Remember the old days? They were only weeks ago---when this site was all about the Obama sux/rox thing until it all imploded in a purge. Now, you can hardly find an Obama sux or rox comment, let alone a diary on it. In fact, you can hardly find anything about Obama here at all. Change CAN happen fast, and it just has, here. More under the squiggly thing.
It’s great to come to this site and read more harmony, more, for lack of a better phrase, “team spirit.” More agreement on priorities, instead of endless, stale arguments between ourselves.
How great to see Jesse get his fair due, after struggling so long. How great to see the right fucking confounded by OWS, and so pissed off---pathetically using that oldie moldy defense from the sixties, those damn stinky hippies! This has been a huge pleasure for me, to see the right try to use what they did back then, even though it didn’t work then---by God, those dirty hippies marched us right out of Viet Nam--- and I pray to God it doesn’t work now.
Here’s the exhilarated part. At last! A movement that balances the Tea Party. I was almost out of hope that the American teeter totter would right itself. But with the OWS movement, it has begun to emerge. I celebrate that, with all my heart, and I have donated to the cause, and will again.
Here’s the concerned part. Yes, the media is finally involved, and what was silent just last week, is now crowded with noise about OWS---all the usual dueling pundits and all the usual lies and bad information. SIGH. This is what we wanted, and yes, what we needed, but also somewhat like the old adage, “be careful what you wish for.” But I know, we must bridge that problem and take that chance.
But here’s what’s really a concern to me. All of a sudden, there is NO TALK about Obama’s Jobs plan. There is NO TALK about Obama at all. Now it’s all about the republican candidates, their debates, and yes, OWS.
Tonight Chris Mathews did talk about Obama, but in an utterly negative and deflating way. Scot Wilson at the Washington Post wrote an article about Obama being a loner, who hates personal contact and has no friends:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Mathews had Wilson on, did a VERY superficial interview, and made hay with, and agreed with him for 10 long minutes---how great Clinton was in comparison, blah, blah, blah. There was no discussion about Obama’s jobs bill, or the GOP’s lack of a jobs bill. Just more “reality TV” coverage. Seems that’s what our president gets these days, even on the supposedly more left MSNBC. But there was LOTS of coverage of OWS, as there was on Sharpton. Still, not a word about the Jobs Plan, or Obama’s many efforts to get it passed, while the GOP screams about the “dirty mobs” in New York. This could work against us, folks.
I don’t want to co-opt the OWS movement. It is what it is, and will be. But on the other hand, I don’t want to see democrats lose focus. This movement is hanging tough to its non partisan ideals, and that’s ok with me. I get it.
BUT, that still leaves us with the same problem we had before the OWS movement---an election right around the bend that’s going to deliver us a republican or a democratic president, house and senate, no matter what OWS does.
Lord knows, I’m not interested in soliciting sux/rox replies, although I suppose I’ll get them anyway. What I am interested in is saying that I fear many democrats here and elsewhere think OWS is going to make their case. I’m saying, so far, as much as I support the movement, I’m not counting on that. And I am concerned that the spot light on the movement we hoped and wanted and STILL WANT, offers up challenges to us too.
And I think the challenge is to support OWS, but not let our activism for democrats be co-opted by that movement, any more than they want us co-opting them.