Tea Party vs Wall Street Hippy/Thug/Handout Crowd Campout

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Christians4LessGvt]

THIS IS WHAT A MOB LOOKS LIKE

October 5, 2011

I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point.

No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want -- as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate "Wall Street." You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government.

This would be like opposing fattening, processed foods, but cheering Michael Moore -- which the protesters also did this week.

But to me, the most striking difference between the tea partiers and the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd -- besides the smell of patchouli -- is how liberal protesters must claim their every gathering is historic and heroic.

They chant: "The world is watching!" "This is how democracy looks!" "We are the ones we've been waiting for!"

At the risk of acknowledging that I am, in fact, "watching," this is most definitely not how democracy looks.

Sally Kohn, a self-identified "community organizer," praised the Wall Street loiterers on CNN's website, comparing the protest to the Boston Tea Party, which she claimed, "helped spark the American Revolution," adding, "and yes, that protest ultimately turned very violent."

First of all, the Boston Tea Party was nothing like tattooed, body?pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun. Paul Revere's nighttime raid was intended exclusively to protest a new British tea tax. (The Wall Street protesters would be more likely to fight for a new tax than against one.)

Revere made sure to replace a broken lock on one of the ships and severely punished a participant who stole some of the tea for his private use. Samuel Adams defended the raid by saying that all other methods of recourse -- say, voting -- were unavailable.

Our revolution -- the only revolution that led to greater freedom since at least 1688 -- was not the act of a mob.

As specific and limited as it was, however, even the Boston Tea Party was too mob-like to spark anything other than retaliatory British measures. Indeed, it set back the cause of American independence by dispiriting both American and British supporters, such as Edmund Burke.

George Washington disapproved of the destruction of the tea. Benjamin Franklin demanded that the India Tea Co. be reimbursed for it. Considered an embarrassment by many of our founding fathers, the Boston Tea Party was not celebrated for another 50 years.

It would be three long years after the Boston Tea Party when our founding fathers engaged in their truly revolutionary act: The signing of the Declaration of Independence.

In that document, our Christian forebears set forth in blindingly clear terms their complaints with British rule, their earlier attempts at resolution, and an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for independence from the crown.

The rebel armies defending that declaration were not a disorganized mob, chanting slogans for the press and defacing public property.

Even the Minutemen, whose first scuffle with the British began the war, were a real army with ranks, subordination, coordination, drills and supplies. There is not a single mention in the historical record of Minutemen playing hacky-sack, burning candles assembled in "peace and love," or sitting in drum circles.

A British lieutenant-general who fought the Minutemen observed, "Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob will find himself very much mistaken."

By contrast, the directionless losers protesting "Wall Street" -- Obama's largest donor group -- pose for the cameras while uttering random liberal cliches lacking any reason or coherence.

But since everything liberals do must be heroic, the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd insists on comparing themselves to this nation's heroes.

One told Fox News' Bill Schulz: "I was born to be here, right now, the founding fathers have been passing down the torch to this generation to make our country great again."

The Canadian environmental group behind Occupy Wall Street, Adbusters, has compared the Wall Street "revolutionaries" to America's founding fathers. (Incidentally, those who opposed the American Revolution fled after the war to ... Canada.)

The -- again -- Canadians exulted, "You sense they're drafting a new Declaration of Independence."

I suppose you only "sense" it because they're doing nothing of the sort. They say they want Mao as the president -- as one told Schulz -- and the abolition of "capitalism."

The modern tea partiers never went around narcissistically comparing themselves to Gen. George Washington. And yet they are the ones who have engaged in the kind of political activity Washington fought for.

The Tea Party name is meant in fun, inspired by an amusing rant from CNBC's Rick Santelli in February 2009, when he called for another Tea Party in response to Obama's plan to bail-out irresponsible mortgagers.

The tea partiers didn't arrogantly claim to be drafting a new Declaration of Independence. They're perfectly happy with the original.

Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare.

Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning.
In the two years following the movement's inception, the Tea Party played a major role in turning Teddy Kennedy's seat over to a Republican, making the sainted Chris Christie governor of New Jersey, and winning a gargantuan, historic Republican landslide in the 2010 elections. They are probably going to succeed in throwing out a president in next year's election.

That's what democracy looks like.

[Michael Tee]

<< To name three [differences]: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point. >>

Excellent point, Einstein:  The Streeters have no jobs.  That is one of the things they are protesting, the gutting of America's manufacturing industries through the exportation of millions of American jobs overseas by - - you guessed it! - - by American corporations.   Which I guess means they also have "a point,"  one of many, as it happens, which most people seem to be able to understand through the symbolism, signs and chants of the crowd.  Now, showers - - Einstein has a point there - - the original Tea Party took only a few hours, so I'm guessing that the participants all went home, had a nice hot bath and washed all the red paint off their skins so that the British civil authorities couldn't arrest them for their crimes.   Since the Occupation - - get that, Einstein, an OCCUPATION, not a Party - - goes on for weeks and weeks, and the participants don't get to go home during it, it would be nice if the NYPD, ever mindful of the demonstrators' lawful rights of peaceful assembly, provided some free shower facilities for them.  Don't hold your breath waiting for those fascist thugs to do it, though.  They're too busy spraying pepper spray in the eyes of non-violent demonstrators and whacking them with their batons.

<<No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want -- as is typical of mobs.>>

Yeah, of course no one knows.  They never say why they're there.  Maybe they're against . . . Wall  Street?  Is that too crazy to consider?  Corporate America?  Gee, this is really tough to figure out, but I think I finally cracked the code.  Yay!!!  According to my painstaking cryptographic analysis, I think that they're upset that a web of financial institutions that nearly brought the whole country to its knees financially, requiring a trillion-dollar bailout from the US Treasury and the Fed because of their sub-prime loan shenanigans are still up to the same old skullduggery, resisting new attempts to regulate them so they can't pull off any more shit like that in the future.  They also seem a little bit pissed off at the massive unemployment, the real rate of which is around 20%, not the nine-point-something bullshit figure that their Wall-Street-controlled government hands out.  They seem to connect it with governmental (Wall-Street-inspired) decisions.  Like Free Trade and "globalization" which are code words for saying, "We will export millions of your jobs to China and 99% of you will get absolutely nothing from it while 1% of us will get obscenely rich."  Some of them are concerned that social security, public health care and other frivolous wastes of money will have to be cut so the country can better afford more trillion dollar handouts to the rich, more multi-trillion-dollar corporate wars for oil, more billion-dollar bonuses to bankers and stockbrokers and other good stuff.

<<They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate "Wall Street.">>

NO, Einstein.  Maybe this is a good time to straighten out one of your basic misconceptions.  They say they hate Wall Street, alright, but YOU say that "they want Obama re-elected."  That is total bullshit, my friend.  They are in the streets PRECISELY because they don't trust the electoral system at all, and have decided to bypass it completely in favour of massive civil disobedience and public pressure for change.  These are folks who already voted for Obama once, and got Bush back instead.  Guys who voted for "change" and got more wars, more killing, more catering to the corporations and the rich.  More Guantanamo, more military trials for accused "terrorists," more immunity for torture.  No sir, they do NOT "want Obama re-elected."  That is total bullshit, my friend.  What they would LIKE is for Obama to be Obama, the guy they voted for.  But they aren't going to be fooled by him a second time.

<< You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government. >>

NOW you're getting it, Einstein.  Congratulations.  Wasn't that hard after all, was it?

<<But to me, the most striking difference between the tea partiers and the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd -- besides the smell of patchouli -- is how liberal protesters must claim their every gathering is historic and heroic. >>

It is heroic.  Fucking pigs paid directly by Wall Street firms beat the shit out of them, arrest them, spray them in the face with pepper spray - - that's what they risk every day and that's what's heroic about it all.  When was the last time you saw a Tea Party beaten up, arrested and sprayed with pepper spray?  By their enemies ye shall know them - - the Tea Party represents no threat at all to the criminal class of super-rich who have bought up the U.S. government, therefore they are never pepper-sprayed, beaten or arrested by Wall Street's paid thugs.

