Eight people were arrested Monday during a protest at Obama’s 2012 campaign headquarters. The rally, organized by social justice and anti-war group Catholic Workers, was the first organized demonstration — and the first instance of arrests — relating to the NATO counter-protests. It was small (just over two dozen participants assailed security and stormed the campaign headquarters and read a statement inside) but set a tone for actions later this week in asserting that the president and Democratic Party are protest targets alongside NATO generals and corporations like Boeing, who receive large government defense contracts.

For months the question has hovered over Occupy supporters, many of whom are attending NATO protests, partly organized by Occupy Chicago, from across the country: How many of them will manifest as Democratic voters come November? Will the energy that has brought hundreds of thousands into streets and parks across the country over the past half year be co-opted by the party machine? Of course, the small Catholic Workers demonstration is no indication either way. It will be interesting to watch, however, as the week of permitted and unpermitted protest actions continue in the city Obama calls home, the ways in which Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the president are willing to crack down on the dissenting crowds whose support they will ask for in November.

The idea of a progressive Tea Party was totally my jam before Occupy started. Like Harkinson, I didn’t see how the left could create real change in America without taking control of the Democratic Party. Now I think it’s important to recognize that the problems we face as a country can’t be solved by electing more Democrats, or even by electing more good Democrats. A progressive Tea Party would be a welcome addition, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to create the kind of change we need.

If Occupy tried to start a left Tea Party, we would be following in the footsteps of several progressive movement efforts that came up short. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign turned into Democracy for America to reclaim the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee explicitly references the DCCC, andRebuild the Dream originally billed itself as the progressive Tea Party. I have worked for each of these organizations and have lots of respect for their work. But unfortunately, none of these projects, despite their many successes, have managed to mount a serious national effort to take out bad Democrats and replace them with good ones. They are constrained by the lack of a grassroots base in many congressional districts and big donors reluctance to fund challenges to Democrats. Even big, collaborative efforts to take out bad Democrats have a relatively poor record (See Sheyman, Ilya; Halter, Bill; or Lamont, Ned).

Occupy is less well suited than the Progressive movement to overcome these challenges. Most occupiers I know aren’t interesting in learning how to raise money, knock on doors, or run campaigns. Starting a progressive Tea Party is a completely legitimate, useful goal — but it’s something for the progressive institutions to take on. New York state and city provide a good model for how this can work harmoniously: the Working Families Party is a unified progressive block within the Democratic party. They support Occupy and we support them on the issues. Together, we won a huge, unexpected victory for the millionaires tax.

Despite the hard work of our progressive allies, the unfortunate reality is that our political system as presently constructed is simply incapable of responding to people’s needs. The election of the most progressive Democratic nominee of the past 30 years and a Democratic super majority in Congress resulted in relatively little change in American political economy, even during a time of massive economic crisis. The tepid response showed our political system was designed to serve the whims of the market, and no politician has the power to do much about it.

My generation doesn’t put all, or even most, of the blame for this state of affairs on President Obama. We don’t hate the player, so much as we hate the game. I believe Democrats are better than Republicans, because Democrats care more about the lives of gays, women, and people of color. I also believe everyone should all vote, because not voting would hurt people that I care about. That being said, we won’t just win by getting new players — we need to change the game. The system is fundamentally incapable of healing itself.

Occupy is hardly alone in believing our political system is in a state of crisis. Congress’ approval is at 9 percent. Many have written that our 18th Century political system has proven itself uniquely incapable of responding to external circumstances, including noted radicals likeJames Fallows, Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias. The presidential system is prone to gridlock (and, frankly, falling apart) and our byzantine, bicameral legislative system makes it incredibly difficult for even winning parties to put their agenda into law. The crisis of parliamentary democracy taking place in Europe is happening in America as well.

Occupy grew at such an exponential rate because it spoke to people’s sense that the rules of our society are deeply unfair and the political system couldn’t do anything about it. In the midst of systemic failure, only Occupy was talking about systemic change. Occupy transformed the public debate by naming the problem — inequality of wealth and power — and the cause – the power of Wall Street. More important than our discursive accomplishments, we showed what an independent, citizen-led social movement for equality and democracy could look like in America. I don’t want to argue we’ve yet built that movement, because it’s still very much a work in progress. By giving people the space to connect, Occupy showed that people power is the only force capable of shaking the foundation of our corrupt system.

