Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Here’s what attempted co-option of OWS looks like

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Here’s what attempted co-option of OWS looks like

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon.

Having SEIU officials — fresh off endorsing the Obama re-election campaign — shape, fund, dictate and decree an anti-GOP, pro-Obama march is about as antithetical as one can imagine to what the Occupy movement has been.

I was shocked to see Mary Kay Henry of SEIU make her pro-Obama statements the other day on TV (see this video and interview on MSNBC. Surely the American people are not so politically naive as to fall for this brazen attempt at using the Occupy movement to support a ruling class puppet. Because it is hard for me to believe this mainstream union official is completely out of touch with reality, I am left with the only other alternative: she is making a colossal blunder by making such an obvious attempt to function as a political operative of the ruling class. Surely, this will backfire on her to the discredit of all such union officials.