Democrats Seek to Own ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement… a consensus is emerging among Democrats that the “Occupy” movement is worth tapping into, even helping along and joining with in some instances…. To Democrats eager for a liberal antidote to the Tea Party energy that lifted Republicans to power last year, the “Occupy” rallies that started in New York last month and have spread to cities nationwide are tempting to embrace…. It may be that occupiers wind up playing a role for the political left that tea partiers did for the right.
If Democratic Party operatives really think that they can sweep in and adopt this movement with a firm embrace, they haven’t been paying attention. Yesterday morning, I made a point of photographing every one of the signs made by the people occupying DC’s Freedom Plaza. It wasn’t an easy task: there were over a thousand. The vast majority of them were hand-made, not supplied by any organization that might try to claim a voice on protesters’ behalf. Not one of the more than a thousand signs suggested voting for or supporting Democrats. Not one of the more than a thousand signs suggested voting for or supporting Barack Obama. More than a few of them criticized Barack Obama by name. The only sign I saw supporting any politician or party — one sign — was a Ron Paul 2012 campaign sign brought by a Texan. As I finished taking snaps of the signs, I listened to an organizer reading Barack Obama’s reactions to the Freedom Plaza protest in DC to the crowd. The crowd jeered at Obama’s words. So did the organizer.
Some, including the reporter I quote above, compare this new movement of the 99-percenters to the Tea Party, but there’s a fundamental difference in origin between the two. While core Tea Party organizations have been funded by Republican party operatives from the very beginning, the Occupation movement has self-organized.
The occupation protests across the country are not partisan protests. They are protests against the Democratic Party and protests against Barack Obama. Trying to co-opt the movement would be a waste of time. If the Democratic Party wants to make use of this movement, it should use the movement as an excuse to start considering how it might change its ways.
Some, including the reporter I quote above, compare this new movement of the 99-percenters to the Tea Party, but there’s a fundamental difference in origin between the two. While core Tea Party organizations have been funded by Republican party operatives from the very beginning, the Occupation movement has self-organized.
What you call the very beginning was definitely not the very beginning. Tea parties were originally organized by libertarians, not establishment Republicans. The current wave of tea parties started with a rant by Rick Santelli from the Chicago Board of Trade. For months prior to that, Santelli was on the facebook page of the Libertarian Party of Illinois which called for an April 15th Tea Party. The year before that Ron Paul supporters held one. Libertarian Party members have had anti-tax protests on April 15 for many, many years…I was doing them in Alabama back in the 1990s and Chicago in 2000. They were around long before that. The groups you link to were created to skim tea party support and organize it on behalf of establishment Republicans.
I am betting that Democrats are creating similar operations to infiltrate and skim the Occupy movement even as we speak. Hopefully, as you say, the Occupiers will resist….especially given the example of what went wrong with the tea parties – if they understand it.
Lest we forget, Tea Parties and Occupy were both in large part reactions to the Wall Street Bailouts and other transfers of wealth by government coercion from poor, working class and middle class people – “main street” – to the super-rich and government-connected – “wall street.” Tea Parties mostly focused on the government end of that swindle, while Occupy is mostly focusing on the plutocrats…
both must be understood to be integral partners in crime for real change to occur.
“The current wave of tea parties” has been aided and abetted from shortly after (Drexel Burnham Lambert Vice President) Rick Santelli’s rant by various sessions funded by the Koch Brothers of major GOP fame, continuing an effort that the Koch Brothers started in 2004.
To quote the Guardian:
“A day after CNBC’s Rick Santelli launched his on-air howl against Obama’s mortgage bailout plan, AFP and Freedom Works put up Facebook pages and began organising events around the country. The Tea Party was under way.”
Both AFP and Freedom Works got their start through Koch money.
Here’s another link connecting the “spontaneous” “grassroots” response to the Koch brothers network.
Appeals to the original Boston Tea Party have informed political protest for more than a century. But from the start, this current Tea Party movement has been steeped in corporate GOP money.
Santelli got his ideas directly from the Libertarian Party of Illinois, which was planning months ahead of his announcement, and failed to give them credit. In fact, it was just a new twist (kind of new, not really) on the traditional Libertarian Party post office tax protest on April 15 that we have done for decades, taking the “tea party” twist from Ron Paul supporters in 2007-8.
Some of us used tea party imagery at LP tax day protests for years before that as well; these were NOT Republican events.
There were other people organizing back then besides the ones you name. Of course, it is true that Republicans were trying to skim the movement from the start. If you think there are no Democrats already trying to do this with Occupy, I would have to disagree.
Labor Unions tied to Democrats, as well as a bevy of small Marxist parties, have already shown up. So have Greens, Alex Jones and yes, Ron Paul supporters once again. They are all trying to promote their own causes and network with the protesters.
This is the same thing the Republican establishment did with the tea parties, and have largely prevailed.
As for Ames and Levine, I read their article, including early drafts before it was published, because it linked to some articles I posted and pinged back to them. They give one side of the story. Libertarians started the tea parties, Republicans brought their “help” and took over, and yes as you point out that did happen quickly.
Another problem with the Ames and Levine type of analysis that ties anything and everything to Kochs. Sometimes it goes way off base. For example, just because Jason Sorens, who came up with the idea of Free State New Hampshire, went on to later work somewhere that accepts Koch funds (among other sources of funding), they branded the broke grassroots voluntaryist Free Stater activists as Koch funded…even though the actual Free State Project gets no Koch money.
If you play guilt by association and degrees of separation everyone is guilty.
There are already analyses like this being done from the other side that tie Occupy back to George Soros funding Adbusters.
Soros is of course to such people as Koch brothers are to Ames, Levine et al.
The Ron Paul supporter and I had an interesting conversation.
I feel I have more in common with libertarians and Ron Paulianistas than with Republicans. A lot of very important differences still, but more in common.
Political scientists David Campbell and Robert Putnam discussing their research findings showing that the Tea Part is not most centrally characterized by libertarianism, but by Republican conservatism, including a strong authoritarian religious streak.
And if you want to find critiques of government, see here for the Freedom Plaza occupation’s articulation. The occupation movement is focused on both economic and governmental bases of power.
Glad to see many issues I agree with in there.
As with the other list, there are some issues where I agree with the root problem being addressed, but not with monopoly government as a way of solving the problems.
More likely the Republican noise machine will brand the Occupy movement as a Democratic party effort to confuse possible Occupiers than it is likely the Democrats will accept the protesters’ demands.
The Democrats will not accept demands. They will be there to tell occupiers that everyone has to vote for the Democrats or the scary Republicans will make things worse.
The trouble is that Democrats and Republicans are tied at the hip, and voting for/supporting one to stop the other is like supporting the left boot to stop the right boot from stepping on your neck or vice versa.
Indeed, both parties will probably try it and fail. If the occupiers wanted to vote for the lesser evil again, there would be no need to protest.
Jim, I tried three times to post the comment below on the page about the AE draft rules. Twice it told me “duplicate comment,” but the third time it just didn’t post. If the comment somehow got hung up, could you post it to that page–or move it from this page to that page. Thanks–and you’re doing great work at the Occupy protests!
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Richard Winger posted a link today at Ballot Access News to an interesting MSNBC article about Americans Elect. http://www.ballot-access.org/2011/10/10/article-on-americans-elect-hints-at-broader-range-of-potential-presidential-candidates/
Sometimes when you put a link in your comment the spam filter we use (absolutely necessary, you wouldn’t believe how many robo-postings we get every day) becomes convinced you’re trying to sell Russian sex cream or a Nigerian investment scam or something. I just fished out your comments.