change. We need change," said Duval.

Nicole Ouellet said the Fraser Papers' pensioners in Edmundston who lost about 35 per cent of the benefits in their pensions are part of their movement. When Fraser Papers received protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in 2009, Brookfield Asset Management, its controlling shareholder, sold part of the company to itself and divested itself of pension obligations for all their pensioners and current workers.

Brookfield Asset Management, with former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna on its board, came under fire recently at the original Occupy Wall Street location for threatening to evict Occupy participants in Zucotti Park. Brookfield owns Zucotti Park. The company had called for protesters to be removed so that it could clean the park, but its efforts were unsuccessful and the occupation continues.

Like Nicole Ouellet, some of the pensioners have been forced to return to work to pay the bills. In an open letter published October 27, Jacques Sarlabous, a Fraser Papers' mill pensioner, said he sent 134 resumes over a five month period and got three part-time jobs at minimum wage. Sarlabous said he had to take the jobs because he and his wife suffer from serious health conditions that require costly medications.

Sarlabous wrote, "I worked at the Fraser Papers' mill in Edmundston, New Brunswick, for 36 years. On each pay cheque, I contributed a portion of my wages to the pension fund, which I believed would be a guaranteed investment. In 2009, with talks of a potential bankruptcy at Fraser, I decided to withdraw my pension plan with the aim of securing my assets. I signed documents and withdrew the first pension payment that I was entitled to. Unfortunately, I was able to benefit from my full pension for only three months. Having given 36 years of my life to Fraser Papers, I got a full pension for three months. In other words, one month of pension for every 10 years of service!"

Edmundston pensioners were among the first to participate in Occupy actions in Canada. Organized as the Victims of Brookfield Association, with a membership of 800 retirees, four Edmundston pensioners and two Thurso, Quebec, pensioners participated in Occupy Toronto and demonstrated in front of the Toronto offices of Brookfield Asset Management on October 15. They shared their stories of losing their hard-earned pensions.

It's not the first time that the pensioners occupied Brookfield Asset Management's head offices in Toronto. On January 2010, union leader Gaétan Ménard and Fraser Papers’ pensioners occupied the company's office. According to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers' Union, the union representing the pensioners and workers, Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt was “not concerned” that pensioners could lose 40 per cent of their pensions as a result of the company’s restructuring plan. A year later, the pensioners and union leaders occupied the office again in an attempt to have the company reinstate the workers' pensions. The workers were escorted out of the office both times.

"Why the Occupy movement? Because too many laws in this country are about protecting big corporations, not workers," wrote Sarlabous.

Tracy Glynn gets to bash capitalism as a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick. She does reporting for the New Brunswick Media Co-op, where this article was originally posted.

Occupy Edmonston

Occupy Edmonston 2

Occupations spread to Streets and Squares across Canada

Tim McSorley — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:15:24 +0000

A look at Occupy actions from coast-to-coast

On Saturday, October 15, thousands of people across Canada joined the international day of Occupy Together: a call for people around the world to join Occupy Wall Street, an encampment in the heart of New York City's financial district and home to many of the companies that people now hold partly to blame for the ongoing economic crisis.

The Wall Street occupation, which began on September 17, has its own roots in the uprisings and occupations of central plazas across the Middle East and Europe over the past year. These movements are perhaps best exemplified by the Egyptian revolution, where people held their ground in Tahrir Square until the fall of then-president Hosni Mubarak.

The Occupy movement has since spread around the world, and taken on distinct characteristics and demands in each country—and each city— Canada is no exception. Recognizing that Canada is a colonial nation established on occupied Native land, many have called for Decolonize Canada to also become a rallying cry.

But like Occupy Wall Street, for many a radical change to the economy and the government are the main motivations for their participation. “What are people waking up to? We are waking up to a world where all young people and working class people have no future,” said Fightback member Farshad Azadian, to applause from the gathered assembly. “The conditions for our people are getting worse and worse, while bankers and industrialists are making huge amounts of profit and getting government hands outs, tax breaks, and bail-outs," he said. "What we are saying is we’re not having it.”

Below is a collection of photos from Occupy actions across Canada.

The photos above were taken by Caelie (Vancouver), Andy Crosby (Ottawa), Mike Barber (Toronto), Alheli Picazo (Calgary), Mike Barber (Toronto), Caelie (Vancouver), Darren Ell (Montréal), Caelie (Vancouver), Miles Howe (Halifax), Hillary Lindsay (Halifax), and posted to Media Co-op locals across the country.

Looking for more coast-to-coast coverage of the Occupy movement? View—and add—ongoing coverage in the Media Co-op's Occupy site.

Occupy Vancouver graffiti

Ottawa March

Mohawk flag Toronto

Banker Hall Calgary

Expect Resistance Toronto

Vancouver GA

General Assembly Montreal

Vancouver tents

Sleeping out in Halifax

Halifax food tent