'Battle for the soul of Occupy':Activists fear being 'pulled to the right,' becoming Democratic pet [View all]

[hack89]

Source: MSNBC

As Occupy protesters hit the streets for a nationwide general strike on Tuesday, some in the movement fear the emergence of two new activist outfits made up of "old left" advocacy groups and unions is an attempt to turn them into a "pet" for the Democratic Party and President Obama’s reelection effort.

The new groups, 99% Power and 99% Spring, include backers such as MoveOn.org, Rebuild The Dream, AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and The Ruckus Society. The groups bring money with them – something in short supply for Occupy – but their efforts are being eyed warily by those who helped launch the Occupy movement.

Skepticism of electoral politics runs deep in the Occupy movement and it could affect the ability of Democrats to mobilize activists during the 2012 campaign, despite attempts to appropriate the "99 percent" rhetoric. But Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the 1960s group, Students for a Democratic Society, who has just published a book on Occupy, believes the concerns of some in the movement are "outlandish."

"It was inevitable that there would arise political actors that want those same reforms, although they don’t necessarily share the real-time spirit of the movement. These are the membership organizations, like the unions and MoveOn … who did turn out for the big marches in October and November, and who are numerically very large but were always from the beginning being met with suspicion on the part of the Occupy movement," said Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University.

Read more: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/01/11485085-battle-for-the-soul-of-occupy-activists-fear-being-pulled-to-the-right-becoming-democratic-pet?lite

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You got to be careful of those RW groups like MoveOn.org, Rebuild The Dream, AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and The Ruckus Society.