NYT- "Wall St. Protest Isn’t Like Ours, Tea Party Says"

[XanaDUer]

At a Republican candidate forum outside Fort Worth last week, a Tea Party activist turned Senate candidate proclaimed the Occupy Wall Street protesters “unemployed, uneducated and uninformed.” To which the conservative radio host moderating the panel added, mirthfully, “This is the first occupation many of these people have seen in years.”

In fact, the two movements do share key traits. They emerged out of nowhere but quickly became potent political forces, driven by anxiety about the economy, a belief that big institutions favor the reckless over the hard-working, grievances that are inchoate and even contradictory, and an insistence that they are “leaderless.” “End the Fed” signs — and even some of those yellow Gadsden flags — have found a place at Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protests alike.

Where they differ is in where they place the blame. While Occupy forces find fault in the banks and super-rich, the Tea Party movement blames the government for the economic calamity brought on by the mortgage crisis, and sees the wealthy as job creators who will lift the country out of its economic malaise. To them, the solution is less regulation of banks, not more.

MORE - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/us/politics/wall-st-protest-isnt-like-ours-tea-party-says.html?src=recg

[Liberal Veteran]

1. LOL - What next? "Diversity Festival not like ours, KKK says."

Sorta the point that while the Tea Party is serving the interests of the 1% and is bankrolled by big money, OWS is about the other 99%.

[XanaDUer]

2. Lol!

Also, lots more people show up to OWS meetings.

[enough]

3. ! (nt)

[newspeak]

4. and yours is a faux astroturf, monied by some of the rich and powerful

your corporate owners love that you protest less government, so they can screw you even more. What a bunch of corporate tools.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. I imagine in private, their corporate masters refer to the tea party as "useful idiots".

[Kurovski]

21. DUzy!

LOL, liberal Veteran.

[2pooped2pop]

5. Yeah, they aren't the same.

Ours is real

[EFerrari]

7. That article is horrendous.

lol

TPTB desperate to define and to demonize OWS.

[XanaDUer]

9. That means they're afraid. nt.

[EFerrari]

10. They better be. They're an inch away from an uprising here. nt

[sixmile]

8. Here's the pith of the marrow:

The right blames Washington - the Left blames Wall Street

They're both right.

[Bjorn Against]

11. Actually the left blames both government and Wall Street

The right blames only the parts of government they don't like and ignores Wall Street and the big government military that they love.

The left blames both Wall Street and the government that Wall Street has bought.

[RandomKoolzip]

14. No, actually, the left is right. It usually is.

If the right was right about something, it'd be startling news.

[sixmile]

17. OMG! Your username!

I absolutely LOVE IT!

I'll say nothing more but "good news boy, Klong wasted the Pussycat..."

[RandomKoolzip]

20. Nice! "He's a forty year-old potato in a trick suit...."

Police Street - it's the worst street in town, it's so bad.

[booley]

12. No they are not the same, thank the Gawds

Though I can see how some would think they would be.

The TP started because of the anger at being screwed over.

But if it ever had a chance to do any good, it was done away with by how quickly it became co-opted by the very people doing the screwing. Today the TP is about deflecting blame away from those who control the lever of power to bully the servants of the super rich, the politicians, even further so none of them ever think of getting out of line.

I do not know if OWS will get co-opted. I fervently hope not. But at least so far it has avoided the obvious selling out and risen to prominence without self interested billionaire sugar daddies.

[DirkGently]

13. We have fewer guns strapped to our legs, no corporate bus. Fewer burning effigies.

[XanaDUer]

22. Fewer misspelled signs, too. nt.

[kentuck]

15. The Tea Party was co-opted by the Republicans

and they know it. They were played for fools.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. Maybe OWS should ask Dick Armey if he will spring for a fleet of those nifty tour busses...

[ohheckyeah]

18. At least

the OWS protesters know how to spell. Uneducated? Like the Tea Party protesters are? LOL Tea Party is mostly a bunch of rednecks that can't spell redneck.

[XanaDUer]

19. To me the TPers seem more like older white middle-class

Folks who want the "old America" back. Although their spelling is atrocious.