Micah White, an old-left sectarian in disguise

Micah White, of Adbusters, the guy that sparked OWS with a tweet, has issued a manifesto against his most recent mortal enemies: MoveOn,  Ben & Jerry (yes, the ice cream guys) and Obama (see links below).

He doesn’t want Occupy consorting with Dems and certainly not with Rs. So what’s left of the 99%? Only those who follow Micah’s over-the-top crazy plan to hold all-day OWS “General Assemblies” and pass “a Tobin tax on financial flows, reinstate the Glass-Steigall Act, and revoke corporate personhood.” Say what?!

I know this sounds too fantastic to believe, but he says it all plainly on Huffington Post. Obviously, if OWS follows Micah it will self destruct—hopefully just fizzle without doing too much damage. But it will damage at least the spirits of the good people who supported its call for a fairer economy. And that’s why its important to speak out.

Progressives are generally cooperative, and so they get suckered into cooperating with strident sectarians who hate cooperation. The only hope is for the cooperators to learn to stand up against these crazies. A first small step is the petition I’ve started on MoveOn. No it will not change OWS. But if it gained popularity it could help progressives start to think about their sectarian problem, which is their main cause of failure.

What’s going on? Within OWS there is a turf war between those who fear that some OWSers may be induced to work for Obama and those who support Obama. Since MoveOn supports Obama and has also helped fund some non-violent training for OWS they are under attack by Micah and others for trying to co-opt OWS. Same with Ben and Jerry.

Micah claims that by staying pure, and separate from politics, that the OWS encampments and general assemblies with spark an American revolution and “topple the corporate power structures in this country.” In reality this is just the old-left sectarian path, that is so familiar that Monte Python satirized it years again in The Life of Brian. The hilarious Palestine-Liberation-Front clip is here.

A Turf War Worth Weighing in On

If progressives are every going to make progress, we must isolate the crazies who always show up to take advantage of legitimate social movements. Yes, these people (like the Black Bloc of OWS pictured at the left) will claim they are being discriminated against and that we are not as dedicated and pure as they are! Don’t fall for this nonsense, and don’t let your friends fall for it. 

This is not a minor problem. The crazy sectarians not only cause chaos within the progressive movement but give the right wing an endless supply of photo opts and quotes for their propaganda machine. And such propaganda is most effective because it contains a kernel of truth. There really are “moonbats” on the left.

• A somewhat crazy OWS take on the OWS civil war.
• Interview with Micah White (the source for quotes)
• April 12, 2012 AdBusters manifesto attacking Democrats.
• Critique of AdBusters manifesto.