Forum Post: Battle for The Soul of Occupy
Posted 12 years ago on April 13, 2012, 10:04 p.m. EST by EricBlair
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I'm going to put my two cents in here. Occupy is Occupy and MoveOn is MoveOn and it needs to stay that way. It is fine and natural for groups like MoveOn to find inspiration from Occupy Wall Street but I think Occupy must always stand on its own, separate from any influences from the current political structure. That is how Occupy works, it influences, it agitates. Maybe what Occupy really wants won't happen for a long time, or ever, but the influence it is having is enormous. To give up on the broad vision of Occupy Wall Street would be a mistake. To start placing energies in the old political structures would be a mistake. It is fine for MoveOn and other groups to do that. I suppose that is their function.
However, it is blatantly disingenuous of MoveOn to call their activities the 99%Spring. That is not right, sorry. Watch them start selling shirts, and stuff and cheapen the entire thing, bringing it down to the level of a mere political campaign.
You are right that it is not right for moveon.org to call their activities the 99% spring. That was a big mistake, and it fuels divisiveness when we all desperately need to be working together.
That makes me mad.
Thanks, GK, for understanding where I am coming from on this. I think it's important.
Yes, I do too. I haven't been posting much lately because I'm really trying to wrap my head around the complexity of this whole issue. I think those of us on the left are really trying to come together, but we're grappling for a unified way forward, so I have been trying to visualize how. Right now all I can think is that we should work in every direction possible.
I would agree with that. I'm not looking to stop other groups from doing their thing. Go ahead. Just don't call yourselves the 99%Spring. That's not right or fair.
Agreed. That was a really stupid thing for them to do, but if they think they can coopt Occupy they're wrong. Occupy will remain independent and unalligned, as it should. If moveon.org can actually get people on the streets, well the more the merriier, but I think Occupy will continue to be the ones that actually mobilize direct action.
The thing is, a lot of people want to be envolved who for whatever reason can't or won't take to the streets. We need to let these people do what they can, but I think most people who want to take part in direct action, at least at the moment, have already been drawn to Occupy.
Yes, and the most important thing about Occupy is that it pushes the envelope by working outside of the current political structure, refusing to cave in to the old ways. It makes a lot of people nervous because they don't know exactly what the demands are. But, that is the point. Occupy is looking for big change and that is not so easy to articulate necessarily, but it pushes and pushes in the right direction. That's how I see it, anyway.
I absolutely agree! Occupy has already been the catalist for a worldwide movement! We have taken to the streets when Americans at large have been apathetic! This is a HUGE accomplishment, and nobody can ever take that away from us!
All those who created this movement have a place in history! that is greatness, and those who are given to radical action will always gravitate to OWS. Yet we must acknowledge those who are tied to the structure of existing circumstances for their survival, and the survival of their children.
These are the people we are representing, those uncounted billions of people chained to the day in day out life, who simply can't take to the streets because every day is a struggle for survival because of the corporate chains they are shackled in.
They must also have a voice, and we must facilitate them in having that voice. We must not exclude them because they cannot take to the streets for even a day without letting family (the most sacred social unit) fall by the wayside. These are the struggling billions, and we must become their voice, not exclude them.
I agree wholeheartedly, that is why I think voting for Obama is important. The Reps and Dems may be the same in 99% of ways (being dramatic here) but the 1% of ways that they are different, matters big time to the lives of many many people.
Yes, I think we have to vote democrat, but I am not the least bit delluded that the battle will end there. The battle will really begin there. Thanks for all the good work you have done on this forum; if anybody is the true voice of Occupy, it is you!
I agree and thanks. :- )
playing the devil's advocate, what if a romney win made conditions so bad that more people realized the veracity of ows's goals and strengthened ows?
I totally get what you are saying, but I don't think it is morally sound to harm people or to wish that things get worse for people in order to get what we want.
i'm not wishing by any means, simply stating a realistic possibility
I understand. I didn't mean that literally.
What, GWB wasn't bad enough?
good point
For all intensive purposes Obama is just as bad. The differences between the parties have boiled down to a few social issues. For myself I would like to believe that this movement is building something else outside of the mainstream that will eventually replace the destructive political system that we have today.
Awesome screen name dude ...
I would like to believe that, and do believe that; but we must have a strategy that incorporates the reality of how things now stand, and the first order of business is to prevent the Republicans from absolutely consolidating their power. If they can achieve that than occupy will be overwealmed by their concentrated power,
They have the corporations, the banks, the media, the Supreme Court, the House of Representitives, and a rule essentially nullifying the power of the Senate, not to mention the police, the military and the intelligence agencies.
To think occupy alone can overcome that much power is unrealistic. That is why we must also push on the political front, and given the two party system, in this election we are stuck with tjhe necessity of a Democratic landslide in the upcoming election, just to give occupy the political security to grow and not be completely marginalized or crushed with police state tactics.
Therfore, I think occupy should cooperate with the established left wing pressure groups, who have been at least trying to drive the Democrats to the left. A great thing occupy has accomplished is to breath fresh energy into these groups. That is not a bad thing, indeed quite the opposite. Working in tandem we can succeed. We must not allow them to splinter the left into warring factions.
Fair enough. As long as MoveOn quits trying to hijack us I'll leave them to their fools errands as I have in the past. If they think that they're gonna magically get the dems to change they are welcome to run on that hamster wheel till their hearts content
"Fools errands" ??? What?
And the big tactical objective, now, is to break up the Republican Base.
Ride up on white stallion chargers and steal their women !!
We work with the 99% Spring coalition -- PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS -- and the far-right Republicans could find themselves busted. Useless in 35 states. Then the Democratic Party primaries get to be winnable playgrounds for Progressives and their candidate lawmakers.
Give me a break.
Why do you start a SECOND thread on this very same divisive bullshit you have already gotten WAY too much attention for?
It is YOU who are trying to co-opt OWS and make sure it fails by alienating any other supporters on the left who simply may not be as radical as you want them to be.
If you really support OWS, stop posting this shit.
Ad-busters started the call for Occupy. They have as much right as anyone to say this.
And I will not stop confronting MoveOn and their divisive corporate co-opting.
You will continue to try to divide this movement via some pissing contest of ideological purity. Adbusters may have gotten the initial idea about this movement, but they haven't been OWS since after the second day of the movement's existence. It does not represent us.
What's more, you already posted this same shit, sans the article, on another thread YOU STARTED EARLIER TODAY.
You and those like you are far more destructive to OWS than MoveOn could possibly be. You are operating out of fear alone. If OWS is strong enough (and I, for one, believe it is) it won't be co-opted by another group that is also fighting for progressive change.
And all of these arguments have been made to you already.
At this point, you are an attention-seeking troll: nothing more.
Hear Hear!!! And the troll most likely to bore you into submission . . . see below.
Good comment.
In my experience Occupy activists tend to see themselves as oppositionists and revolutionaries. While that term is seldom defined I don't see it as especially compatible with MoveOns position of simply getting as many Democrats as possible elected. Clearly Occupy has a much more global vision than that.
MoveOn's mission is to move the Democratic Party to the left, where it belongs. It works to get more Democrats elected, yes, and by doing so seeks to increase its own influence.
That is not entirely incompatible with OWS. It is trying to effect change within the system, where OWS is trying to effect change from outside of the system. MoveOn wants to reform capitalism and representational democracy, not eliminate capitalism and create direct democracy in place of representation as the core of OWS does. It is simply a different route to try to effect change.
But whatever one may think about their effectiveness, they are not the enemy. Both OWS and MoveOn seek change leftward. That makes them both positive, in my opinion.
What's more, most supporters of OWS, supporters the movement needs if it is to be effective, seek reform more than revolution. By attacking another leftward-seeking organization, some individuals are alienating those potential - and actual - supporters. OWS zealots (not the whole movement, but a few individuals within it) do not do so , thankfully, in terms of unions, however, which also happen to be far more establishment than OWS is. It reserves its ire for those groups it perceives, falsely, as threatening competition.
They've been around 14 years. How's that workin out?
Iff they are ineffective, does that make them the mortal enemy of OWS?
Absolutely! The objective of co-option is to neutralize any threat to its interests. To the degree that Occupiers are assimilated into the MoveOn's slacktivism, Occupy's threat to the power position of the Democratic party is neutralized.
Assimilated? What are they, The Borg?
One can support BOTH. One need not make the false choices you are a few other zealots insist upon.
Seeking to move the Democratic Party to the left is a positive goal, in my estimation and likely the estimation of most of OWS supporters. Insulting us, by proxy, only serves to marginalize OWS, not build its ranks.
One could support both, but MoveOn has been attempting to blur the lines between Occupy and MOveOn from the git go. This "99% spring" campaign is just the latest attempt. The core issues of Occupy are ones on which both conservatives and liberals should be united. MoveOn, aka the DNC knows damn well that that blurring those lines will keep conservatives away from Occupy. Divide and conquer while appearing to be an ally.
Conservatives as a part of Occupy?
Conservatives are those people who support the status quo, by definition. Conservatives of both parties repealed Glass/Steagal, supported Citizens United, opposed health insurance reform. Conservatives oppose gay marriage and women's reproductive rights, and support the military industrial complex, hate non-judgmental and real help for the poor, and despise environmental protection. The list goes on. Hell, is the problem with Obama his liberalism? Of course not: it is his conservatism that is issue with him.
OWS is LEFTIST movement, not a conservative one. It formed specifically to oppose conservatism. The core issues of Occupy are income equity restoration of real democracy, and actual civil rights, all of which conservatives are allergic to.
Considering the (R)epelican't efforts to destroy voting rights, they must have done pretty good.
FLAKESnews hates 'em too. That's a triple plus!!!!!
So yeah, they did their job. What you gonna pick on next?
The ghost of ACORN?
Like the Republican Party the Democratic Party supports capitalism and corparate power. That is built into the warp and woof of the Democratic Party. It is an unabashedly capitalist party, Like the Republican Party it supports the two party system and will unite with the Republicans when that system is threatened. And it invented the bipartisan foreign policy that is the basis of American imperialism in the face of isolationist Republicans. And it has co-opted every sincere and genuine movement of left opposition since the days of the Populists.
Most supporters of OWS support capitalism, if not corporate power. They want to see it reformed. If OWS want to turn itself in a marginal footnote, it should continue to malign the bulk of their supporters.
What supporters of Occupy do is one thing. What Occupy activists do is quite another and the articulated views of Occupy as a movement are clearly anti-corproate if not anticapitalist. The only political document that Occupy has yet to put forward has been the Declaration of the Occupaation of New York City, a very clearly anticorporate document.
Again, no one is arguing otherwise!
I am not arguing about what OWS must do. I am not saying that OWS should join the Democratic party, Republican party, or Sasquash party. Activism is activism.
But do zealots have to come here and start attacking another organization, one completely unaffiliated with OWS, one that is trying to effect change in a very different way than OWS, as a MORTAL ENEMY to be likened with Nazis? Is that really what OWS is about?
Is it smart to insult and denigrate Democrats and regular ol' Liberals and reformers who support the movement, who have marched on bridges and slept in parks alongside the revolutionaries, or who try to participate in ways they can even though they can't be physically at an action?
Tell, me, what purpose does that serve?
I have signed dozens of petitions, and called representatives dozens of times on the phone about issues that MoveOn brought to my attention. I have also done so in support of Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and other organizations about issues I care about. Some petitions were critical of the Republicans. Many were critical of the Democratic "moderates." Should I, and millions like me, suddenly feel ashamed about it because that's not good enough or pure enough for a couple of fucking pissants who claim to be speaking for OWS? Are we really the ENEMY?????
How small do they want this movement to get via alienating as many supporters as possible?
