Democrats need to take OWS as a challenge and a spur

[Ken Burch]

Some dismiss it as mere "marching and chanting". Yet, all across the country, the Occupation movement is growing...uncontrollably so in many areas.

There are many people within this party who fear OWS because they see it as a threat to the only goals they believe to matter...the election and re-election of Democratic politicians.

They also refuse to accept the idea that any other form of organizing other than party-based, leader-based organizing is even possible-Or possibly they fear the emergence of a more effective alternative.

In seeing it this way, they utterly miss the point.

OWS exists, in large part, because of the failure of this party's leaders to actually STAND for real, bottom-up change, to actually challenge the upper-class culture of entitlement, to stand up to the arrogance of the financial system, to even bring an end to the useless wars we are continuing to fight in the Middle East.

If you are a Democrat who doesn't want OWS to spread, or who wants to absord its energies WITHIN the Democratic Party, you need to be pushing the party into FIGHTING for the kinds of things OWS a and its supporters are calling for.

You need you be reading the signs at those rallies...listening to what those people, people of all races, ages, genders, sexual orientations and yes, hair lengths, are saying.

The only way for the Democratic Party to stop OWS is for this party to BECOME OWS-to fight for what OWS is pushing for by the means you, as party political people, prefer.

If you're not going to do that, if you're going to simply demand that OWS fold up their tents, roll up their sleeping bags and let "the grown-ups" run things, than you really have no right to ask them to listen to you or cooperate with you at all.

And, while you're thinking about this, if you're still on the fence, go down to the Occupation near you tonight, bring any old heavy coats you've been wanting to get rid of to help those brave people get through these increasingly cold nights...and maybe bring several large Thermoses of hot cocoa or herb tea with you. It's gonna be a long haul for them...and for all of us.