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Why are we knee-jerk opposed to the 99%ers?

I would point out that the original Boston Tea Partiers were protesting (with the destruction of property) the corporate monopoly of the East India Tea company. The trigger was actually a tax reduction. Before 1773, British tea was highly taxed, and the colonies sold smuggled dutch tea. In 1773, the tax was cut so that East India tea would undersell the dutch tea. From Wikipedia: “Colonial merchants, some of them smugglers, played a significant role in the protests. Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.[43] Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act.[44] Another major concern for merchants was that the Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade, and it was feared that this government-created monopoly might be extended in the future to include other goods.”

So the Boston Tea Party, the real one, was very similar to the occupy wall street protests. And, in fact, many Bostonians had the same reaction to the original tea partiers that people here have to the 99%ers (they called them names like “mob” and accused them of being law breakers, which they were).

Moreover, the original Boston protesters were more violent than our 99%ers. Even before the tea was dumped in the harbor, unruly crowds got so out of control, the authorities had to fire on one demonstration, killing 5 of the protestors. We refer to that as the Boston Massacre.

Our 99%ers are true to the spirit of 1776 as it really was in those days. I don’t think we should be so quick to reject them.

I think the real political dynamic in America today is this: the Democrats are the part of Wall Street and Trial Lawyers; and the Republicans are the party of Big Oil and big business. It benefits the Wall Street types like Soros to have big government mingle in ways to protect their interests, while it benefits big Oil and big business to have the government look the other way while they break unions, give jobs to poorly paid foreigners, and cut benefits while raising prices.

Republican big wigs are not “small government” out of the goodness of their hearts. They are “small government” only so that they can be “big business.” If they could hire nothing but illegal aliens, eliminate all retirement benefits so every worker had to work until the day they died, and eliminate healthcare so sick poor people would just die, they’d be happy.

We the people have to be smart enough to realize our interests do not always co-incide with big business. Big business likes high unemployment, because it makes workers docile and suppresses wages. Big oil likes getting our crude oil, which belongs to the people of the USA, for free, even as this amounts to a give away of literally $5billions a day in our assets. If the government gave away $5billion a day in gold from Fort Knox, we’d be unhappy, wouldn’t we? Why is it okay to give the oil away?

The 99%ers have a point. The top 1% is richer than ever. Corporations are super profitable. The stock market went up 100% over the last 2 years. Yet no new jobs were created. At least some of that, I believe, is because big business likes high unemployment. Then like to make the middle class poor and weak. They like this situation; they are certainly profiting from it! CEO salaries are up 24% in 2011; family salaries are down 10%, coprporate profits are up dramatically, wages are down dramatically. Why wouldn’t big business love this economy?