filed under: don't go wobbly on me now, george

In the run up to the First Gulf War, Margaret Thatcher famously stiffened George Bush's spine by telling him not to go "wobbly" when he had a moment of indecision.  In a recent column in Slate, Beverly Gage wonders whether the OWS movement will have the stick-to-it-iveness to ride out the protests now that cold weather has come on (link).  She is heartened to find that, one cold storm in, the movement seems resolved to continue.  She then goes on to review the labor movement and draw lessons for OWS.

Like Gage, I hope the movement continues.  There is talk of a national forum in Philadelphia next year, a kind of second constitutional convention.  I hope it goes forward, and finds ways to meet on common ground with the Tea Party movement.  I believe there is plenty of room to begin such a conversation (link).  However, I hope the movement, while keeping its legs, also refrains from going Wobblie.  That is, I hope the movement does not become coopted into the Big Labor movement, as Gage seems to suggest between the lines.  If it does, it will become merely part of the Democrat party machinery, as the Tea Party has come dangerously close in recent days to becoming for the Republicans -- a kind of add-on that adds salt to the wound but does nothing to cure the disease.

Why do I say this?  Didn't labor help us avert the kind of nationalist crises that Europe underwent during the Great Depression?  Well, yes.  It did. But has the labor movement come to be coopted by partisan politics?  Well, of course.  And worse, labor has, through those same partisan connections, rigged the system in ways that are perhaps less lucrative but no less wrong than the injustices that OWS is protesting (link) (link).  And now, some union bosses are calling for OWS to become more "militant" (link) -- occupying bridges, banks, etc.  (One small question, by the way... in this quote, Mr. Gerard says that since the right wing nut jobs took over the House nothing has been accomplished.  I won't argue with that per se.  But he also says it has been a year and a half or two years since that happened.  Does he own a calendar?  By my count from mid-January to today is just about ten months.  Did Ed Schultz even ask about this or did he just hum in agreement, because they both know that they are "correct on the issues"?)

OWS should strive to keep itself free of those who want to march in its parades only in order to line their pockets and fund their re-elections and take credit for their anger.  Chris Hedges has the right idea  (link).  If the Tea Party and OWS allow themselves be sucked up into the parties that have been the driving forces (along with corporations) behind the problems they protest, they will ultimately show themselves no better than those hypocritical partisan players that weeble when they wobble... and we don't want that.  It's time to knock the bastards down.