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Battle for the Soul of Occupy

Jump, jump, jump over the dead body of the old left!

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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boydcster

The fear of allowing the Occupy movement to fizzle out into another whine and clickivist campaign is a legitimate one. However, the way to prevent this is not to isolate Occupy from other progressive campaigns, but to open all parts of the progressive movement to each other so that they can embrace each's other's strengths and correct each other's weaknesses. Fear of being co-opted could lead to the same demand for "purity" that has destroyed so many movements in the past. The point is not to "preserve" the Occupy movement in its "genuine" form, but that its spirit and goals become human realities - and that can't be accomplished in isolation.

Anonymous

We have to have living wages, health care, and an end to the bankers' control. Banking is not the answer to government. These people have no legitimate function. they are simply passing laws that say , they own everything ....one by one . We have to stand up and stop it. Rampa Nui Time.

DumbBlondePolitical

Exactly. That is lame. Solidarity with Unions, MoveOn would really freak out the 1%, Instead of spintering us??? Why are we/OWS so judgemental, geez, this isnt an ego game, we are being robbed..:):)

Anonymous

Have no fear, the 1% have switched on the machine to mass produce dissent versus Occupy.

Attacks on the people mean the rulers are afraid.

Unite all workers of the world! End the labour Market!

New Old Left

The "old left" you're talking about is "The New Left" from the 60's which has dwindled into an arm of The Democratic Party. The "old left" had more in common with Occupy in that it fought for economic issues and considered the majority of working people to be its base.

Moveon.org and the unions who are the biggest Super Pac money donors to the Democratic Party were a part of Occupy from the very beginning. There is nothing to co-opt. Democratic Party and union money has successfully kept Occupy from reaching out to the vast majority of Americans who do not feel represented by organized labor or the Democratic Party.

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