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The Tea Party, This Isn’t ("Occupy Wall Street")
The San Antonio Express-News ^ | October 7, 2011 | The Editors

Posted on 10/07/2011 9:27:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Antonio and other “occupation” protests is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Some of the protestors fit the stereotype of aging hippies trying to relive their glory days and aimless graduate students speaking truth to corporate power — when they’re not using the restrooms at McDonalds or hitting the nearest Starbucks for a wireless connection and a latte.

The demands of the protesters, to the extent that they can be discerned, range from the merely utopian — “Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment” — to the downright silly — “Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now!”

Still, dismissing all of the protesters as twits and useful idiots would be a mistake. Many of them are tapping into a deep sense of unfairness created when politicians of both parties engage in crony capitalism and give bailouts to well-connected businesses using billions of dollars in public funds.

In this narrow sense — very narrow, since many of the protesters’ demands involve spending billions of public dollars on their own pet projects — the “occupy” protests resemble the tea party. Yet an entire narrative is developing that, somehow, what’s taking place in Lower Manhattan and elsewhere is the mirror image of the tea party. When Joe “Recovery Summer” Biden says it’s so, you can be sure it’s baloney.

So allow me to list just a few of the obvious ways that the “occupy” protests aren’t like the tea party:

1. The tea party movement began with people out of power as a protest against the “progressive” agenda being rammed down the American people’s throats by Democrats who controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Progressive Democrats still control the Senate and the progressive messiah still holds the most powerful office in the world. Who are the “occupiers” protesting against – Republicans who control one half of one third of the government? Seriously?

2. In San Antonio as in other places, the tea party contracted with public and private entities to rent facilities and equipment for their events. As their name suggests, the occupiers are merely occupying – taking over the public square and blocking traffic, as on the Brooklyn Bridge, at public expense.

3. There have been no notable acts of violence at any of the thousands of tea party events that have taken place since 2009. Yet from New York City to Seattle, violence has been a staple of the “occupy” protests.

4. Much was made of the rhetorical violence of the tea party and the climate of hostility it supposedly created. But how does that compare to the email sent to New York State lawmakers saying it is “time to kill the wealthy.”? Via Politico:

“How hard is it for us to stake out one of the obvious access roads to some tech company, tail an employee home and toss a liquor bottle full of flaming gasoline through their nice picture window into their cute house?”

5. The most obvious difference is that the tea party protests were, and remain, about the size and scope of government and have one simple demand: end the fiscal recklessness that has put the United States on the same disastrous path as Greece. The “occupiers” have an amorphous list of grievances, and their demands range from sending George W. Bush to prison to creating “a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.”

Maybe that will change. Maybe the “occupiers” will become more like the tea party. But for the moment, it’s hard to take them seriously because they don’t have anything serious to say. The tea party was able to tap into the frustration of independent voters to generate a historic backlash against the progressive agenda in the 2010 election. It’s difficult to see how issues such as “the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals” will do the same.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Local News; Politics
KEYWORDS: hippies; occupywallstreet; peacecreeps; teaparty

1 posted on 10/07/2011 9:27:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I just want McDonald’s to give me a Happy Meal prize with every order.

Oh and I don’t want to have to pay for it anymore.


2 posted on 10/07/2011 9:32:05 PM PDT by occamrzr06 (One day this will all make sense!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

October 15
http://15october.net/

“Are You Ready? Demonstrators Plan Global Protest for Oct. 15”
Posted on October 7, 2011 by Madeleine Morgenstern
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/are-you-ready-demonstrators-plan-global-protest-for-oct-15/

October 2011
http://october2011.org/

How original. Another ‘October Revolution.’


3 posted on 10/07/2011 9:44:59 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

4 posted on 10/07/2011 9:58:46 PM PDT by CommieCutter
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To: CommieCutter

The “Flea Party”


5 posted on 10/07/2011 10:15:44 PM PDT by Rodney Dangerfield (To make a Conservative angry, tell him a lie. To make a Liberal angry, tell him the truth.)
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To: combat_boots

October 15, 1971 The start of the 2500-year celebration of Iran, celebrating the birth of Persia.

“(T)he beginning of the Gregorian calendar, which was Friday, 15 October 1582 (17 Ramadan 990 AH). The link to the converter below at the Institute of Oriental Studies automatically converts according to the Julian calendar for dates on or before 16 Ramadan 990 AH (4 October 1582). Also, for dates on or after 17 Ramadan 990 AH (15 October 1582), it automatically converts according to the Gregorian calendar.”

http://www.uga.edu/islam/history.html

October 15th has Iranian and Arab money in the mix.


6 posted on 10/07/2011 10:31:23 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
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To: Rodney Dangerfield
The “Flea Party”

That's it--you just gave these looney protesters their proper name.

7 posted on 10/07/2011 10:48:10 PM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
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To: Rodney Dangerfield

Hope that catches on! and “flea baggers”


8 posted on 10/08/2011 2:36:04 AM PDT by Roscoe Karns
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To: Rodney Dangerfield
I'm sticking with Pee Party since they're a bunch of thumb-sucking bed-wetting libtards.

And for the records... the Tea Party isn't full of Lies, Damn Lies and Photoshop hacks. Click link for a good laugh. Apologies if this appears elsewhere on FR.
9 posted on 10/08/2011 3:15:23 AM PDT by NamVet71MP
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
“Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now!”

I hope they don't get that part of it - house is paid for/credit cards get paid off each month - only loan is on my car and that's only because it was an interest-free loan or I would have bought it outright. In other words, I'm not wealthy, but working all my life and making sensible decisions has taken me out of debt. Yet, if I were to explain that to one of these 'occupiers" they would shout me down and run me out of town on a rail - they don't want solutions; they want hand-outs. Lazy SOBs - I heard one who said he quit his job so he could protest. I say we put them out in the desert and let them start a commune to see if they can find the Utopia that so many hippies of the '60's looked for. They found out that communism sucked for those that had to contribute so the leeches could subsist too...

10 posted on 10/08/2011 3:37:31 AM PDT by trebb ("If a man will not work, he should not eat" From 2 Thes 3)
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To: trebb

When interviewed not one of these FLEA BAGGERS can agree that thier present administration and community organizer and chief is to blame for thier UNCOMFORTABLE SITUATION. no no no not Mr hope and change. They want to be forgiven for their reckless irresponsibility. It’s not thier fault they were forced to over extend themselves by the banks. lysol


11 posted on 10/08/2011 3:58:14 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (V)
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To: Rodney Dangerfield
Let's hope it sticks. You coined it.
12 posted on 10/08/2011 10:45:20 PM PDT by CommieCutter
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