Discuss: The OWS Movement will hurt/help the Democrats in 2012.

This is a good point, if they even just take the Tea Party austerity off the table it's something.

I'm not sure that they've defeated the reflexive austerity though, it's wrongheaded but the right way to think about it is counter-intuitive to most people (i.e. they think that financial crisis, a good time for personal austerity, is a good time for government austerity) and I haven't really seen this movement make a strong connection (that austerity means less jobs).

This is a point that they should try to put across. I recently read that they raised over $300,000 and that would be a sign that they are starting to organize a bit better (until there is a campaign war chest they aren't even playing the game, its just warmup).

And Obama's non-stop jobs program pitch had nothing to do with it?

Once stimulus plans are considered to combat joblessness, austerity will return.

I'm sure the well-named "American Jobs Act" has something to do with it, yes. And by blaming obstructionists he makes them not want to stick their heads out about austerity.

I'm actually surprised that there's as little relation between Obama's campaign and this one. I'm sure he'll try to leverage it a bit better and it could actually become interesting if the movement coalesced around something like passing the taxes on the rich to pass the jobs act. It'd be smart of them to focus on something specific like that together with him.

Yah, I'm just talking about what the media and politicians are talking about. They ought to talk about austerity though, you're right.



I know a couple of guys in NYC who are out there now - they have apartments, and don't stay the night, but they protest all day. Both have been out of a job for about a year now and neither has a damn thing to lose. The longer they hang tough, the better they'll do.

Cycloptichorn

Yes.

Just to round some things up: the OWS ain't no dummies.

They've started buying all (or most) of the food they serve from the local cafés and bistros trebling some of those business's business. (Try to say that fast)
They've received about $210,000 on line from donations thus far and about $80, 000 in cash donations at the park. (CBS NEWS tonight.

There is a highly organized shower location list and a committee to operate it. You sign up, they vet you, then give you an address of a volunteer where you can go and get rid of the street scum.

For a bunch of complainers, they are a bunch of happy people. It's fun to sit in on one of their General Assemblies where whatever the speaker is saying is repeated loudly by about fifty people in a kind of call-and-response duet.
"My friends"MY FRIENDSIt gives me great pleasure IT GIVES ME GREAT PLEASURE..... .
(this system was born out of necessity because of the "no PAs and no bullhorns" rule imposed by the NYPD ) It works and it creates a real sense of being together.

Speaking of the NYPD: it was announced today that Ron Kuby intends to file suit against the city if the Lt. Commander who pepper sprayed a woman protester without cause isn't indicted for 3rd degree assault. The lawyers volunteering for the group also announced they intend to go ahead with 700 trials if the NYPD does not simply drop all charges against those who were arrested earlier on the Brooklyn Bridge. (You may recall there is video of the protesters being led onto the bridge traffic lanes BY police only to find themselves fenced in and arrested for obstructing those same lanes. )

The OWS has evolved very quickly into a very business-like group. They control their own troops through peer pressure and laughter (smells just like Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm tactics) , they approach the police and say just what they intend to do next.
(The march up the East side of Central Park on the sidewalk went on without a hitch. The OWS folks didn't even block the sidewalk, walking nearly in single file for twenty-five blocks and the police, whom I saw at Central Park ready for anything (paddywagons, nets, big rings of plastic handcuffs) didn't have a thing to do. )

The NYPD ought to figure out that watching these protesters is a big waste of tax payer money.

More tomorrow: I'll try to get a copy of the Occupy Wall Street Journal for y'all.

Joe(be at peace)Nation

Thank you, joefromchicago.

Joe(i shall sleep better tonight)Nation

He's trying to stay as close as he can to it, saying nice things on a daily basis. He has to be careful though. Unlike the A2K fans, he and his advisors can't be sure it won't go bad.

I can't imagine he's their favorite politician.

As well informed and educated as the OWS folks are, surely they know his 2008 campaign received more money from Wall Street than any other in the history of the country (this includes McCain's), and that he was the #1 recipient of Goldman donations.

He's losing his touch with the Left. Just today edgar suggested he might be lying about the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador.

There's no way to tell if you're wrong except waiting for November 20, 2012. But my best guess is that you are. The OWS people help the Democrats in that they raise public consciousness to how much the current system is rigged for the super-rich and against everyone else. They hurt the Democrats in that they may find a third-party candidate to get behind. (Is it too late to nominate an Obama challenger for the Democratic primaries?) Overall, I expect them to be a wash.

My hope is that the OWSers will positively affect Congressional races. If they manage to get Elizabeth Warren into the Senate and people like her into Congress in general, that would be wonderful.

I'm putting this here, not because I think he's exactly right, but maybe 99% correct.
http://howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html

One more thing:

Dahlia Lithwick

Joe(duh)Nation

edgar been miffed at obama for quite a while now, so has a good deal of the left whoever they are has miffed at Obama too, so has the independents. He has done something to offend everybody which is why his poll numbers have been consistently low since 2009.

He did have a good relationship with wall street but it too has soured.

