Why Occupy Could Make You Miss the Tea Party

As the Occupy Wall Street movement has already stretched beyond the limits of Manhattan and is now a global sensation, there’s the inevitable chatter about what this means amid global concerns about a new recession.  Perhaps, for the first time since the Arab spring revolutions, there is a nagging sense that this could be something bigger and much more troublesome.  It’s only the sense rather than a full blown conversation at the moment.

For one thing, the brand itself forebodes something ominous.  The word “Occupy” reminds one of Israeli troops occupying the Gaza Strip; the lexicon in this movement already hints at a mass flare-up over the horizon.  It’s aggressive.  It’s angry.  It’s fed-up.  It’s the unapologetic scream and middle-finger on blast.  A collective “stick-it-to-the-man” that one can easily predict will make everyone else miss the Tea Party.

In some ways, it stands in similarity and contrast to the non-violence route of a legend who’s memorial is being officially dedicated on the same exact weekend that Occupy goes on world tour.

But, folks are definitely wondering if we’re witnessing the emergence of London riots 3.0.  Already, New York City police ended up standing down from what could have been a violent confrontation between authorities and protestors camped out at Zucotti Park; the real estate firm that owns the property claimed they were threatened by unnamed city officials – perhaps members of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration who realized this thing is blowing up.

It’s already getting violent in Rome, where a peaceful protest that stretched for miles suddenly turned into a free-for-all clash between participants and police with a building burned down and dozens of injuries.  Naturally, there’s nervous tension in the air, the worry that Occupy has somehow stirred the lull of those who were hoping to wallow in middle-class denial and withdrawal from the realities of recession.  Suddenly, the pain of the unemployed and economically challenged is in our face. Those faceless neighbors that had to move out due to foreclosure – sorry: they suddenly have a face.

Another question is how this plays out politically.

While it’s easy for the financial class, Wall Street money managers and conservative contrarians to either privately or actively dismiss Occupy as “… a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” (quoting one unidentified hedge fund manager in the New York Times), no one wants to admit that it’s a both scary and promising.  Scary because it is composed of quite a few long-term unemployed folks who have nothing to lose; promising because there is the potential of a movement that cuts across class, racial, generational and ideological lines in a way that causes people to agree on one common cause: quality of life.

A 51-year old Herbert Haberl of Berlin put it best: “I have no problem with capitalism. I have no problem with a market economy. But I find the way the financial system is functioning deeply unethical . We shouldn’t bail out the banks. We should bail out the people.”

There is a remote wonder that if it keeps growing, it could be one of those tipping points that fundamentally changes the meaning of capitalism and how the economy functions.

The unfortunate thing is that media characterizations of Occupy are already falling into the easy compare/contrast journalism template of left vs. right.  This is both a reflection of lazy reporting and an unwillingness to get to the real bottom of what’s happening and who’s doing it.  The potential of a truly collective movement is lost on the belief that Occupy is simply leftist ranting from sore loser progressives.

Rather than Obama Administration officials recognize the economic distress behind the Occupy movement and seek ways to prevent it from exploding into something more dangerous, the Washington Post reports a punt to re-election campaign strategists who are looking for ways to exploit it as the anti-Romney.  It’s a rather cynical political strategy that acknowledges the only road to re-election for the President is to promote himself as the lesser of two evils against a presumed Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is a BFF of the financial industry. Remember: “Corporations are people, my friend.  Human beings, my friend.”  That’s gonna be one of the hottest political attack ads of 2012.

However, there are multiple risks involved with that approach.  The President must avoid giving the impression that he’s faking the funk or engineering a contrived political alignment with Occupy protesters; thoughts of “Hope” and “Change” from 2008 are distant memories.  He’s now perceived as part of the problem. No amount of populist wordsmithing in speeches is going to restore the image of the first Black president as “grassroots” … just because he’s Black.  Keeping it real here, that’s what a lot of folks were thinking when they voted for him.

The other risk is that too much political alignment between Occupy and Democratic political leadership (whether it’s the White House, labor unions or other progressive fronts like Rebuild the Dream) could effectively destroy Occupy’s street cred as an authentically non-partisan, non-ideological people’s movement.  But, who knows: maybe that’s the goal.  Finding a way to harness it into an electoral tsunami in time for 2012, but stopping just short of allowing it to blossom into a full blown revolt.

Charles D. Ellison, Managing Editor for Politic365.com, Washington Correspondent for The Philadelphia Tribune and a weekly political analyst providing insight on WDAS-FM (Philadelphia), WVON-AM (Chicago) and KSRO-AM (Sonoma County, CA). He is author of the critically-acclaimed urban political thriller TANTRUM. More information can be found at http://www.cdellison.com

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7 Responses to Why Occupy Could Make You Miss the Tea Party

1. Pingback: Why Occupy Could Make You Miss the Tea Party | Jill Sloane

2. Pingback: The Tea Party is undermining its own…

3. Parker East says:

   9:15am October 18, 2011 at 9:15 am

   Here is one of my contributions to the movement…. so far. Pass it along.
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6xrMZwnS-o

   Worth watching… subscribe if you like it.
   http://www.youtube.com/user/MrParkerEast

   Reply

4. Pingback: Why Occupy Could Make You Miss the Tea Party - Jack & Jill Politics

5. RobM says:

   11:58pm October 18, 2011 at 11:58 pm

   The Dummycrats want no part of occupy. the move to triangulation ahs been proven to be a fraud. to move back there means they have lost their place in the world as they can't move right without becoming the Sturmabteilung and suffering from the inevitable night of the Long knives.
   Occupy's problem remains that they can't be an umbrella or a spoke on one. Soon they'll have to articulate what about Wall Street needs to change and why. That will be the rubber meets the road moment.

   Reply
6. Sammy says:

   1:20am October 19, 2011 at 1:20 am

   "… the Washington Post reports a punt to re-election campaign strategists who are looking for ways to exploit it as the anti-Romney".

   The Washington Post?

   A right-wing rag staffed by lapdogs, shills and knee-benders for the republican party?

   Get real.

   Reply
7. @FokkerDVII says:

   8:10pm November 6, 2011 at 8:10 pm

   Though the GOP shouldn't be allowed to run a lemonade stand, I will not repeat my mistake of voting for Obama again. All gamemanship aside, I've had it with letting the crooks empty the cupboards for the sake of appearing reasonable and genteel. These guys are NOT reasonable opponents with a plausible point of view, they're vicious and greedy and out to destroy our democracy, or what's left of it.

   Reply