From The Daily Beast
For two-and-a-half long—and believe me, they’ve been loooong—years now, people on the left have been wondering: How on earth is it that we were hit with the greatest financial crisis since the Depression, very obviously caused by deregulation and adherence to other conservative nostra, and yet the only protest movement to arise from these ashes is one ... of the right? It has been, to put it mildly, exasperating. But now comes Occupy Wall Street. Is the cosmic score about to be evened? Maybe. But paradoxically, only if this new left protest movement embraces some crucial lessons from the Tea Party movement—and if it outgrows certain impulses from 1968 that continue to loom large in the left’s imagination.
Damn that Michael Tomasky is vicious. He's on our side and has advice, he must be a witch!
Continuing....
I want to stipulate up front that I am firmly on OWS’s side. I don’t really know who its leaders are, and I don’t especially care. I don’t know its exact goals—a subject on which the movement has been roundly, and in my view pointlessly, criticized. But it is desperately needed. It needs to succeed. And I fear it won’t.
Let's see, on the side of OWS? Check. Agrees it is desperately needed? Check? Has concerns over the movement's tactics? It's a hit-job!!!!!
No I am not exaggerating. Kasama actually calls it a "hit-job." And that isn't out of context. Back to the vicious screed:
And this is where today’s protesters need to steal a page from the Tea Party activists. I beg, plead, implore, importune: Get some spokespeople out there for the cause who are just regular Americans. Don’t send Van Jones out there to be the public face of this movement. I happen to have a high opinion of Van Jones personally. He’s dedicated his life to justice in a higher-stakes way than I have. But any movement that is led by someone who was forced to resign from the White House and who signed a 9/11 truther petition will be dismissed by the mainstream media as left-wing and elitist in three seconds. You may like that or not like that, but it’s true.
Honestly? Sounds a lot like some of what I just wrote in Occupy *Insert Anything Here* I'm a muthafucking hitman!
Seriously though, it is also rational, logical, and realistic. And very, very true.
Moving on....
The OWS movement is part of the way there. The “We Are the 99 Percent” trope is powerful. It is true. But the movement has to prove that it really is the 99 percent. It has to win middle America, and the way to win middle America is to be middle America. For all the Seattle-ish longhairs down in Zucotti Park—whom the mainstream media and the right wing will undoubtedly highlight—there are, to be sure, homemakers in Wilkes-Barre and IT guys in Dubuque who sympathize. Find them. Put them out there. Get them on cable.
Strategy?!? Propaganda? Using the media for our own ends? Oh, the shame. The shame. Excuse me as I hide my eyes...
And finally, don’t fight the man. Maybe in 1968 in Grant Park, the cops were pigs. Today, the cops aren’t pigs. They aren’t the man. They’re working stiffs, and they’re part of the 99 percent. They have underwater mortgages in Ronkonkoma and Orangeburg. Don’t make them arrest you. Make them part of the 99 percent. And don’t mess with traffic. That just pisses people off.
Seriously, out of all of Tomasky's points, this is the one that really grinds at me. I've seen the videos. They make me sick. Police beat and pepper spray protesters on 10.05.11 PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED! NYPD pepper sprays peaceful protesters Foster Disorder (or hell, Ed Brayton) won't let me forget that there are still cops that abuse their power. But he is right to a point there. Making them arrest you leads to jail cells, not success. And yeah, messing with traffic does piss people off.
On to the coup de grace of this attack piece.
An execrable legacy of ’68 is the temptation to treat politics as a realm of self-expression. But it isn’t. Politics is where you go to get things done, to change things. Changing things means persuading those people sitting at home watching on TV. The bulk of those people have been persuaded that they don’t like government. But they also know that the system is rigged against them. Get them on your side. Be them. They’ll be with you, if you only invite them along.
Seriously, that is a hit piece? What does Kasama call Fox's coverage?
Fighting against your own allies. Perfect plan for success.
/sarcasm
I humbly admit my error. Kasama calls it a "hit-job," not a "hit piece." Edited for accuracy, although I fail to find any distinction between the two.
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