Civil war.
Via Roll Call:
A planned meeting today between the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Occupy Wall Street activists was scuttled late Tuesday after Roll Call inquired about it, highlighting increasing tensions between Democrats and the movement.
That tension was on display Tuesday as an attempt to bring Occupy activists together with lawmakers devolved into a controversy over who was using whom for a public relations ploy. The meeting between members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and 10 protesters from New York City was canceled late Tuesday afternoon.
Han Shan, a spokesman for the Occupy Wall Street group that was based in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and who was involved in planning the meeting, said it was intended to be an opportunity for protesters to request an investigation of the recent shuttering of encampments in cities across the country.
“They were people who wanted to know why there has been no investigation of the very systematic suppression of Occupiers’ free speech,” he told Roll Call on Tuesday. “They had one demand. . . . Potentially [the lawmakers] had a different agenda.” Shan has been active in street protest movements for years, including the World Trade Organization protests that blossomed at the turn of the century.