Liberals are one thing. There are plenty of liberals in Occupy and there have been since the beginning. An organization like MoveOn, which has tried to engineer Occupy into the Democratic Party and into essentially being an arm of the Democratic Party is quite another. To argue that we are on the same side is fanciful at best. Most of the municipal governments that are unleashing their police forces on Occupy are in fact Democratic. They proceed with the assistance of a Justice Department, a Department of Homeland Security and and FBI all under the control of a Democratic administration, a Democratic administration that continues to administer American imperialism and which got the largest infusion of cash from Wall Street of any campaign in history. As the saying goes, with friends like that.... To support such an entity is like shooting ones self in the foot.
I do not think by any means that the many liberals who are Occupy activists are by any means our enemy. Quite the opposite, they are our comrades, but to the extent that they choose to vote for and work for a political party that would like nothing better than to crush us, I think such efforts are ill concieved.
You always get the last word because you never tire of reading your own bullshit.
It grows quicker when it acts on its own and discredits both parties as much as possible.
Hence the huge numbers in October. but once it really got going, the media shoved it into a pro-Dem, uber left corner. And of course the Right (FOx NEws) painted it as the exact opposite of what anyone ont he right is about.
And there was really no public effort to disclaim the "pro Democratic Party" stuff that being thrown at the masses who only heard about it through TV.
The people are starved for something outside the D/R crap. And anyone with any knowledge knows MoveOn is a proud supporter of the Dem party. Which turns off those who are looking for change.
Those huge numbers in October included people who still vote.
What Fox News says is not what MoveOm says. Fox is the enemy, not MoveOn.
But although OWS is not pro Dem or pro any other other party, it is nevertheless very much a leftist one, and I am glad for it.
Yes it is leftist, but unfortunately the average Joe is not able to process that you can be left and not for the Dem party. Most that get involved and dont get complacent end up in a smaller thing, because they simply cant put their name behind these two monstrous traitor-filled parties any longer.
Most that stay do so for their own personal gain. The get certain seats and positions and board spots, etc. The perks keep em.
Those that do it because they care end up in other places.
But what you don't seem to process is that you can be left AND vote for the Democratic party, not as an end in itself, but as a small part of the process of something much larger, and that intends to go much farther. And I don't think those on the left are as dumb or able to be hoodwinked as easily as you seem to fear. Perhaps I am naive, but I give leftists more credit than that.
That's why i don't fear MoveOn, and support their efforts to turn the democratic party leftward. I am not fooled by the Democratic Parties false promises. But I support anyone trying to make them more honest and accountable. Nor do I feel that I must abandon the broader goals of OWS in terms of real social change, real mindset change in this country, indeed globally. Nor do I consider myself to be unique: I think millions of ordinary liberals make that distinction as clearly as I do.
Edit: I can't respond to your other post directly so I will do that here as well.
The court won't likely uphold The Affordable Healthcare Act because the fucking right wing on it doesn't give a shit if poor people die in the street of become bankrupt due to lack of access to medical insurance. I hold out hope against hope that they will surprise me and allow this major, positive, perfectly constitutional law to stand.
Great comment!
Says the top-to-bottom D voter.
Mental midgets that fall in line with no fight, no desire, are the ones that endose these criminals.
Im glad Im not in the same group as you. Choosing one warmonger over another.
Disgusting.
Bombs Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
You ARE in the same group as me, moron. We are BOTH OWS.
You think that effectively voting for Romney or ignoring the electoral process altogether will get you LESS of a war monger? ROTFLMAO!
What drugs are you taking?
So I guess basically neither one of us is making a difference.
The difference is that my votes are for decent people.
Yours are for war criminals.
Your votes are utterly and completely meaningless, since they have a chance of a snowball in hell of actually electing anyone, and only give more power to the greater evil by default. It is people like you who got Nixon elected over Humphrey.
You are a single note drummer, repeating the same beat over and over, and don't begin to fathom that there is anything more complex than your single focus. The music you make is really boring.
bush lied to instigate war
The results will be about 45% of the morons voting for R, and 45% voting for D, and the other 10% voting for someone who isnt a total shithead.
Keep playing. Let me know when youve gotten rid of hte R and things start to turn around.
Until then, youre just helping the country go into the toilet.
I would say precisely the same of you. Your ignoring realities in favor of fantasies of instant Utopia is helping the country go into the toilet. Your false choices do the same.
I look at the voting records of those elected, and dont give the voters of either party too much credit.
Do you really believe the voters on the left don't know that they are not doing anything these days other than electing the lesser of two evils? I will vote a straight Democratic ticket this coming election, not because I feel that the party hasn't been largely captured by corporations, but because of the Supreme Court. And because, as bad as they are, they are, on the whole, saints compared to Eric Cantor, Romney, or Bachman.
And because I know, as does everyone on the left in this world, that getting Democrats elected doesn't BEGIN to solve our problems, but only makes the velocity of their getting worse slower, I will continue to be an activist as well. Doing otherwise is a false choice. Allowing things to get MUCH worse MUCH faster simply because i support more radical, genuine change is totally irresponsible.
I've been to the occupatiions in Oakland and SF and this is not what I have experienced. If what you say is true this movement is done.
Nope. If it remains a marginal group whose only aim is to overthrow capitalism, it is done. From the day it was founded in Thompkins Square Park, OWS included reformers as well as revolutionaries. It has embraced both consistently. If it continues to do so, it will flourish. It's great tactical strength has been to include regular liberals alongside radical revolutionaries. If it pushes reformers out, it will go the way of the American Socialist Party, a footnote in obscure history textbooks.
You are one dumb fuck Epa1. Where did EVER get that I would possibly vote for the ROmney? He's even more of a sheep than you.
Man, you are one brainwashed dumb fucker.
And where did I say dont vote? Where? Vote for people THAT MATTER.
You should be the one to stop voting. All of you Obama and Romney mental fuckin midgets that just keep fuckin it up for those that donate their time to worthy causes.
Man, this is the mountain we are trying to move. FAll in line sheep like you that keep playing their games.
You are one dumb fuck, HCHC. By splitting the vote, you are helping make sure Romney gets elected. The Republicans won't split their votes.
Go tell that to the Libertarians and the Reformers and the TONS OF PEOPLE that are going to write in Ron Paul.
Your a fuckin political hack. Thats all sheep like you do is fuck it up, keep the establishment winning. Selling the rest of us out.
Grow up and get lost. Fuckin morons in this country, wtf..
The Libertarians are just as dumb as you. Paulistas have a zero collective IQ. And no reformer votes for a party that can't win. You cant reform power that doesn't exist.
Not as long as dumb motherfuckers like you troll to the polls to pull your all in one lever solutions. Dumb shits. Hasnt worked in decades. You dumb fuck. Sell out. You make a fool of all of us with your stupidity. And your constant willingness to fall in line decade after decade. Cant stand idiots like you.
What hasn't worked was abandoning the real world of electoral politics by the left. It has given all the power to the right, including allowing the Democratic party to move in that direction.
Nixon. Not too long afterward, Reagan. Both happened because of an abandonment of the Democratic party by the left.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Have you been drinking again?
You're getting a bit testy.
Plus you've started repeating yourself a lot.
and do you feel all those write ins are going to be enough to make Paul win? I don't think so. In fact, I believe those write ins will be enough votes taken away from the right to secure Obama's reelection. See, you are a closet Obama supporter whether you know it or not, lol
And all the votes for Rocky Anderson, Jill STein, and the Reform party, the socialst party and the socialist workers party?
Yes, you are right, and that is why I begrudgingly support Obama. I just wish he had a more enlightened Congress to work with. But, hey, "que se ra se ra."
I've refuted all these points several times. Come back to me when you have new content.
All of your posts have been refuted by others. It is YOU who have "come back". But you tire of the resistance you got on the other thread you started TODAY, so you somehow thought that a repeat performance would get you more attention?
Go stroke yourself elsewhere.
"All of your posts have been refuted by others"
Where? Cite?
Read through the entire other thread that you started. There are plenty of refutations. Your choosing to ignore them does not mean they are not there.
You keep making vague assertions that this is true. Yet you cannot point to a single example.
Huh...
You really mean to tell me that all you see as responses to your posts are agreements?
Your reading is as selective as your political memory.
Of course people on this Forum often disagree with the oppositionist ethos of Occupy, but that sentiment is almost totally absent in every local Occupy movement I have seen. This current to try to co-opt Occupy into the Democratic Party seems stronger on this forum than anywhere else that I am aware of, and mostly what these advocates to dissolve Occupy into the Democratic Party argue is that it is the less evil. Their inspiring slogan is "At Least We're Better Than The Other Guy." Occupy is much more visionary than that. I can't think of a better example of shooting oneself in the foot than to support the Party and the candidates of the Party whose municipal administrations are unleashing the police on Occupy everywhere.
NO one is trying to co-opt anything !!!!!!!
Jesus.
Advocating voting is not advocating ceasing direct action. It is advocating taking FIVE MINUTES out of one single day to pull a fucking lever. Then go hit the streets again.
The point is, as a movement Occupy sees itself as a direct action movement and as such opposed to electoralism. That doesn;t mean that many Occupy activists won't vote. Of course they will. I probably will. I always have and just because they are good organizers anarchists in Occupy have yet to win me over to their anti-electoral perspective. But that's a discussion among individuals. As a movement Occupy reamins clearly and exclusively in support of direct action.
So far as I have been able to see see the advocates of electoralism on this site (they are virtually totally abscent from any actual occupation) advance no program as to how to get Occupy to adopt their perspective except to rant at people who point out that Occupy is a direct action movement and that it has pointedly taken no position on electoral politics.
Occupy limits itself to direct action, yes. And no one is claiming that it should do otherwise, at least not on this thread. You are arguing against a point that was never made.
But being against participation in electoral politics as a strategy for oneself is different than going out of one's way to attack an entirely different organization because it engages is electoral politics as its way of trying to effect change. Nor it what's being presented merely a critique of that electoral process, but a simple slander against a group that is attempting reform.
It is not ideological. It is not tactical. It is fear of what is clearly misperceived as competition.
No one, at least not me, is suggesting that OWS become worker bees for the Democratic Party. Nor am I suggesting the we affiliate with MoveOn. What I am saying is very, very simple, and it id to ERicBlair and Demian, and their ilk: Stop attacking them . Stop insulting reformers. You don't have to endorse them, but stop making them into the enemy.
Occupy faces many dangers that threaten its survival. For example, I think that to the extent that it moves away from a commitment to nonviolence that would threaten its survival. But the greatest threat to the survival of any mass movement in America has always been and continues to be the danger of being co-opted and eviserated by the Democratic Party which is exactly what has happened to every mass movement that has arisen in this nation since the days of the Populists.
I agree that moving away from non-violence is a real threat.
I don't agree that a real, substantial threat exists from the Democratic party. The greater threat is exclusivity, elitism, and false ideological purity, throwing out Democratic liberal supporters from the movement, or making them so uncomfortable that they will simply leave of their own accord. They are the mass part of the mass movement, not the several hundred revolutionaries who form one faction of OWS. Pushing them out with the kind of divisive fear-mongering that Hchc, Demian and Eric are engaging in is a far greater threat than anything any party could do.
Actually, that's not entirely true; if the Republicans gain the White house and pack the courts with even more right wingers, OWS, indeed the entire population, is in for serious trouble.
Dont worry, I cant speak for others, but I can promise you that people in OccTampa are sick and tired of both of these parties.
I see plenty of disagreements. Still looking for a refutation though...
If you spot one, be sure to let me know.
The one direct below mine here is one. Ancientmariner, Gypsyking and I have all refuted your bullshit. Just because you don't the have the willingness or ability to recognize it doesn't mean refutations weren't provided. It just means your pigheadedness rules your understanding.
I've posted rebuttals to all of your mental gymnastics, dissected your comments and pointed out the logical fallacies and factual inaccuracies.