<<They chant: "The world is watching!" "This is how democracy looks!" "We are the ones we've been waiting for!" >>

All true - - and all genuine differences with the tea party.  Nobody is watching the tea party any more - - they are watching what REAL change and REAL democracy advocates are doing.

<<At the risk of acknowledging that I am, in fact, "watching," . . . >>

LMFAO.  Gotvcha!!!!

<<this is most definitely not how democracy looks. >>

God no!  People in the street demanding that Wall Street get out of their government, with signs advertising their grievances -- what's democratic about THAT?  Democracy looks like back-room deals far away from the TV cameras where Obama makes deals with Wall Street and hires guys like Geithner, Larry Summers and others straight off Wall Street to "advise" him on how more public funds can be turned over to failed banks and financial institutions so they can pay out more billion dollar bonuses to their leaders before losing the last round of bail-out money in new reckless gambling ventures.  THAT'S what real democracy looks like.

<<First of all, the Boston Tea Party was nothing like tattooed, body?pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun.>>

So what?  Neither is the Wall Street Occupation anything like "tattooed, body-pierced, "sunken-chested"  (Has this guy been going around measuring the chests of the demonstrators?  Actually, if he saw the video clips of the topless "We Can't Afford Shirts" Wall Street lady protestors, there was absolutely NOTHING "sunken chested" about them - - maybe this guy needs his eyes examined!!!) 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun."  The Occupation has people of all ages, shapes, sizes and colours.  They exclude no one. 

And what moron would describe being beaten with batons, kicked in the chest and back and sprayed in the face with pepper spray as "fun?"  I seriously question the sanity of whatever corporate-paid ass-hole wrote this drivel.  Surely Wall Street can pay writers of better ability than this to trash their opponents.

<< Revere's nighttime raid was intended exclusively to protest a new British tea tax.>>

Yeah well he was a Tea Partier alright.

<<(The Wall Street protesters would be more likely to fight for a new tax than against one.) >>

True enough, but that's only to get back the money that Wall Street stole from their Treasury in bail-outs, fraudulent savings and loan scandals, sub-prime mortgage loan scandals, oil wars, "foreign aid" to Israel, etc.  The list of the Kleptocracy's thievery from the American people is just too long for one post.  King George hadn't looted the American people as thoroughly as Wall Street has, the state wasn't teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and 200 years ago nobody had pensions and social welfare benefits to be worried about.

<<Revere made sure to replace a broken lock on one of the ships and severely punished a participant who stole some of the tea for his private use. >>

Yeah?  "Severely" punished?  In those days the punishment for theft of anything valuable was death.  What was Paul Revere?  Judge, jury and executioner?  What did Paul Revere DO to the tea-thief?  Inquiring minds need to know.  And then by way of contrast, inquiring minds also need to know, what was done by the corporate-controlled state to those who stole, not tea, but hundreds of billions of dollars, from the American people?  The difference, I am sure, would be very instructive.

<<Samuel Adams defended the raid by saying that all other methods of recourse -- say, voting -- were unavailable. >>

YESSSSS!!!  BINGO!!!!  I guess after all you watched the Chris Hedges video I posted here where he explains EXACTLY why it is impossible today for Americans to vote against the banks and the financial industry, who have bought out all the politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle.   Excellent.  Glad to see that someone is finally getting it.

<<The tea partiers didn't arrogantly claim to be drafting a new Declaration of Independence. They're perfectly happy with the original. >>

Sure they are - - and so are their bosses on Wall Street.  That's why they're NOT revolutionaries, they're just fucking parasites who want to continue their giant rip-off of the American working class.

