I have been and will continue to be critical of the rush to dismiss the OWS protests as entirely silly / unwashed / redistributionist. It is simple to take one sign or one action and use it to dismiss the entire movement as any of the above. Most so-called “conservatives” are rushing to do so, including many Tea Partiers. It is unfortunate that the Tea Partiers seem to have forgotten that they themselves were, and in many cases still are, subject to exactly the same broad-brush criticisms. Does anyone remember “The Tea Party are racists?”
While there certainly are areas where most of us, myself included, would disagree with the results of a poll taken of OWS protestors, I suspect there are more areas of agreement than the political establishments of both flavors would like us to know about:
1. Accountability
2. Bailouts
3. Opportunity
Why would the established parties not want us getting together? Why would they want to emphasize our differences and foster this atmosphere of staunch disagreement? Why do you think?
I am not suggesting we all embrace OWS as brothers- and sisters-in-arms. I AM suggesting we keep an open mind and make known our willingness to cooperate with them on matters of agreement.
From what I can gather, OWS is completely opposed to corporate bailouts. Are any Tea Partiers in favor of them? If so, speak up, please. I oppose all corporate bailouts and corporate welfare, all of the time.
Are any Tea Partiers opposed to genuine accountability in government? Speak up.
Do any Tea Partiers oppose economic opportunity? I am sure not; while I AM sure we would disagree with some / many OWS protestors about just what constitutes opportunity, I suspect that if they had the opportunity to support themselves in a middle-class job of some kind, most of them would be content. Forgive me, it is the hopeful and trusting Jeffersonian in me. What we really need is a growing economy, and the way we get it is by getting Congress and the Federal Reserve out of the economics business. We have to dismantle the regulatory and tax codes and simplify them. We have to stop punishing success. We have to stop scaring capital offshore. We have to stop manipulating interest rates and propping up failed businesses. While we’re at it, will someone please give Gibson their wood back so that they can return to making guitars and creating wealth and jobs? What the hell is going on?
It is difficult to sit idly by and see the outright looting that is being done by the politically connected with the full knowledge and cooperation of this government and not be upset by it. Solyndra is Obama’s baby. Remember TARP? I do, and Bush did it. Being trapped in the left-right paradigm will kill you. Think outside it and see what’s really going on.
We as a society must stop pretending. Most of us think that we still have money in the bank to protect, so we go along with the game of extend and pretend. For some of us, the game has already ended. The rapacious zero interest rate policy that I call Bernankecide has already robbed millions of savers of their life savings. This is the reality that has yet to hit home for many Americans who are content to wallow in the status quo. Unfortunately, the longer it takes for them to wake up, the worse their, and our, fate will be.
Sausage The Riot Dog Coming To America?
When faced with a grassroots activist movement of any kind, establishment proponents always choose cooption as their first weapon. From the days of Cointelpro to now, when a mainstream party run by elitists suddenly takes up your cause for no apparent reason, its time to be concerned. Tea Party activists who were present at the movement’s inception (inspired by Ron Paul, not Fox News) know exactly how this works, especially after watching a hoard of admitted Neo-Cons (fake conservatives) suddenly join and profess a ‘love for the Constitution after years of attempting to dismantle it. Today, we see Obama’s White House, funded, run, and populated by Wall Street banking interests, come out of nowhere to declare backing for the Occupy Wall Street uprising, while bloated and shameless self promoters like Michael Moore ooze out of the woodwork to become frontmen for a cause they have nothing to with. If your nose is not keen enough to sniff out a fraud, then you shouldn’t be out on the street in the first place. All you are is a danger to yourself, and an obstacle to the progress of legitimate protesters.
If and When the Protestors Unite, Watch Out!
- “The protest that started nearly a month ago in the Battery now has a name – Occupy Wall Street – and we’re sorry we didn’t think of it first, since the catchy title – ‘Occupy (fill-in-the-location)’ – seems destined to go viral worldwide. We’re not sure whether the demonstrators’ demands will eventually skew right or left politically, or perhaps in neither direction, but Mr. Obama and Rep. Pelosi have not wasted any time getting the jump on the Tea Party and GOP frontrunner-by-default Mitt Romney by presenting the demonstrators with verbal fruit baskets and bouquets – everything but the key to the city, which as of this writing was still in the safekeeping of Mayor Bloomberg. To her credit, Ms. Pelosi zeroed in an actual reason for the demonstrations, even if the protestors themselves haven’t quite figured it out. It’s about jobs, she told ABC News in an interview – and that is undoubtedly on many of the protestors’ minds. But it seems predictable that the movement will come to be ‘about’ many more things as the months roll by. What is not so predictable is who will assume leadership, or perhaps try to co-opt the movement from outside, as it spreads to every city, town and village in the Western world. But if protests should turn violent – a possibility that we’d rate an even-odds bet at this point, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Establishment that has rushed to embrace the demonstrators will start cracking heads.”
Finally, there’s this from the NYT. Remember, to be truly effective, propaganda must be simple-minded and repetitive. If your intended audience is slightly more sophisticated, the technique usually evolves around this formula: get people agreeing with you by starting with a list of statements that most would agree with, and then close with “and that is why you should surrender all of your rights to me / embrace wealth redistribution / engage in class warfare / etc.” You can see this especially in the NYTimes piece at the link below. I agree with their description of the problem; I disagree totally with their prescription for corrective actions.
Protesters Against Wall Street
As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.
