I have a bone to pick about OWS vs. the Tea Party

First lets get this out of the way. I am a conservative, I make no apologies to anyone for it and I do nothing to hide it. I'm as legitimate in my views as a someone on the left...and it's only been recently I've actually allowed myself to see and accept that. I spent nearly a week at OWS - St Louis and it gave me new perspectives after talking to folks that crossed the spectrum from liberal to socialist to anarchist to 'I dunno..doh!'. All bring something different to the table we call America and until or unless entire groups disappear, it's all part of the nation we occupy. Pun INTENDED!

Now, this is where I have a bone to pick. The media attacked the Tea Party as extreme right wing, gun toting, racist and hate spewing radicals. The left sat back and generally applauded while finding the whole thing to be a source of great amusement.

Today, the Media has a new chew toy. It's gone after the OWS movement and it's attacked with a vengeance I'm not sure I can think of a comparison for. This time, it's the right sitting back, generally applauding and finding the whole thing to be a source of great amusement.

What is wrong with this picture??? I said a bit of this in a reply to an old thread but this goes beyond reply level. The Tea Party *CANNOT* achieve what it wants, by itself. The OWS movement *CANNOT* achieve what IT wants, by itself. The United States has a divide in the political thinking of it's citizens that seems to run roughly 50/50 between right and left, so unless one side plans to attempt forcing their ideas down the throats of the other, this simply won't work. If the force idea is even thought about, I'd note it's likely to lead to tragedy, but nothing constructive or positive lay down that path.

So, what is it we do? How about a totally new concept here, after years of being spoon fed the 'facts' we have all taken as truth for why we must hate and I mean *HATE* the other end of ideology from where we stand. I propose we work TOGETHER.

That's right! I have gone and said it. I've spoken blasphemy and lighting hasn't struck me in mid word as I sit here and type. The Earth isn't opening beneath me to swallow me whole, nor do I hear dogs and cats getting along as the world goes mad outside my window.

I'm not making a joke here, I'm sick and bloody well tired of watching my nation fall into an abyss we'll NEVER recover from in our lifetimes while everyone is so busy blasting away at one another, nothing can be accomplished to STOP THE FALL. The way I see things here, we have TWO CHOICES as a nation and as a people.

* First, we can keep yelling at each other and generally continue the blind hate this has really become in the last 20 years while the Titanic sinks beneath us and takes us ALL down TOGETHER.

* Second, we can join efforts between the Tea Party and the OWS movement.....set aside our differences for the short term goals BOTH sides want to reach and really pull a trick here in showing TRUE American unity of purpose and conviction before we simply have nothing left to save, and it's over for every last one of us, on BOTH SIDES.

*IF* we can even get to the point where major and serious change can happen WITH mutual support and combined efforts, there will be plenty of time at that point to hash out the differences in ideology. Perhaps by that point in time, liberals and conservatives will have found a few minutes to just drop the garbage and sit down to chat. I wasn't "infected" with some 'progressiveitus', and I'm still as conservative now as I was when I arrived in camp at Occupy STL....but my thinking is more open to accepting we're AMERICANS, not some phoney Left and Right nonsense!

*IF*...again...IF...we can ever accomplish this seemingly HOPELESS task of working together as a people, it would scare that 1% as OWS calls it....or the radical progressives as the Tea Party calls it, right to the tips of their pointy little heads. It may surprise some to realize in talking freely that both groups have shockingly similar ideas and descriptions of how that 'them' is defined....as I discovered.

Either way, this is what it boils down to, and it was true once before in U.S. history as well. We WILL stand UNITED, or we'll figuratively HANG separately. Peaceful change is the critical guiding principle here...but the stakes are no less serious or high than they were in the late 1700's. Economic and Societal collapse is just as catastrophic as the British Occupation had become back then.

So what the heck is it to be? Do we even TRY and stop this collapse and win one for this Nation we all love and our children we want the best for? Or...should I just logoff, go back to watching mindless television and playing my 5th run through on Deus Ex? Time is short, and a decision is needed REAL soon. I'm dying to earn that Pacifist Award this time! (It's a Deus Ex HR thing...don't read too much into it )

Lady Liberty is dying from terminal illness and it's enough to leave me with a lifetime worth of broken heart to watch it happen!! Thus ends my first and hopefully last contribution to the Rant forum.

A People United Can Never Be DEFEATED! - Solidarity!

