Are Tea Partiers Better People Than Occupiers?

Well, yes, by at least a bit, but what does that prove?

When the Tea Party movement emerged, the left launched a scurrilous campaign to vilify it. The campaign pressed two general charges: that the movement was motivated by racism and that it encouraged political violence. There was never a shred of evidence for either charge. Whatever its flaws, Tea Partiers were about as well behaved as any group of angry citizens has ever been.

Liberals certainly hoped that the Occupy Wall Street movement would become their version of the Tea Party. Conservatives quickly came to share that hope. Conservatives are reporting with glee on incidents of lawlessness and violence in OWS camps. A favorite item is that the OWS camp in Zuccotti Park, in New York City, found it necessary to set up a rape shelter for women.

Let us assume for a moment what seems likely, that a lot of scofflaws and rascals are prowling around OWS camps doing a lot of lawless and rascally things. If any Tea Party meeting had to erect a shelter against anything other than the weather, no one has reported on it.

To these eyes, this seems to be mostly a result of demographics. Tea Party attendees were mostly older Americans. They are predominantly religious and I suspect that that is especially true of the younger persons in attendance. A considerable number of Tea Party events drew from rural and small town populations. That's just not a recipe for crime and violence.

Occupiers, by contrast, tend to be young men and women. They draw from urban populations and their camps are in urban settings where the crime rate is generally the highest. The urban, activist left is, let us allow, more likely to draw young men and women with a drug problem. It is also likely that OWS sites will draw urban predators who are not especially motivated by political passion.

It's hard to blame conservatives for OWS lawlessness, given the way that the Tea Party was treated by the press. As the left used the Tea Party as a brand to discredit Republicans in general as extremists, the right was sure to follow suit. Initial public sympathy for the occupiers now seems to be turning. The OWS may prove an albatross around the neck of the left.

Still, the use of this issue to discredit the left relies as much on an ad hominem fallacy as did the left's attack on the Tea Party movement. The argument of the OWS movement is either valid or not. Unpleasant behavior has no more relevance to this than their haircuts.

Of course that assumes that the OWS has an argument, which is a dubious assumption. They have a sentiment, to be sure. Banks got bailed out, we got sold out. Nothing that has emerged from the OWS suggests a coherent set of policies. Nor has the OWS movement shown any signs of coherent political organization.

By contrast, the Tea Party movement solidified around the idea that government is going broke and has to return to fiscal responsibility. That is a coherent political position, whether or not the partiers are really prepared to follow it through. The partiers were also able to effectively organize and become the vanguard of voter blocs large enough to influence the 2010 election. The occupiers seem nowhere near that level of organization and they may well have lost their chance to lead any popular movement.

These considerations are far more relevant than the demographic distance between the two crowds.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

Here in Wisconsin the Tea Party is/was an astroturf offshoot of the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity run by Mark Block, who is now Herman Cain's campaign manager. It organized the following: (1) several small "shout down" demonstrations at town all meetings that lasted approximately two hours each and (2) a couple 2 hour demonstrations (not more than 3,000 to 4,000 thousand mostly people bused in by the Koch Brothers outfit) at the Capitol. The Tea Party movement didn't generate a mass movement, because the corporate minders of the organization didn't want that. So, the Tea Party was over in a flash and generated very little support, but lots of corporate media coverage.

Now contrast that with the birthplace of the Occupy Movement. By the second day of the protests against Scott Walker, the crowds protesting Scott Walker's war on the middle class dwarfed any of the Tea Party demonstrations, and that's true of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It's really just numbers. The Tea Party was a small group of people trotted around on corporate buses to events staged by their corporate minders for maximum national media exposure. The OWS movement are people who are doing this from the bottom up, and are generating lots more people. So we're immediately drawn to the conclusion that considerably larger numbers of people involved for considerably longer periods of time generate more problems.

[Bill Fleming]

Your point about converting grassroots energy into votes is well taken, KB.
That method will doubtless be far less disruptive than a National General Strike.

[larry kurtz]

Join us in the boycott of Koch Industries. Here is a list of their earth-destroying product lines:

http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2011/02/koch-products-boycott.html

[Anne]

As I have read in other sources, the Occupy movement's strength is in not identifying itself by organizing around a single political stance. Its operating premise is not based upon a partisan matter, but rather that the government is in a state of dysfunction because the parties are locked in a hopeless and unproductive power struggle. And that corporate power and influence held by a few extremely wealthy people who have no interests in the nation other than to exploit it are the major forces behind the deadlock. Sometimes anarchy is the only thing that can break the chains of tyranny and enforced deprivation of opportunity and hope.

