Natasha Lennard writes: “The 99 Percent Spring” certainly appears like an Occupy Wall Street campaign. The effort — to give nonviolent direct action training and teach-ins on income inequality and Wall Street malfeasance to 100,000 people across the country between April 9 and 12 –- sounds born of a general assembly, from the emphasis on putting “bodies on the line” to the calls to “rise up” in the face of corporate hegemony.
It’s unsurprising then that some media reports described it as Occupy’s new tactic; and although numerous individuals involved in Occupy are taking part in the spring trainings, an Occupy Wall Street initiative this is not. The 99 Percent Spring is spearheaded by MoveOn.org and supported by around 60 progressive nonprofits and major unions, including the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, Greenpeace, the Working Families Party and Van Jones’ Rebuild the Dream organization.
Inside Occupy’s (now-figurative) camps, cries of “co-optation!” abound. The fear, expressed by numerous Occupy participants I spoke to in different cities, is that the 99 Percent Spring trainings will steer energy away from Occupy spring actions and toward support for the Democrats this coming general election. Many still believe that MoveOn, as a recent CounterPunch article put it, is a “front for the Democratic Party.”
Move on has done just that. They have moved on, and are co-opting Occupy. Move-on, lost it when they put all their energy into the “O” only to have him turn his back on everyone that supported him. Why should anyone want to help Move-on today, they squandered all the good they had built up on the “O”. That old saying; “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”, leaves only the ones who believe in that “hooey-changy thing with the pixie dust thrown in for good measure, remember, the rallying cry a few years ago? What has the “O” done for you, what has Move-on done for you?