Is The Occupy Wall Street Movement an Answer to The Tea Party Movement?

[guido911]

doesn't look like the term Pee Party is holding up....not like Teabaggers.

Dbacks and Guido and Conan and Gaspar don't want to stop corporate personhood.

But they give no reasons as they attack the messengers and vilify the unfortunate victims of an abusive %1.

Well if you don't like corporate personhood, just install a flux capacitor into whatever car you own and go back to the 1880s and take it up with that Supreme Court.

[patric]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California university placed two of its police officers on administrative leave Sunday because of their involvement in the pepper spraying of passively sitting protesters, while the school's chancellor accelerated an investigation into the incident amid calls for her resignation.

And police didn't even hold the heads of the students to spray them point blank in the face like they did in Tulsa.
Good thing Tulsans are such pacifists.

Could the campus police chief have been totally unaware of all the cameras when she claimed campus security only sprayed because they "feared for their lives"?
UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said the decision to use pepper spray was made at the scene.
"The students had encircled the officers," she said Saturday. "They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."

[nathanm]

Well if you don't like corporate personhood, just install a flux capacitor into whatever car you own and go back to the 1880s and take it up with that Supreme Court.

It might be simpler to amend the Constitution. Corporations need some of the rights of a natural person to be of use, but not all of them are required.

[Conan71]

doesn't look like the term Pee Party is holding up....not like Teabaggers.

Dbacks and Guido and Conan and Gaspar don't want to stop corporate personhood.

But they give no reasons as they attack the messengers and vilify the unfortunate victims of an abusive %1.

Not true.  If you are referring to the ruling on corporate free speech extending to campaign contributions, one of the worst SCROTUS decisions ever.

[Gaspar]

Wow! Jon Stewart hits the nail on the head.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided

Also emphasizes what my Uncle (in NY) has been telling me.  There are two distinct movements, and all of the violence we are witnessing in the news is coming from the 85% of the 99% that is there for the party rather than the "party." 

I suggested to him that perhaps they should institute ID cards and a membership fee to keep the riff raff out. 

[we vs us]

I think you are holding your breath for this to become generation E's great moment.  (Generation Entitled in case you didn't get that).  You know, their Woodstock, their Berkeley, their Kent State.  I think even Max Yasgur would ridicule these aimless people. 

I'm not begging for military style crowd control tactics to be applied to a peaceful protest, if that's what you mean.  But that's why I posted that pic from Birmingham.  Over the top responses by authorities almost always turn public opinion toward a given movement, especially if the movement is obviously peaceful.  Doesn't get much more casually brutal than that cop at UC Davis, strolling up and down a line of sitting protesters, spraying away.  No matter how you slice it, that's a PR nightmare.  Or like the pepper spraying of that 84 yr old woman in NY, or the rubber bullet to the Iraqi vet's head, or etc etc.  These kinds of things will continue to add up, just as they did for MLK -- or even Gandhi, who was the father of these protest tactics.  

Personally?  I'm in a quandry about Occupy.  The left needs help and has for a decade at least, if not since Clinton.  The official reps in the government are unorganized, fractious, bought off, and almost entirely ineffectual.  They keep getting punk'd by the GOP, and aren't sophisticated enough to even recognize that it's happening, much less launch a coordinated counterattack.  In short, the Dems suck at paying back their base, playing effective politics, or being thought leaders in anything at all.  It's a bad situation.  

The Occupiers are a strong expression of modern grass roots progressivism: their critique is solid and based on fact, and is also based on the idea of fairness, which has been the major activating idea behind all the great American progressive movements (Teddy and Franklin D both used fairness as their central themes). But they're relying on a model that is iffy (no leadership? each city controls its own movement? no specific platform?) and while it might be revolutionary (I've heard it compared to a programming API, a template for action rather than a thing in itself), it's also ripe for abuse.  The Tea Partiers saw that pretty quickly.  It also puts the Occupiers -- and most importantly, those sympathetic with the movement -- in the position of having to agree with with both Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland.  Just like the Tea Partiers didn't toss out the guys bringing automatic weapons to rallies, or the amazingly racist element at most of the bigger marches, the Occupiers have had anarchist factions, the homeless/mentally ill, and some petty crime.

I like the fact that they're energized, I like the fact that they're talking about what needs to be talked about, but I'm not sure they're going about it the right way and not sure that what they're doing can/will stay nonviolent.  If it devolves into riots, the movement is done for.  On the other hand, if we get tipped back over into recession (which could happen for a myriad of reasons, come of which we have no control over), the movement could grow.  

[Gaspar]

Santa Cruz has called the county HAZMAT team to cleanup an estimated 200lbs of human feces from the Veterans Memorial Building, just across the Water Street bridge from the Occupy Santa Cruz camp.  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47651

They're calling it "Poopstock."

Why is it that the political actions of liberals and progressives always mirror the actions of lower primates?

Only a matter of time until they begin flinging.

[nathanm]

If it's an API, it's a fairly poorly documented one. Ironically, the documentation problem is caused by the printer, not the programmer. There's at least one very loud and clear message, but nobody bothers to report it, or even realize it.

The fact that there are tens of thousands of people demonstrating in concerted action across this nation and their group has better favorability ratings, despite the antics, than any politician presently in office or any political body is a message being screamed at us, but most of us don't hear. We'd rather tell them "no, you're not actually having these problems you claim to be having, it's all in your head, go get a job" than face the ugly truth.

[we vs us]

If it's an API, it's a fairly poorly documented one. Ironically, the documentation problem is caused by the printer, not the programmer. There's at least one very loud and clear message, but nobody bothers to report it, or even realize it.

I thought the API idea was interesting but didn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny.  But it does underscore how the nature of the communication medium (mobile web, essentially) has changed how the group self-organizes. 

And yeah, it's a major alarm bell.  At first I didn't think that was true but now definitely believe it.  Though, as TPM puts it, the economic justice angle seems to be receding a bit as the police tactics start to crowd it out in the public's eye.

[guido911]

Why can't these two find work?

[we vs us]

Why can't these two find work?

And, let the hippie punching continue. 

[Hoss]

And, let the hippie punching continue. 

Wow, when in history do I remember THAT happening....

[guido911]

And, let the hippie punching continue. 

What punchline? These are the faces of the movement that you are behind. Dirty, pierced to pieces, and probably whacked out of their minds--which is perhaps why they are in the 99% to begin with.

[patric]

Wow, when in history do I remember THAT happening....

Substitute "Gypsy" for "Hippy" and take in the view.

[Hoss]

What punchline? These are the faces of the movement that you are behind. Dirty, pierced to pieces, and probably whacked out of their minds--which is perhaps why they are in the 99% to begin with.

I love how people equate 'pierced to pieces' or 'tatted up' as 'whacked out of their minds'.  I know some incredibly intelligent people who make a good living who fall in those same first two categories.

I also know 'whacked out of their minds' as people without a single bangle or piece of body art on them.

Judgemental?  Maybe a little?