From everything I've seen the OWS is generally comprised of misguided youths who feel government needs to become more powerful and seek for government to fix the problems it in fact created.

In all fairness, the Wall street occupation seems to be the epicenter of those who cry out for more government control.

The Tea Party died a long time ago, bought out and hijacked.


So we've got two lost movements who can agree on maybe 2 issues.


This is not the way that change occurs, the power structure in place will never institute change in any peaceful manner. Any illusion to the contrary will be exactly that, illusion.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I have been saying the same for quite a while. Great Rant and well put. Also one of the few times I say S&F.

I also believe that one of the BIG reasons that we have such a divide is that there is a serious divide between people who base their actions on rational/critical thought and ones who base their thoughts and actions upon emotions.

I’ve ran into both types at Tea Party and OWS rallies. With such a divide and without a clear set of goals, all such movements are doomed from the beginning. I left the Tea Party group I was attending when they accepted funds from the Koch bros. and started to attend a smaller group who eschewed the money. The messages of both are similar, but I wasn’t comfortable with the leadership that was emplaced afterwards in the larger group.

We are already seeing this as well in the OWS.

The division continues to grow. And the people don't see it.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


You can tell by the lack of responses that people aren't willing to get over their egos. Half of the ones that actually did reply are simply being partisan tools. The good thing is that the rest of the world does not need to wait for those people to get over themselves and are going full steam ahead.

This is good news because I use to think we had to wait for all those people to die but this is a much less morbid solution.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The two movements share very few of the same goals and certainly disagree on the means to achieve those few shared goals. We have a deeply divided country split along ideological lines…that is a fact. There are competing views as to how this country should be run and it’s been that way since our founding.

A Political movement is simply a group of like-minded people getting together to achieve a political goal. I keep hearing that the Tea Party was high jacked by the right-wing. It hasn’t been high-jacked! It was started by libertarians and conservative republicans who agree on certain principles. The Tea Party has worked to get conservatives elected to government to achieve its goals. The goals of the Tea Party have been and remain 1) Limited Government, 2) Individual Freedoms, 3) Personal Responsibility, 4) Free Markets, 5) Returning political power to the states and the people. The Tea Party movement is interested in reforming the government and restoring the core principles of our founding fathers as well as restoring adherence to our constitution. These principles have the support of many independent and conservative democrats because these are the fundamental principles of America.

The OWS movement has is MUCH more radical in my opinion - wealth redistribution, punish the rich, free education, more social programs, end capitalism, stop all wars, free healthcare, wealth equality, etc. Occupy Wall Street is a radical liberal movement and I have yet to hear any mention of supporting and defending the constitution. In fact, most of the ideas promoted by OWS conflict with our constitution. Liberals view the constitution as nothing more than an antiquated document that is an obstacle to implementing their social policies. Period.

As much as I’d like to see every one of us unite behind a single movement for change, the reality is that we are divided along ideological lines and we completely disagree on the type of change needed. Right or wrong, there is a lot of disagreement on how America should be run. This is why we have elections! I will continue to support the Tea Party because I share the goals of the Tea Party. I will also continue to disagree with the OWS movement because I DO NOT share its goals. These two movements have very different agendas no matter how you’d like to paint the picture. I WILL NOT compromise my values by supporting OWS just for the sake of having a larger movement.

Originally posted by Cuervo
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

You can tell by the lack of responses that people aren't willing to get over their egos. Half of the ones that actually did reply are simply being partisan tools.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed by the lack of response on even a theoretical level. Apparently, many seem to think they CAN achieve what they want with ONLY their own side of the spectrum working toward it.....and against the other 50% of America. We're in for a bad time ahead if it's an indication of how polarized we've really become. Perhaps we will see the U.S. Balkanize, for lack of a better word.

You know I've only made a few threads of my own here..and I've tried to carefully select the topics to be of the uplifting or constructive variety as much as possible.....and then see them all but ignored outright. I guess if I could find another newly discovered Comet to replace Elenin for #1 on the fear list, I'd be famous and have a thread to save for posterity. Sad......

