Glen Ford’s thesis is that the recent involvement of prominent African American clergy is an attempt by the Democratic Party powers that be to co-opt the movement, and I am inclined to agree:

The Occupy Wall Street movement has, to date, “been effective in warding off cooptation by Democratic Party fronts such as Rebuild The Dream and MoveOn.org.” But OWS’s recent alliance with Black clergy-based (and Russell Simmons-backed) Occupy The Dream raises serious questions in this election year. “It appears that Occupy Wall Street’s new Black affiliate is also in ‘lock-step’ with the corporate Democrat in the White House.”

The Democratic Party may have entered the Occupy Wall Street movement through the “Black door,” in the form of Occupy The Dream, the Black ministers’ group led by former NAACP chief and Million Man March national director Dr. Benjamin Chavis and Baltimore mega-church pastor Rev. Jamal Bryant. Both are fervent supporters of President Obama.

Occupy The Dream’s National Steering Committee is made up entirely of clergy, as are its Members at Large, but its secular inspiration comes from media mogul (and credit card purveyor) Russell Simmons, who was a frequent visitor to Manhattan’s occupied Zuccotti Park. Simmons is co-chairman, with Dr. Chavis, of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, whose website is now mainly dedicated to the Occupy The Dream project. It is through Simmons that the ministers hope to attract entertainers and athletes to Occupy The Dream events.

………

Far from tamping their Obama fervor, the OWS brand equips the “Dream” ministers (and Simmons’ entertainment assets) to accomplish a special mission: to insulate the president from the Occupy movement and the national conversation on economic equality – or, better yet, to make him appear to be part of the solution. If they so choose.

………

We do, indeed, face a test in 2012: Will the Democratic Party be enabled to swallow up the Left – as it does every four years – including the fragile and tentative structures of the Occupy Wall Street movement? And, will the Democrats enter through the Black door?

Let’s be clear, if Obama’s campaign political operatives are not trying to co-opt OWS, they are incompetent, and this seems to be a low risk-high payoff tactic to accomplish this, so I’m inclined to believe that Plouffe’s or Axelrod’s finger prints are on this.

H/t Yves Smith.