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

[Red Arrow]

Keep spraying your hypocrisy.

I see it more like joining the crowd since his fits proved to be ineffective in stopping the name calling.

If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger hammer.   

[Teatownclown]

Guido, just because you have no qualified and no competitive candidates for POTUS is no reason to constantly use the stinky put down of OWS over and over....have a heart for those that are at the tail end. And name calling is your only tool?


Here, watch this and listen at the 8 minute mark for the real difference between OWS and your teaparty.

[Conan71]

Were you not the TulsaNow poster who threw a fit when other refered to the tea party as tea-baggers?

I guess you get to make up mean names but no one else can.

Nope, that was me.  Damn Pee Partiers.

/hypocrite mode

[guido911]

Think of how much more effective if you did do those things.

[Red Arrow]

Here, watch this and listen at the 8 minute mark for the real difference between OWS and your teaparty.

Bill Maher, the Sean Hannity of the left.

[guido911]

Guido, just because you have no qualified and no competitive candidates for POTUS is no reason to constantly use the stinky put down of OWS over and over....have a heart for those that are at the tail end.

First, what do GOP candidates have to do with anything? As for having a heart, eff these lawless, lazy failures.  

[guido911]

Bill Maher, the Sean Hannity of the left.

Sans the profanity, misogyny...

[Gaspar]

Give it up, guys.  The Occupiers have won despite the arrests, pepper spray, and military tactics.  The concept of the 99% has spread into the general discussion about economics and justice in our society.  They've successfully gained control of the message.  Even some Republican law makers - not generally known for their firm attachment to reality - have realized that there may be more money coming from the 1% elite, but the 99% represents far more eligible voters.

I think you are right.  I think that the continued ridicule of the OWS folks is causing much of the movement to go to ground.  That is unfortunate.  They need to continue to be in public view, but without a strata of organization they are subject to mob rule, and the rifts, shifts, and entropy that come along with that. 

I am hopeful that over the course of the winter (bad protest weather) the unions will move in to more of a leadership role in the movement.  That way we see a strong, well funded re-birth in the spring to carry us through the election cycle. 

As for now, it is a good idea that they vacate the parks and other public property, otherwise we may see the typical increase in fatalities among homeless populations that happens during the winter due to weather and increased substance abuse.  We need this mentality on display, but it's not worth people dying for, especially not people who are just being young and stupid.

[we vs us]

So I've been waiting to see what the next iteration of OWS will be.  They've been ejected from all the major encampments across the country, but the underlying issues that have driven them are still alive and well.  Likewise, the participants are neither out of action in jail, nor have they been reassimilated into middle class striverhood.  In other words, nothing's changed but the camps themselves.  So it stands to reason that that energy is still alive and well and in need of another outlet.  So where does it go? 

This is where, IMO, the OWS and Tea Party have parted ways.  The TPers relatively quickly joined up with an existing power/money structure and started to electing people to office.  Looking back on the TP timeline, the gestation time between the first demonstrations and the voting-in of the GOP TP rump is something like less than 2 years.  That's an astounding turnaround, and speaks less to their ideological purity and more to their ability to organize and fundraise. 

Though OWS has a classically liberal policy bent, there's very little sense that they've either accepted money or organizational help from the Dems.  This may be just the splintered nature of modern American lefty interest groups or it may actually mean that OWS is trying to form a third "party" (such as it is) to the left of the Dems.  They've also resisted organizing on a level past the city-specific movement, and that still may prove their undoing.

And re: third parties -- I think we're ripe for a third way right now, and maybe more than we've been since the Great Depression.  But I've had a hard time discerning where the third party opportunity lies.  What are the popular ideas that aren't currently being represented by institutionalized power?  In my opinion, the popular idea of a "compromise" party that somehow straddles the Dems and GOP from a policy standpoint and whose main selling point might be "getting things done," is probably not doable.  Dems and GOPers both are sitting in some similar territory -- Obama's been trying to propose righty-friendly policy prescriptions, but the GOP keeps running further right so they don't have to agree with him.  But in general, the territory being sparred over is on the right end of the spectrum.  There's a lot of opportunity on the left, and polls back that up broadly, but it's an open question as to how a group or groups can capitalize on that in our system.  The TPers chose to work within one party of the two-party system.  If OWS (or anyone else) tries to change the structure entirely -- to a multi-party system from our bipartite system -- they'll have a much steeper and longer hill to climb. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

And re: third parties -- I think we're ripe for a third way right now, and maybe more than we've been since the Great Depression.  But I've had a hard time discerning where the third party opportunity lies.  What are the popular ideas that aren't currently being represented by institutionalized power?  In my opinion, the popular idea of a "compromise" party that somehow straddles the Dems and GOP from a policy standpoint and whose main selling point might be "getting things done," is probably not doable.  Dems and GOPers both are sitting in some similar territory -- Obama's been trying to propose righty-friendly policy prescriptions, but the GOP keeps running further right so they don't have to agree with him.  But in general, the territory being sparred over is on the right end of the spectrum.  There's a lot of opportunity on the left, and polls back that up broadly, but it's an open question as to how a group or groups can capitalize on that in our system.  The TPers chose to work within one party of the two-party system.  If OWS (or anyone else) tries to change the structure entirely -- to a multi-party system from our bipartite system -- they'll have a much steeper and longer hill to climb. 