There is not a single refutation in any of it. You can't post a single one because you know I'm right.
You know that anything you link-to will be torn apart with simple reasoning.
You have done no such thing. All you have done is hurl accusations. In response to refutations, you simply repeated your assertions. that is not refutation on any level.
MoveOn pre-exists OWS. It is to the Left of the Democratic party. You have refuted neither of those facts.
Your assertion that they are the enemy is unfounded, and you have provided NO evidence to the contrary. Links to opinion pieces do not constitute evidence.
You have not shown that the organization is an"organ" of the democratic party, only that it selectively supports it, just as OWS itself selectively participates with unions, but are not a union organ.
You have demonstrated no reasoning whatsoever, but simple animus. Your "purity" is divisive. It makes enemies where there are none. Its motivation is to reduce OWS to a few die-hard zealots who can have no effect on change in any way.
MoveOn is the left of the Democratic Party, which is quite another thing than being "to the left of the Democratic Party" which would suggest a level of political independence on the part of MoveOn which simply does not exist. That MoveOn is older than Occupy is true but so what, nearly everything is. Occupy is only seven months old, but unlike MoveOn, it is a movement of left opposition, not one that would seek to permeate the Establishment. We don't want to permeate the establishment. We want to overthrow the fuckers and that makes all the difference, despite some convergence on tactics. Since the Democratic Party is not a membership organization and cannot, by law, have "affiliates," that is not the formal relationship of MoveOn to the Party, but it is the de facto political relationship. To suggest that MoveOn supports the Democratic Party only "selectively" suggests that there ought to be some instances when it does not support the Democratic Party, and I am unaware of any.
I'm a part time Occupy activist. I wish that Occupy was a lot bigger than it is, but it isn't. The fact is, IMHO, Occupy IS a movement of a few die-hard zealots. I wish it weren't but it is, which is all the more reason why it needs to be wary of being co-opted by the Democratic Party or various organizations that operate on its behalf.
"We don't want to permeate the establishment. "
For the hundredth time, NO ONE IS TELLING OWS TO DO THAT!
BUt does it (and you, apparently) have to go on the attack of another group that seeks leftward change?
MoveOn has created petition drives (it's main activity) that directly oppose the establishment Democratic Party. That is opposition. It's form of opposition is not the elimination of that party, but its reform. It is an independent group that supports some policies and opposes others, just like most people do.
It is NOT the enemy. It is doing something different. Both OWS AND MoveON are trying to move the country leftward. How much and how effectively is a different issue than if they are the enemy or not.
<<<You have done no such thing. All you have done is hurl accusations. In response to refutations, you simply repeated your assertions. that is not refutation on any level.>>>
All of my assertions are supported by facts.
<<<<MoveOn pre-exists OWS. It is to the Left of the Democratic party. You have refuted neither of those facts. >>>>
I don't need to show that MoveOn isn't older than OWS---I know that they are older than us. The premise is correct; the conclusion you are trying to draw from that premise does not follow. This is called a non sequitur, and is a kind of informal fallacy.
You do not have start an entirely new organization in order to co-opt an existing one. In fact, typically the opposite is true: existing interests or old ineffective organizations try to leech off new and vitalized ones.
As for the second assertion it's trivially simple: they are a front group and mouth piece for the democratic party. They do nothing but shill for them. You can't be to the left of what you are a part of.
<<<Your assertion that they are the enemy is unfounded, and you have provided NO evidence to the contrary. Links to opinion pieces do not constitute evidence.
You have not shown that the organization is an"organ" of the democratic party, only that it selectively supports it, just as OWS itself selectively participates with unions, but are not a union organ.>>>
Most of the links I posted were news articles and not editorials, but regardless, the facts in them are publicly verifiable information. Obama shields bankers from prosecution with his political influence and appoints Wall Street lobbyists and corporate executives to run the economy.
If Occupy Wall Street is not against that then just what the hell are we against? That is the very essence, the central theme, we have been drumming about since we started.
Please try and read through the whole thing, maybe you learn something: http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3870:moveonorg-and-friends-attempt-to-coopt-occupy-wall-street-movement
<<<<You have demonstrated no reasoning whatsoever, but simple animus. Your "purity" is divisive. >>>>
I notice you put quotes around the word purity. You are the only one who has used this word. Are you quoting yourself? That's kind of odd.
<<<<Its motivation is to reduce OWS to a few die-hard zealots who can have no effect on change in any way.>>>>
OWS has mass popular appeal (where MoveOn liberals fail to do so) precisely because we reject the meaningless distractions and party politics that hasn't lead anywhere in the past thirty years.
Their dead ends and symbolic lip service are alienating and divisive. OWS became a phenomenon because it energizes a much wider appeal---to the great majority, the mainstream of society who do not bother to vote (rightly so), and who are put-off by people telling them they should.
Anyone who tries to turn OWS into a vehicle to sell candidates to people is trying to destroy something beautiful, and they most certainly are our enemy.
"All of my assertions are supported by facts."
You have offered none.
"You can't be to the left of what you are a part of."
Pure bullshit. If you look at their record, you will see their positions, and they are generally to the left of the elected officials of the party. I am a registered Democrat, who is disgusted by much of what the party is doing. I protest the all time. I support OWS completely. Although I WILL vote for Obama, I am far to the left of him in virtually everything. Your contention that one can't be in a party and be to its left is patently absurd.
Your characterization of MoveOn "leeching" off of OWS is nothing more that that: a personal characterization. Yes, they are clearly enjoying the benefits of the louder voice the left has gotten as a result of OWS's efforts. It would be stupid of anyone on the left not to be pleased with that and take full advantage of it. That's not leeching. That's using a gift OWS has handed to opposition forces around the globe. It is a measure of OWS's success, not a threat to it.
Your truth-out link is another opinion piece. It is an editorial in all but name. It is NOT a news article by any stretch of the word.
I put quotes around the word "purity" to as a rhetorical device. Your purity is false, and should be put in quotes.
'OWS has mass popular appeal (where MoveOn liberals fail to do so) precisely because we reject the meaningless distractions and party politics that hasn't lead anywhere in the past thirty years. '
Yet you engage in precisely such meaningless distraction by going out of your way to slander another organization that doesn't happen to be quite as far to the left as you want them to be. (In fact I get the distinct impression that if they were farther to the left, you feel even more threatened.) You are engaging in EXACTLY the kind of party politics you claim to be so far above, only it is not Republicans versus Democrats, but OWS versus MoveOn. Your position is utterly hypocritical.
Nobody is destroying anything beautiful by taking advantage of a swing to the left in the national political dialogue that OWS has helped (and not by itself, either) make a little bit louder. Again, the left would be stupid for not using that marginal change in dialogue to field and support better candidates for office. The energy OWS has assisted in creating is not for hoarding, as the 1% hoards it money, but for using to effect change. Using energy is not a sin. It is how it is used that is the issue. Fire can cook food or it can burn down villages. MoveOn maynot be cooking well in your estimation, but it sure as hell isn't dropping napalm either.
Your hyperbole is misplaced. And IT is what is divisive. It will destroy something beautiful a hell of a lot more effectively than MoveOn ever could.
Dropping napalm? Who do you think we are, Obama or something?
The purpose of Occupy is to unfuck the system. I'm an old man, but I love these kids in Occupy. They're for revolution and they mean it.
Thanks RedJazz :)
Fk Moveon. I'm only voting to put real progressives into congress, I will not vote for Obama, he has been bought. Let's keep it simple, Vote for progressive lawmakers and screw the presidential vote.
Yeah I agree its probably better to focus on congress.
Voting for real progressives and not the president shows we are willing to sacrifice in order to get the results we want. After all, if congress is controlled by progressives Romney can't do sh*t, if we keep Obama he will do the bidding of corporate oligarchs same as Mit would, but with the "mandate of the people". Just my 2 cents
Okay, you're a fucking troll pretending to be a real contributer here (ie Xenulives).
Fuck off.
Nope you are wrong, Wrong guy.
Let's decide to be an isolated movement that never can gain enough membership to have any real traction. That way twenty years from now we can cry in our soup and say that we were willing to compromise with noboby, not even each other. That's the way of the old left - let's keep up the tradition and end up embittered old men running forgotten left-wing bookstores and bullshitting about what might have been if we had only pulled our head out of our ass and been willing to unite!
Great Idea! I love it!
Nobody "decides" anything of significance on this site of kibbitzers and dilletantes. Occupy is a movement of left oppositionists, a "decision" made by Occupiers, in the streets, all over the nation, not by arm chair liberals (not even radicals, much less revolutionaries) on sites like this.
You're thr #1 kibbizer and dilletante. Other people accomplish things here. All you ever do is say how small and ineffectual we all are. Why not look in the mirror, if you want to see small and ineffectual.
In all sincerity I would be most interested in precisely what has been accomplished on this forum and through this forum. If I am wrong about something I am more than willing to acknowledge that I have been wrong and to apologize to anyone whom I might have offended. I'm just responding to what are my perceptions. I completely acknowledge that my perceptions may be completely off base. Perhaps I am not looking in the right place or on the threads where real work is being done and significant things are being accomplished. If that is the case I would be most appreciative if that were pointed out to me and again I would be more than willing to apologize to anyone I might have offended.
The establishment left is just pissed cause OWS can energize movements, drive the conversation, and attracted members. We are doing just fine without corporate parasites like MoveOn.org and failing to recognize them as the enemy they are would be the death of us.
Fortunately, we aren't as gullible as the Tea Party and we aren't going to be turned in to the Democrats little pet.
THe established left is DELIGHTED with OWS. It has been in retreat, mostly defeated, for years, since Reagan at least. OWS has given it a real shot in the arm. MoveOn loves the fact that the dialogue has changed enough, thanks to OWS, that it has a chance to be more effective in pursuing their leftist agenda. Unions are probably pretty happy about it, too. Their voices are finally being heard again. Neither UNions nor MoveOn has co-opted a thing. They are simply walking through the door that OWS opened. That is a win-win.
What left? There is no established left in this country. The only left group in this country is occupy. Moveon's goal is to bring the movement into the democratic fold the same way the tea party was brought into the repulican fold.
Nonsense. OWS is certainly the best thing that has happened in the Left for a long time, but that doesn't mean the left has gone away. MoveOn has been trying to pressure the Democratic party from within. It supports the party in the same way that OWS supports Unions. It has not been co-opted by the party any more than OWS has been co-opted by the unions. They are both independent agents.
I would agree that OWS is to the left of MoveON, but that doesn't mean that MoveOn is not, in turn, to the left of the Democratic party. And absolutism accomplishes nothing other than aliening the left from itself..
The Tea Party was never co-opted by the Republicans. It was begun by them. Little Dick Army was its chief behind the scenes organizer. And co-option or not, they have undue, outsized influence in congress. How is that a bad thing from their perspective? If the Left can get that kind of representation again in the halls of power, it would be wonderful, and create a platform upon which to build.
I'm sorry, you are correct of course. They aren't left.
I mean the pretenders.
Good try. We will not be divided by false distinctions about who gets to wear the crown as the "real left." The thing is people like you are too stupid to understand that. (But of course, it's also wishful thinking on your part.)
False distinction?
So appointing Goldman Sachs lobbyists to run the economy is no longer right-wing?
Occupy Wall Street needs to stop being divisive and support Wall Street?
Yea...gotcha.
You understand the two-party system as well as I do, and what it entails. You're not fooling anybody with this crap. I suppose rather then engage in the corrupted process, you hoped left wingers would stay "politically pure" by not joining the Democratic Party and just captulate and let Republicans have everything their way?
But the way you paint it the left loses if they do and loses if they don't. Convienant for you, isn't it?
