Black Agenda Report is one of the better lefty blogs on the internet. Never one to spare or mince words, BAR executive editor Glen Ford in my view, occupies the heart of every matter he touches. Partisanship is one of his oft targets, and he goes after sell-out politicians like a master hunter. Even if you don't fall as left as BAR does, this is recommended reading as cure for those rose colored glasses, or "hoping" for true change from the current occupiers of Congress and the White House. Ford interviewed several of us on the Gulf coast in the wake of the BP disaster, covering angles that only Al Jazeera dared cover. Check out some of BAR's latest offerings as Ford comments on Democratic Party attempts to co-opt Occupy Wall Street. Feel good about this much: we're strong enough so that they want to co-opt us.
The delusionists are at it, again, gearing up to award their brown-skinned Ronald Reagan acolyte another four years to rut with Republicans. At the point-position of this well-heeled cooptation brigade is Van Jones, the Obama staffer who was fired as White House “Green Jobs Czar” on the ridiculous charge of being a closeted radical. Occupy Washington DC activist Kevin Zeese has issued a “Memo to Democratic Operatives” like Jones to “back off the Occupy movement”:
“The former Obama administration official, who received a golden parachute at Princeton and the Democratic think tank Center for American Progress when he left the administration, is doing what Democrats always do—see the energy of an independent movement, race to the front, then lead it down a dead end and essentially destroy it. Jones is doing the dirty work of a Democratic operative and while he and other Dem front groups pretend to support Occupiers, their real mission is to co-opt it….”
“The Occupy Movement,” writes Zeese, “is not part of either corporate-dominated party and Van Jones is not our leader. It is corporate rule we oppose.
Here's my favorite quote from the above article:
However, gridlock merely delays the trip to the guillotine. Only a mass movement can defeat massed capital, the master of both political parties.
Remember that one: "Gridlock merely delays the trip to the guillotine".
I share Ford's fears somewhat in terms of co-optation of the Occupy Movement by Democrats. However, as of now, I feel the movement is simply far too occupied by those of an independent spirit who recognize that the time is now to recreate our political system, not bend to the two party corporate rule. I'm active in the Occupy NOLA movement. But I'm more than merely active, I'm inspired.