Stop comparing OWS to the Tea Party!

[ChillbertKChesterton]

The corporate shills in the media, as well as many posters here on DU, keep comparing the OWS protests to the Tea Party.

Questions are being asked such as: How can OWS make political action similar to the Tea Party? When will the OWS protests be declared a victory? The Tea Party got legislation pushed into congress, what does OWS need to do the same? ect. ect.

There is a crucial fundamental difference between these two movements that cannot be overlooked:

the Tea Party supports the current power structure, supports the current plutocracy, wants the wealthy to get wealthier, and is all around a pro-corporate organization. The interests of the Tea Party line up perfectly with the interests of the powers that be. The Tea Party was pro-establishment, pro-elites, and their ideas line up with the ideas of BOTH political parties.

The Occupy Wall Street protests run against the current, they criticize the current power structure, they want to change the system that benefits the elite class at the expense of most people, they are anti-establishment, and their ideas challenge the corporate agendas of both parties.


OF COURSE the Tea Party was able to become a mainstream political movement in congress, because the congress already supported their ideas, big money supports their ideas, they are the status quo. Anyone who wants to support the current power structure can get to high places very fast.


OWS cannot become a liberal Tea Party, and the protesters should not fall into the trap of comparing themselves to the Tea Party. Neither should people here at DU.

Do not try to make OWS more mainstream, bring the mainstream over to OWS.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

1. Fox News is running spots asking "Is OWS becoming the Tea Party of the left?"

This is a sign!

Fox News is so effectively dangerous not because they tell people the wrong answers to their questions (giving them wrong opinions), but because they ask the wrong questions, effectively framing how the discussion is to be thought about to begin with.

The result of wrong questions is you are allowed to argue all day, you are allowed to think this or that, and you can have a "fair and balanced" debate with two opposing sides, all the while entirely misperceiving the situation. Effectively, with a wrong question, every answer is flawed.

[dkf]

2. Where is OWS?

Yeah they are unhappy with CEOs. Then what? Do they believe in legislation or do they want to overthrow the system? How can the mainstream move over to OWS if they don't know where that is? Is the point to simply be mad?

Politics makes sense as an end point. Other than that I don't get it.

[Kennah]

4. Gandhi's message to the British was simply: Get the fuck out

The problem was simple. The British were occupying India and they needed to get the fuck out.

One aspect of the OWS message is simple: to the corporations, get the fuck out of politics. However, OWS is objecting to a myriad of issues in which people rightly see a huge injustice and imbalance throughout our society. Narrowly defining an end point let's politicians on both sides, and corporate influences, say to OWS, "We hear you, go home, we got this." That should not be an acceptable answer.

[catabryna]

5. +99 nt

[dkf]

6. It's funny that we think we have more ability to influence corporations than politicians.

Sad too.

[Kennah]

8. The reactions now hitting the MSM are very telling

Corporate interests and the corporate owned media are starting to get that this OWS thing isn't just going to go away. That has to scare them shitless, because they know it could mean the beginning of the end of corporate reign in America.

[dkf]

9. In all honesty I am looking around me and wondering which things I have due to corporations.

Would it really be so much of a triumph if my life was empty of these things?

I like what corporations produce.

[Kennah]

11. Straw man argument

I'm not saying there should be NO corporations. I'm saying that corporations have too much influence, they are not sufficiently regulated, and they aren't people.

[dkf]

12. That's all about corporations and government. Geez.

Really you aren't anti corporate you are anti pathetic government.

[Kennah]

14. It's a positive feedback loop between government and corporations

Neither by itself is responsible and each feeds upon the other.

Corporate interests move into government, back into the corporate world, then back again to government.

Remember Wendy Gramm, wife of Phil Gramm, of Gramm-Leach-Bliley notoriety? Too big to fail banks weren't just deregulated because of weak government. They sought deregulation and got it.

[dkf]

15. Nope that is weak government.

I don't know how it can be defined in any other way.

[Kennah]

16. Began with the corporatization of the government, noteably with Reagan

Corporations aren't innocents in the weakening of the government.