I think 3rd (or 4th or 5th) parties are gonna have a tough time becoming more than spoilers for one side or the other.  Too much overlap for too many people.  The big sadness is that the institutionalized parties - both Democrat and Republican - have a common, fundamental underlying basis of power to the elite.  It's just disguised in different ways to make it palatable to different groups of people.

Both sides have sold out regular citizens for decades, and I don't see it changing much, when you have these people writing laws to give themselves privilege.  Human nature hard at work.

[Gaspar]

We vs us, they aren't re-inventing anything.  I think much of the movement is already wrapped up in an established third party.  From day one they were carrying signs, banners, flags and wearing t-shirts indicating an allegiance with the Workers World Party and other Democratic Socialist movements.  Their alignment with union groups and solidarity with democratic socialist philosophies and themes are nothing unique or new. Many of the local organizers came out of those movements, including our local group organizer.

Their "demands" are all congruent with the existing platforms of those fringe groups.  They don't need to develop a new party, they just need to promote their existing party.  The problem is that the Democratic Socialist Party is still considered too far a fringe movement in this country to offer traction in an election.  As our representitive republic continues to erode, it will one day become the dominant party (as is always the final phase in the fall of a republic), but the current level of entitlement has not risen to that point yet.

The positive that comes out of this is the reverse of the movement.  With the mentality, politics, demands, and general image of OWS out where the general public can see it, the threat that type ignorant entitlement mentality poses to society as a whole can be understood.  Until now we've only had Right-wing nuts making outlandish claims that the left's continued push towards entitlement would lead to a nation of helpless children and. . .oh my Gawd. . .a socialist revolution!  We no longer need a bunch of talking-heads blathering about their paranoid delusions of a socialist boogieman. The boogiemen are dancing for us and pooping on police cars.

My greatest enjoyment in watching this play out has been in observing two young people.  One that works with me, and another whom I used to work with.  They've gone from outward support, in the beginning, to embarrassment, to disgust, and now finally to disassociation. They have also grown to understand more about the economy, politics and several other things that they typically wouldn't' be exposed to through the Daily Show and their regular diet of the Kardashians and Jeresy Shore.

OWS has become an invaluable teaching tool.

[we vs us]

I'm not sure how out of the mainstream OWS really is.  Their methods may be controversial (just as the Tea Party's were), but there're some imminently reasonable demands:

1.  Bring back Glass Steagall
2.  Audit the bailed-out banks
3.  Overturn Citizens United
4.  Regulate High Frequency Trading
5.  End 'revolving door' politics
6.  Enforce the Volker Rule

etc.

I've cherry-picked a bit, but not radically.  The other things on the list are all of a piece.  Even here on this forum, many of us have agreed in separate conversations that these are important reforms.  Interestingly, there's not a bit of redistribution among them.

Obviously in the different Occupations there're going to be city-specific and group-specific demands.  So yeah, if you want to selectively edit your viewing and reportage to include only the radical commies, you're going to be able to do that.  Most of the rightie media has chosen to support that frame as well (quite obviously).  But choosing to use just those information channels, however, to evaluate a group that 1) doesn't use those channels and 2) is opposed to those channels almost guarantees that you'll get an incomplete view.  And I think you're getting an incomplete view. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

1.  Bring back Glass Steagall
2.  Audit the bailed-out banks
3.  Overturn Citizens United
4.  Regulate High Frequency Trading
5.  End 'revolving door' politics
6.  Enforce the Volker Rule

Modify number 4.  Eliminate High Frequency Trading.  

Also, eliminate options trading enabled under FERC ni 1983.

[RecycleMichael]

You two are wasting your words. Gaspar and guido are not reading them.

They just want to post pictures of hippies and try to act like each one of them are the spokesperson for the Occupy movement. They must also believe that Reverend Phelps represents all preachers and Taco Bell speaks for all Mexican food.

[heironymouspasparagus]

It would be nice if they would listen and even pay attention on occasion, but that is not why I post.  My posts are to make people think.  Even if they don't agree with me - few things are a bigger pet peeve to me than someone who just listens to one station exclusively without getting another side.  That's why I listen to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, NPR, PBS, and Slashdot.  And others.

And the extreme tone at times will hopefully rile up the reader enough to investigate for themselves.


I thought Taco Mayo was the official Mexican food spokesman?
And way off in space related to the topic - who in the he$$ ever eats at Taco Mayo?  And how can they possibly stay in business??