Move On Tries to Co-Opt the OWS Protests

BR: I believe it would be better if OWS stayed a non-partisan group, and not become a Democrat version of the Tea Party . . .

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Move On Tries to Take Over Occupy Wall Street Protests

David DeGraw – one of the primary Wall Street protest organizers – just sent me the following email:

Top MoveOn leaders / executives are all over national television speaking for the movement. fully appreciate the help and support of MoveOn, but the MSM is clearly using them as the spokespeople for OWS. This is an blatant attempt to fracture the 99% into a Democratic Party organization. The leadership of MoveON are Democratic Party operatives. they are divide and conquer pawns. For years they ignored Wall Street protests to keep complete focus on the Republicans, in favor of Goldman’s Obama and Wall Street’s Democratic leadership.

If anyone at Move On or Daily Kos would like to have a public debate about these comments, we invite it.

Please help us stop this divide and conquer attempt.

DeGraw – who is wholly non-partisan [like the writers at Washington’s Blog] – tells me that about half of the protesters are liberals, but the other half are libertarians (and see this.)

This mirrors what one of the original organizers of the “Occupy Trenton” protest told me: MoveOn attempted to set the agenda and pretend it was their event.

As I noted last week:

Everyone’s trying to cash in on the courage and conviction of the Wall Street protesters.

People are trying to associate Occupy Wall Street with their pet projects, in the same way that advertisers try to associate the goodwill of the Super Bowl, NBA playoffs, World Series or Olympics with their product.

But I hear from OWS organizers that the protesters come from totally diverse political affiliations. Many protesters support Ron Paul, many like Obama, others are for other parties or candidates or don’t vote at all.

The protesters themselves are having none of it, tweeting today:

We don’t want to be the democratic tea party or liberal tea party. We want to be our own movement separate of any political affiliation.

Update: Another tweet from the protesters:

We don’t represent liberal interests nor are we the liberal tea party. We represent the interest of the 99%

And as I pointed out Tuesday:

The two main challenges [facing the protesters are]: (1) An attempt by both the Democratic and Republican parties to co-opt it (see this, this and this); and (2) agents provocateur (see this, this and this) [and here].