[Dave]

"Its operating premise is not based upon a partisan matter, but rather that the government is in a state of dysfunction because the parties are locked in a hopeless and unproductive power struggle. AND that corporate power and influence held by a few extremely wealthy people who have no interests in the nation other than to exploit it are the major forces behind the deadlock."

Well stated!

[Stan Gibilisco]

"Sometimes anarchy is the only thing that can break the chains of tyranny and enforced deprivation of opportunity and hope."

Anne, do you think that we live in such a time right now? If so, how can we create the requisite anarchy? If anarchy is our only solution, and if we succeed in creating it, let's remember history: The results of civil chaos defy prediction. More often than not, the people ended up with something worse than what they had in the first place.

[KB]

I think Anne's comment is perfect. It rouses the emotion but has no obvious consequences. Will anarchy around the tents help repair a dysfunctional Congress or provide a remedy for inequality? No, but its more fun than working.

[lynn]

"The Tea Party was a small group of people trotted around on corporate buses to events staged by their corporate minders for maximum national media exposure. The OWS movement are people who are doing this from the bottom up, and are generating lots more people."

Wow, where do I start?? As a participant in the Tea Party, I attended rallies and meetings, drove myself, bought my own gas, paid for any expenses related to these rallies out of my own pocket, and never boarded a bus or heard of the Koch Bros at the time. The people I know who are involved in it are true grass roots. And the Tea Party participants were respectful, neat, and obeyed the laws, even obtaining and paying for permits for their short-lived rallies.

Now, let's look at the Occupiers. They are disrespectful of the police, the laws, and even their fellow occupiers; they are messy to put it mildly; drug use is rampant; rapes are evidently frequent; they obtain no permits; they refuse to leave; and they have disrupted many businesses and even caused people to lose jobs (which proves they don't really care about the "little people"). They are funded and encouraged by union organizers and even our President, and may of them are truly bussed in. Not the grassroots movement they claim to be. Some of them might have legitimate concerns, some even the same as the Tea Partiers, but if so, they are overshadowed by the lawlessness etc.

[Stan Gibilisco]

In my view, some of the Occupiers have good intent, hoping to draw attention to genuine corporate greed and political dysfunction. Others are mere hooligans looking only to bash windows, slash tires, and smash heads.

A few greedy individuals, some not even citizens of this country, hope to whip up and then take advantage of mob rule and spread anarchy throughout the United States. Then, if they get their way, they plan to move in and remake the nation in their ideological image.

It won't work.

Most of the American people can see through the puppeteers' ploy. Bill O'Reilly probably has the best take on it. (Glenn Beck takes it too far for my taste.)

The Occupiers aren't inherently evil, but the puppeteers who hope to harness their fury are, at best, seriously misguided and, at worst, would-be latter-day Lenins and Stalins and Hitlers.

Their plan won't work.

We aren't Russia circa 1915 or China circa 1945 or Germany circa 1929 (yet). However, we might be drifting toward the mentality of America circa 1775. So the Tea Partiers have the right idea, in my opinion and advocate specific action. The Occupiers are just ticked off at the world in general.

[freegandave]

I do not see a plan her that will work,the tea party is just another arm of the republican body, the occupy movement will end up violent and cause goverment growth. Individual change is the only way. We simply quit buying their shit. Shut your tv and corperate radio OFF. We do it ourselves and when we cant we barter with our local community. SUBSISTENCE IS RESISTANCE! Today's american dream refers to material prosperity while it should focus on LIBERTY witch is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions. Material gain is a fruit of liberty but how much do we really need? SUBSISTENCE IS RESISTANCE! Support local economies.If we lead the leaders will follow. Check out PERMACULTURE.
http://youtu.be/44Ug8u6rI4g
http://youtu.be/D2eq2nZ6J6g
http://youtu.be/ExBE651_vOY

[Bill Fleming]

For Stan's perusal:

http://www.alternet.org/story/152933/noam_chomsky_speaks_to_occupy%3A_if_we_want_a_chance_at_a_decent_future%2C_the_movement_here_and_around_the_world_must_grow