General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Occupy's tactics are hurting their message and the left [View all]coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)Left was smashed in this country in the 40s and 50s and even the rise of the "New Left" in the 60s did not restore a left-wing ideology to full health. Had it done so, a reactionary like Reagan would have never been possible.
OWS has already succeeded in changing the conversation from the stale false dialectic of Dem vs. Repuke to the far truer dialectic of 99% vs. 1%. In so doing, after only 3 months, it has a glorious future ahead of it.
Today's closure of the west-coast ports is part of a build-up to a national General Strike tentatively planned for May 1, 2012. If you believe that only a General Strike can fix what is wrong (or start to fix it), then you will not view these tactics as counter-productive. If, on the other hand, you are a 'reformist' (preferring to work within bourgeois capitalist institutions for incremental tweaks of the system), you will probably find yourself at odds with OWS' tactics.
I say a hearty 'Bravo!' and look forward to what OWS comes up with next.