<<Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare. >>

How many of those thousands of protestors were "urinating in public" anyway?  According to Einstein here, there should have been a torrent of pee big enough to wash away all the cops and their horses into the East River.  I watched plenty of videos of these events and have yet to see even ONE guy "urinating in public," but Einstein here appears to think it's an essential part of the protest movement - - how can ya possibly confront Wall Street unless you pee in public?  As for "blocking traffic," the NYPD do a pretty good job there all by themselves.  I remember just a few weeks ago, on Lexington Avenue in the mid-Fifties watching as police roadblocks stopped and re-directed ALL eastbound vehicular traffic onto Lexington rather than allowing it to proceed further cross-town; AND stopping all vehicles van-size or larger on Lex for interior checking.  Nobody in New York gives a shit about traffic any more.  Three Fridays ago, guests coming for a Friday night dinner were held up for over two hours by police roadblocks and checkpoints on the FDR Drive.  BFD, the demonstrators blocked traffic.  What else is new?

<<They are probably going to succeed in throwing out a president in next year's election. >>

Fuck him, if they do, he deserves it.

<<That's what democracy looks like.>>

Sure that's what it LOOKS like, but once you realize that BOTH candidates were bought and paid for with the same Wall Street money, then you know exactly how deceptive that appearance really is.  The Occupy Wall Street movement already knows that.  The Tea Party is just too fucking dumb to connect the dots.

[Michael Tee]

You know, I'd also - - on a sort of non-intellectual, non-argumentative way - - express how CU4's article made me feel when I first read it.

Starting with the opening pictures and their captions - - Tea Party, all events:  Zero Arrests;  Occupy Wall Street, single event:  700 Arrests.

As if it were some kind of badge of honour NOT to get arrested by the fascist thugs of a corporate-owned police state, and some kind of disgrace to be arrested by them.

So that was my initial response - - bemusement at the absurdity and unthinking, unreflective nature of the two pictures and their captions.  But then, as I began to read the content of the article, I found it to be really depressing and disturbing in its mean-spiritedness, its trashing and character-assassination of the participants - - ridiculing their physical appearance, feigning ignorance of their demands and grievances, dismissing the police brutality they had suffered as "fighting with the police for fun."   

It struck me as exactly the way the Nazi-controlled press would have commented on the arrest or trial of the White Rose resistance movement - - snarkily commenting on their scrawny physique or dishevelled clothing, comparing them unfavourably with such clean-cut and "healthy-looking" groups as the Hitler Youth or the Bund Deutscher Mädel and dismissing their bruises or other evidence of torture or brutality as the result of "fighting with the police for fun."

I really can't think of a more despicable piece of "reporting," of falsification of the truth, and it occurred to me that I don't have to go all the way back to Nazi Germany for my example, there are examples closer to home - - the deliberate MSM misrepresentation of the student anti-war movement in its early days and even later, the defamatory rumors spread about the student victims of the Kent State massacre - - that their bodies were lice-ridden and filthy, that they stank, etc.  All lies, all bullshit, of course - - these were quintessential American college kids from the Midwest - - but lies and bullshit that served the purposes of the war-mongering corporate state then, and apparently now as well.  Seems like nothing much has changed in the past 40 years - - new scandals, new lies, new wars sure, "new" on the surface, but underneath it all:  the same old shit.

Which brings me to the subject of hope.  I would like, instead of the despicable lies and misrepresentations and character assassinations of the corporate-controlled "press," which CU4 and others bring to this group on a daily basis, to present the group with a talk on hope, given last year by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and a speaker at the recent "Occupy Washington" and "Occupy Washington" rallies this year.  A breath of fresh air, so to speak, to blow away the evil lies and misrepresentations with which the corporate-controlled media are flooding us now.  I really hope you all will watch this to the end - - you too, CU4:

CHRIS HEDGES: "HOPE" SPEECH (UNEDITED)

And please let me know if the link doesn't work - - I have to choose on my menu between "current URL of video" and "URL of video."  Whichever one I give you here, if it doesn't work, I'll get the other one for you.  Thanks.

