Now there's an idea I bet nobody's thought of. (/s)
I was just watching the Livestream of Slavoj Zizek answering queries in Liberty Plaza in New York, and he was talking about watching the TeaParty unfold on teevee two years ago. He said he was struck by the fact that a conservative singer entertaining a TeaParty rally in Texas was saying the same things about corporate control of the political and electoral system as the Occupiers are. He urged Occupation activists to set aside their preconceptions about the TeaPartiers (well...) and listen to them carefully. There should be some way to combine forces...
The other day, there was an editorial and an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee expressing the same sentiment. The 'baggers and the Occupations were addressing the same concerns about corporate control of government, so they should combine forces.
Then I just saw a Think Progress report #OccupySacramento from Lee Fang, and he finds somebody in the crowd who's expressing the same sentiment.
I've talked to some of the folks on the ground about this pretty intense effort on the part of parts of the establishment to see the Occupations amalgamate with the Tea Parties, and to say the least, most are not amused.
Which is not to say that individuals who are disenchanted with the direction the phony-populist Tea Party movement has taken wouldn't be welcome at an Occupation. The notion of openness is taken very seriously, as is open discussion, and participatory democracy. There's no problem with a former TeaPartier speaking their mind or urging some course of action, but there can be a big problem if some of the corporate sponsors of the Tea Parties and/or their political and marketing consultants try to worm their way in to the Occupations.
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, that as long as the Occupations adhere to the principles of participatory democracy as practiced in the General Assembly process, it is impossible for any single individual or interest group to hijack the Occupations. So even if numerous former Tea Partiers were to join up with the Occupations, they couldn't take it over -- unless everyone, literally, were a Tea Partier.
Meanwhile, it's this special: The New York Times editorial board endorses #OccupyWallStreet. Wonders never cease.
(And watch out, People. This is almost as serious as getting your picture on the cover of Rolling Stone!)
Note: Geezers Rule!
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UPDATE: Jesse La Greca was on This Week today, and there was a good deal of intro video from the Sacramento Occupation. The panel of course was finding common ground between the Occupations and the Tea Partiers. I believe what we have here is a media "meme." I wonder how that happened.
Then there was the Chris Hayes gabfest with Naomi Klein, Van Jones, Maria Hinajosa, and various others.
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If you listen to the talkie-talkin, you'll realize what they're trying to do. They are trying to find some way to split off a portion of the Occupier Movement with some financial inducement, whether it is foreclosure relief or student loan relief or something that will force the movement to dissipate and eventually disband.
I'm sure this is the kind of talk that's going around through all the halls of power: "What do we have to do to kill this thing?"
Same as it ever was.
[Picked up both videos over at Digby's Place. Go give her some love. She's apparently feeling out of sorts... For those who don't know, I was "unbanned" at some point, but since I've been hammering the notion of what's really going on with the Occupations, as opposed to what the media says about them, it is taken as some sort of a threat by the Powers That Be yonder. Bizarre.]
What an appalling idea. Merging the Occupy Wall Street movement with the tea party? Are they serious?
ReplyDeleteMerge anti-capitalists with hard-core capitalist lovers? Merge a movement dedicated to principles of equality and egalitarianism with far right wingers who believe in Austrian Economics, love Ayn Rand and would prefer that every last vestige of socialism be banished from the land? Merge secular humanists with theocrats?
This sounds like the same kind of idiocy that led some lefties to fall in love with the arch right-winger and darling of the "values voters" coalition, Ron Paul.
If the left falls for this shite again, that's it for me. I'm tuning out for good.
Also: And this is really important. I've been seeing all too many Dems say that the tea party started because of TARP.
ReplyDeleteNo. Wrong. Completely false.
It started for two main reasons. Obama's victory, and Santelli's rant about even the possibility that the government would help out individuals with mortgages underwater.
Tea partiers don't want the government helping out the poor, the starving, the unemployed. How on earth can this movement find common cause with people whose raison d'etre was to fight against their delusional perceptions of Obama's supposed socialism?
They rose because they saw Obama as Mao, Stalin, Lenin, et al. They were funded by the Kochs and others who saw them as the shock troops to check even the most modest and center-right of Obama's "reforms".
It is simply impossible for tea parties and Occupy Wall Street folks to inhabit the same space, from any kind of "solutions" POV, because the tea party wants a totally different nation. They want an Articles of Confederation. They want business to have free reign -- even more than it already has. They want their vision of Christianity to become far more intertwined in the every day.
Seriously. If the OWS folks think they can merge with these maniacs, they're almost as crazy as the tea partiers.
Right. I was monitoring formation of "Resistance" movements that cropped up ("spontaneously") pretty much the day after the 2008 election. They were the brainchild of a couple of hate radio personalities and were massaged by high dollar rightist political consultants. Where the initial money came from, I don't know, but they were pretty well funded from the outset, so obviously they'd been in the planning stages for some time.
ReplyDeleteAlmost immediately after the Santelli rant in February 2009 -- note the date, a week or two after the inauguration -- all these "Resistance" outfits disappeared and were replaced with TeaParty outfits. They were, of course, the same thing rebranded, with the same leadership and membership, but now with a less shall we say "foreign" aspect. Now they were All American and only out to Protect the Constitution (from that Black Commie squatting in the White House, of course, same rhetoric as before.)
It was all very slick.
Then the big money arrived and the buses were running 24/7.
It looks like the R Powers want to dump what's left of the 'baggers on the Occupations, call them all rabble, and toss them into the ocean (or those FEMA camps!) They're getting a lot of help from the media. A lot.
There's already a modest 'bagger presence at Occupations, usually without incident; they just become part of the pageant. And from what I hear, individual 'baggers wouldn't be run off unless they weren't adding anything to the whole. Anyone who storms around with a gun on show or advocates even slightly for violence, for example, is not going to be welcome, and he or she will know it right quick.
The trains of thought are going off in all sorts of directions right now as Occupations are still forming and beginning or continuing work on their own Declarations. Hard to say where -- or if -- it will settle. The Declaration Drafts I've seen are focused on corporate influence and control; social justice and economic issues seem to be back burnered -- except for student debt and foreclosures.
It's a shame they have been put on the back shelf. They're at the heart of this, and they inform all of the specifics, like student loans and foreclosures.
ReplyDelete. . . .
If it's not apparent yet, I hope it will be apparent to them down the line. The baggers want a totally different world than the OWS movement is shooting for. It's not on the same planet.
Boiled down: If the baggers aren't already in the plutocracy, they want a clear path to get there. We, OTOH, want an end to the plutocracy, period.
Baggers don't want to help college students get cheaper loans by removing banks from the transactions. They see that as "socialism". They want private companies to have even more control than they do already. Baggers flipped out when they thought there would be even mild tinkering with our health care system, because they saw it as asking them to pay for the health care of the undeserving. Same with the idea of "cramdowns" for underwater mortgages.
Sheeesh. Life is complex and full of nuances, obviously. But, in this case, the differences are stark raving clear. Baggers are in direct opposition to everything we stand for, and vice versa.