From PolicyMic:
The Tea Party, ironically, is probably the best example of how effective a disgruntled group of Americans can make a real impact on the country in a relatively short period of time. Setting aside politics, the Party has been amazingly successful. During the current period of turbulent and cutthroat politics, the movement was able to elect many to Congress and influence important legislation. The payoff for this new movement could not have been greater, and so it is emblematic of what can be accomplished if protesters work the system and elect candidates who support their cause.
If OWS is going to be a political factor and remembered for making a lasting impression on America, it must present a short list of demands to the American people that are most important to its constituencies.
Make no mistake. I understand that this movement is different from the Tea Party. I understand that it is about issues larger than simply removing certain congressman and senators. I know that a great many feel that any influence or alignment with actual senators or congressman would "tarnish" the goals of the movement.
But at some point a movement needs to morph into something stronger and definitive politically or it will cease to exist.
These people need to get out of the parks (except for a token number) and get into offices with phones and computers. They need to find candidates - lots of them - who will support them and give in to their power. They need to target people who are not doing their bidding (which, today, would account for most of the congress and senate) and find the funding to take them down.
They need to play a game that every important political movement of the last 100 years has had to. It's not selling out. It's not tainting the message. The only way these people will have the power they need to is by doing what it takes to control the message. Right now, most of the country, thanks to Fox News and the like, have been allowed to focus on the negative aspects of the movement that clearly do not define it -- out of work hippie wannabees, the small fraction of violent demonstrators (who may or may not be depending on how the news categorizes it), and on-camera people who cannot seem to put two sentences together properly to make a point.
All of these things diminish a movement that is on the right side of where the country wants to be.
It doesn't take much to dismantle a candidate these days. It may take less for some determined people (Koch brothers, et. al.) who have the luxury of money, media connections and a movement that has yet to have a face (Jesse LaGreca's fine work notwithstanding).
I am 100% for these folks, but I also have a good grasp on history and, unless OWS begins to make the transition into a more business-like entity that our politicians will truly fear, the change we need done will not get made.
And the change that needs to get made, unfortunately, will only happen through government intervention, not wishful thinking.
When I was a script reader for Roger Corman many moons back, the one thing I tried to teach first-time screenwriters was that they needed to learn the rules of screenwriting before they could break them. The system will not allow you to become a Tarantino overnight unless you are going to fund yourself and, even then, you needed pull to get your creation seen.
OWS is breaking the rules right now. But eventually they will need to play by some of them or the system will shut them out. Then, what the hell will it all have been for?