[Kramer]

Maybe mobs should go to the protesters houses and try to intimidate them?

Whoops, they don't have houses because either: A. The bank repossessed it B. They are too lazy to save for it or C. They can't qualify for it

[Michael Tee]

<<Maybe mobs should go to the protesters houses and try to intimidate them? >>

Why would you suggest this? 

Should people be intimidated by mobs in their own homes or neighbourhoods for exercising their Constitutional rights to assemble and voice their grievances? 

What if they were anti-abortion protestors at an abortion clinic, should they too be intimidated by mobs following them to their own homes or neighbourhoods?

You sound as if you might be under the impression that the Wall Street Occupation is intimidating the people who live and work in the financial district.   Do you believe that?  and if so, on what basis?

Have you seen ANY video of the demonstrations that was NOT produced by the corporate-owned MSM?  Where?

<<Whoops, they don't have houses because either: A. The bank repossessed it . . . >>

Why do you sound so gleeful in describing their plight?  Did you consider that they may have invested their life savings in the house, paid the mortgage faithfully for years, lost the house because they were laid off on short notice and can't find work, or had a tragic family illness that their insurance couldn't or wouldn't cover, or some other reason?  It kind of bothers me that you can sound so callous towards the misfortunes of others, always assuming the worst about them, always assuming that the misfortunes of your fellow citizens are all somehow richly deserved.

<<B. They are too lazy to save for it  . . . >>

Well, it's a possibility.  How do you know from looking at the crowd, which ones are homeless and which are not?  Or, of the homeless ones, which are the lazy and which are the merely unfortunate?  Which ones worked and got laid off, or worked and got sick  or worked and had to support a sick or injured family member, or worked and got screwed by their insurance . . . ?  Is this some special power that you have or can anyone learn the trick?

<< . . . or C. They can't qualify for it>>

Yeah, let's see, no job, no job prospects, useless paper degree, mountain of student loan debt, no occupational skills and no family connections on Wall Street or the corporations - - yeah, you're right, I bet that must cover a few of them anyway.

Last question:  Why do you hate them so much?  What's going on?

[sirs]

Why do you hate those who have succeeded, so much??  Why do you hate those who have put for the hard work and perseverence needed to reached the upper levels of income, so much??  Why do you hate businesses and those owners that actually do the employing, so much??  I have yet to have gotten a job from a poor person

[Michael Tee]

<<Why do you hate those who have succeeded, so much?? >>

Nothing at all in the Occupy Wall Street is directed at "those who have succeeded."  The anger is directed a lot more specifically, i.e. , towards Wall Street, towards corporate America, and for reasons which are repeated everywhere, so that by now you should KNOW why the movement hates Wall Street and why it hates the corporations who have corrupted both political parties with their money.  Your question is just an attempt to misrepresent the Occupy! movement by misrepresenting its goals, turning it into an "anti-success" instead of an anti-corruption movement, which it obviously is.

<< Why do you hate those who have put for the hard work and perseverence needed to reached the upper levels of income, so much??  >>

see above.  another misleading question, designed to portray Occupy! as something which it is not, and ignore its publicly stated goals and objectives.

<<Why do you hate businesses and those owners that actually do the employing, so much?? >>

and yet another misleading, false and ridiculous question, designed again to take the focus off the Occupy! movement's actual goals and objectives, by putting forward a false definition of them.  Falsifying and mischaracterizing not only the movement's focus and objectives, but my own as well.  Where in my post did I say that I hate businesses or that I hate owners of businesses that employ people?  All of my comments were directed at corporations and institutions that ripped off and got bailed out.  None of them at "corporations that employ people" except to the extent that Wall Street and American corporations are employers but employ people in the enterprise of ripping off other people and the government.

