About #S17.

There are politicians that come from all sides to lend their support, in the hopes that occupy will give a shout out in the future and endorse them. We struggle with how to approach this, usually absurd, situation.

We want something new and they want to work from within.

Fifty years ago, at the original March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event's lead organizer, the incomparable Bayard Rustin, insisted passionately (and successfully) that no politicians or political appointees be allowed to speak.

Bayard Rustin was not an anarchist. (In fact, for whatever it's worth, the event was largely funded by the UAW, one of the most hierarchical organizations on the Left, and one of the most wedded-at-the-hips to the Dems to boot.)

Which begs the question: why would Rustin have done such a thing? And what were the consequences of his having done so?

We are now in a world in which the proportion of African American men in the United States, with some sort of criminal record, approaches 80%. We are now in a world in which corporations have lobbied for laws that are tantamount to hunting our children.

We need new solutions and we need them now.

We are finished with politics as usual. It is time for something truly brand new.