Regardless of how anyone on this forum feels about the Democratic Party and electoral politics, the fact is that Occupy as a movement (as opposed to the arm chair liberals ruminating here) stands four square for direct action and opposed to electoral action period. Whether that is good or bad is really irrelevant. The fact is it defines the movement and anyone who argues otherwise has clearly not participated in the movement in the streets, which is, after all, where it is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yo've been the biggest foe of the left-wing uniting all along. I do appreciate your variation though, of pretending to be in the movement and then trying to bore everyone into submission with your psudo-communist - I'm 69 years old and I've been around bullshit.
You're a troll, but at least you really work at pretending to be a radical. I'll give you that.
I'm sure we can look forward to a lot of new trolls with more sophisticated approaches in the future. There's a LOT of money to pay your replacements.
This is an ad hominem attack based on no evidence. The issue is not what I may or may not be, but what Occupy is. And it is really irrelevant what anyone thinks it ought to be too, but what IS it. There are many things that I don't lik like about Occupy such as the nature of its decision making and its lack of formal organization, but it is what it is and it is a direct action movement that specifically rejects electoral action. That doesn't mean that many Occupy activists won't vote. It means as a movement Occupy has taken no position on the elections. And that is true everywhere, not just at the national level. The issue is not some bogus discourse about why "we" should be united behind Obama, especially since the vast majority of Occupy activists who vote will vote for Obama and virutally no Occupy activist will vote Republican. That's really a settled question and I don't understand the ranting about it. The issue is whether Occupy is to remain anti-electoral or whether it will be drawn into electoralism. But the advocates of electoralism advance absolutely no strategy regarding how to get Occupy to adopt the policy they hold so dear. Instead they invent the rather bogus charge that those of us who point out that the Occupy movement is a direct action movement and that we stand in solidarity with that perspective are some how divisive of the movement.
On the contrary, the main thing standing between us and victory are the democratic party con-men and the lullabys they sing to keep people like you asleep.
"If there was hope, it must lie in the proles because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within...But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it?--- George Orwell, 1984
OWS is supposed to be against party politics. That doesn't simply mean opposed to supporting one party, but to trashing one, either. Both activities are an engagement with party politics.
You choose to single out one party as the Enemy. That is nothing if not engaging in party politics, something you yourself assert OWS is opposed to. It is hypocrisy, pure and simple.
What's more, you seem to have little faith either in the power of OWS or the intelligence of the left as a whole, who know EXACTLY what the difference is between OWS and the Democratic Party, or an organization like MoveOn that is trying to push that party leftward. You insult their intelligence when you scream "Co-option!" Do you really think you are the only one who knows what MoveOn stands for and its major differences with OWS? If not, how could they possibly be a threat, even if they used the phrase "The 99%?" (Oh my god!!!! They used OUR meme! They must be evil usurpers!)
I happen to believe OWS is stronger than that, and that people on the left are smarter than that. You, apparently, have no faith in the intelligence of supporters of this movement or the strength of its participants.
Stop playing party politics and alienating OWS supporters.
Sorry, I'm totally onto you Tr@shy. You have always gone under psudonyms with literary allusions. Eric Blair was the actual name of George Orwell, and when I called you O'Brian you not only understood my meaning, but used that understanding to make a loosely veiled threat. O'Brian was the very representation of the totalitarian state in "1984", and you flatter youself into thinking that you represent this total advocate of totalitarian nihlism.
You aren't in that catagory, don't flatter yourself! You are stupid enough to believe that no one among the masses can understand your references to Orwell. You are wrong, and you have revealed yourself for what you are, a pathetic troll paid by the oligarchy, who are themselves ignorant enough to think you won't be exposed as a fraud.
Fuck off Thrasymaque!
Wow. You're fucking paranoid. Lay off the bong for awhile man.
No, I've just been around this forum for awhile Tr@shy, and I know your modus operandi.
Damn, GK, if he really is Thras, I must commend you. I'm impressed, and I don't impress easily. What thread did you call him O'Brian, I'd like to read his response. (BTW, sorry for the off-topic comment.)
Thank you. I have had my go-arounds with Tr@shy here many times. He is a very intelligent person, but errs in thinking none of us can understand him. One of his consistent themes has been to use names associated with literature as his psudonyms.
Obviously he is very well read. Unfortunately he seems to have learned nothing in the process and is as cynical an opperator as you will ever find. So sad. I really feel sorry for him.
Anyway, I happen to know the meaning of the name Eric Blair, so when I confronted him with O'Brian I was interested in what his response would be. If he was genuine he would have responded with riteous indignation. Instead he responded with a veiled threat. That convinced me I had his number.
I'm sorry, I don't know where you can find that exchange. I think it is on his anti-moveon.org thread, but I have been very busy - in and out - because I have a lot of work to do right now, and have mostly just been responding to those who have responded to my comments.
I have had no time to create posts, which is irritating to me; especially as the guys from Slitheryn are now trying to drive a wedge between women, the working women and those women who work at home. This is a potentially effective ploy and should be countered agressively here.
I'm also sorry that these wedge issues are consuming what time I have here, because I would like to focus on more optimistic themes, but with the election coming we can look forward to an all-out barrage of divissive, incindiary propoganda from the ludicrously well financed right-wing.
I appreciate the acknowledgement:)
Oh, I should come out and say I adopted one psudonym here, in order to catch trolls off guard. Often when they see the name GypsyKing they get very guarded. That psudonym I have used is ancientmariner, and I created it for the soul purpose of drawing out people who wouldn't communicate with me in an ungarded fashion. I was reluctant to do that but it seemed necessary. So read the exchange between Eric Blair and ancientmariner, ancientmariner being myself, on the anti-moveon.org post by Eric Blair, as well as on this post.
I suppose if I think it's necessary again at some point, I'll have to adopt another psudonym. I'm sorry if this gives the impression of being duplicitous, but our adversaries use dozens of usernames and I felt I needed to resort to this one, in a few cases myself, in order to get at the truth.
I'll check the archives tomorrow. I'm sure I'll find it.
I agree with what you say about Thras, originally he seemed like a good addition to the forum. Definitely intelligent and well-read, but then to lower himself and do some of the most childish shit I've seen on here, like flooding a forum with graphics just because he disagreed with the content, bots to downvote, etc. Schoolyard crap. Sometimes the mildly-intelligent are worse than the morons: they know they're smarter than the average bear, but not smart enough to realize that doesn't make them better. Or superior.
And, yes, the wedge issues and increasingly-heated political arguments are only going to get worse. But I, for one, refuse to get discouraged. I'm sure you agree.
You're one of the best on this forum, GK. Don't go anywhere.
Thanks GypsyKing....for calling him out....and so succinctly too! Haha!
What establishment left, there isn't any established left in America - what the hell are you talking about?
No, we are just going to alienate the left and make sure the movement cannot possibly succeed in gathering real numbers.
Why are you posting a SECOND thread on the same day about the same subject, even as you continue to post on the other one you started? It is fundamentally dishonest. Didn't you get enough attention from one thread?
You are as bad as the trolls.
MoveOn is attempting to divert the energy of the movement into support for Wall Street Puppets. They are not the "left" and they do not represent "real numbers" they are a tape worm---and if we let them they will be the death of Occupy.
Why don't you post about ideas that will help this movement go forward instead of you paranoia about who might be hurting it?
You are doing the same thing the left did in the late sixties and seventies: engage in internecine battles that have no effect other than enervate the movement.
MoveOn may not be as revolutionary as you prefer. But they are certainly on the left, and I have supported their causes for a couple of years now. They PREDATE OWS, if you haven't noticed. The co-option is by us, not by them. And while I don't mind that at all, the hysterical hyperbole you are engaged in does this movement harm, not good..
You do NOT speak for OWS, not does AdBusters, nor, for that matter, do I. It is a COLLECTIVE. And what you, in your blind zealotry, call a tapeworm, I call an ally.
And that is why people like you never lead to change.
You cant see the forest through the trees.
Change is change, not a forest, trees, bush or shrub. OWS is not about excluding support or allies. Is cannot be co-opted by a separate movement. Unlike the accusations, MoveOn is progressive. Yes, it is far more involved with the establishment, but by itself that is NOT a bad thing. It is simply a different strategy. Working from within the system can be as effective, if not more so, than applying pressure from outside of the system. The issue is to change that system so that it is responsive to people, not any other agenda. The very openness of OWS's structure and philosophy precludes any one agenda from determining how change should happen or what it is supposed to look like.
MoveOn is run by the establishment. If you cant see that, then Im sorry.
People want something new. Moveon doesnt provide for that. They are happy with a few crumbs here and there, while the overall situation gets worse.
MoveOn is run by people outside of the establishment, to the left of the democratic party. Not as far to the left as OWS for sure, but still to the left. They are not an enemy. They are not to be feared and hated. THey are on our side!
Unions are part of the establishment. Yet OWS allies with unions for many actions. Have the Unions co-opted OWS? Are they the enemy?
Show me the owner of Move on? and their operating team?
Everything is not a left/right chart. And moveon's only concern is cheerleading the pathetic job the Dems do.
Nonsense. It has been harshly critical of the Dems at times and has worked to get votes changed on critical issues. But it is true that they are more harshly critical of the fascism of the right wing, which is now the whole of the Republican party (and includes quite a few Democrats as well).
Are they more traditional in their approach? So what? They are doing things their way, OWS is doing things our way.
Do they support many Democratic candidates? Yup, they sure are and they sure do. And that's a damned good thing, too. It keeps the bigger wolves with the sharper teeth at bay. It helps put more, rather than less, progressive democrats on the ticket. Have they been effective? Maybe yes, maybe no, but that's a different matter from whether or not they are evil. Are the enemy of OWS? Absolutely not, and the characterization of them as such is mindless demagoguery.
You say "Everything is not a left/right chart." Considering that your condemnation of MoveON is that they aren't far enough to the left, that's a completely disingenuous statement.
I dont care how far they are to the left, since l vs r holds no water because each has been perverted to fascism.
Where is their official endorsement of Stein or Anderson? Every media gives their endorsement. And you can guarantee they go with the establishtmen.
Left and right are both fascists? I think that would be real news to those founders of OWS who describe the movement (and themselves) as leftist. The left is the OPPOSITE of fascism. You simply don't know the terms you are are using.
To endorse a Stein or an Anderson by anyone on the left is to endorse a win by Romney. No sane advocate for change would do it: it would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Symbolic gestures don't create change. Legislation by those who actually get into office does.
Real changes take place in the real world, not in the political equivalent to fantasy football leagues.
I thought MLK was a Republican?
ROTFLMAO.
That was really funny.
You are who you vote for. Its an endorsement.
Learn to deal with it, or do something different.
Do something different AND vote. Either/or dichotomies are false choices. ALL actions are required to effect real change. That means working outside AND inside the system. Around it AND through it.
By abdicating the electoral process, you give your endorsement to Romney and his ilk, just as we did in 1968, giving Nixon the White house because we were too "pure" to elect Humphrey. The result was a million more dead and five more years of war.
Did Martin Luther King abandon the Democratic party, Despite its inclusion of racist Dixiecrats? Of course not. Was he effective by using both activism AND the ballot box? You BET!!!!
But of course you are so much better and purer than he was.
And if you think for one second that who is appointed to the Supreme Court is of no consequence, you are deluded. I certainly endorse a party that appoints a Breyer or Ginsburg or Sotomayor over one that appoint a Thomas or Scalia or Roberts. And after I do my part to ensure there are no more of the latter ilk, I also go and be an activist to put pressure on the that party to do better in other areas. It is work. It is a process. And that work and process is a lot more involved that holding a placard or banging a drum, as important as those things are.
Activism is one element, but it is not the only one that must be engaged in order to effect real change. And the process is ongoing, both in terms of short and long term change.