<< I have yet to have gotten a job from a poor person>>

So what?  I have no beef with your employers, unless they're in the business of ripping off people or getting bailed out by the government for their crookedness.  Poor people create jobs in other ways - - they have basic needs that have to be satisfied by somebody and if the poor person can't pay, the government does.  Either way, no poor people requiring the services or goods, no jobs needed to supply them.

[sirs]

<<Why do you hate those who have succeeded, so much?? >>

Nothing at all in the Occupy Wall Street is directed at "those who have succeeded."  

It has everything to do with the idea that someone else has done better, has made more money and has succeeded in life.  You yourself are procaliming a need to limit what one can make in the ridiculous perversion of the word fair.  you're the one proclaiming a need to tax the snot out of them (I added snot, based on the volatility of yon and folks like Xo's pdemands that 'the rich pay their fair share", despite the fact they already pay MORE), thus punishing them for their success.  Wall Street is just a convenient boogeyman, as these protests are across the country, parked outside of both the WH and millionaires'/bullionaires' homes. 

Its the by-product of Obama's class warfare scorched earth campaign platform, and is having its desired results, albeit quite hypocritical, not to mention completely unfocused.....its just anger at those who have more, and how dare they

[BT]

SEIU's Stephen Lerner Leaks Plan to Terrorize Corporate Executives

[Michael Tee]

<<It has everything to do with the idea that someone else has done better, has made more money and has succeeded in life.  You yourself are procaliming a need to limit what one can make in the ridiculous perversion of the word fair.  you're the one proclaiming a need to tax the snot out of them (I added snot, based on the volatility of yon and folks like Xo's pdemands that 'the rich pay their fair share", despite the fact they already pay MORE), thus punishing them for their success.  Wall Street is just a convenient boogeyman, as these protests are across the country, parked outside of both the WH and millionaires'/bullionaires' homes. 

<<Its the by-product of Obama's class warfare scorched earth campaign platform, and is having its desired results, albeit quite hypocritical, not to mention completely unfocused.....its just anger at those who have more, and how dare they >>

It's obvious to me that you aren't watching or listening to the demonstrators but creating in you own mind, either by yourself or under the influence of MSM accounts, a conception of who they are, what they are asking for and where their motivation comes from.

Obviously the people that I am watching on my computer screen in New York or Washington, are NOT the people you are describing and have almost nothing in common with them.

The actual demands and grievances are well-stated and very specific; what you describe as their demands sounds crazy, unbalanced and unrealistic.  I was wondering, have you actually seen any clips of demonstrators denouncing "success"  or "people who have done better" or "people who are making more money?"  I have watched many videos of these demonstrations and have yet to encounter such denunciations, except from you, here in this NG.

The bulk of the demonstrations are in public spaces, in city centres, I'm not aware of demonstrations occurring outside of millionaires' or billionaires' homes and every one I've seen so far specifically mentions Wall Street and corporations, most of them IIRC have mentioned bailouts as well.

I can't really argue with your interpretation of what these demonstrators are "really" for or against, so I think maybe the best thing to do is just post some of the video clips and you can just watch them and tell me where specifically the demonstrators are expressing anger towards "success" or "making more money" or "doing better."  In reality they don't say any such thing, that's just YOUR interpretation of what they really mean.

[Michael Tee]

Hey, BT, thanks for the Stephen Lerner clip.  I found it was awesome and inspiring.  Hopefully he's right and this is the start of an unstoppable movement to take back the country from Wall Street and the corporations.

The video was interesting though for the editing and the cognitive dissonance.  While Lerner is speaking calmly and even humouously, and he and people in the background are even laughing and giggling, the red text across the screen keeps warning of "violence" and "thugs" and similar hazards.  ("Violence" and "thugs" I guess have a special meaning to the conservatives watching the film, because the only thugs appearing in the story so far are the NYPD thugs and the only violence is that of the NYPD thugs beating, kicking and pepper-spraying the demonstrators.)  This treatment was especially weird, because even while the text was warning of violence and thugs, none of this was showing on the screen - - it was either Lerner, calmly speaking, or black-out.

