Barney Frank, from the kickass "yes I'm retiring" interview he gave New York magazine:

I believe very strongly that people on the left are too prone to do things that are emotionally satisfying and not politically useful. I have a rule, and it’s true of Occupy, it’s true of the gay-rights movement: If you care deeply about a cause, and you are engaged in an activity on behalf of that cause that is great fun and makes you feel good and warm and enthusiastic, you’re probably not helping, because you’re out there with your friends, and political work is much tougher and harder.

http://nymag.com/news/features/barney-fr…

The problem with ideological purity, like with all forms of purity, is that very few people are all that pure.

Occupy did a great job of alienating most everyone who was not sufficiently radical.

@1--That is a great quote. Thanks.

It seems odd that a protest group which began under the Obama administration and whose targets were may of his policies and top leaders would suddenly fold in under the Democrats.

You know..unless they were like, phonies to begin with.

"We must do something!"

"This is something!"

"Ergo, we must do this!"

They need to renounce violence and stop getting sidetracked by issues like who was the latest to get get shot by a cop. They will never be politically relevant and therefore useless otherwise.

What started out as a protest about the injustices the Wall Street minority over the average Joe became a game of silly stunts that only hurt the average Joe, and a contest against the police. The dirty, smelly camps that attracted the mentally ill homeless just made the actual protesters look like vagrants without a real purpose. Then there was the fake pregnancy, and pretend miscarriage of Jennifer Fox. That really hurt the movement's credibility.

"Run a slate of candidates"?!?
Sure -- and become part of the SYSTEM, MAN!

Get active in the political system?? Right!
Don't you get it? That just what the 1% Illuminati want, dude!

Yer just another mainstream media mouthpiece for the ruling elites, Paul! WAKE UP and smell the change, brother!

It might be better for the Obama campaign if the Occupiers don't appear to be taking his side.

But the answer I gave the young radicals seemed to me the only realistic one: “Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing — but this only swings people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.” - Saul Alinsky, 1968

I liked the idea of Occupy when it dealt with the economic injustice. But in a very short period of time it got sidetracked of speakers at Westlake Plaza bitching about everything that suited their fancy.

BTW, they lost credibility when they gave up Westlake so we could have our Christmas Shopping experience clean and Occupy Free.

I'd rather the Occupy Movement organize politically and support progressives in local and state political races all around the country as well as even have Occupy individuals run for office.

I'm not down with Occupy giving Obama an unearned endorsement. For him to say that he's not Romney or Gingrich isn't enough, particularly when he uses it as an excuse to support republican lite policies--attempting to reform i.e., cut social security and medicare and . Make him earn the votes of progressives.

More seriously: it's hard to blame the victims of state violence for getting a little fixated on the issue of state violence. And it is 100% not the occupiers' fault that Mike Bloomberg is a tissue-skinned martinet who's first, second and third reactions to criticism is to call out the goon squad.

But the counter-example of ACT UP is pretty instructive here: they got their asses kicked by the cops on multiple occasions, and yet somehow managed to stay on message the entire time. The point of their multiple (hilarious, brilliant, hair-raising) publicity stunt protests was to keep AIDS research and funding on the front burner. Plenty of them were personally anti-capitalist, but ACT UP wasn't trying to end capitalism. Plenty of them had a (completely justified) loathing of the police, but ACT UP wasn't trying to reform police departments.

Is Occupy about ending the automatic privilege of the banks? Economic inequality in general? The right to use public spaces? The right to protest itself? Unequal international trade agreements? Homelessness? A diffuse effort to end capitalism itself? All of these are potentially noble goals, but some are more realistic than others and if the answer is "well, all of them" then it might as well be "actually none of them."

Just fyi, not enough poll options, Paul. What about a national Occupy movement, just one wholly divorced from the Democratic/Republican duopoly?

But yeah, I agree, failing to support a candidate because he's imperfect is frankly stupid. But on the other hand, failing to support a candidate because he filled his administration with Goldman Sachs alums and has a clear record of early and often capitulation to big money, all after running on a platform of change, well, he embodies pretty much everything Occupy is against, so I don't really see how the movement could ever support him w/o being seen by all sides as sell outs.

