[Peace-discuss] Obama & Dems attempt to co-opt OWS

[Carl G. Estabrook]

Even though the 2012 election is irrelevant. We can't wait that long.

 From <http://www.salon.com/2011/11/19/heres_what_attempted_co_option_of_ows_looks_like/ 
 >:

The 2012 election is almost a full year away and nobody knows who is  
running against President Obama, but that didn’t stop Mary Kay Henry,  
the D.C.-based National President of the Service Employees  
International Union (SEIU), from announcing last week that her  
organization endorses President Obama for re-election. That’s not  
surprising — while many unions have exhibited political independence,  
SEIU officials have long been among Obama’s closest and most loyal  
allies in Washington — but what was notable here was how brazenly  
Henry exploited the language of the Occupy movement to justify her  
endorsement of the Democratic Party leader: “We need a leader willing  
to fight for the needs of the 99 percent . . . .Our economy and  
democracy have been taken over by the wealthiest one percent.”

...WH-aligned groups such as the Center for American Progress have  
made explicitly clear that they are going to try to convert OWS into a  
vote-producing arm for the Obama 2012 campaign, and that’s what  
“Occupy Congress” is designed to achieve. I believed then and — having  
spent the last few weeks talking with many OWS protesters around the  
country — believe even more so now that these efforts will inevitably  
fail: those who have animated the Occupy movement are not motivated by  
partisan allegiance or an overarching desire to devote themselves to  
one of the two parties. In fact, one of the original Occupy groups —  
as opposed to partisan organizations swooping in to exploit it — has  
announced its own D.C. occupation to, in part, “demonstrate the  
failure of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress to represent the  
views of the majority of people.”

...I hope OWS, at least for now, remains a movement that refuses to  
reduce itself into garden-variety electoral politics. What is missing  
from America is a healthy fear in the hearts and minds of the most  
powerful political and financial factions of the consequences of their  
continued pilfering, corporatism, and corrupt crony capitalism, and  
only this sort of movement — untethered from the pacifying rules of  
our political and media institutions — can re-impose that healthy  
fear. When both parties are captive to the same factions, then — by  
design, as AIPAC has so effectively shown — one can’t subvert the  
agenda of those factions simply by voting for one party or the other.

...the notion — advanced by SEIU — that it’s the Democratic Party and  
the Obama White House working to bring about these changes and implant  
these values of the 99% is so self-evidently false as to be insulting.  
Agitating for passage of the jobs bill is a perfectly reasonable and  
sensible step, but how can casting that in such starkly partisan terms  
be justified when numerous key Democratic officials opposed the bill  
and prevented its passage (just as an always-changing roster of  
numerous key Democrats — the Villains of the Moment — almost always  
act to protect the interests of Washington’s permanent ruling factions)?
Beyond that, and more important, does SEIU think that people will just  
ignore these key political facts? How does anyone think these  
protesters will be convinced that it’s exclusively the GOP — and not  
the Democratic Party and the Obama WH — who “protect the rich” when:  
Wall Street funded the Democrats far more than the GOP in the 2008  
election; the Democrats’ key money man, Charles Schumer, is one of the  
most devoted Wall Street servants in the country; Obama empowered in  
key positions Wall Street servants such as Tim Geithner, Larry  
Summers, Bill Daley, Rahm Emanuel, and an endless roster of former  
Goldman officials; JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been dubbed “Obama’s  
favorite banker” after Obama publicly defended his post-bailout $17  
million bonus; the President named the CEO of GE to head his jobs  
panel; the DCCC and DSCC exist to ensure the nomination of corporatist  
candidates and Blue Dogs whose political worldview is servitude to the  
lobbyist class; the Democratic President, after vocally urging an Age  
of Austerity, tried very hard to usher in cuts to Social Security and  
an increase in the age for Medicare eligibility; and the Obama  
administration has not only ensured virtually no accountability for  
the rampant Wall Street fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial  
crisis, but is actively pressuring New York Attorney General Eric  
Schneiderman and others to agree to a woefully inadequate settlement  
to forever shield banks from the consequences of their pervasive  
mortgage fraud...
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