Sure does, like NDAA, more free trade, more money printing, more wars, SOPA/PIPA, safe zones, more bombs, more Gitmo, pretty more fucked up shit.
And if you ask tea people, they arent about fascsism either. REally no one is, except those that run the D/R machine. But you cant see that. sO you keep endorsing them.
Both parties are destroying the country. Glad you support just one of them. Because that really helps those of us who arent war mongers.
"Sure does, like NDAA, more free trade, more money printing, more wars, SOPA/PIPA, safe zones, more bombs, more Gitmo, pretty more fucked up shit."
What the fuck does that have to do with the Left? You are confusing the current makeup of the Democratic Party with the left. They are NOT the same thing. The Democratic party today is far to the right of where the republicans were a generation ago. You are conflating party politics with left and right, which is an entirely different matter. Learn the terminology, at least.
Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. In the 60s and 70s the left wing was infiltrated and the infiltraters sowed divisions that destroyed the movement. Are there paralells here?
No, I don't believe that this is a matter of infiltration, but hubris, grandiosity, and paranoia. And it is coupled with a real lack of faith is both the strength of the movement and of the intelligence of its supporters and participants.
What's more, infiltrators did not destroy the anti-war and progressive left in 1968. We did that to ourselves by dividing over the relative purity of our neighboring faction, and by abandoning the electoral process, handing the power of that process over to the right on a sliver platter. Read what Tom Hayden has to say looking back at that tragedy. That's the real history here.
Well, you are right to a great degree, but it also was a matter of infiltration. I think it was both. The infitrators appealed to human vanity, and people, being as they are, went right along with it.
I agree with the meaning of your comment here, and its implicit warning. Thank you for that. In the end they destroyed themselves:)
You are just regurgitating the same unsupported assertions.
I strongly opposing infighting and disunity. I support many comrades whose ideas I disagree with.
You cannot engage in "infighting" against someone or something that is not part of your movement to begin with
MoveOn.org are the enemies of working people and the faithful servants of Wall Street. Their function is to distract, divert and destroy us. If you support them: You are gullible.
Fortunately, most people are not as naive as you.
"You cannot engage in "infighting" against someone or something that is not part of your movement to begin with"
Then why are YOU fighting with them? They cannot co-opt anything in a left wing movement like OWS if they are right wing. You are threatened precisely because they are also progressive. They are indeed part a larger movement; not OWS but progressive anti-right activism in general. They area part of the left working to help the vast majority of the people of this country, the 99%.
What are you so afraid of? Why does this have to be an either' or false choice for you? If they can effect positive change, even if it not enough for you, it is still positive change that can be further built upon.
They are a DIFFERENT organization. But they do have many of the identical goals as we do. They are progressive, though maybe not as much as we are. But they are working in the right direction. I happen to have tremendous respect and admiration for people like Van jones, if for no other reason than the 1% feared him so much they hounded him out of office. You are creating a false choice where one does not have to choose at all.
From Sourcewatch:
MoveOn has created pressure within the Democratic Party for what the Washington Post calls "a vigorously liberal agenda" that goes "beyond simple opposition to the Bush administration." Boyd rejects the advice of "centrists" such as the Democratic Leadership Council who argue that "Democrats must moderate their positions on war, taxes, universal health care and other key issues." Speaking in June 2003 at a "Take Back America" conference, MoveOn's Wes Boyd declared, "The primary way to build trust is to consistently fight for things that people care about." Grassroots America is ready to support a liberal agenda, he said, if only "someone will get out and lead. ... Every time we did something, every time we showed leadership, our membership went up."
Leftwashing: It's the new Greenwashing!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
You divisiveness and unfounded accusations are repulsive.
MoveOn.org's attempts to divide and destroy us are repulsive.
Much like the BP oil company's attempts to portray themselves as an environmentally conscious, socially responsible corporate citizen.
Your false analogy is just that: false.
The only divisiveness in evidence here is yours.
BP: Claims to support environmental causes---primarily traffics in fossils fuels and is a tremendous polluter.
MoveOn.org: Portrays themselves as supporting the goals of OWS---Is devoted to supporting Wall Street's number 1 puppet.
In both cases, they both represent themselves as the opposite of what they are in-order to improve public relations.
Analogy: Solid, fair, accurate.
MoveOn supports Obama's reelection because they are smart enough to know the alternative is worse, and they are working WITHIN the system in order to CHANGE it.
Your analogy is based on the stupidity of believing that only external activism is either effective or morally pure enough to be engaged in.
I'm not seeing any major WallStreet donors to moveon.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MoveOn
I really don't see where they are their "faithful servants".
Strange language to use anyway.
Trollspeak.
Do you think for one minute we are fooled as to who you really are?
You clearly are GK. lol
It's not too late to see the cynicism of what you are doing, and work for the good of mankind and life on this planet. There's more in existance than money and power, and perhaps if those things are accrued at the cost of self-repect and integrety they have no real value, in fact just the opposite; they are detrimental
As I read most of this thread I come to conclude this is mostly an argument between multi taskers and singe taskers. Big picture, I would suggest, do as much as you can, every way that you can, based on your own perception of goals, tactics and strategies that are consistent with your personal value system and don't let anybody, who is traveling in the same general direction more or less, dissuade or distract you from where you are trying to go. And DO NOT ever waste any energy messing with your allies over degrees of this or that or purity, when it could be spent in countering every tactic you can perceive of the real opposition.
This is the twenty first century and we don't need to march in ranks, inviting slaughter by a better armed enemy. This is guerilla warfare. From each according to their ability... with no fighting among ourselves. OK?
I have more confidence in OWS. I don't think old school democrats can co-opt OWS (although they may try ... or are trying). I just don't think these ideas can be put back in the bottle, and irrespective of how much many in OWS have in common with conventional liberals, politicians of all stripes are addicted to power (and OWS challenges power structures).
Nonetheless, in December, 99% Spring (and similar left/center left movements) will probably be gone, because the attention span of political partisans, corresponds precisely with the election cycle (go figure), but I'm sure OWS will still be standing. The main thing I think we should have is confidence, because (at least in my view) these ideas are too awesome to fail :)
Oh, the masterful divider has spoken again. Eric Blair looking for more purity in the party. Finding those things that divide us instead of uniting us in the same cause. Let's be purged of those wolves in sheep's wool. We must purge for purity before we lose our pathetic souls.
What this movement doesn't need is people like you who joy to the sounds of lock-steps. I am sure you would get off well if we just prescribed to your paranoid nightmare and obsession with MoveOn. But it won't happen. Your dream would be our nightmare.
When we marched in the street, we marched as one. There were no interogations to determine if we were all together. We were. It was evident. We chanted the same slogans. Held signs that were of like messages. There are pictures Eric. Seen any. They symbolize what this movement about, we are unified and we are together. It's evident unless your hiding your head down in the sand.
We all need to make May 1st (MayDay) happen in spite of what this divider here wants. This movement will again show for the Erics of the world, that we understand why we're here. We're getting ready to do the filthy greedy rich what hey have been doing to us for decades now. Time has come.
The Puzzler
Bless your clear heart, Puzzlin.
This is one of the best discussions I've seen. From the point of view of Occupy the real disrupters of the movement are the hacks who would drive us into the arms of the Democratic Party. They seem oblivious to the fact that Occupy is a revolutionary movement, or even what that might mean.
Agreed.
Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab7mElJwvOs#t=7m43s
You're right GypsKing. You've Convinced me. It's categorically wrong to exclude or criticize people for co-opting the movement. We should accept everyone without a word of resistance---regardless of whether or not they fundamentally oppose what OWS stands for.
We can no longer abide this kinda of ideological purity:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/neo-nazis-show-up-armed-to-counter.html
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/30/three-nazis-kicked-out-of-occupy-seattle
How dare they be so divisive!---to try and exclude people simply because they choose a different way of expressing their efforts to change the system.
They have given us their support:
http://www.newser.com/story/131217/nazi-party-endorses-occupy-wall-street.html
Just because we don't agree completely with what someone has to say does mean we ought to be engaged with this kind of infighting.
If we are going to build a serious movement we can't be divided like that.
We can't be bickering among ourselves.
We have to unite together.
Right?
Sorry Tr@shy, we're on to you . . . again.
Looks like you painted yourself into a corner with your own rhetoric, and you can't find a reasonable way to justify your own position without leaving me the room to prove mine.
Now you've developed some paranoid fantasy to avoid having to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by your own doublethink.
http://www.skepdic.com/cognitivedissonance.html
Yep.
Every word you say, right down to "doublethink" just confirms what I am saying, "Eric Blair." Don't worry, people can look this stuff up in a hearbeat now, kinda derails your perverted, cynical, sold-out, psudo-intellectualism.
Tr@shy is still on the loose.
You think this Tr@shy character is the only person in the world who read Orwell in high-school?
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
You're outed! Even you're pretense of not knowing who he (thrasymaque) is, given your long time standing here is enough. Shall we dig up your early user posts? I remember you.
You're one demented Obamabot.
Are you suggesting that GK is supporting the idea of accepting Nazis and supremacists?
Now that is just really stupid if that is what you are going for.
No I'm illustrating by example the absurdity of GK arguments by taking them to their necessary and logical conclusion.
I suspect even GK can see why it is logical to note that Neo-Nazi's are not part of our movement. Despite the fact that we have had Neo-nazi's join in our protests and even the American Nazi Party has endorsed us: http://www.newser.com/story/131217/nazi-party-endorses-occupy-wall-street.html
If its categorically wrong to exclude people and be "divisive" then it would have to follow that we should be glad for their support---and that it is wrong to criticize them for trying to use, co-opt and exploit us to gain attention for their agenda.
This is an example where I hope even GK will agree that the appropriate response is to call them out for trying to co-opt us.
An example where it isn't "divisive" to exclude them.
It isn't "infighting" because they aren't actually in our movement---they are really enemies of the movement, and we ought to fight them.
Their very presence and participation (much like MoveOn) is itself what is divisive and alienating.
You need to tone it down a little. Do you even begin to understand common cause and uniting all people regardless of party affiliation or left center or right leanings?
There is an obvious enemy to all of mankind it is greed and corruption it is all encompassing.
Anyone who supports the end of corruption and the promotion of a healthy and prosperous world for ALL - is welcome in my book, and this automatically excludes deviants like Nazis and supremacists any manner of racist or terrorist.
Good people come with varying perspectives.
<<<You need to tone it down a little. Do you even begin to understand common cause and uniting all people regardless of party affiliation or left center or right leanings?>>>
If we united all people regardless of party affiliation or left center or right leanings---then, logically, we would have to accept neo-nazis too. Understand?
<<<Anyone who supports the end of corruption and the promotion of a healthy and prosperous world for ALL >>>
White supremacists believe this too. Have you ever met with one of these lunatics, or read their "literature"? These people genuinely think that all humanity would be happier an more prosperous under a racial separatist regime. They think that there would be less crime, less disease, more wealth and productivity. They think that everyone, both white people and black people would be much better off. They're fucking crazy.
Just because someone says that they "support" something doesn't mean that they should be regarded as our ally.
<<<>>>
I'm glad you agree with me that OWS should automatically exclude Nazi's, but this is contrary to your statement above about "uniting all people regardless of party affiliation or left center or right leanings". Clearly you don't want to unite with all people.
Some people (even people claiming to support us) are enemies of the movement regardless.
Right now, MoveOn.org is public enemy number 1.
Obviously, it's gonna take some time for some folks to come around. I was at my local Occupy today and didn't see a single "right winger". Not a one.
I was also not accosted by anyone from moveon. Didn't see any of there. Lotsa union guys though.
Anyone who thinks moveon is public enemy #1 is living in a very strange World.
Nobody cares about the 9/11 truthers or the Federal reserve conspiracy crack-pots who try to exploit Occupy. They are very tiny and silly.
