Forum Post: I Am Tired Of Hearing How This Movement Is Being Coppted
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, 5:30 a.m. EST by GypsyKing
(8708)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I have heard in various posts here how this movement is being coopted by: Michael Moore, Bill Mahr, Brad Pitt, moveon.org, Hollywood, liberal Democrats, or Noam Chompski, or Ralph Nader and on and on and on. If you can't tell the difference between allies and a very small minority opponent than please keep your feelings to yourself. We need every ally we can get in this fight - everyone! You seem to think this struggle is already won, and you can get back to the (apparently) satisfying passtime of bickering among yourselves. You VASTLY underestimate our opponents, and make us look stupid in the process with this nonsense! Try reaching-out instead - convince an Indiana VFW guy that we are on his side, or an Idaho farmer, whose family has been Republican for three generations, and who is having his farm forclosed. That one action would be worth a thousand bickering posts here over who really is, or is not, a part of the 99%!
Gods preserve us!
I like most of your post - I do. We do need to cease bickering. That does not change the fact that we have indeed already won - we have yet to claim that victory, and there is much sweat yet to be shed.
But we have.
You should take just a moment,
and smile.
z
Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment, and I smile quite a bit of the time - life is good! But there will be no smile on my face like that which will be there when the whole Bush administration and the corporate fellons who owned them and butchered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and robbed this contry blind are sitting in Fort Levanworth Prison. You see, I can still smile when posessed by a simmering outrage. That comes from a long life of rebellion. Now I think I'll go for a walk and contemplate the songbirds - to get the poison of JPMorgan out of my soul:)
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The fear stems from the fate of the Tea Party which started as a populist movement (against the bailouts) and was quickly co-opted by the GOP, thereby losing all credibility . I agree we need all allies we can get. But it's also important to stay above the fray of politics , so as not to get entangled in the meaningless kabuki that will suck the life out of OWS.
I agree with your view, but we can form alliances without holding alligance to anyone. I think the Tea Party may have been originally created and funded by the 1% with the goal of preventing a genuine populist movement like this from forming. They can hire some pretty devious bastards, and they must have anticipated that their agenda for total control would produce some form of backlash. That is just my speculation. I haven't paid that much attention to the Tea Party. My point is that we are diverse and autonimous enough that I don't think we need fear a takeover excessivly. More important is to build this movements popularity. Without accomplishing that it will be a moot point anyway. Finally, when you think about it, it's pretty hard to coopt a leaderless movement. That was one of the main points in deciding to have a leaderless movement:)
Frankly, I think that at this point OWS is more popular than both political parties put together. Celebrities pretty much glom on it to raise their own profile (I make exception for Naomi Klein who pretty much embodies the spirit of OWS in my book). So, I agree we need not fear excessively. Still, with the upcoming elections, mind the slogans. Someone in Foley Square on N17 was aggressively distributing very political signs. I read it and turned it down. I think OWS-ers should be mindful of what they carry.
I am much more afraid that we won't draw enough people to our cause and therefore blow the opportunity of making real change in the world, than that we will be coopted by liberals, if that is even possible. The point here is, that the vast majority of our base support is inevitably people who would describe themselves as Democrats. The stupid two party system is at fault. Half the democrats hate the pro-corporate element of the party and just see them as slightly less dangerous than the Republicans. So how can we ever build a powerful movement if we exclude them, even retorically.. No, somehow we must get beyond this us-or-them thinking, or this movement is doomed.
We should not exclude people. Just their politics.
I'm not sure I know what you mean exactly. Maybe we can have that talk a little later. Now I need some time just to breath. I will look forward to hearing your views on the subject.
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Great post
Thanks Steve, spread the word.
I agree completely. The rulers rely on our self-defeat from unfocused, paranoid infighting.
You're damned right they do, and they have since the time of Caesar, and long before that! Wake up people! How many times can we get fooled by the same carnival game?!!!
we have been co-opted by huge liberal think tanks marxist commmunist and socalist they have all donated to this movemnt. so have white power groups
You are the most laughable and transparent troll I've ecountered here yet. Quite an accomplishment among such a distinguished field!
lol sorry to tell the truth brother!
It's mighty hard to convince the folks down at the VFW and the grange hall that Occupy is on their side when they see us aligning with MoveOn and other Dem. groups. The very presence of these groups stops our conservative and independent neighbors from joining us.
If there were a right leaning political movement and you saw them aligned with the Heritage Foundation and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, could you be convinced that this group was on your side? Would you even bother to show up to find out?
If MoveOn truly supported OWS, they would simply use their mailing lists to INFORM people of OWS events so they could attend as individuals, but stay away with their MoveOn signs and stop trying to raise money for themselves on the coattails of OWS.
Sometimes, the most dangerous opponent is one who appears to lend a helping hand.
You are right about them using, or trying to piggyback on the support of OWS, but it shouldn't be that hard to convince them not to do so - moveon.org is hardly The Stazi.
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