Why Wall Street Hates Obama

I personally do not think anyone else could have done better. Conservatives just wanted to keep doing the things we were doing for eight years under Bush with the same mantra of, cut taxes, cut regulations and add moral laws to government. Hillary would not done any better. I doubt who ever is elected will do any better either no matter who it is.

Wall street may not like Obama, but it's pretty clear that America hates Obama's policies.

How can the protesters affect the election? Where are the OWSer's going to go? To the GOP? Hardly likely. To a third party? Good luck. About the only thing they can do to influence the election is to stay at home, and that's not the kind of thing that mass movements, bent on influencing elections, tend to use as a rallying cry.

At this point in practically all elections, some group or another complains about the status quo and warns that, in the next election, things will be different. But things are never different. Tea baggers in 2009 warned that they wouldn't vote for Republicans, and then voted for them en masse in 2010. Liberals complained continuously about Bill Clinton throughout his first term in office, and then dutifully marched to the polls in 1996 and voted for him again. Maybe they voted with a certain amount of regret or distaste, but vote they did, because any other option would have been worse.

The OWSers might be able to influence the course of politics by steering it in certain directions, and they may be able to throw their weight behind a few state and local candidates, but that's about it. If they really wanted to make themselves felt in the presidential election, they'd run a candidate to challenge Obama in the primaries. That would be awesome, but that definitely won't happen.

Correct. The president said in his last press conference that the reason there were no prosecutions of the banksters is because they didn't do anything illegal. Immoral, maybe, but not illegal.

This was true in past administrations, the present administration, and will no doubt be true in future administrations.

Edgar is right.

You are either ignoring or forgetting the fact that a lot of the Republican candidates the Tea Party voted for in 2010 were relatively new to the scene and were put into the general election races by the Tea Party during Republican primaries.

They very much made good on their warnings.

In order for OWS to have anywhere near the success of the Tea Party they are going to have to follow this same track.

The Old Guard of the Democrat Party is not going to voluntarily do more than pay lip service to OWS. Why would they?

Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and Wasserman Schultz are not sitting in DC thanking their lucky stars that OWS has come along to revive and embolden the Democrat Party. They, as their Republican counterparts did with the Tea Party, are trying to figure out how they can be used to their advantage.

Since the Tea Party had no central planners it's difficult to commend them on a strategy to remain within the GOP, but they owe their continued influence to that very development.

It makes sense though. Without a central organization it would have been impossible to form a 3rd Party and whether because of time commitments or inclination the Tea Party activists wanted no part of such an effort. Easier to let it be known what sort of candidates you're looking for and wait for them to come woo you.

Very early days of course, but I don't see this happening with OWS.

We'll have a better idea if some of the existing Democrat players (up and coming but not entrenched in the Establishment) start to identify themselves with OWS. From what I can tell though, this has yet to happen. Are any Dem politicians making semi-regular appearances in Downtown?

While a case can be made that both the Tea Party and OWS have formed around people who are fed up with the way things are, similarities seem to end there.

Most of the people attending Tea Party rallies felt as if they were being impacted by the policies of the government and were concerned about what the future would hold for them, but unlike OWS members they did not necessarily identify as victims of those policies. Most of them had jobs, hadn't lost their homes to foreclosures and weren't socked down by hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition debt.

The Tea Party movement never could have developed along the lines of OWS because the vast majority of rally attendees had to go home and cook dinner, take their kids to soccer practice, or go to work that Monday. They couldn't commit themselves to a long slog in a city park.

As a result, there weren't a lot of Tea Party members who were interested in or able to pursue a leadership role. Most of the "organizers" in our area were women who either worked from or stayed home and did the detail work on the internet and with email.

I think it's going to prove different with OWS. I think there are a lot more young people involved who see this as an opportunity for them to leapfrog a couple of levels of a political organization and begin having a more immediate impact. I think where the Tea Party had people who found it fun to help organize, OWS has a solid segment of Community Organizers.

If it has any staying power (and I'm not convinced it does) I think this will lead OWS towards being more of a self-contained organization and less a movement within the Democrat Party. Eventually to present itself as a 3rd party option.

Totally agree that can't and won't happen by 2012, although I would love, for more than one reason, to see it.

Oh, c'mon.

Tea Partiers couldn't commit to staying in parks, because they are for the most part old folks. Very few young folks in the tea party. A large percentage of the folks in question are retired or on medicare, they ain't getting ready to go to work.

Cycloptichorn

So let me get this straight: the tea baggers made good on their threats not to vote for Republicans by voting for other Republicans? You'll have to explain that one to me.


I agree. In order to get any traction in the political arena, the OWSers will have to back primary opponents to Democratic incumbents in the same way that tea baggers backed challengers to incumbents and GOP establishment candidates in Utah, Nevada, Delaware, etc.


Without a doubt.


AFAIK, no. They're certainly not showing up at the Chicago rally.

She's raising a lot of money. The other day she said she was going after the 'hick' vote. I misheard her at first and thought she said 'mick' vote. Whew. I was all prepared to be offended for the Irish!!!

Too bad she's not running here. We've got lots of hicks, and the would probably be flattered - being hicks and all that.