Some people are actually taking MoveOn.org seriously. It actually stands a real chance of co-opting and destroying OWS if we let them.
That is why they are our most dangerous enemies right now---not because they are worse than the others---but because they are more effective:
http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3870:moveonorg-and-friends-attempt-to-coopt-occupy-wall-street-movement
moveon.org is the enemy, but you aren't really concerned about Ron Paul trying to coopt this movement, as they tried to do tenaciously for months? I haven't heard you say one word about that, even though RP is diametrically opposed to everything this movement stands for.
I spent months fighting those attempts by RP supporters to coopt this movement.
No, you want to divide the left. That is clear
Not all wrong wingers are Fed crackpots. Like I said, there wasn't a one of them there. So as usual, you missed the point.
Go ahead and actually read the link I posted that shows the opposite may be true. That moveon is being co-opted by OWS. That they are teaching their members our tactics?
Why is it you feel OWS is so weak? Because Heritage told you so?
You are calling an ally an enemy, while completely ignoring the elephant in the room.
Over and over and over, you ignore that elephant.
Now, why is that?
neo-nazis do not believe in a healthy and prosperous world for All they only believe in that for the white race and they are selective about who in the white races belong.
Nope sorry no sale. You are sadly miss-guided.
I'm not misguided. I understand that perfectly well. I know that their ideology is nothing but a disgusting stain on the world.
My point is that they don't think it is. I'm not making this up. White supremacists genuinely think that racial segregation will help black communities and make the world a better place for all---and they have advanced arguments and written pamphlets to this effect.
That's true of most of the worst criminals and ideologies in history:
The Military commanders of Imperial Japan believed that they where helping to spread the light of peace throughout the "East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere." They wrote letters back to their wives discussing their "humanitarian mission"---even while they commanded rape-camps and death-marches.
Pol Pot used to give candy to children and teach them to be kind to animals.
Obama gives 22% of his income to charity---while at the same time he blows children to pieces with killer-flying-robots and has people kidnapped, black bagged and shipped to secret "black site" prison camps and foreign countries to be tortured :
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0603/US-defends-unmanned-drone-attacks-after-harsh-UN-report
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/us/politics/25rendition.html?_r=1
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/issues/torture/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/target-of-obama-era-rendi_n_256499.html
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/10/hbc-90007739
But people like GypsyKing will do mental black-flips to try and rationalize that somehow supporting the Obama administration will make the world a better place. Something about how he's the only thing protecting us from the Big Bad Republican Boogeymen. I'm sure he sincerely believes it too.
Perhaps you should publish a list of those "you" do approve of. Then you can speak to attracting them instead of speaking to drive away others that might be acceptable to "you" with your negativity.
Wait a second you are the one who said you want to "automatically [exclude] deviants like Nazis and supremacists"
So Mr. Elitist exclusionist, why don't you make a hoity toity list of people you find acceptable with your "negativity."
Or, is that an unfair characterization?
Is it irrational to portray someone as having an elitist and exclusionary attitude simply because they object to enemies of the movement trying to co-opt and destroy it?
Hmm?
"Is it irrational to portray someone as having an elitist and exclusionary attitude simply because they object to enemies of the movement trying to co-opt and destroy it?"
Except that they aren't trying to destroy OWS, and aren't it's enemy. You are elitist and exclusionary because they don't meet your criteria for being revolutionary enough even though they are leftist reformers, and trying to change the system from within.
Most supporters of OWS are reformers rather than revolutionaries. Reformers were there in Thompkins Square Park on the first planning day. Reformers by the thousands joined OWS on the Brooklyn Bridge and were maced and hauled away the same as the revolutionaries. The strength of OWS has always been, unlike many groups in the past, embracing of both revolutionaries AND reformers.
But you want to portray another group of reformers as the enemy; By so doing, you are attacking, by proxy, the overwhelming majority of OWS's supporters.
So DKAtoday's challenge for you to provide an "approved" list is right on target.
"Except that they aren't trying to destroy OWS, and aren't it's enemy. You are elitist and exclusionary because they don't meet your criteria for being revolutionary enough even though they are leftist reformers, and trying to change the system from within."
The Nazi's say they aren't trying to destroy us. They have publicly stated that they "admire [our] courage".
So you guys are being elitist and exclusionary. By your logic, why not accept them? Why are you trying to create division among us? Infighting and bickering will not help anyone. Right?
<<<<Most supporters of OWS are reformers rather than revolutionaries. Reformers were there in Thompkins Square Park on the first planning day. Reformers by the thousands joined OWS on the Brooklyn Bridge and were maced and hauled away the same as the revolutionaries. The strength of OWS has always been, unlike many groups in the past, embracing of both revolutionaries AND reformers.
But you want to portray another group of reformers as the enemy>>>
I don't portray MoveOn as the enemy because they are reformers. They are the enemy because they are not reformers. They are a front group for the most powerful corporate political party in America. MoveOn cares about "reform" like the BP oil company say they care about the "environment".
<<<the overwhelming majority of OWS's supporters. >>>
I'm sure in your sheltered middle-class liberal world, it might seem that way. But most people in OWS are awake to the reality that the system isn't broken---it was built this way on purpose and needs to be scrapped. But that's okay even if we fail we are sure to gain a great deal of ground for you guys. Revolutionary politics are far better at achieving reforms than Reformism is.
<<<So DKAtoday's challenge for you to provide an "approved" list is right on target.>>>
Then it must apply to him as well. He wants to exclude a whole group of supporters. Who else is on his list of undesirables? What other Riffraff does he want to purge?
You are the only one who wants to exclude a group of supporters.
And your characterization of MoveOn is simply pure bullshit. Comparing a leftist reform group to Nazi's is really beyond the pale, and moves into mental illness.
You also assume much about me ("sheltered middle class") that you have no evidence of at all. And you, frankly, don't deserve to know the truth. But rest assured that you are as far off base about me as about your other slander and stupidity.
You would have this movement dwindle to a few free-style drummers if you had your way. Luckily, OWS supporters don't needed your fucking approval to still support and participate in the movement, and that's exactly the way the founders of the movement would have wanted it, despite you.
"most people in OWS are awake to the reality that the system isn't broken---it was built this way on purpose and needs to be scrapped."
Your myopia is astounding. A core handful of zealots believe that. The overwhelming majority of supporters don't And they are the ones OWS must attract and keep. And they are the ones you feel you are so very much better than and call your enemies. Guess what? Most OWS supports actually VOTE. They must be usurpers out to destroy the movement! NOT. They are the 99% as much as you are, your grandiose delusional little man.
And this movement is for them as much as it is about your utopian fantasies. Its a very good thing you don't speak for the movement.
Where have I read many of these same positions and arguements before...hmmm...why, in this very forum about 6 or 7 weeks ago.
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Here is what good old Chris Hedges has to say about it.
There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform. ...
Tinkering with the corporate state will not work. We will either be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe or we will wrest power from corporate hands. This radical message, one that demands a reversal of the corporate coup, is one the power elite, including the liberal class, is desperately trying to thwart. But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars.
The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along. Groups such as MoveOn and organized labor will find themselves without a constituency unless they at least pay lip service to the protests. The Teamsters’ arrival Friday morning to help defend the park signaled an infusion of this new radicalism into moribund unions rather than a co-opting of the protest movement by the traditional liberal establishment. The union bosses, in short, had no choice.
Here Eric here is another article from truthout about the subject. You ought to post an article about it every day
http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3870:moveonorg-and-friends-attempt-to-coopt-occupy-wall-street-movement
Regular ol' Liberals have been a part of OWS from day one. This is NOT co-option. it is additional voices on the left.
Right on!!!!
I would agree with Hedges assesment that liberalism is pretty much bankrupt in this country. I know I dont want anything to do with the democrats at all. You can do what you want but 2008 was the last time I'll ever vote for a democrat(or a republican for sure) again.
That's your choice, and it is a really dumb one, in my opinion. Just because you won't vote doesn't mean the far right won't come out in droves. You think things are bad now, just wait until the likes of a Romney puts more Scalia's or Alito's on the Supreme court and the federal courts when Ginsburg and federal judges retire. There are real differences on those courts, and no denial can refute that fact as borne out by the record of court decisions.
The democrats are not the establishment liberals. They haven't been for years. They are a shadow of themselves as the liberals they once were. But they are still far better than anything you'll see on the other side. And they CAN become unapologetic liberals again, after a long decline, thanks in large part to what OWS has done, and what MoveOn is also doing, from different directions. And the way I see it, they are currently the best hope (with unrelenting pressure from both within and without) of a genuinely powerful and viable left in government again. That's what's needed in the real world, as opposed to fantasies of overthrowing the entire government from Occupy actions.
Liberalism isn't bankrupt. The Left was just really tired; tired of fighting a two front war for decades. One front has been against the far right, and the other, equally pernicious one has been against itself, its various factions. (Just like OWS supporters attacks on MoveOn and the like.)Too often, leftists have split over who is the most ideologically pure, and essentially divide and conquer themselves without accomplishing anything and with any help in defeat by the right. The abandonment of the political process by the left is what got Nixon got elected and the danger is that stupidity will repeat itself in 2012. OWS has revivified the Left, and that's wonderful. Squandering that gain by creating enemies of allies, or abdicating the electoral process would be a tragedy.
What's more, MoveOn is NOT the Democratic Party. It helps the party in much the same way that OWS helps the unions. They are not a part of the party, have not been co-opted by them, any more than OWS has.
Moveon is a democratic front group its a flat out fact. Just like evolution is a fact.
MoveOn is a web-based liberal advocacy organization that raises tens of millions of dollars for Democratic Party politicians and causes from the millions of people on its e-mail list. MoveOn funds or sponsors with other liberal advocacy organizations various coalitions such as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), SavetheInternet.com Coalition, and Win Without War. It endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, fundraised and organized for him, and has become perhaps the lead lobby organization for his policies in 2009, apart from Obama's own Organizing for America. MO is a member of Health Care for America Now. MoveOn claims to have more than 5 million email addresses of political progressives, its members, in the United State (although only a fraction - typically well under 10% - respond to any given MoveOn email alert or appeal). MoveOn is an online organization with no central office that you might visit, nor phone number to call. Its website address is: http://www.moveon.org
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MoveOn
Nixon while a miserable son of a bitch and a war crimminal was probably the last real liberal president we had.
You can keep doing the same thing just like the establishment wants and vote for Obama thats fine but dont expect me to believe that the democratic party can be rescued because they cant. Its a one party system with two factions. I never said I wasnt going to vote. I'll probably vote for Jill Stien or Rocky Anderson. But I will never vote wall street again.
Sorry, I live in the real world, not in a world of fantasy where Occupy will overthrow the entire current system in one fell swoop.
MoveOn does indeed support the Democratic party. It does so to apply pressure from within. It is to the LEFT of the party and has been from its inception. OWS does what it does and applies pressure from without. Both are valuable. Neither is the enemy of the people.
Nixon was no Liberal. But I would agree that the policies he put into place, as a direct result of pressure from the Democrats as well as public opinion, put him, in some very specific areas, to the left of the current president. That does NOT mean he was a liberal. And his election over a real liberal, the actual person behind the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act, Humphrey, was allowed to happen. And although the Left was unaware of it, Humphrey wanted to end the war right away, as opposed to Nixon, who extended it effectively for five more years at the cost of about a million lives. (Nixon actually scuttled the Paris Peace Talks - an act of treason - during the campaign in order to help his election chances. Johnson found out about it later and refused to make it public.) The Left of the time, whose formation was mostly in opposition to the war, ensured that war's continuation by abandoning the only party that had an interest in ending it. And as the saying goes, if you forget history, it will repeat itself.