@2
"The problem with ideological purity, like with all forms of purity, is that very few people are all that pure."

More like there are very few people who share the EXACT same goals / ideals / beliefs and have only those goals / ideals / beliefs.

Just look at the number of Protestant denominations in the USofA.
And then look at the variations of each of those denominations.

Occupy can succeed if the elected people support Occupy's agenda and change the laws to reflect it.
There are various ways to achieve that.
Most of them involve the Occupy people getting involved in politics.

All the Occupy Movement will do is insist on tent cities, either in parks or the sidewalk. And because the police will be under orders to clear out these tents, the protesters will lash out at them with weekly "FTP" marches. They clearly have no idea what they're doing anymore and anyone who had better ideas on how to conduct these protests, left months ago, pushed out by the radical/anarchist elements of the group who insist on violent confrontations with the police.

Occupy is dead and anyone who says it isnt is obviously full of s**t because their numbers went from thousands to hundreds and their tactics went from marching, to pouring urine and fecal matter into Chase Bank ATMS, this in addition to smashing windows and spray painting lame slogans all around the neighborhood.

At least with MoveOn.org, you have leaders, you have non-violent commitments and accountability. These are all things that OWS lacks and have shown absolutely no interest in adopting.

Congress voted down the Buffet Law? did anyone in america understand or reflect or "Judge" or use it for the lets play tea discussion.

I guess that's why we are dragging this up now? as its has nothing to do with Congress?

The Nazis, Tea Party, Khmer Rogue, and Stalinists were or are also very concerned with purity. Ideological purity is as coffin and leads to untold suffering when allowed to flourish.

Interestingly enough, the Velvet Revolution, March on Washington, and the Berlin Wall protests succeeded in no small party because they were incredibly inclusive protests that focused on a single issue instead, which was simply presented.

Occupy should pay more attention to their history books and less attention to adbusters.

Accountability is for people treated as Citizens, not those treated as Serfs.

They think you're Serfs.

@18 actually, it passed with a majority of votes.

Just not an illegal "super-majority" which isn't in the Constitution.

I hate AdBusters.

As usual, Will is completely full of shit. No, it didn't pass — it didn't even get a simple majority. In the Democrat-controlled Senate.

@24 I think will was calling Congress a "Illegal Super Majority" as it reflects "why" it did not pass.

That makes even less sense than what Will posted.

@24 51 votes is a majority in the US Senate, Dumas.

no matter how you say it in Romneybonics.

Those are really all the vote choices you could think of for your poll? Really?

I suppose that's somewhat analogous to "Those are really all the choices you could think of for your leadership?"

S.2230, AKA the "paying a fair share act" AKA the Buffet Rule Bill, has not been subject to an up-or-down vote in the Senate yet. What was voted on was the option to continue debate on it, which has been a de facto supermajority requirement for any moderately controversial measure for years now.

This sucks, but the Democratic party had plenty of time to reform senate rules when they had a 60-seat majority in 2008, and arguably have always had other methods of doing so. Apparently it's not a priority for them; so it goes.

Calling this 'illegal' or 'unconstitutional' is begging the question: the constitution makes no provisions for how the Senate is supposed to conduct debate internally. (Most of what it has to say about the Senate specifically is in Article 1, Section 3, go read it, it's short.) Article 1 Section 5 in fact specifically delegates this power to the houses of congress themselves:

"Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member."

(TL;DR version: It sucks but it's not illegal, and if you want a better senate, elect better senators.)

Hay Stranger, what about the one where it focuses both locally and nationally, BUT with out becoming another arm of the pro-torture fake-environmentalist Democratic party. As an arm of the Dems they/we will be totally co-opted and unable to influence the Dems, which they have a chance of doing from the outside.

Your choices are quite biased toward the mainstream corporate Dem view.

The Democratic Party has no interest in co-opting Occupy, at least not in its current form. The DNC is progressive, sure, but nowhere near as comfortable with demanding the change that Occupy desires.

You see, in the eternal tug o' war between Conservatives and Liberals, change only occurs when the right has constipated progress for too long. (C.f. Magna Carta, French/American Revolution, American Civil War, Civil Rights Movement) The Right, in the US as in anywhere, is always the better-funded and organized of the two sides. Only by accrued outrage is any opposition galvanized.

