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InterOccupy

Type:

Left-of-center Communication and Organizing Hub
Formation:

2011
Co-Founders:

Michael Badger

Nate Kleinman

Andrea Ciannavei

Joan Donovan

 

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InterOccupy is a left-of-center communications and organizing hub for the broader Occupy movement and other left-of-center and far left entities. Founded in 2011, the group reportedly began with a meeting of around 20 members of Occupy Wall Street’s Movement Building Working Group who were looking for a way to bring order and strategy to the loose cohort of Occupy groups that sprang up around the United States following the initial surge of 2011 protests in New York City. 1 In addition to numerous Occupy affiliates, InterOccupy has expressed support for the far-left socialist group Zapatistas, the Spanish economic protest group Indignados, and the Canadian left-of-center environmentalist group Idle No More. 2

Background

InterOccupy reportedly began with a 2011 meeting of around 20 affiliates of Occupy Wall Street’s Movement Building Working Group who were looking for a way to bring order and strategy to the loose cohort of Occupy groups that sprang up around the United States following the initial surge of 2011 protests in New York City. 3

Methods

InterOccupy provided “hub” organization, and large-scale conference call structure, as well as facilitating networking between groups with similar ideals. For example, to control a conference call involving hundreds of people, InterOccupy developed a phone system that allowed the organizers to gauge reactions without vocal interruptions. According to co-founder Michael Badger, “The facilitator asks everyone to press 2 if they agree with what is being said, 3 if they don’t or 5 if they’d like to ask more questions about it.”  In October 2012, InterOccupy assisted the GlobalNoise protests against the economic austerity measures in the European Union and further abroad by providing an external communication hub to help the different groups coordinate. 4

Zapatistas

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (Zapatistas) are a far-left socialist Mexican political movement. Founded by peasants in the 1980s, the group gained notoriety when it seized four towns in 1994 in Chiapas, Mexico in protest of the Mexican government’s involvement in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which its leaders felt would harm poorer Mexican farmers. Following several years of guerrilla warfare and attempts by the Mexican government to quell the movement through force, including an infamous massacre in the city of Acteal, the Zapatistas movement gradually began to take on the character of a political activist, rather than paramilitary, movement. 5

In August 2013, InterOccupy published a story highlighting grievances of the Zapatista movement with the Mexican government. The article accused the government of sabotaging the Zapatistas by direct attacks, such as bombing of alternative office buildings, as well as undermining the movement by building nicer schools and giving government payouts to the elderly. 6

“Non-Violent Militia” Proposal

In 2013, Occupy Wall Street web administrator Justine Tunney suggested the formation of a non-violent militia to assist at protests and act as a buffer between police and activists. This notion was repeated the same week at a Los Angeles conference. The idea was reportedly highly divisive within the movement itself: Bill Dobbs, an Occupy activist, referred to the proposal as “premature, if not completely unwarranted.” 7

Following the public and internal backlash, InterOccupy co-founder Joan Donovan wrote an October 2013 article for its website entitled “What Might Occupy’s Non-violent Militia Look Like?” In it she brushed off the pushback against Tunney’s proposal as “reflexive” and mere “paranoia.” She then went on to outline what such a group might look like, citing the 2nd Amendment, which highlights the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” for the freedom of the state.  Donovan then suggested that such a group could draw inspiration from the 1994 Italian protestors in white overalls (Tute Bianche) as their baggy protest uniforms made them more difficult to apprehend by police. She also highlighted the use of inner-tubes, plastic shields, and water pistols. 8

People

Joan Donovan is co-founder of InterOccupy and the head of research at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, where she also teaches courses on disinformation campaigns and media manipulation. She is also the head of the Technology and Social Change Project, which creates the internet newsletter Meme War Weekly, the online research portal Media Manipulation Casebook, and the webinar series “BIG if True.” 9

Nate Kleinman is a co-founder of InterOccupy 10 and the co-director of Experimental Farm Network. He is also the former Montgomery County, Pennsylvania regional “get-out-the-vote” director for the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign. 11

Andrea Ciannavei is a co-founder and frequent writer for InterOccupy. She was also an organizer of the Occupy Sandy, and the Million Hoodies for Trayvon Martin movements.  Ciannavei is also a playwright and television writer for such shows as Hulu’s “The Path.” 12

Michael Badger is co-founder of InterOccupy, and is a web designer for Glocal, an activist communications hub which spun off from InterOccupy. 13

References

  1. “History.” InterOccupy, July 2, 2014. Accessed via Wayback Machine April 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20140702081514/http://interoccupy.net/about/history-of-io/.
  2. “About.” InterOccupy. Accessed via Wayback Machine April 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20140702094531/http://interoccupy.net/about/mission/
  3. “History.” InterOccupy, July 2, 2014. Accessed via Wayback Machine April 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20140702081514/http://interoccupy.net/about/history-of-io/.
  4. Badger, Michael. “InterOccupy: Toward a Democratic Global Communication Commons.” Kosmos. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/wp-content/article-pdfs/interoccupy-toward-a-democratic-global-communications-commons.pdf
  5. “Zapatista National Liberation Army.” Encyclopedia Brittanica. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zapatista-National-Liberation-Army
  6. InterOccupy.Net. “Zapatista Freedom School Day 3…”Popular Resistance. August 15, 2013. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://popularresistance.org/zapatista-freedom-school-day-3-our-weapons-are-our-words-our-thinking-our-hearts/
  7. Monks, Kieron. “Occupy Wall Street Co-Founder Wants to Launch ‘Non-Violent Militia.’” Metro. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.metro.us/occupy-wall-street-co-founder-wants-to-launch-nonviolent-militia/
  8. Donovan, Joan. “What Might Occupy’s Non-violent Militia Look Like?” Occupy.com. October 10, 2013. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.occupy.com/article/what-might-occupy%E2%80%99s-nonviolent-militia-look#sthash.6SDARKiq.jpKLgSoL.dpbs
  9. Lenihan, Eoin. “The Activist Rot…” Medium. December 6, 2022. Accessed April 10, 2022.  https://medium.com/discourse/the-activist-rot-how-harvard-is-fast-becoming-the-leading-purveyor-of-disinformation-online-49932df9ebe3
  10. “Nate Kleinman.” Philadelphia Assembled. Accessed May 16, 2023. http://phlassembled.net/futures/index/nate_kleinman/.
  11. “Nate Kleinman.” Linkedin. Accessed April 10, 2023.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-kleinman-b722a08/
  12. “Andrea Ciannavei.” Primary Stages. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://primarystages.org/espa/instructors/andrea-ciannavei
  13. Badger, Michael. “InterOccupy: Toward a Democratic Global Communication Commons.” Kosmos. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/wp-content/article-pdfs/interoccupy-toward-a-democratic-global-communications-commons.pdf
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