[BT]

Yeah some people let their enthusiasm get in the way of presenting the story.

But I'm not sure that the SEIU members will be have any differently than they did in Madison or at the townhall meetings where they beat the crap out of people against ObamaCare.

My fear is that sooner or later you are going to have rival philosophies marching towards each other like the big scene in Gangs of New York and there will be blood on the streets . And for what? . Because my sides right and the other side is wrong? or because they are unknowing pawns of bigger fish with hidden agendas. or Because hell they just like to fight.

I am sceptical about the alliances forming around this staged occupation. And i really hope that no one dies because politicians are flexing muscle.

All to pass a tax on millionaires. Which they would have my vote on if they raise taxes on everyone. 5% across the board. I don't like singling out specific classes to punish, be they jews or the rich.

[Michael Tee]

<<But I'm not sure that the SEIU members will be have any differently than they did in Madison or at the townhall meetings where they beat the crap out of people against ObamaCare. >>

Well, it'll be a test of the organizers' ability to maintain order.  Lerner sounds like a pretty savvy guy.  I'm sure he knows by this time of the danger from union members going nuts but even more dangerously of the risk of FBI provocateurs infiltrating the movement and initiating violence for which the movement can be blamed, as happened frequently in the Sixties.  I think the movement has to be cognizant of the risk, alert to and prepared for it, but cannot be paralyzed by it.  Maybe their outreach or media arm could start now digging out all the old exposes of FBI and other agency provocateurs, so that the public will "blame the FBI first" if and when violence does break out.  Those bastards never change.  This is a serious problem for the movement and cannot receive too much attention and planning.  I sure as hell hope they're on top of it.

<<My fear is that sooner or later you are going to have rival philosophies marching towards each other like the big scene in Gangs of New York and there will be blood on the streets . And for what? . Because my sides right and the other side is wrong? or because they are unknowing pawns of bigger fish with hidden agendas. or Because hell they just like to fight. >>

LOL.  Seen many videos of the demos?  NONE of those guys "like to fight."   They're all nerds.  But I love 'em cuz they're smart, funny, articulate and courageous.

<<I am sceptical about the alliances forming around this staged occupation. And i really hope that no one dies because politicians are flexing muscle. >>

Right now is way to early for revolutionary violence but that time is coming.  These guys will be broken up by violence in the end - - either police violence, or if that's not working, then National Guard violence.  But in the end the state will crush them.  The important thing is that the people absorb the lesson - - non-violent protest in this country doesn't have a hope in hell.  The hard core will have to learn to organize and discipline themselves like the old Communist Party.  They'll have to wait for the right time and know it when it comes - - the country WILL fall apart, it's inevitable, given the near-total control that the right wing exercises over the levers of power.  The right wing always overreaches - - Hitler is by far the best example, but as the power elite shifts more and more to the right, the leadership becomes more and more fascistic, Hitler-like, even though they'll never be able to produce another Hitler.  They'll try to cling as much as possible to democratic forms.  In their arrogance and their greed, they will sooner or later fuck up and the economy really will be driven over the cliff.

<<All to pass a tax on millionaires. Which they would have my vote on if they raise taxes on everyone. 5% across the board. I don't like singling out specific classes to punish, be they jews or the rich. >>

Well the problem with all across-the-board tax increases is that it hurts the guys at the bottom a lot more than it hurts the guys at the top.  "Singling out" is unavoidable - - it just means that those least able to bear the pain get an exemption.  It's like the draft board - - all the healthy 1-A get to go to Nam and the 4-Fs are "singled out" for exemption.  Fairness requires that some lines have to be drawn.

[sirs]

<<It has everything to do with the idea that someone else has done better, has made more money and has succeeded in life.  You yourself are procaliming a need to limit what one can make in the ridiculous perversion of the word fair.  you're the one proclaiming a need to tax the snot out of them (I added snot, based on the volatility of yon and folks like Xo's pdemands that 'the rich pay their fair share", despite the fact they already pay MORE), thus punishing them for their success.  Wall Street is just a convenient boogeyman, as these protests are across the country, parked outside of both the WH and millionaires'/bullionaires' homes. 

