The 99% Movement Has Something for Everyone -- But Is it Occupy?

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Additionally MoveOn and Rebuild the Dream are not being entirely forthright about how they are using the 99% Movement to rebrand existing projects. The 99% candidates are repackaged “ American Dream candidates” who were rolled out last October. The voter pledge “has been based in part on the  Contract for the American Dream,” according to Justin Ruben, the 38-year-old executive director of MoveOn. Same with the 99% Spring. Ruben said some actions are new, but he acknowledged it’s mostly old wine in a new bottle. “There is a bunch of groups that have been actively involved in putting the 99% Spring together and these are the actions that they … have been planning since the summer before Occupy.”

The question of engagement for the Occupy movement involves both form and content. Given the form of the 99% Movement, it is wishful thinking to believe that Occupy can co-opt MoveOn. Sayrah Namaste, an activist with (Un)Occupy Albuquerque, says, “There is a real concern about what MoveOn is doing and if it is co-optation. … People from (Un)Occupy see MoveOn as heavily part of Democratic Party politics and question what their motives are and how they operate.”

Much of the suspicion toward MoveOn stems from its role in the Iraq antiwar movement. Some antiwar leaders say their relationship with MoveOn was marked by opportunism and undemocratic dealings. Storied '60s activist Tom Hayden wrote in an email, “I think they dramatically expanded the [antiwar] base … But it’s fair to say they were driven by Democratic strategy and the desire to jump on issues which would bring in more members.”

Leslie Cagan, co-founder and former national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, says, “MoveOn is very top down. … As best I can tell, they have never developed a democratic structure that allows the members to vote on who the leadership will be or how decisions are made, let alone have serious input into the positions that MoveOn Takes.” What this top-down structure means, says Bill Dobbs, a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team and longtime antiwar activist, is that “Groups like MoveOn can walk into any Occupy movement and engage in the discussions, but we can’t participate in their strategy discussions.”

I pressed Ruben on the issue, specifically the charge that MoveOn undermined the opportunity to end the Iraq war in 2007 when the Democrats took over both houses of Congress, and he would only concede, “What happened in 2007 was complex and the narrative around MoveOn’s role is not accurate.”

How the 99% Movement came into being is a prime case of top-down decision making. While the 99% Movement by all evidence is an exercise in branding, Ruben denies this. “It’s not a rebranding strategy. It’s an effort to give this movement a name,” he claimed. Though Ruben does refer to it as a brand: “No one organization controls the 99% brand.” Ruben says the story of the 99% Movement begins in 2011. “When we partnered with Rebuild the Dream early last year it was based on the idea that there were the conditions for a new movement to come forward in American to take on economic justice and inequality…” Ruben says they eventually decided that, “The American Dream movement was our best name for this phenomenon that nobody had named. Some people were calling it the Main Street movement. We said we have to give this thing a name otherwise it doesn’t exist in the eyes of people watching. We were seeing it was a real thing.”

Evidently this decision was prior to the Take Back the American Dream conference held in Washington, DC, from Oct. 3-5. The conference Web site states, “A new movement is energized! Thousands came to Washington…to help plan the take-off of the American Dream movement, building on the momentum of the Wisconsin workers' rights protests and the Occupy Wall Street actions to build an independent movement for change.”