Occupy Wall Street last night outside Cipriani's, where New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was at a gala dinner (Photo: J.B. Nicholas/Splash News)
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Occupy Wall Street (and Beyond): Is It Now "We are the World"?
Understandably, various Tea Party and conservative groups have looked on in alarm the last few days as the Occupy Wall Street protests threaten to displace them as the "authentic" voice of citizens' dissatisfaction with politics as usual in the US.
For more than two years, the Tea Party has been able, with some justification, to claim it is speaking for a "forgotten" America, but the emergence of groups throughout the country representing the “99%” of Americans has called into question what the Tea Party were beginning to regard as their unchallenged mandate to change Washington.
As usual, some of the more reasoned Tea Party analysis of current affairs has come from its St. Louis branch, as Bill Hennessy argued, "Don't Let Occupy Wall Street Erase the Tea Party's Purpose". His main contention is that, while the Tea Party and Occupy groups share a common disdain for “crony capitalism and corporate executives who put their own wealth ahead of the country, their employees, and their customers", the Tea Party will become marginalised in national debate if all it does is rail against the “communist ideal” of Occupy Wall Street.
Hennessy, using boldtype for emphasis, contends, “If the Tea Party comes to be seen as defenders of Big Banks and bad businesses out of its opposition to Occupy Wall Street’s communist goals, we will lose our credibility.” His solution is to promote the essential point that “ the key distinction between Tea Party and Occupy is in the solution we propose, not the problems that animated us".
Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, does not share that viewpoint. In "Occupy Hypocrisy", he referenced used the "Millionaire's March" by Occupy Wall Street through the Upper East Side of New York to describe how " their outrage is selective":
Among the billionaires selected, Rupert Murdoch, Jaime Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase and David Koch. Yes, that David Koch.
OF course, they are not bothering New York Billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s house. After all, he is telling the NYPD to let the anarchists inflict themselves upon New York at a cost of millions so far. They are not going after George Soros’ home either.. Nor are they going after Jeffrey Immelt’s home either.
Phillips asserts:
Once the anarchists get to the homes of the successful, someone is going to try and whip up the crowd and someone is going to try and do some thing about the fact people like Rupert Murdoch have been successful without asking themselves why they have not been.
Beyond Phillips' dubious example of a successful businessman to defend, he continues the theme of envy with:
Did it ever occur to the socialists that the rewards of hard work and some risk taking could be great wealth?
Probably not. Most of these folks can’t even figure out getting a job is a lot easier if they shower first before a job interview.
The Tea Party Express group also does not intend to acknowledge that Occupy Wall Street, while it has different solutions than the Tea Party, is motivated by the same opposition to “crony capitalism". Their response was to send out a fundraising e-mail, because it “is important that we stand up to these comparisons and stand up for our principles. Click here to contribute!" Forgoing Hennessy's warning not to make their focus an anti-OWS stance, it thundered:
They are a disorganized unruly mob of shiftless protesters that has been reinforced by union and organized labor thugs. There were 700 arrests in New York city alone over the weekend. Their goal has been to cause as much disruption as possible and force anarchy.
Townhall.com , who describe themselves as the nation's “#1 conservative website,” have gone for a mocking rather than outraged tone. It first notes, “Perhaps these hoards of protesters really are hoping to implement lasting change into our political system. Perhaps we're stereotyping them based on footage of the especially outlandish ones that news outlets seek out for shock value." Then their reporter presents, “in the spirit of the fairness that these protesters hold so dear" a short video of some of those involved in Washington's Freedom Plaza gathering:
Voices on the left have instantly responde. On Monday, Richard Eskow at the Campaign for America's Future posted "Seven Snappy Comebacks for those Lame Anti-Occupy Talking Points": “They say, 'Oh, look. The demonstrators buy stuff from corporations!' You say, "Whaddya expect? Corporate lackeys in government have forced everybody else out of business!'”
The most barbed retort to conservative stereotypes of Occupy Wall Street in the final comeback: “They say, 'Ha ha! Look at that bearded guy in the sandals!' You say, 'Hmmm ... A bearded guy in sandals protesting the moneylenders. Where have we seen that before?'":
Think about it: A guy rides into town on a donkey. Then he says the moneyed interests are exerting too much influence on the government --- and on some of the religious elite, too. And what was that about the wealthy? Oh, yeah --- "It's easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven."
For now, and perhaps rightly, Occupy Wall Street and associated protests in most American cities are avoiding getting involved in these political arguments along the old paradigm of Left v Right and progressive v. conservative. How long they can stay in that cocoon stage of a new "idealistic" movement remains unknown. The concern is that when it does emerge --- as it will do --- as a political force, it may find that its place in the American political structure has already been determined by others.
That may be too cynical a view of the potential of Occupy Wall Street to secure a permanent change in the way American politics functions, but the implacable opposition from conservatives to their general aims is not going to disappear. Whether the Tea Party and the conservative resurgence in general is damaged, as Bill Hennessy fears, by that hostility to OWS and its "unwashed masses" will prove one of the fascinating story lines of the next year in American politics.