Its the by-product of Obama's class warfare scorched earth campaign platform, and is having its desired results, albeit quite hypocritical, not to mention completely unfocused.....its just anger at those who have more, and how dare they >>

In reality they don't say any such thing, that's just YOUR interpretation of what they really mean.

The Nuttiness of the 'Occupation' Movement

Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi, different leaders of varied labor unions -- pour it on, folks! Show your political solidarity with all the "occupations" going on around the country! Speak to us in anguished tones about the awfulness of free market mechanisms like banks and the horror of earning more money than someone else.

While you're at it, tell us what you're going to do about the horrors of free enterprise and the profit motive. The explicit Marxist-Leninist remedy seems out of favor these days. That leaves, what? Congeries of yelps ("Stop Corporate Greed," "People, not Profits") from the ragtag occupation armies enjoying the autumn sunshine in venues from Wall Street to the West Coast.

Many times over the past couple of years, I have had occasion to drag out the immortal piece of wisdom, "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Truer words surely haven't been spoken (apart maybe from "There's no such thing as a free lunch"). Those "progressive" commentators and politicians egging on the occupation forces have conceivably taken leave of their senses. Whether the majority of occupiers ever had senses to take leave of is a matter, shall we say, for discussion.

The mainstream media, ever alert to possibilities for provoking a cat fight, have been prowling the various centers of "occupation," striving to make ordinary Americans think something real and vital (as opposed to fake and febrile) is going on around the land. Supposedly, to listen to the occupiers and their well wishers, the country is in revolt against heartless capitalism. As the website of CBS's "The Early Show" informed us Monday, "Americans are frustrated and making their voices heard." News machines like "The Early Show," are frustrated with the heavy lifting involved in sorting through proposals for actual, useful economic reform that would create jobs while reducing media sound bites.

The 1960s flavor of the occupation movement is unmistakable, though the occupiers themselves reference the Arab Spring movement as inspirational: Take over a public square or something and villains will topple.

One measurable difference between the occupation of "Wall Street" and the takeovers of college deans' and presidents' offices 40-odd years ago is that the countercultural types of that time, in their hirsute glory, had moderately clear and at least partly digested aims -- chiefly, "ending" a controversial war in Vietnam. So what if it was a glib and specious idea? It was clear. Also clear was the demand to accord blacks, as Negroes were coming to be called, their rights as freeborn Americans.

Nothing so clear comes to us from the occupiers who rant against greed and corruption, and want to redistribute wealth to the non-super rich who make up "99 percent" of the population (including those who eke by on a mere $750,000 a year).

The fun part of all this is the sudden urge on the part of Democrats and liberals to hide behind the occupation forces, touting their cause for at least as long as it takes to beat out the Republicans' brains in 2012. Sure will be a sight when the campaigns start in earnest and the president has to decide for himself how to walk a fine line between hanging bankers and soliciting their campaign contributions.

Genuine anger, disgust, pain, and heartache exist in abundance. Does that mean phony calls from the grassroots to forgive student debt and redistribute income have either merit or coherence?

What this mainly means is that "progressive" ideas about how economies work -- conditioned on government control and supervision -- are flatter even than once supposed. We wouldn't otherwise find a former speaker of the U. S. House trying to pass off T-shirt slogans and scribbled placard signs as some grand summation of the best in economic thinking.

Another thing this whole episode may mean (pardon my shaking up the syntax) is:
These are the people to whom we gave power in 2009, so that they might revive the economy and spur job creation?
We commissioned Congress and the president to guarantee loans to shaky, clean- energy projects and to take over health care and auto companies with no better result than trillions in debt and a 9.1 percent unemployment rate?
That's what the friends, the boosters, the encouragers of Wall Street occupation have done for us these past three years?

No wonder they want someone to hide behind