E. J. Dionne: It’s Time to Occupy the Majority

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/its_time_to_occupy_the_majority_20111120/

It’s Time to Occupy the Majority

Posted on Nov 20, 2011

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

snip//

It’s not the ‘60s anymore. The protests of that era were rooted in affluence. Too often in those years, the left cut itself off from the concerns of the white working class and disdained its values. That’s the history the right wants to revive. In fact, the Occupy demonstrations are precisely about the concerns of Americans who have been sidelined economically. This in turn is why polls show broad support for Occupy’s objectives of greater economic equality and more financial accountability.

Thus the question going forward: Will the Occupy movement play into the hands of its enemies by living up to the stereotypes they are trying to create? Or will it instead move to a new phase that builds on its success?

Ongoing violent demonstrations will simply not help the cause, and Martin Luther King Jr.‘s lessons on nonviolence are useful here. This movement is about something much bigger than “occupying” a particular space. Occupations proved to be a shrewd tactic. They are not a cause or an end in themselves. Focusing on holding a piece of public land simply makes the movement a hostage to the decisions of local officials, some of whom will inevitably be hostile to its purposes.

More importantly, the movement should remind itself of its greatest innovation, its slogan: “We are the 99 percent.” This is an affirmation that it is trying to speak for nearly everybody. Its tactics should live up to this aspiration by building support among the vast number of Americans who will never show up at the encampments. It should also want to help political figures such as Warren, who understood far earlier than most the costs of inequality and of the abuses of financial power. The last thing this movement should want to do is create fodder for the ads and emails propagated by Warren’s foes.

The occupations have done their work. Now it’s time to occupy the majority.

[canoeist52]

1. The occupations work is in no way finished.

But it is now time for all of the democratic congress to step up to the plate and propose and get behind traditional core democratic legislation. The occupation, however, thanks E. J Dionne, Jr. for his concern.

[roseBudd]

3. Did you miss thew part where RepubliTea in the house caused the first ever downgrade? Time to

be realistic

There are no legislative fixes.

Time to Occupy Grover Norquist

Norquist proud of his influence

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68781.html

[Fumesucker]

2. Oh bullshit, I knew when Reagan was elected he was bad news for the 99%..

There are plenty of us who have been watching the slide of the 99% since it fucking started.

[inademv]

4. Yeah, take a hike E.J.

The biggest threat to the Occupy movement's effectiveness is to be co-opted by the political abomination of this country (especially the Democratic party as it currently exists) because they are the corrupt force that has made such protest necessary in the first place. Far better that the Occupy activists remain outsiders that shape the political proceedings by speaking to the people themselves instead of trying to do so through politicians.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. EJ is the 1%

Insider Beltway pundit, constantly enriched by the status quo he upholds, has advice for those of us protesting Beltway money folks and the culture they ardently represent and feed off of? Hilarious. EJ needs to drop the bow ties and the nonsense.
He says the demonstrations are violent, when it is the Police who have done all of the violence. This means EJ is one of the people trying to create stereotypes of the movement with false frames and backhanded slanders.
EJ is the perfect example of old farts who need to go home and count their winnings, call it a day EJ.

[county worker]

6. WTF? "Ongoing violent demonstrations" The cops are violent!

The 60's were not about affluence. The civil rights movement was about poor people who were being oppressed. The anti war movement was about poor kids who were getting drafted to die in a war they did not support. Women's rights were about all women. The anti establishment movement was again about oppression of the masses.

This is complete revisionism. "the left cut itself off from the concerns of the white working class and disdained its values."

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Drive by posting. Wall paper.

Discussion board means discussion, not fling and fly....

[starroute]

8. I'll grant that he's half right

He's right to the extent that trench warfare is not something you want to get sucked into. But OWS knows this and is already playing with alternative ideas, such as "tenting."

And he's right in that OWS needs to make serious alliances with workers, the poor, and minorities. And they know this too.

But he's dead wrong -- and even pernicious -- in implying that the movement has run its course and needs to disband and get absorbed back into politics-as-usual.

The way I think of it is that this initial phase of physically occupying public spaces has served to jump start the movement. It has brought people together in a hothouse atmosphere, fostered many late-night discussions and exchanges of ideas, and united a whole range of dissident groups that were formerly following their own separate paths.

But the next step has to involve bringing that same subversive and disruptive spirit into the country at large -- the spirit of "occupy everywhere" -- and if anything bringing it to an even higher pitch by combining it with local issues of social and environmental justice.

Basically, OWS has to assimilate the entire country -- not the other way round.