Only Occupy can provide the space, literally and figuratively, for this conversation. The Occupy movement would derelict of duty if we focused on the electoral at the expense of putting pressure on the system as a whole. The entirety of civic life can not be reduced to a get out the vote campaign. The left needs strategies that take aim at all the ways neo-liberalism breaks down our communities. The inherent conservatism of America government, and the limitations of electoral organizing, means we need inside and an outside strategies.

Occupy has already inspired a new generation of social justice leaders to build an inclusive, radical movement that also speaks to the mainstream. We continue to push institutional groups towards more confrontational forms of resistance, bring new people into the struggle and provide a unifying message. Like the civil rights, women’s rights, environmental movements before us, we can’t afford to ignore the electoral realm, but we also shouldn’t expect to succeed by voting alone. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party didn’t succeed by electing candidates — it succeeded showing the limitations of the electoral system. Occupy should aim to do the same.

Max Berger is an organizer with the Occupy movement.

“You have to get rid of corporate America,” Lewis told occupiers in Zuccotti Park. “You have to get rid of the powers that they have … As long as they have the power they are going to continue to exploit and manipulate the working class.”

The blowback from the police establishment was swift: A Nov. 23 letter from Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey demanded that Lewis “immediately cease and desist wearing, using or otherwise displaying any official Philadelphia Police Department uniform, badges or facsimiles thereof or any official departmental insignia.”

Ramsey soon backed down, citing Lewis’ First Amendment rights. Not so for the politically powerful Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, led by president John McNesby, which has continued its campaign against Lewis.

FOP pension director Henry Vannelli has filed a grievance that could prompt Lewis’ expulsion from the FOP, cutting him off from the life insurance and free legal support offered to current and retired officers.

The FOP, which frequently and vociferously defends police accused of excessive force and other misdeeds, must really hate Lewis. As Philadelphia Daily News reporter William Bender put it in a recent story,

It’s usually tough to get kicked out of Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police.

You really have to screw up.

Worse than, say, the cop who allegedly beat his girlfriend with a closed fist and left her a voice mail threatening to ‘stomp your f—ing heart out.’ Or the officer convicted of child endangerment for pointing a loaded Glock at a kid who changed the radio station in his truck at the Police Academy.

Or the cop who allegedly forced a suspect to perform oral sex on him in his police cruiser.

Indeed. The FOP, which did not respond to a request for comment, makes no secret of the fact that its attack on Lewis is an extraordinary one: “It’s quite unusual,” Vannelli told the Daily News. “We had to dig into the books to see what we could do and and couldn’t do … We don’t want that guy around.”

McNesby even continues to insist that Lewis should be arrested, even though Commissioner Ramsey has long since clearly acknowledged that one is not “impersonating a police officer” if they are “not pretending to be a cop.”

“That is so egregious of a thing to say, because what he’s telling all of those officers in Philadelphia is that they should violate the law,” Lewis tells Salon. “There’s enough violation of people’s rights already.”

The same day that Bender’s report was published, the Daily News’ Jason Nark wrote a companion article on an eccentric lawyer and donor to police causes named Jimmy Binns, who, well, likes to dress up like a cop. A lot. It’s even alleged that he once illegally sported a handgun — but was not arrested by Margate, N.J., police because he’s a friend of the police chief. According to the Daily News, that crime carries a mandatory three- to five-year sentence. And Binns has illegally parked his car with an “Official Business” placard from the commissioner’s office lying across the dash, according to Temple University journalism professor George Miller.

Lewis continues to protest. In uniform. Last week he was in Center City Philadelphia, protesting outside police and FOP headquarters. He says that FOP leadership , a major force in city politics, depends on corporate donations to finance its union election campaigns and quarterly magazine.

“The major part of the movement is to hold corporations accountable and to stop them from having so much control over lives and the earth,” he says. “If John McNesby is a receiver of the favors of corporate America, then I’m going to be the number one enemy. Because I’m a tactical warhead.”

It’s beyond the purview of these paragraphs to explain the many reasons someone might take to the streets and shout “fuck the police!” However, as a new report from the New York Civil Liberties Union confirms, the consistently racist practices of the NYPD should make fierce anti-police sentiments understandable, even for those who find such an attitude unpalatable.