Does the Democratic party's moving to the right since Reagan mean the current party should be abandoned or does it mean, instead, that it should be reformed? That pressure should be applied to it from every direction to force it to live up to its ideals? Abandonment simply means that the far right will gain even more power, and keep it via the courts for at least another generation. That's the real world.
I would argue that you don't live in the real world. The democrats and the republicans are one in the same. Go ahead and do what you want. Like I said but don't expect me not to post material that is not favorable to the dear leader Obama or the corporate whores in the democratic party. I think anybody that would vote for a democrat that claims support for OWS doesnt really understand what OWS is. To me occupy is about building something else apart from the failed political system of this country. Do you really think that if Obama was a success as president there would even be an Occupy movement? You make these claims that the democrats are so much better than the republicans but i just dont see it. Obama has enthusiasticly carried out most of the same policies as the Bush administration. Filled his administration with wall street insiders and continued to serve his masters on wall street. Passed freetrade agreements, scuttled any chance of a single payer healthcare system and has given its self the ability to kill american citizens without trail. How do you get any worse than that? Romeny would probably continue the same policies as obama if elected. They are all the same.
First, I have never claimed that the Democrats were "so much better" than the republitards. But they are still better, and better is the alternative to worse. Yes, we don't have a single payer system in place. But we have insurance reform and it will help tens of millions of people. And the rebpublitards oppose even that. Yes, Obama hired asswipes like Summers, et al, but he did rescue the economy from even greater collapse caused by conservative policies (endorsed by both sides) that led to the collapse in the first place. Yes, the Democrats didn't help Main Street as much as it helped Wall Street, but it still extended, unprecedentedly, unemployment benefits to 98 weeks, something the republicans opposed. (Indeed, rebublitards want to get rid of, or privatize the entire social safety net, as well as public schools, public universities, etc. Do democrats?) This president has been trying to get the Bush tax cuts fr the wealthy repealed, and has been effectively blocked at every turn by, guess who? So the Democrats are not great. But don't you tell me me that there are no differences between the parties. Those differences may be marginal in many areas, but they are still there.
It is clear that your don't see the differences between the parties. Some of us, thankfully, still do. Listing them extensively, as I have done before, is simply tedious at this point. But the one most salient difference is still worth mentioning for the upteenth time: the nature of appointments to the Courts. And if you don't think that s real or has any impact, you are indeed living in a fantasy. Ever hear of Citizens United? Ever hear of the ruling that corporations are people? Those decisions occurred strictly down party lines. So has the recent decision that anyone and everyone can be strip-searched for jaywalking!
Do you want to see that kind of mindset in control more absolutely for a generation? Federal and Supreme court justices serve lifetime terms.
Many people actually occupying, let alone simply supporting OWS will indeed vote this upcoming election. They don't see the need for false dichotomies between direct action and electoral participation.They understand that both parties are corrupt to to one degree or another, but are willing to help stem the tide of further corruption while building a movement and gaining traction and numbers. They know that one action - voting for a democrat as opposed to a republican - will have little effect. (Just as OWS itself, by itself, has little effect.) They also know that each drop of rain alone is nothing, but together they make the oceans. Anyone who doesn't understand THAT doesn't understand effectiveness in the real world.
What's more, this wasn't even a discussion about the democratic party, but about MoveOn, which is NOT that party, but a pressure group trying to reform that party. As such it is not the enemy, but a group trying to do much of what OWS is trying to do: effect real, significant reform.
Who said anything about one fell swoop? Making a revolution in the US will take at least decades and probably several life times. The point is, in the mean time, Occupy stands as a movement of left opposition, not one that seeks to permeate the Establishment, for what? To get the cops to stop beating us up?
And so will reforming the democratic party. No one is asking OWS to permeate the Establishment, but why go out of one's way to attack an group like MoveOn for trying to effect positive change (leftward) as well? It is unnecessary and divisive.
Voting Democratic and affiliating with the Democratic Party IS permeating the Establishment. That's exactly what it means to permeate the Establishment. Indeed, "permeating the Establishment" is really nothing more than an abstract way of saying "voting Democratic."
Thank you for providing that definition. It it, again, beside the point, since no one is asking OWS to do any such thing.
Instead, certain ultra-pure (in their own minds) members are attacking another reform group because it does engage - attempt to permeate - the establishment. They have even compared MoveOn to Nazis. It is that hyperbole and hysterical demagoguery that I am objecting to here.
First of all the Occupy movement is a movement, not an organization and as such it does not have members, though it is also the case that political parties that are recognized by the FEC may also, by law, not be membership organizations.
I don't think MoveOn is a Nazi outfit. It is a liberal outfit. Nevertheless, its project for Occupy is to corral occupy into the Obama campaign and Occupy's strength lies in its independence and its commitment to direct action.
MoveOn can do whatever the fuck it wants. It's just not part of Occupy. Occupy has made a commitment from the very beginning that it is a direct action movement not an electoral movement. If people choose to vote or to work for particular candidates or particular parties, that's fine, and they can still even be part of Occupy , but they engage in such activity as individuals and not as part of the Occupy agenda. By no means am I in any way saying "my way or the highway." I am simply relating what the postion of Occupy as a movement has been from the beginning. There are many things that Occupy does as a movement with which I disagree. For example, its decision making process. But what is is, and whether anyone likes it or not Occupy is a direct action movement with a consensus decision making model.
Red, I wasn't accusing you of anything. You jumped in to this discussion to defend a "my way or the highway" person. I don't equate you with him. (Just as I don't equate MoveOn with Nazis.)
I am well aware of the position of direct action that Occupy has taken from the beginning, and I have always supported that stance.
"MoveOn can do whatever the fuck it wants. It's just not part of Occupy." Precisely. They are not OWS. Nor are they its enemy. The two are trying to effect change in their own ways, using their own methods. One is through direct action, the other is through changing a specific political party. They are separate things.
MoveOn, while it really is a liberal outfit, is probably the most pernicious threat that Occupy faces as it is the outfit which has clearly, openly and consciously taken upon itself the task of engineering the Occupy movement into being little more than a left, direct action wing of the Democratic Party. MoveOn wants to reform the status quo. Occupy wants to overthrow it. Therein lies the difference and that is all the difference in the world.
I don't agree with your assessment that MoveOn is a threat of any sort. I have more faith in Occupy's supporters than that. And those that settle for the smaller goals that MoveOn is going for were not Occupy supporters to begin with, so nothing would be lost.
The problems Occupy is addressing will not go away if MoveOn succeed short term, so the desire for change will not go away either. But MoveOn and organizations like it can still make things better, and that is the real danger. For revolution to succeed, things have to be so bad the whole populace has to feel kicked in the gut. Making things better is incrementalist. Revolution is absolutist. But revolution won't happen in either of our lifetimes, it will take 100 years, if then, and I for one, don't feel that things should not be made better for people in the meantime.
Frankly I don't care if things are made better through long term revolution or long and short term reforms. The goal is not reform versus revolution, but improving the conditions of life. That's why both reform efforts AND revolutionary ones exist. Both reformers and revolutionaries co-exist within OWS. There is no reason that separate reform movements and OWS can't co-exist as well.
Given the fact that the literally every social movement for more than 100 years has been successfully eviserated and co-opted by the Democratic Party, clearly that is the most clear and present danger for Occupy.
We should make all left leaning groups that invole themselves in politics as weak as possible so the GOP will win more seats, yeah I get it, I've been reading your stuff. just nothing on wealth or wages because you only care about the election.
I understand and appreciate your position on electoral politics. I simply disagree. Beyond that, while there is no question but that your point of view has deep resonance with broad publics in the nation, it is by no means at all consistent with the position of the Occupy movement on electoral politics. You may find this troublesome, but looked at from another perspective those of us who do not see the Democratic Party as an adequate vehicle for social change find your position equally troublesome. This is a debate that has gone on in and around the left wing of the Democratic Party for more than 100 years and it is unlikely to be resolved in this election cycle.
Do you think we could bulid a consensus on who to support in this election?
Since the self image of Occupy is that it is a revolutionary movement, it is hard to imagine that Occupy would endorse any of the candidates of the parties of the status quo in any event. There really is no candidate from any party, including the marginal third parties that is committed to the values of democracy and revolution embodied in the Occupy movement. It is only my opinion, but it seems to me that the candidate who comes closest to that, but who is still by no means a revolutionary is Jill Stein. While I think that a much larger proportion of Occupy activists will vote for Stein than is true of the population as a whole, by no means do I think it would be possible to build a consensus within the Occupy movement for Stein or any other Presidential candidate. Personally, even if there was such a possibility, i would oppose it, but I am only one person and my position on this as an individual is inconsequential.
I don't know, I think some people in OWS want to get some stuff done, in order to do that, they might even vote for the Ds. If we help show them how important it is to build consensus, but that's where we come in, some of us to make us stronger, and then there are those who wish to make us weaker, people have to decide which is which for themselves one by one.
There is no question that many Occupy activists will vote for Democratic candidates. Perhaps most will, but that is a very different question than what Occupy as a movement will do and what its position as a movement is. As I have previously stated, there are many things about Occupy that I find most maddening, but there is little I can do about it as an individual and as an individual I am either in broad agreement with Occupy as a movement or I am not and I consider myself an Occupy activist.
Virtually every Occupy activist that I encounter, including those who will undoubtedly vote Democratic, do not see the Democratic Party as a vehicle for social change and their support for the Democratic Party does not extend much further than the few minutes they spend in the voting booth.
As a movement, I think the consensus in Occupy is that it is a direct action movement, not an electoral movement and that the most effective way to affect politics in the present period is not through the ballot box but in the streets. That does not mean that most Occupy activists won't vote. I think most will, but there is no consensus among Occupy activists on that question. I suspect that many Occupy activists will vote Democratic, but they will do so rather cynically on the basis that they see the Democratic Party as the lesser evil, not as an adequate vehicle for social change. I also suspect that a much larger proportion of Occupy activists than is true of the general public will vote for Jill Stein. Other occupy activists will vote for the other various third party candidates and a few take a principled stand on not voting. But the point is, as a movement, there is no consensus on the question of electoral politics excepting to acknowledge that Occupy is a direct action movement and takes no position on electoral politics.
I thought we were a consensus building group, that's what you said earlier, would we not have more power if we built a consensus on this and took direct action to support that consensus? I can think of no greater power for OWS than to pick the people who will be writing the rules we wish to change in the future. Will it not be easier if they are people we took the time to build consensus for?
There already is a consensus in the Occupy movement on the question of electoral politics. Just because any of us might find that consensus troubling does not mean that it does not exist. The clear and broad consensus in the Occupy movement on the issue of electoral politics is that Occupy is a direct action movement, that it takes no position on electoral politics and that at this particular historical moment Occupy can have more impact on politics in the streets rather than in the voting booth. Like it or not, that is the consensus.
If anyone wants to put forward the notion of a different consensus, they most certainly have a democratic right to do so, though from an analytical point of view I think it unlikely in the extreme that the Occupy movement will change its position on electoral politics, at least not in this election cycle. I also think that any support for the Democratic Party would be extremely problematic for Occupy given the role that local Democratic Party administrations have played in unleasing police to break up and put down local Occupys.
It is MoveOn's attempt to co-opt Occupy that is divisive.
Bullshit. They are co-opting nothing. They are a different organization that is trying to effect change using different methods and tactics than OWS. There is no threat. It is pure paranoia.
I don't think OWS is mostly people that are so weak willed as that, I think they are made of sterner stuff.
"MoveOn does indeed support the Democratic party. It does so to apply pressure from within. It is to the LEFT of the party and has been from its inception. OWS does what it does and applies pressure from without. Both are valuable. Neither is the enemy of the people. "
Thanks, Nothing more need be said. If we can't include even moveon.org in "our" movement than there is no movement at all. What the hell happened to the 99%? We aren't even willing to include the 20% that are in clear agreement with us, and in so-doing e will have instantly reduced ourselves to being the puchline for future one-liners in the corporate boardrooms.