I have a feeling people will turn out en masse to watch the final splat when they couldn't have even been bothered to vote, let alone hold a protest sign for ANY cause.

reply to post by seabag

I respect that entirely Seabag, and I don't suggest either side has to become compromised in core values and beliefs. First, assuming OWS makes it through another few weeks and past the first few hard freezes (I believe they will), they will have learned a lot. The media this weekend is all over the real world problems the visions of utopia just don't cover. Give them a bit more time actually running a smaller version of what they came to protest and I believe much of those fanciful ideas will fade and be trashed in favor of the hard realities of DOING vs. just talking.

Perhaps I also needed to clarify my thinking on one point.... I believe the people of both movements could come together to cross the first major barriers to change. The leadership of the Tea Party at the national levels...such as it is, would never even talk about it as a joke. Their entire base of personal power and control is invested in exclusive focus on their 'thing'...and really, both sides are equal in that way.

It's the normal folk that would form the masses in numbers to kick start the process. Short term cooperation and mutual support is all it would really take to get that far. Then they can all go back to the pointless sniping and petty partisan garbage. At least the Titanic will have slowed it's plunge to the bottom by that little effort. At this point, I'll take slowing the fall as a victory, since even that seems unreachable right now.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

Originally posted by Cuervo
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

You can tell by the lack of responses that people aren't willing to get over their egos. Half of the ones that actually did reply are simply being partisan tools.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed by the lack of response on even a theoretical level. Apparently, many seem to think they CAN achieve what they want with ONLY their own side of the spectrum working toward it.....and against the other 50% of America. We're in for a bad time ahead if it's an indication of how polarized we've really become. Perhaps we will see the U.S. Balkanize, for lack of a better word.

You know I've only made a few threads of my own here..and I've tried to carefully select the topics to be of the uplifting or constructive variety as much as possible.....and then see them all but ignored outright. I guess if I could find another newly discovered Comet to replace Elenin for #1 on the fear list, I'd be famous and have a thread to save for posterity. Sad......

I have a feeling people will turn out en masse to watch the final splat when they couldn't have even been bothered to vote, let alone hold a protest sign for ANY cause.

The reason why the Tea Party will never unite with the OWS, even to achieve some limited goals, is because the OWS movement is bent on furthering a socialist agenda (bigger government, wealth redistribution, unfair taxation, etc, etc,). Why do you think all these angry people started their own movement rather than just joining the Tea Party? They absolutely despise the Tea Party and limited government. They are fighting against corporatism yet they want it replaced with another collectivist economic system (socialism) which will not fix anything. Check out this article I posted in a thread a yesterday: endoftheamericandream.com... that-every-american-should-know

Besides, the Tea Party is much bigger and much stronger than the OWS crowd and has been very successful in getting conservatives elected throughout the country. They don’t need the OWS crowd to be successful. We had 1.5 – 2 million people at the 9/12/09 Tea Party rally in DC and continue to gain support today. The turnout at OWS is a far cry from that regardless what they’d have you believe. I’ve never seen more than a few thousand at any OWS rally. The reason for the low turnout is they turn people off with their alternative. Complaining and protesting doesn’t solve anything. You have to have good alternative ideas and solutions to be taken seriously and OWS doesn’t have any.

reply to post by seabag

I wish you had come back and said something different.. Almost anything else would have made me feel better. I suppose I'm not shocked, but I was hoping. It isn't a slight against you, as it would seem you are squarely in the middle for the Tea Party side of the equation here.

If things are as you say and we basically have an even split in our nation between two sides which absolutely will not work together on even the smallest items or goals, then we have 1861 on steroids just waiting for the trigger event to start the party.

I can't say I haven't found the same intractable attitude toward Tea Partiers among the OWS folks I talked to. A true contempt and hatred.....was generally what I'd found, although there were exceptions. Similar to my own feelings, some people were open to collaboration for common goals. Not nearly enough I fear.

Well, here is hoping cooler heads prevail at some point before everyone just loses it one of these days over an event that in normal times, wouldn't have rated the chain of events it may trigger now.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I'm sorry to disappoint. Look, I share your desire to have all Americans come together to address the nations problems. The reality is there are huge fundamental differences of opinion as I've outlined. Yes, our country is split down the middle. There is a constitutional path and a path socialism. I obviously favor the Constitutional path. Meanwhile, the people in power will try to highjack any movement and use it to further their agenda (like Obama and the liberals are doing now with OWS) and the real problems will remain unaddressed.

It's sad, and I wish I had the answers. Like many people I've chatted with on ATS, I'm doing my best to find those answers. The more we discuss it the better our chances are of finding that middle ground.