Inside/Outside Strategy-- Still A Must If You Want Real Progress Rather Than An Anarchistic Bloodbath

David Korten's book, Agenda For A New Economy sounds like it laid the groundwork for #OccupyWallStreet. "Leadership for transformational change must come, as it always has, from outside the institutions of power," he wrote on page 1. Of course, I'm so old I remember Bob Dylan singing "Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters." (Watch the video up top; that's Allen Ginsberg with the tallis in the background.)

The amorphous "left" made a horrific miscalculation when a mainstream conservative in a Blue T-shirt talking a slick populist game was elected president to follow Bush. American voters empowered not just Obama but huge, unassailable majorities in both Houses of Congress. Progressive activists relaxed, more or less and did some Obama cheerleading. What could go wrong? If you've been reading this blog for the past couple of years, you know exactly the answer to that. Obama followed a mainstream conservative agenda-- obviously not the crazy right-wing, reactionary, fascist agenda pushed forward by the GOP at the behest of its Daddy Warbucks financiers, but... well many of those Daddies are giving warbucks to Obama and to more than a few congressional Democrats as well. A majority of Americans expect Obama to not win reelection, even if they personally feel a Republican would be much worse for the country.

Early yesterday Obama's reelection team issued a memo that indicates he's going to keep following the Elizabeth Warren populist approach to the voters. It's done wonders for her, as the second poll in a row shows her in a dead heat with Wall Street shill Scott Brown. But will voters believe Obama, after three years of playing footsie with Wall Street? And if, by some miracle, he is reelected, what does that campaign memo suggest about how he would govern during a second term? Absolutely nothing. Here's the memo itself:

From economics to immigration, Governor Perry, Governor Romney and the Republican field have embraced policies that the American people oppose. The campaign to win the Republican nomination has become a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Tea Party. They would return to policies that have been tried before and done nothing to improve economic security for the middle class, rewarding special interests who can afford to pay for lobbyists instead of looking out for working families.

While the President is fighting to create jobs and put money in the pockets of middle class Americans, the Republican candidates have proposed extending tax breaks for large corporations and tax cuts for the wealthiest while allowing special interests to write their own rules.

The Republican candidates universally want to repeal the protections that the President put in place to prevent another financial crisis and instead allow banks to write their own rules, but an overwhelming majority of Americans-- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- favor strong oversight of Wall Street and an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [Lake Research 7/11].

Governor Perry called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and continues to question its constitutionality and Governor Romney supports turning Social Security funds over to Wall Street. Yet even a majority of Republicans oppose a fundamental overhaul of Social Security [Gallup 9/15/11].

According to recent surveys, a strong majority of Americans favor asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share in order to create jobs and get our fiscal house in order. Seventy three percent support ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes on their total income as those who make less, and in a recent Gallup poll asking the wealthiest Americans to pay more was the single most popular proposal to reduce the deficit [PPP 9/22/11; Gallup 8/7/11]. Seventy three percent of Americans support repealing tax breaks for oil and gas companies [CNN Poll 7/21/11]. Yet none of the Republican candidates would ask the wealthiest to pay an additional dime and their economic plans maintain tax breaks for large corporations.

The Republican candidates have embraced Republican budget plans-- from the Ryan budget to the so-called Cut Cap and Balance plan-- that would end Medicare as we know it, erode Social Security, and eliminate investments in education and research and development. Fifty seven percent of Americans oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would be used to help pay for health insurance [Bloomberg Poll 9/12/11]. And recent surveys have all reflected support for the investments the President has proposed we make to create jobs and spur the economy-- from putting first responders and teachers back to work to rebuilding our roads and bridges-- rather than a retreat from them.

Instead of laying out a plan to promote America’s competitiveness, the Republican candidates have focused on what they want to dismantle. While the EPA has become the Republican candidates’ favorite punching bag, 71% of Americans believe we should continue to fund the EPA to enforce greenhouse gas emission standards and other environmental regulations [CNN Poll 4/10/11]. A majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, and a majority of Independents believe that the Department of Education should remain [CNN Poll 9/11/11]. But Governor Perry called “cutting back on the Department of Education” a “good idea,” and Representative Bachmann said we should “turn off [its] lights and lock the door.” 

While Americans oppose repeal by a margin of 52-37, the Republican candidates would repeal the Affordable Care Act, allowing insurance companies once again to refuse to cover preexisting conditions [Kaiser 9/12/11].

Americans don’t want to return to policies that haven’t worked in the past, and they don’t want to start doing away with sensible environmental safeguards and investments in education. They want a forward looking plan to take on our economic challenges, to create jobs and to ensure that America wins the future in a competitive global economy. The Republican field has become increasingly out of step on immigration. While 64% of Americans believe the U.S. should allow undocumented immigrants to become citizens under certain conditions, the leading Republican candidates oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants [Gallup 6/12/11]. And a majority of Americans have consistently supported the DREAM Act which the Republican candidates universally oppose at the federal level.

Fighting for a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility has been at the center of this administration’s mission. Upon taking office, the President took immediate steps to address our historic economic challenges. He stood up to the banks and passed sweeping credit cards reforms ensuring that they couldn’t gouge consumers through deceptive lending practices, he ignored the pundits and extended a loan to the auto companies that saved 1.4 million American jobs, and instead of carving out tax breaks for large corporations, he cut taxes for small businesses 17 times in order to fuel the true engine of job creation.

America’s future will be defined by the success of our middle class, but the Republican candidates are positioning themselves as champions for large corporations and special interests whose plans would leave working families in the lurch.

So what's the takeaway? Whether Obama wins or loses, we need a strong progressive activist base working outside the system and a strong progressive cohort inside the system working for the same goals we're working for, not Blue Dogs and not New Dems or DLC hacks... honest to goodness New Deal Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Bernie Sanders in the Senate and like the progressive challengers Blue America has found who are running for House seats. We need both to get anywhere, regardless of Obama. Chris Donovan has been both an outsider and an inside player-- an SEIU organizer and the current Speaker of Connecticut's House. He's running for Congress and Blue America has endorsed him. He totally "gets" OccupyWallStreet. Here's what he told us this morning: "The Occupy Wall Street protests are a clear sign that Americans are angry about the lack of accountability for the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires that brought our economy to the brink of collapse. Now is the time to focus on bailing out Main Street by creating jobs, building bridges, roads, and rail, hiring teachers, nurses, and firefighters, and relieving the crushing burden of student loan debt.

"And we must reduce income inequality by instituting the Buffett Rule ensuring that billionaires do not pay a lower tax rate than their middle class employees. As we did in Connecticut, millionaires and billionaires should be asked to pay their fair share of an equitable economic recovery."


UPDATE: Advise... From An Ex-Teabagger

It's an interesting open letter about cooption and it brings up a lot of points worth considering. Keep in mind it comes from one person's perspective, a Paultard no less, for better and/or worse:

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDITS: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared: http://vimeo.com/20355767

If my essay seems too conspiratorial or tl;dr for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."