Using the NYPD’s own statistics, the NYCLU report highlights what they describe as a “two-tiered” policing system, in which black and Latino New Yorkers receive very different treatment from whites. Perhaps the most shocking finding of all: There were more stops of African-American young men in 2011 than there are African-American men living in the city — and nine out of 10 of those stopped had committed no crime.

In nearly half of New York’s 76 police precincts, black and Latino New Yorkers accounted for more than 90 percent of those stopped; in almost all precincts black and Latinos accounted for more than half of stops. Furthermore, frisks, which are only supposed to take place if police suspect someone is carrying a weapon, occurred far more often if the person stopped was black or Latino, even though white people were found more often to be carrying weapons. The report also notes that despite the 600 percent increase in stop-and-frisks under Mayor Bloomberg, the number of guns recovered has not increased proportionately.

“This cannot stand. Real people’s lives are in the balance. Whole generations of boys and girls are growing up afraid of the very people that are supposed to be keeping them safe,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, told press on Wednesday.

Is it a surprise, then, that in a march of 5,000 predominantly non-white New Yorkers organized to call for justice for the murdered Trayvon Martin, with Occupy support, that chants moved smoothly from “We are Trayvon Martin!” to “Fuck the Police!”? The greater surprise should perhaps be why more people don’t feel angry at the NYPD. Of course, many will continue to disagree with anti-police marches. However, when statistics on policing show what the NYCLU’s Lieberman called “a tale of two cities,” disagreements should only arise over tactics to redress this system; it seems there’s an overwhelming case for fury at the police.

In a statement, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne defended police practices, saying that “stops save lives” and that New York has this year seen a record low for murders. He said that it is “the safest big city in America,” which prompts the question: safe for whom? When vast swaths of New York’s population live in constant fear of being harassed by a well-armed, uniformed gang — and that this fear is largely contingent on a person’s skin color — this strikes me as the sort of safety I have no interest in maintaining.

Harris’ lawyer, Martin Stolar, told me at the time that he planned to file another motion against the judge’s decision — to re-argue that his client indeed has a standing in fighting the order, and there are strong privacy grounds to resisting the authorities obtaining records of someone’s accumulated Twitter activities (including deleted messages) without a warrant. But now it seems Stolar doesn’t need to file this motion; Twitter has stepped in.

Arguing against the judge’s decision, Twitter’s lawyers point out that Harris does indeed have proprietary rights to his tweets — and has a right to challenge demands for his Twitter records. “To hold otherwise imposes a new and overwhelming burden on Twitter to fight for its users’ rights, since the Order deprives its users of the ability to fight for their own rights.” The social media leviathan’s message is clear: We’ll step in this once so that users can fight for themselves in future.

The points put forward in Twitter’s motion align with those put forward by Harris’ lawyer in the first place. If the district attorney wanted to use publicly available Twitter information as evidence in the case against Harris (which, it bears noting, is a mere violation charge for marching onto the Brooklyn Bridge), then it is possible to follow users on Twitter and glean information this way. It is another thing entirely to demand — without a warrant — an entire record of accumulated Twitter activity be handed over. (Stolar helpfully compared it to the fact that we are able to watch what a driver in a car does at any given time in public; the authorities would need a warrant to put a tracking system into the car to monitor the entirety of its activities.)

“To the extent the desired content is publicly available, the District Attorney could presumably have an investigator print or download it without further burdening Twitter or the Court,” Twitter argued.

Harris responded happily to the news: “It’s an unexpected but reassuring move, now it’s up to the prosecutor’s office whether or not to drop the whole charade. Either way, we’re setting a precedent that social media users and activists won’t be bullied by the state,” he told me via email (full disclosure: we’re friends).

His reference to a “charade” seems apt: Here we have an incident of a California-based social media company with over 140 million users having to deploy its legal resources for a New York case that, at base, is over a charge no more criminal than a traffic ticket. By nesting its little blue tweet birds on the side of its users instead of the authorities in this instance, however, Twitter have set an important precedent in defending online speech.

Harris took to Twitter to comment on the social media giant coming to his defense: “So I wasn’t expecting the two blue birds with shaved heads and ARs standing outside my door, but apparently Twitter goes hard,” he quipped.