So the question isn't should the DNC take the reins from Occupy, but can Occupy gather enough outraged people and concentrate their ire so that the party most sympathetic to their aims is forced to take them seriously?

My opinion? They've already helped reframe the debate away from austerity toward unemployment, I say anything's possible.

Xenos,
I agree that the Democratic party has no real interest in co-opting OWS, and would prefer them to just die, but corrupt nature of the Democrats' (along with Republicans') relationship with their corporate patrons will instantly paint OWS as hypocritical fools if they put themselves behind the Democratic party. Any political lining up behind the Democrats automatically co-opts OWS. Right now they are seen as naive fools, idealistic and lacking a sense of real politik and having bumbling PR sense. That supposed naivete is one of the movement's strengths, no matter how much Stranger people like Constant here want to call it a weakness and get them under proper control of proper political consultants. We criticize their wish for purity of ethics because we are desperately in denial of our hypocritical and wholly unethical support of the Democratic party that believes in torture and does zero about climate change and lets BP poison the Gulf of Mexico's renewable natural resources, ruining lives while creating toxic mutant sea life.

I hope you're aware that big finance is balls-deep into reelecting Obama. I don't know how he manages to come across as a champion to the everyman. Until people begin taking third parties seriously, we're going to be ruled by a duality of elites and elites only.

PS @1 Barney Frank is a corporate hack. Come back in two years an show me how he's not pimping the relationship between corporations and government, just like he's been doing all along as a congressman. This kind of quote is just these guys telling themselves it is not only impossible, but also ineffective NOT to be corrupt. Sheesh.

Incidentally, big finance is also balls-deep into Romney. It's not too expensive for them to assure that their interests will be taken as primary regardless of who wins the election.

What #31 said. If move on thinks they can mobilize Occupy people to serve DNC talking points, they haven't really understood what a group of people running a consensus run decision making process over direct action plans can do. Just like the Occupy Seattle went in a thousand directions once people realized the group does whatever each small splinter of like minded people decide, 99% spring is about to loose grip of it's own constituency after about three group meetings.
Strong leadership and purity of message might work at Stranger editor meetings, probably because paychecks are on the line, but not in the headless monster of discontent the activist community of Seattle has become. Just like Hoovervilles and the Bonus Army of the last great depression spawned things like the FDIC and Social Security, mobs like Occupy Seattle exist because elites like the DNC failed to adapt to changing circumstances, and will not go away until they think up a better idea.
There are well funded, leadership filled institutions that have the tools to make changes, asking the Occupy groups to become one of them is ludicrous. If these professional groups have any instinct for self preservation, they will begin the much vaunted self correcting mechanism history has seen them employ (see above). There are various reasons why professional classes (such as journalists, lawyers, doctors, trade unionists) have not gotten off their ass{ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-fra… } but asking emerging political organizations to re-invent themselves as one of them to begin this process? Are you serious?

@36

Oh wow, an actual Anti-Syndicalist Anarchist.

If you can't find sideshow work, I have a friend who might be able to get you a sinecure at the Smithsonian as an exemplar of living history...

No, wait. You're actually every single contemporary anarchist, of any hyphenation. Never mind.

Also, I'm ever so amused to see that Paul Constant continues to be utterly oblivious to the fact that Occupy is structurally anarchist.

Hello, Paul! These "General Assemblies" you may have read about are neither random nor temporary nor accidental nor ad-hoc. They're not even fungible. The strict, uniform, and international system of rules-that-aren't-laws commonly referred to as General Assembly is Occupy, and it's sort of fascinating to watch various media organizations slowly, ever so slowly, figuring this out.

Just for fun, since Obama is an admitted felon (I'm pretty sure if I ordered a hit on an American Citizen like he did with al-Alwaki, that's what you'd call me), why not, not endorse him, nor anyone else who doesn't at least subscribe to a minimum core set of values that don't include the continued endorsement of torture and killing, punishment or searches without proper due process, an inconsistent economic philosophy (because, if welfare is bad for people, then it's just as bad for corporations) and an overall belief that the government is America and not the people (since, ya know, the Constitution says it's us).