[dkf]

18. Our problem is the people we elect to congress period.

They don't all have to be left or right but they do need to put the overall needs of the people before anything else.

At least the Fed has a mandate...maximum employment and Stable prices.

I wonder what our reps think their duty is.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

21. If you don't look at the influence of money in politics, then you are left only with empty idealism

"the reps should represent the people! it's not about left or right!"

:rolleyes:

campaign finance, lobbying, and a revolving door between big business and the government come before all of that.

[Kennah]

24. The corporatization of government reached it's zenith with Citizens United

The people we elect are the people that MONEY elects.

Their duty? Well, I'd say to re-election and their corporate donors.

[dkf]

25. Geez I am the idealistic one? How depressing.

[Kennah]

27. On both points, I have to completely agree with you.

[JDPriestly]

22. dkf, it isn't about getting rid of corporations.

It is about getting corporations out of politics, getting big money out of politics. We don't need it. Corporations and big money are destroying our democracy.

It's fine if corporations stick to doing what they do well -- producing goods that we use.

But corporations should not be paying politicians to pass laws that favor the corporate interests and hurt us.

Corporations are fine except when they cause and feed corruption in our government and other institutions.

[dkf]

29. I agree. In a way this is dissing our reps.

We are going to the corporations instead of those we vote for.

[JDPriestly]

30. Our reps deserve to be dissed as do our corporations.

Both are incredibly corrupt. We will not have a representative democracy very long unless we clean it up.

Personally, I think representative democracy is our only hope, so I really want to see it cleaned up. End the corruption.

[Enthusiast]

28. Wonderful post, Kennah.

You have it nailed.

[Marr]

10. I'm not surprised that you don't get it. n/t

[dkf]

13. In the end it's people complaining about the government.

That is what I get.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

19. The government is part of the problem

but if you zoom in too close to a single detail, you lose sight of the entire picture

[ChillbertKChesterton]

17. Real politics is about change, it's a debate about real potential for somethiing different

Sometimes real politics must occur outside of the 'official political arena'.

When both political parties have sold out to wealthy corporate oligarchs, there is no politics. There is petty arguing about mostly insignificant details and identity causes, while the real structures, be they political, economic, or social never change.

Mainstream American politics is not real politics, it's the petty shallow garbage that you see on CNN. Mainstream America is largely non-political, they do not question the power structure, they are largely ignorant of the scope of wealth and power inequality, they are ignorant about issues of power, they have no sense of history.

If you want real politics to become "politically possible", then you need to move the mainstream discussion away from stupid identity politics and ignorant bickering, and focus on the important issues.

This is what OWS has the potential to do. It's bringing awareness to the problems that mainstream politics either ignores or treats as unsolvable because of the "political realities". It forces people to open up discussion what previously was not up for discussion.

Outrage is legitimate, even without a main-streamed "end point". As long as the system is fucked up, the people should be upset. You don't need to have all the solutions to have the right to object to a problem. You don't need the answers in order to ask questions.

[JDPriestly]

20. DKF, based on your prior posts, I'm not surprised that you are confused

Stay that way. Don't try to understand. You won't possibly be able to understand because you operate on different premises, different assumptions than the OWS.

The concept of the OWS is just too complex for you.

[pacalo]

26. Everything they are protesting is what we've been complaining about for the past 11 years.

Here's a good primer; Michael Moore states their mission very eloquently on the Larry O'Donnell show this evening. Plus, Larry shows a 30-second commercial made by the OWS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x624974

[Kennah]

3. Tea Party is a religious faction within the Republican Party

If OWS were a liberal Tea Party, then they would be, what, a secular faction within the Democratic Party?

That assessment could be further from the truth.

[OHdem10]

7. Bring Back the Dream is organizing and may become the

Liberal Answer to the Tea Party--Van Jones. This means the 99%ers
maintain a separate identity and goals.

[AntiFascist]

23. Very well said...

the Tea Party is more like an American version of al Qaida - a way of corralling dissent into something productive for the domestic PTB. I can see why the OWS movement might be scarey in that the PTB doesn't know how to handle it or where it may lead.