Posted on 10/11/2011 10:47:20 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week, a headline for a television news story read, “Is Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party of the Left?” Well, as you may have guessed, the story that followed had little to do with the headline, and the question was never answered.
I hate loose ends, so allow me to tie up that one. Is Occupy Wall Street similar in any way to the Tea Party movement? Yes. They both involve large numbers of people, sometimes carrying signs. Beyond that, any similarities are tenuous at best.
Take a look at the origin of the Tea Party movement. It got its name in February 2009, when CNBC’s Rick Santelli, reporting from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, warned viewers about the Federal Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan. He called for a Chicago “Tea Party” to protest it.
Santelli’s rant was replayed repeatedly on mainstream and cable news shows, and millions of people all around the country agreed with him. The movement sprouted when a few ordinary citizens, some right here in the Atlanta area, began emailing friends around the country about holding simultaneous rallies on a certain date.
Rallies were held in 40 cities, and to everyone’s surprise, nearly 30,000 people showed up to protest excessive federal spending, high taxes and an overreaching government that was ignoring the principles of the Constitution.
The idea spread, and on April 15, 2009, rallies were held in more than 800 cities and a million and a half people showed up, nearly 25,000 in Atlanta alone. Since then, there have been two major rallies in Washington D.C. with about a million Tea Party people at each.
But the seeds of the modern Tea Party were planted even before Santelli’s televised rant, when a Seattle woman named Keli Carender organized what she called the Porkulus Protest.
Carender felt that the future of America and its children was being mortgaged by the huge TARP bailouts and the $787 billion government stimulus bill—both of which were being forced upon American taxpayers without regard for our wishes or any Constitutional authority.
Regardless of which event started the Tea Party movement, it sprang from grassroots and continues that way today. The Tea Party has no national organization, and there are no political or business organizations supporting us (although many have tried to lay claim).
Our purposes—return our government to the spirit and principles of the Constitution, reduce spending and lower taxes—have been consistent.
Contrast that with Occupy Wall Street. If they have a theme at all, it is to kill capitalism and the free market system, the one financial structure that has created the highest standard of living for more people than any other system yet devised.
While the protestors haven’t offered any alternatives, the obvious one would be socialism, a system that has been proven a failure in every country where it’s been tried.
Why would I say that socialism is the “obvious” alternative? Look at the supporters and organizers of this so-called movement: the AFL-CIO, SEIU and other socialist-oriented organizations. One of the chief organizers is Van Jones, an avowed Socialist.
So while the Tea Party’s focus is on returning our government to the principles that made our country the greatest nation on Earth, the Occupy Wall Street crowd seems hell bent on destroying those principles.
The Tea Party’s rallies, sometimes composed of millions of people, have been peaceful. Order has always been kept, and police intervention has never been necessary. Property has never been damaged, and when Tea Party people leave a rally, we pick up after ourselves, out of respect for public property.
This notwithstanding, the left, represented by Maxine Waters et al, tells us to “Go to hell!”
The Occupy Wall Street protests, even though they are much smaller, are not peaceful—destroying property, shutting down streets and bridges, and halting commerce. They result in confrontations with police and many arrests.
The reaction from the left? Well, Nancy Pelosi says, “God bless ‘em.”
So is Occupy Wall Street the Tea Party of the left? No, it’s not a Tea Party at all—not even close. Is Occupy Wall Street a contrivance of the left? Most certainly.
Workers of the world.... etc, etc.
This is a site that has great answers to those OWS people’s signs: http://www.michellesmirror.com/2011/10/people-of-ows-like-people-of-wal-mart.html
WRONG!
1. Tea Partiers meet, talk, listen, strategize and go home. OWS doesn't have a home.
2. Tea Partiers tend to meet on weekends or later in the day because they have jobs. OWS doesn't work.
3. Tea Partiers want to return to constitutional government. OWS wants to destroy the Constitution.
4. Tea Partiers want smaller government. OWS wants to use government to make your wealth smaller.
5. Tea Partiers are capitalists. OWS is communist to its very core.
6. Tea Partiers want to restore health to our system. OWS is Marxist. Marxists always end up killing people to achieve their goals when they manage to grasp power.
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