Let's Get Real.
ginsburg? that idiot who said that it was better for egypt to us the south african constitution as a model and NOT the US constitution,............you know,.they one she took an oath to uphold. by saying that she shows the low regard she has for the US Constitution. moveon is funded by soros, an enemy of the US.
That "idiot" puts Thomas and his ilk to shame. And simply because she understands what works better in a particular cultural context than you do, makes you the idiot, not her.
Thomas is brilliant. ginsburg is a nitwit, way past her " pull date".
Now you just showed you don't know shit. Of all the justices, Thomas speaks the least. You would have made a better argument if you'd said Justice Antonin Scalia is brilliant. Thomas, he's just a seat warmer.
the poster that i responded to specifically mentions Thomas and ginsburg. no mention of Scalia.
so you just said it because it was the opposite of what the other poster said, and not because you believe what you say? that's kinda lame don't you think. I mean that's like defending your favorite football team not because they are great but because they are the home team.
not at all . i think thomas to be qualified , brilliant justice.
While liberals have been part of the movement from the beginning it is also the case that the have accepted the direct action premises of the movement from the beginning. What I haven't seen here is one single concrete suggestion on the part of advocates of electoral action on how to get Occupy to change its position on this question, which is clearly anti-electoral.
I also accept direct action. But I don't reject the electoral process because of it. I don't buy into that false choice. And i don't believe most other supporters do, either.
The issue is not whether OWS's methods are right or wrong: that they are right is a given. The only question at hand is going out of one's way to attack another group trying to effect positive change in a different way.
Many Occupy activists plan to vote. Perhaps most. Probably the vast majority of Occupy activists will vote and most of them will vote for Obama. No Occupy activist of whom I am aware plans to vote Republican. That is not an issue. The point is that as a movement Occupy has taken no position on electoral politics and those people here who think it should advance no program regarding how to get Occupy to do what they think it should do.
REdJazz, that is your position and Occupy's position. It is a position - being utterly silent on electoral politics - that I support.
It is clearly not the position of Eric or Demian, who only wish to attack another group trying to effect change to the left, a group that many here also participate in. By attacking them simply because they are working with a political party (and trying to push to push it leftward) it is "the enemy" . That means anyone who votes is the enemy, because we are working within the system, too.
They are engaging in hyperbole, demagoguery and division. It is elitist. It hurts the movement. I turns off supporters.
It is not simply that MoveOn operates within the Democratic Party, it is that MoveOn, along with the SEIU have been the major groups that have a major strategy of attempting to engineer the energy of Occupy into the Democratic Party. There is a palpable danger of Occupy being coopted by the Democratic Party and right now MoveOn is the primary vehicle attempting to do that.
OWS is not threatened by them. OWS has opened a door and they are trying to walk through it. Furthermore, if MoveOn uses that energy for the good - genuinely reforming the Democratic Party and moving it to the left where it belongs - I say great! It's about time.
Movements have been trying to reform the Democratic Party for more than 100 years. Far from reforming the Dems, what tends to happen to them is that they are eviserated and co-opted.
Whether they succeed or not is hardly the issue of this discussion. What is of issue is whether they pose a genuine threat to OWS. Do they have the ability or desire to suck the energy out of the movement?
I believe the answer is no on both counts. I have more faith on OWS than you, apparently, do, and I have more faith in the left as a whole - the genuine supporters of OWS - than you do.
That said, the Democratic Party has indeed changed over the years, first by letting - pushing, really - the Dixiecrats to go over to the Republicans (positive) then swinging to the right as a result of the left's abandonment of it post Chicago Convention (negative). The Republican party, too, has been reformed by grass roots and astroturf movement alike, all toward fascism. That negative transformation took a lot of concerted, unified work, but it happened. Positive change in the Democratic party will take similar decades-long work too, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. It WON'T happen, however, if the left insists on remain divided amongst itself, which has been the underlying problem all along.
You claim that OWS is not about party politics, and I agree. But every time I turn around, you one one or two others seem to be attacking one party, the Democrats. If that is not engaging in party politics, I don't know what is. And it acts to strengthen, by default the far more pernicious Republican party, one that is entirely immune to positive change of any kind.
If anything the very real internal changes within the Democratic Party have made it all the more effective in co-opting movements of left opposition. The Democratic Party is a much greater threat to Occupy than is the Republican Party. Nobody is talking about incorporating Occupy into the Republican Party after all.
Nobody CAN incorporate OWS into the democratic party..
In a formal sense that is correct. By law recognized American political parties are not membership organizations. Not only do American parties prohibit individual memberships, but formal organizational affiliations are also prohibited. That said, there is a vast network of organizational structures on the periphery of the major Parties which in an informal sense for the infrastructure of the parties of the 1%. And there is a very real danger that Occupy could be drawn into that network. Were that to happen that would essentially end Occupy's existence as an independent movement of left opposition.
Reply to your post below: Again, more hyperbole. Did the Civil Rights Act get passed or not? Did the Voting Rights Act get passed or not? Did bussing begin or not? Was the Deep South forbidden to gerrymander ever since or not?
Did everyone in the Civil Rights movement get everything they wanted? Of course not. In a democracy, there are always compromises.
Did pro-union legislation get passed or not? Has the right to unionize been upheld and affirmed by the party ever since or not?
Did everyone in the Labor movement get everything they wanted? Of course not. In a democracy, there are always compromises.
Is that co-option, or simply a part of the political process in a complex country of competing interests and voices?
All or nothing does not fit the real world. Just ask Tom Hayden.
The social movements were thrown just enough sops to co-opt them. That, in fact, is precisely how they were co-opted. By no means do I mean to suggest that the very real legislative gains made by the various social movements are inconsequential. Nor am I suggesting some kind of absolutist all or nothing expectation in which anything less than revolution is meaningful.
What I do mean to suggest is that there is a fissure running though all social movement, two "parties" if you will. One is permeationist and seeks to influence the left wing of the establishment. The other, while not necessarily explicitly revolutionary is, what might be characterized as left oppositionist. It doesn't seek to influence the establishment. Instead it puts forward a broad and sweeping program in direct contrast to that of the status quo. I think that the dominant tendency in most social movements to begin with is the former and the process of co-optation is a process whereby the ideology of permeation gradually begins to dominate. Sociologists of the establishment argue that this is evidence of the movement maturing. I don't see it that way. To me it is evidence of the movement atrophying to the point of death.
Reply to your post below.
Pure rhetorical hyperbole.
The labor movement was not co-opted, its demands were responded to favorably through laws.
Same with the Civil Rights Movement.
Same, (until they abandoned the party) with the anti war movement.
Same with the Women's movement.
Passing laws to expand rights is not co-option. It is democracy.
I was active in the civil rights movement. I watched it being co-opted and while the more moderate groups thought everything was cool, my friends in SNCC and CORE agreed that we were being co-opted. The drive to build a militant independent labor party was co-opted by the very process described above. Throw just enough sops to the bureacracy and the throw the rank and file under the bus. This process of eviserating social movements is just the opposite of democracy.
In a formal, legal sense?
I don't think Occupy is stupid enough to let itself be drawn into any one of those organizations. That's why I say nobody can incorporate it, not because of some legal, formal issue. I have faith in the intelligence of Occupy. I am convinced that Occupy understands fully the enormous value of its uniqueness and independence, and cherishes those qualities above all others.
The Populist movement had hundreds of thousands of participants. Yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The Socialist movement had tens of thousands of participants, yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The Progressive movement had hundreds of thousands of participants, yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The labor movement had millions of militant activists. Yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The civil rights movement had millions of active participants. Yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The anti-war movement had hundreds of thousands of participants, yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The women's movement had a base of millions, yet it was co-opted by the Democrats. The active base of Occupy is probably 20,000 soaking wet. What in the world would make it so immune to co-optation when all of these other much stronger movements were not.
Your are right on that one. This is nothing but a front for Obama and his henchmen.
As usual, you are a complete moron.
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Thanx Demian, much obliged.
:)
Another great post Eric.
My friends, In order to achieve the goals of this just movement we must avoid splintering our groups. Let us not quarrel and bicker needlessly over the very basics points of our individual platforms....nay, let us instead search for the common ground that unites us to this cause and action. It is imperative that all races, affiliations, and genders become one ideal to be effective towards an endgame. Let those evil forces, which mobilize against the free voice of the people, divide themselves like roaches to the lights of truth, justice, and equality which together we can shine. Let our collective roar be heard, as it is stronger than a million seperate and lonely cries!
I AM THE CATALYST
I agree completely PropheticOne. I hope MoveOn.org and other forces mobilizing against us scatter like roaches.
Despite your paranoia, MoveOn is not mobilizing against us. That is in your head, not in reality.
And if you agree completely, as I do, with PropheticOne, you would cease bickering over the different platforms of OWS and our ALLIES like MoveOn. You would avoid splintering our groups and instead let our COLLECTIVE roar be heard, and acted upon.
You guys are right epa1nter. GypsyKing showed me the light:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/battle-for-the-soul-of-occupy/#comment-705612
We should never bicker among ourselves, we should just accept everyone who says they support Occupy.
You should stop attacking other groups who are trying to move the country leftward. You are NOT required to accept them into your ranks. But attacking them for not being leftist ENOUGH is petty and divisive. Most of OWS supporters vote. Insulting every single one them by proxy is idiotic.
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The far right is precisely who OWS is fighting. They can go fuck themselves. Let them remain alienated.
And so can you. You opened your other post with a lie. You last all the arguments you posted there, and are just trying to continue them here, as if no discussion took place, just earlier today.
You are completely dishonest.
I'm curious to know which argument you feel I've lost?
I'm still posting there BTW.
The post was directed to Uconn, not you. I have another post for your divisive shit above.
And if you're still posting there, why the FUCK do you start another one with EXACTLY the same topic inside of a single day?
The both of you aren't worth spit at this point: Uconn for his hatred of unions and the working people they represent and you for your exclusionary bullshit ideological "purity". You are two sides of the same coin.
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Thanks to all the trolls for coming out to help "Erick" here. It kinda straightens things out.
This is what the estabishment wants - infighting.
"Whatever you do don't come together, stay divided. And, oh, POLITICS IS CORRUPT, SO DON'T ENGAGE IN POLITICS!!"
In other words, please remain small, marginal and manigable.
And the democrats and their front groups aren't the establishment? To me you are representing the establishment by supporting a presidential candidate that was put into office by wall st intrests. But thats cool do whatever you want but don't expect us to not call the democrats out on their bullshit.
And you go ahead and keep voting for the democrats and keep getting kicked in the fucking teeth. Me I'll vote for third party candidates. They may not win but at least I'll be able to sleep at night knowing I didn't cosign this bullshit. I have never suggested not voting I just aint voting R or D.
Now we know what the trolls want anyway. You'll be voting Republican like all the rest of them.
I'll probably flip a coin on the way to the voting booth to decide whether to vote for Rocky Anderson or Jill Stien. Like I said vote for whoever you want but I think it's counter productive to vote for a party that is owned lock stock and barrel by wall street and other large corporations. I mean as far as i can tell the only differece between the R's and the D's is the D's are a little better on womens rights and gay rights but really not that much better.
Good for you. And by doing so you effectively cast you vote for Mitt Romney. Congratulations. Citizens United forever!
Like it fucking matters. I'm real sure Romney will take California. Yeah right!
Like OWS matters? One vote doesn't make much difference. One person in a crowd in a park doesn't, either. As an activist you know as well as I do that effectiveness is collective, not individual. Voting is collective action.
Congratulations for joining the collective dedicated to Romney's winning.
*electoral politics
Revolutionary politics is the WTG