Endorsements Connect and Divide 2 DC Occupation Efforts: Seize DC and October 2011 Coalition

Two social movement organizations are calling for an occupation of Washington DC this fall: Seize DC on September 10 and the October 2011 Coalition on October 6. Both Seize DC and the October 2011 Coalition maintain lists of individual and organizational endorsements. How much do these endorsements overlap, and where do they differ?

Below is a network diagram showing connections between individuals, groups and the two actions attempting to occupy DC. Organizations are represented by boxes, and individual people are represented by dots. All ties connecting directly to Seize DC or the October 2011 Coalition indicate an endorsement; Hilton Head for Peace, for example, has endorsed the Seize DC action on September 10. Organizations that are NOT connected to one of these actions have NOT offered their endorsement, but rather are displayed to show the organizational affiliations of people who HAVE made endorsement; the group It’s Our Economy, for example, has endorsed the October 2011 occupation, but has not endorsed the Seize DC occupation. It’s Our Economy Director Kevin Zeese has individually endorsed both occupations.

Some features of this network to notice:

• Other than Citizens for Legitimate Government (the organization behind Seize DC) and the two mutually-endorsing events themselves, no organization has endorsed both occupations.
• A high share of Seize DC endorsements come from individuals associated with groups (What Really Happened, Real Politik, the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven and Scholars for 9/11 Truth) that are part of the “9-11 Truth” conspiracy community.
• One endorsement comes from the head of a “Fusion Center“, which seems an odd endorsement for an activist effort that warns that the government is putting it under surveillance. But not all is as it seems. I just got off the phone with Joshua BA Woodard, and he acknowledges that he is both Executive Director of the FIRST West Michigan Detachment Fusion Center and a federally registered government contractor. I asked him why he had endorsed Seize DC, and he explained that his fusion center is not affiliated with the government, but is rather a private effort to gather and publicly share information. He also said that “I’m all for government accountability, we the people, government for the people and by the people, not the corporations and those with deep pockets.” Woodard’s efforts are interesting, to say the least. But they don’t appear to be related to the government fusion centers set up around the country to collect and concentrate information about you… the sort of thing that Seize DC is protesting against.
• The October 2011 occupation has garnered many more endorsements than the Seize DC occupation. Don’t let the number of links to Seize DC in the network diagram above fool you. Look carefully at the bottom of the diagram and you’ll see a reference to “1779 other individuals” and “63 other organizations.” The truth is, the October 2011 occupation has so many individual and organizational endorsers that if I tried to include them all, they wouldn’t legibly fit on screen. Look below for a network diagram including all the organizations endorsing the October 2011 coalition:

If I’d included every individual endorser of the October 2011 event so far, the network would look like the most massive Afro you’d ever seen, overwhelmingly connected to the October 2011 Coaliton, and with relatively puny public endorsement of the Seize DC action.

Of course, it isn’t always the best idea to attend a political demonstration just because it’s the one everyone else is going to. But if you admire the sentiments and plans of both occupation efforts, and if like most of us you don’t have the resources to attend both DC protests, you do have to make a choice. If you’d like to make a larger proportional difference, you might actually want to consider attending the Seize DC event, since the addition of your body is likely to boost attendance at that occupation by a larger relative amount. If you’re looking to join the occupation that’s likely to grab the most attention and be a part of that history, on the other hand, the October 2011 occupation might be a good choice.