Keep it national, but start letting people know that if they want our vote, just like the Tea Party requires a minimum asshole level, we'd like a minimum of humanity and reasonable respect for the law in ours.

@32 I don't criticize their desire for purity, or more specifically: I don't take it too personally. As @pdonahue pointed out, the leaderlessness of Occupy is a feature, not a bug. But I think you mistake the relationship: Occupy has to grow in strength enough to exert control over DNC policy, not the other way around. The DNC doesn't need Occupy, they could try to hijack the name for marketing purposes, but they have no need to co-opt a large group of people pissed off about topics from A-Z.

Recognizing that the Democratic party is as responsible for the neoliberal order as the GOP isn't about purity, it's the basic necessity of recognizing who are your enemies. Accusing the left of purity in this instance (just consider the state of affair for the bottom half of America) is Orwellian speak and would make any Republican propagandist proud. Pretending that the latest version of the 3rd way politician will lead to progressive change is virtually certain to lead to another Clinton-like 2nd term with more privatization of the public space, more undermining of social programs, etc.

Some kind of colony hive collapse is going on in our entire meritocracy system, see Cris Hayes http://majority.fm/2012/04/17/417-chris-…. I have been waiting for some kind of orderly transition since Bush v Gore, something tells me if the DNC can't pull off judicial reform, (over 80 unfilled federal judge appointments) they sure as shit can't be trusted on banking restructure.
I don't think it is possible for these people to reform themselves and we have too much access to dollar menu hamburgers and new cable access comedy for a grass roots influence to touch these people. What you have left is a more extreme faction taking the ground ceded by moderate advocacy groups, people who hate cops and like to break things. Don't like that? I would jump into a functional professional trade organization of your choice toot sweet and start making a fuss, we've gone past the point of voting for reform and getting stagnation.

@42

Of course, for your typical low-income American (you know, the people you seem to think you're addressing) there is no such thing as a "functional professional trade organization").

So "making a fuss" (as you put it) in said organizations is going to have zero effect. Because the people who drive the trucks to your preferred supermarket, the people who wash the dishes at your cheap local ethnic-food outlet, the people who climb the ladders when you (or your landlord) order a roof repair... these people are not organized.

And good luck organizing them if you're not right there beside them, doing exactly the same work, and doing it well. And especially if you are, in the same breath, stereotyping your fetishized proletariat as consumers of "dollar menu hamburgers and new cable access comedy."

Christ, what an asshole.

Totally missed my point. The majority of people who actually turn the wrenches and wash the dishes have no place in which to exert influence unless they begin to die in unusually large numbers or create some other kind of nucence. Voting doesn't count, please don't even go there.
The people who CAN exert some kind of change used to belong to peer groups that provided some kind of check to unmittaged greed or society killing behavior. Something has gone wrong with that self correcting mechanism, the asshats who brought us Gulf War 1 & II are still editing our newspapers, the greedheads who popped the real-estate bubble are still collecting a salary. No change of the guard , why?

At some point FDR sat his hereditary frat brothers down and said "look, you can take my deal or you can take their deal" (points out window to line of migrant workers leaving the dust bowl region). The DNC stopped being the party that defended slavery and became a pseudo-populist institution that built bridges and dams, provided social security and a workers bill of rights. The process of american democracy was able to retool itself to avoid a revolution; legal aid societies, literary groups, trade unions, agricultural granges, journalist and screenwriters guilds, they all managed to adapt from the robber baron era to the new deal age with only two presidential assassinations and calling out the troops on a couple hundred strikes.
Now don't get me wrong, jim crow didn't go away, gay people were still in the closet, reproductive rights were still a ways off. It took a second wave of reforms and repression to get that boulder up the hill a little more. What I am seeing, four years in from the collapse of Lehman Bros. , is the same clowns still in charge; the Tomas Friedmans, the Ben Bernankes, the military planners and austerity class politicians who have not a shred of credibility lost. Don't they have a peer group that can say "hmmm, that didn't turn out so well, possibly we wont keep you on as a columnist \cabinet level position\ CEO\Policy think tank head\ joint chief of staff". WTF?

So that's a no, then; you can't provide an example.

National Lawyers Guild, American Medical Association, Elks club, Daughters of the American revolution, jeesh use the white pages.