Posted on 11/17/2011 5:49:54 PM PST by RobinMasters
As partisans on the left and right try to co-opt and compare the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, both sides ignore that they arent really that different at all. Both, in fact, hew to the same conventions as all mass movements. And as the 2012 presidential candidates including President Obama attempt to form their positions on each one, theyd all be wise to put them in perspective.
In Eric Hoffers seminal 1951 work, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, the similarity is drawn with startling clarity.
The work of a self-educated gold prospector-turned-longshoreman-turned philosopher, the treatise examines important mass movements in history from the French Revolution to the Nazis. Its also refreshingly devoid of political correctness. Hoffer describes those who may be susceptible to the allure of mass movements in practically Dickensian terms: They are either misfits, spinsters or the inordinately selfish, to name a few.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
These high level purely political discussions are indeed interesting. :)
Your take is a pretty accurate synopsis IMO.
LLS
Maybe, but it is nonetheless true, OWS and the TEA party exist largely in the same void.
The problem with OWS is their solutions and even diagnose of the problem & its solution is nuts and many of them know it too. The imperial evidence of history is overwhelmingly against the message the leftist have pushed upon them.
Simply put their solutions have been tried and not only failed, but made the problems much much worse. Ive read articles from liberals supporting OWS proudly acknowledging the fact that they are indeed dealing with a demographic that knows their message in Contradiction with the evidence of history.
Namely the Fall of the USSR, but also with our own history and experiments in “robing the rich”, none of which have ever been fruitful, and most have been downright disastrous.
Our job is to exploit this which they already know in turning them to our-side and away from the evil that has attempted to take advantage of their frustration.
I swear, pseudo-intellectual S.E.Cupp is sounding more like D. Cup.
Both are disgusted by the relationship between the regulators and the regulated and the US Treasury.
The regulated believe that submitting to regulation justifies their hand in the till.
The Tea Party solution is limited, Constitutional Government
OWS is MORE of the same regulation that created the mess.
Protesting is fun? Some of us think it is unpleasant. I suspect most Tea Party people, when they do it, find it a chore.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? I'll give her that one. I think OWS is trying to imitate the Tea Party. They failed.
Its just something to do? Frankly, I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do than sit in a hall and listen to a speaker who very well may be very boring, talk to politicians or pass out campaign lit. I'll grant the company of decent people make those things tolerable but once the problems are solved activism ends for me.
What doctrine? Saving the nation from bankruptcy. Pretty simple
Some people think S.E. is smart because she wears librarian glasses.
I will say she is very impressed with herself and has no problem expressing strong opinions with doing any leg work as to whether they are right.
Major Missing "BARF" Alert!
Okay .. that was a walk into reality I would like to take back.
man .. people are being duped every way front back and sideways. Our country is doomed .. just so screwed.
>So, I am a little sick and tired of these people stinking up our public places and directing the anger at the wrong people. They should be camped outside of the White House and Capitol Hill if they truly want to target what is most wrong with this country.<
Me too, so I take every chance I get and point that out to them. I get in conversations on every pro occupy youtube video I can and agree that
1. protest is their right (it was ours in the tea party)
2. but that the target is wrong
3. enlighten them about the housing mess with fannie freddie and democrats pushing housing for all (under clinton) - afford it or not - and how bankers passed bad paper because the government backed it all. Actually forcing them to make bad loans
4. then how obama forced banks to take the bail outs.
they seem to switch targets relatively fast.
Hey .. if a socialist can use these tools with a bunch of BS, I certainly can educate them with the truth and that will piss them off and make them even more agitated that they have been used by these socialists to begin with!
Then they can educate more occupiers.
Hopefully they can educate enough that come spring Obama won’t want to be anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave just because of the smell emanating from the street!
Then they are not really the same, beyond the fact that they are organizations of sorts kinda.
OWS is NOT speaking for responsible and smaller government. The TEA parties are NOT seeking to end capitalism. So besides opposing the corporate bailouts there is NOT a lot of common ground.
Yes, I do agree that those vaguely enamored with OWS should be persuaded to our vision, which, at least, has a point.
Coulter for Romney and SE Cupp writes this.
What’s up with Northeast “Conservative” women?
Atheists have trouble understanding true faith as opposed to no faith.
Well, yes. Your point?
“Then they are not really the same, beyond the fact that they are organizations of sorts kinda.
OWS is NOT speaking for responsible and smaller government. The TEA parties are NOT seeking to end capitalism. So besides opposing the corporate bailouts there is NOT a lot of common ground.
Yes, I do agree that those vaguely enamored with OWS should be persuaded to our vision, which, at least, has a point.”
I would point out that many of the underlining issues leading to the problems that have created both are the same. The fact that OWS has been highjacked by people deeply in bed with not only their supposed “enemy” but also people at the root of the original problems is not surprising in light of their many other shortsighted choices.
The people doing OWS are the part of our civilization that really doesn’t have a clue what their talking about, yet they like the rest of us very much effected by the calamity our Federal Goverment has labored to produce.
Likewise they not only find themselves in bed with the very folk they beleive are their enemy’s(Wall-street), but also in bed with their real enemy Big Goverment Washington D.C. while demanding enlargement of policy’s to further retard their position.
Lets list some of them:
* Higher wages & benefits for greater unemployment particular among the young and inexperienced.
* Fully replayed collage tuition for greater demand on collage education which is not for everyone and already producing diminishing returns to the point of loss even with existing Goverment subsidies.
* A larger more powerful federal goverment thou which special interest(most particularly biggest & established) can more effectively suppress their market competition. While also becoming & remaining so big that their collapse invariably effects a large enough swath of the economy & people do sell to a Congress elected largely based upon economic performance the idea of bailouts.
Strategically their plan for addressing this is also foolish:
* Starting their campaign in the fall is always foolish as it means the winter will soon greatly diminish you chances of victory.
* Being lazily in public parks for months does not make the argument that you can ever sustain yourself. A fact further compounded by the deteriorating health conditions of your “residency”. If you cannot sustain yourselves how can your philosophy sustain anyone else?
* The very idea of an occupation in itself is inherently hostile particularly by socialist/communist specifically desiring something produced by other people.
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