Oct 08 2011
The irony, of course, is lost on them.
I love the fact that conservative supporters of the selfish, fat, ignorant, pigs teabaggers are up in arms because literally thousands of their fellow citizens exercised the same right claimed by the selfish, fat, ignorant, pigs teabaggers to assemble peaceably to express their displeasure with the government’s obsession with rewarding the top 1% of this country while ignoring the other 99%. Protests based on a flawed interpretation of the Constitution, historically inaccurate readings of a narrow group of historical documents-while ignoring equally valid other commentaries-with people wearing stupid hats and costumes and carrying stupid signs with lies posted on them comparing the duly elected President of the United States to Hitler; those are OK. But people who are outraged at getting fucked over repeatedly, having to struggle to get things that they should be able to obtain by right, people who have been kicked out of their homes, have lost their jobs, have been unable to get another one-those things they are not allowed to be angry about. Got it.
Or as Jon Stewart expressed it:
On Wednesday evening, Jon Stewart gazed at the Occupy Wall Street movement through the lens of Fox News sound bites–especially the condescending and incoherent ones. The negative sentiment was the exact opposite of how the News Corp. property felt when it was fanning the flames of the Tea Party opposition only a year and a half ago. And The Daily Show host makes sure to point out that nonsensical logic (especially jabs at Sean Hannity and Steve Doocey), while singling out one of the budding stars of the protest movement, Jesse LaGreca, along the way. The takeaway line though, was Stewart just leveling: “Look, if this thing devolves into throwing trash cans into Starbucks windows, nobody’s going to be down with that … but these protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party?”
The differences of course are several. One is demographics-the tea party was primarily white, middle aged, overweight, and more than a tad bit selfish and stupid. Occupy Wall Street protesters are younger, much better informed than their tea party counterparts, and are not being astroturfed by rich bastards like Dick Armey for one thing. They also have a big difference in the use of money and busses:
There is one not so obvious or immediately noticeable difference between the Occupy Wall Street protests and your average Tea Party protest. Sure, the crowds seem to be younger, signs featuring Obama as Hitler are entirely absent, and there aren’t many people who are dressed like Uncle Sam sneezed stars and stripes all over them. There are no guns or demands to see the president’s birth certificate. But the less obvious difference is in buses. While the Tea Party protests always feature big buses covered with flags and eagles, buses at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are used to haul the protesters to jail.
I bring this up because teapartiers like to pretend they’re running their own show. That their protests are grassroots and their organizations are of their own construction. But those buses carting them around from protest to protest didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone paid for them, someone gave them their ultra-patriotic paint jobs, someone’s buying all the gas. All that takes funding and, as much as the ‘baggers like to pretend they’re an independent movement, they’re all bought and paid for— and then moved from square to square like pawns on a chessboard.
It has also been very well pointed out by those who are not watching Fox News, that unlike the teabaggers-the Occupy Wall Street movement does not have herds of Democratic politicians running over to suck their dicks jump on board their band wagon. If anything they have been avoiding them. Greg Sargent points out why:
If there’s one thing that’s growing clearer by the hour, it’s that this is an entirely organic effort, one that’s about nobody but the protestors themselves. In this sense, we’re seeing a replay of the Wisconsin protests. Those ended up falling just short of what activists had hoped to achieve, but their months-long showing was still important — it demonstrated that left wing populism is still alive and well and sent an important message about the mood of the country. The key was that it grew organically with little to no involvement from Beltway Dems and the White House.
If anything, Occupy Wall Street’s lack of outside encouragement from bigfoot Dems has been a strength, rather than a weakness. As major progressive groups debate how they can contribute to strengthening the movement — and how to give it specific direction and a specific agenda — the need to preserve its grassroots nature will remain paramount. Who knows where this will end up, but for now, this is another reminder that the Tea Party isn’t the only voice of popular discontentment over the economy. We don’t necessarily live in Tea Party Nation, after all.
And finally, as Jon Stewart points out very ably, the Occupy Wall Street folks, “don’t feel the need to constantly reassure themselves and each other how ‘patriotic‘ they are. They just are.”
Of course-to a dedicated tea sniffing fanatic, the irony and hypocrisy of their criticism is just lost on them:
. All in good time my friends. As Mr. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob would say, ” More will be revealed.” In the interim-I am now a part of America’s rising unemployment rate. First time I have been without a job since I was 16. I’ll be in line filling out an application at Wal-Mart on Wednesday. I’m holding out for the greeter position-but I may end up with a black back support and stocking shelves.
.
