Battle for the Soul of Occupy
Alright you jammers, occupiers and Springtime dreamers,
First they silenced our uprising with a media blackout… then they smashed our encampments with midnight paramilitary raids… and now they’re threatening to neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation. This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. Will the same happen with Occupy Wall Street? Will our insurgency turn into the Democrats’ Tea Party pet?
It’s up to you to decide if our movement goes the way of Paris ’68, the dust bin of could-have-been-insurrections, or something more daring, more inspiring, something not yet dreamed.
Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes on our Spring Offensive and turn our struggle into a “99% Spring” reelection campaign for President Obama?
We are now in a battle for the soul of Occupy… a fight to the finish between the impotent old left and the new vibrant, horizontal left who launched Occupy Wall Street from the bottom-up and who dreams of real democracy and another world.
Whatever you do, don’t allow our revolutionary struggle to fizzle out into another lefty whine and clicktivist campaign like has happened so many times in the past. Let’s Occupy the clicktivists and crash the MoveOn party. Let’s #DEFENDOCCUPY and stop the derailment of our movement that looms ahead.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #25, #26, #27 and #28 / Check out Oakland occupier Mike King’s take on MoveOn’s 99% Spring
306 comments on the article “Battle for the Soul of Occupy”
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zip nomad
Happy to get a confirmation from an official staff that the Democratic Party wants nothing to do with #Occupy. We suspected this much, but it's nice to get it in writing. It is not the worry about Democrats co-opting that upsets us, it is the idea of allowing your corporate and special interest sponsors to use #Occupy to trick and take unsuspecting people into the same oblivion you've led us to for decades. It is the sad reminder that in politics, nothing is sacred, nothing is off-limits. You are predictable at best, sir Democratic Party staffer. Thanks for widening the gap eve further, for the sake of your corporate-inflated ego. We'll see how far that takes you.
Anonymous
"worthy to be co-opted" = .classist clap-trap at its finest. I'm not personally worried about being co-opted. i'm working for a future for humans on this planet, and I'll welcome anyone who wants to help, with my eyes wide open and watching for the implications, connections and opportunities presented in every collaboration. Stop fighting over rhetoric and get to work changing the world!
Anonymous
Yea, good luck with that. You're either a GOP mole or someone so stupid as to not realize you are killing a movement by your own hands.
Loon
Folks -- we need to WORK TOGETHER and NOT FIGHT!
I went to a MoveOn training (near Boston) and it was totally in synch with Occupy. They even had a representative of the local Occupy "organization" come and talk about what is going on, and everybody applauded. At the end, when the MoveOn organizer went around to see who was interested in what actions, she was totally satisfied when people said they were signed up with an Occupy initiative.
I don't know how it is/was nationwide, but if this is the pattern it is good good good. We progressives need to start working together! If MoveOn is an "old left" organization (which I think is a huge oversimplification) then they con contribute lots of savvy about how to get things done.
The meeting was really about (a) placing today's progressive/leftist concerns and activities in historical context. I can't see the problem with that -- Occupy may be new, its spirit and tactics different, but the cause is old, and Occupy folks can only benefit by learning about it.
(b) some really mild, first-step training in non-violent action, basically (1) how to handle a non-violent action and keeping your cool, not making things worse by pissing people off, getting hotheaded, etc; (2) how to select, plan and execute a non-violent action -- they barely scratched the surface of course, but if nothing else, it showed how important it is to plan and think things through to actually achieve an effect and not do damage to the cause.
Frankly, I think this piece by adbusters may be sour grapes, that they have somehow lost control of the movement they started and seem to think they own. If so, this is exactly the wrong attitude -- it will kill the movement as surely as anything its opponents can do.
Folks -- we need to WORK TOGETHER and NOT FIGHT!
zip nomad
I love how you lump us all into "progressives", like that makes us a special brand of humans. As I recall from our history, "progressives" have done little for people and plenty for special interest groups and corporations. Glad you got your tools at the Boston training...did that include a 99% Spring logo t-shirt? Getting us all into one nifty logo umbrella is not only stupid, but dangerous. #Occupy is about diversity and unity, based on basic human principles, not partisan agendas.
So why is it that we don't want to "work" with you "progressives"? Because you've let us down...countless of times, while your leaders laugh their way to the bank with our contributions. We are collectively fed up with your bullshit agendas. We don't want your labels. We want to be authentic as individuals, while united as humans. Perhaps to you "progressives" that's a hard concept to understand, because you have been brainwashed to think that anything that is not backed by the system, is not worthy of following - it is on the outskirts of the system, therefore labeled radical and untrustworthy.
We, on the outskirts, hold no bad feelings for you (un)progressives. We fight hard for your eventual freedom. We will fight for you to pull your head out of your ass and realize that you are not being authentic, that you are merely a game piece to those holding your strings. We will "work" for you and the rest of your "progressive" sheep.
Anonymous
. . . and we thank the gods that we are not like other men.
Meet the new (morally superior) boss, same as the old boss. Only the ideologically pure need apply. Thank you for your assistance and support, worthless as it is. And you are. Thank you, thank you. We'll take it from here. Go lie down now.
Anonymous
we launched occupy. i guess we're doing something right.
Anonymous
Yea, but you're losing it and its supporters by your own hands right now.
Anonymous
OKay let me get this straight..........................
'
You Goofballs think that the Occupy ***Wallllll Streeeeeet*** movement should join with the Financial industry's owned and run party, the Democrats???????? Occupay ***Wallllll Streeeeeeet*** should hook up with Obama who has Goldman Sachs running his White House and the Executive Branch.
Jezzzzzzzzzz=zzussssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Anonymous
I'm sorry but your comment is offensive and right now I am going to be offensive back.
I have a problem with anyone identifying the Occupy movement as about "diversity" and "unity" when the movement has notably excluded women and minority populations from the conversation.
Occupy doesn't know anything about unity or diversity-- especially not unity since instead of trying to find ways to work together with groups that have some commonality, it is content to fight against anything constructive. Third partying progessivism isn't the answer; it actually just plays into the GOP's plans.
Good job being a goddman pawn. That seems so authentic and radical.
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