The dichotomy between the treatment of the 'Occupy Wall St' movement and the previous Tea Party protests is truly astonishing. It just goes to show how corrupt the state has become -  a blunt reminder that the government no longer works for the people but for corporate power and elite interests. One movement seeks to protect the interests of the rich, while the other seeks to redress economic inequality and corporate malfeasance. The state leaves the Tea Party protesters alone and subjects the anti Wall St protesters to random violence and intimidation.

The sad thing is that the policemen responsible for harassing the Wall protesters is that they too are victims of the financial sectors greed and criminality. The financial crisis plunged the economy into a deep recession making state governments slash their policing budgets and attack public pensions.

The US is still suffering from the 60's culture wars, a lingering identity crisis that pits Left vs Right in terms that no longer really exist. While the police may be identified as blue collar workers and the protesters as liberal college dropouts, the truth is that both are at the bottom of a system designed to prevent their social mobility and economic security.

The corporate state fears the public's understanding of these basic truths and is content to pit one side against the other – until we realize that our problems are the same and solidarity trumps division and fear.

Subscribe

Ben Cohen's feed

Enter email below:

Matt Taibbi speaks to Don Imus about the problems the 'Occupy Wall St' movement is having articulating their cause and makes some suggestions as to what could be realistically achieved. Taibbi also discusses the possibility that not having a set of objectives might actually be a good thing in the long run, as long as the movement keeps growing:

Subscribe

Ben Cohen's feed

Enter email below:

Andrew Sullivan provides the conservative rationale for backing the 'Occupy Wall St' movement that looks like it is here to stay:

I've arrived at the conclusion these past few years that the kind of fantastic income and wealth inequalities in this country (and the trends that keep reinforcing them) are a threat to our political and social order. The massive concentration of wealth at the top is undermining some core assumptions about common citizenship, even within a free market economy, especially since much of the wealth seems acquired by accounting chicanery, crony capitalism and a K-Street fix. As such, conservatives should be worrying about inequality as much as liberals. So far, this is largely a peaceful, groovy, inchoate protest against the right target: the concentration of wealth in the financial sector and its immunity from any kind of social or political accountability for its role in the unending recession in people's incomes. I see nothing more culturally out there in these protests that were not in the Tea Party protests – from the other side. One man's nose-ringed hippie is another woman's costumed Tea Partier.

There is nothing conservative about the economic system most Americans live under. It is a debt based, consumer driven system with no thought for prudence or fiscal planning. To boot, the rich are protected by the nanny state while the rest live under a brutalist free black hole where those who lose die.

'Occupy Wall St' should be joined by anyone disturbed by monumental corruption and corporate malfeasance regardless of political labels.

Subscribe

Ben Cohen's feed

Enter email below:

A Tea Party member left the following rant on one of Chez Pazienza's pieces about the lunacy of GOP economics (a piece well worth reading by way):

One common thread seen in liberal blogs is confusion and rage. I felt that way too in my twenties when I had no idea how the world worked and was pissed I wasn't being handed out free money.

And in this liberal blog like all the rest we see that same rage reflected, and understandably.

Since few of the commenters here – and certainly not the writer – are interested in free market economics, it follows that you're not interested in what screws up free market economics, are you?

Instead you rail against those of us who pay your bills under that system, and that we're not paying you enough.

We on the right were all just like you once, and are happy to pay your bills only to the point that you learn how to do it yourself.

You can even call us greedy when we keep a little of our earnings for ourselves."

– Todd Dunning

Never one to shy away from a good verbal fisticuff, Chez replied with the following withering put down:

It might be a good idea, Todd, that before you begin criticizing the supposed rage-filled rants of others you do your homework and not make your own blanket assumptions about the people your diatribes are aimed at. I can't speak for everyone on this particular thread — although I do know the backgrounds of one or two people here — but I haven't been some doe-eyed kid in almost two decades, at least. I'll be 42 in December and trust me when I tell you I have a damn good idea how the world works. I've earned a very nice living throughout my life and continue to do better than a lot of people. You're not providing the financial charity without which I and at least a good portion of the readers here wouldn't be able to speak our minds. So please spare me the tired maxim that if you're a conservative at 20 you have no heart and if you're a liberal at 40 you have no brain. I guarantee you you're not the one and only "adult" in the room, as you seem to condescendingly believe you are. Thanks for being the very sort of cliché you conveniently decry, though.

I still find it amazing that semi-intelligent people can latch on to the Tea Party philosophy. It is so obviously idiotic that it must take wilful ignorance to fight the cause in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. The more the government cuts, the worse the economy gets, yet Tea Party activists insist that overreaching government is the cause of the nation's problems. Obama passed the one of largest tax cuts in US history, yet the Tea Party believes he is a socialist. Taxation as a whole is at a 60 year low, yet Tea Party activists yearn for the days of Ronald Reagan (when taxes were higher).

It's madness, and given reason doesn't work, the only thing left to do is laugh at them.

Subscribe

Ben Cohen's feed

Enter email below: