First the Occupy Wall Street protesters were ignored. Then they were lambasted by the right wing. After that, they were embraced by the media. And now the Democratic Party is trying to co-opt them.
My advice to the unidentifiable leadership of this organic, unorganized grass roots protest?
Don't let them do it!
Don't allow the weak, knuckleheaded boobs in the Democratic Party do to you what the knuckleheaded boobs in the Republican Party did to the Tea Party.
In the beginning, I believed in the Tea Party. There are some facets and individuals involved in that movement that I support even today.
But when they sold out wholesale to the Republicans more than a year ago? I lost my respect for them and gave up on them as a legitimate, groundbreaking organization of substance.
Today, under the GOP leadership, they have completely lost their way.
I'd be willing to wager that a good 40 percent of the people who either belong to or support the Tea Party don't even know what "TEA" originally stood for.
It was "Taxed Enough Already," a sentiment that is worthy of embrace by almost every American on the continent.
In the beginning, the group was deliberately and pointedly non-partisan, holding politicians accountable on both sides of the aisle for the out-of-control spending and high taxes.
So who got the tax breaks?
The corporations and the rich.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party appears to have given up on that cause and embraced an easier message spoon-fed to them by their GOP puppet masters: "Get rid of Obama."
What does Obama have to do with this country's out-of-control spending? That problem was here long before Obama got into office, and continues unabated under the de facto rule of the GOP in the Senate and the actual Republican majority in the House.
The Repubs want to play shell games and blame the problem on "socialist programs." Really? Which ones? You mean Medicare? Social Security? Sorry, those programs were here long before Obama showed up. In fact, the big growth in Medicare came not under a Democrat, but under George W. Bush, who approved the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act in 2003.
Since Jan. 20, 2009, I challenge you to find a single "socialist" program that has been enacted. The only thing the right wing can point to is Obama's idiotic Health Care Reform (which doesn't provide any of those three things - health, care, or reform). What they forget is that, since President Spineless caved and removed the "public option" from the new law, there's nothing socialist about it.
But when it comes to government deficits and unbridled spending, the elephant in the room (pardon the pun, 'Publicans) is the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. Somehow, the Tea Party always forgets that it was a Republican who picked those two coffer-draining fights. You want to blame Obama for something? Blame the rat bastard for lying and not getting us OUT of those two messes like he promised in 2008. According to recent news reports, even the troops are questioning whether these two ongoing wars are worth the lives and money being squandered on the two battle fronts with no winnable solution in sight.
Obama lied to the American people about ending the Iraq war and pulling our troops out. According to the Brookings Institute, as of June 30, 2011, there are still 44,000 American troops in Iraq. You want to whale on Obama? There is a legitimate reason. His lack of action is almost as unconscionable and unforgivable as Bush's decision to get us into Iraq.
Someday, I'm hoping the Tea Party will return to its non-partisan roots (hint - that means lunatic GOP darlings like Sarah Palin won't be the keynote speaker at their "non-partisan" rallies). When that day comes, I'll go back to being a Tea Party supporter.
In the meantime, I'm trying to be optimistic that this new Occupy Wall Street group will do a better job of standing up to corporations and rich campaign donors who have been manipulating the two-party system for decades. That means they'll have to resist the charms of left wing nutjobs like Democratic congressmen Charles Rangel and Keith Ellison.
The last thing the Occupy movement needs is to fall prey to partisan politics and become the extreme mouthpiece for the Democrats, the way the Tea Party has for the Republicans. Just like the GOP, which needed the growing momentum of the Tea Party to become relevant in 2010, the Democrats want to suck some of the go juice from the burgeoning Occupy movement to give themselves some badly needed momentum for the looming 2012 elections.
When you think about it, the moves by both major parties are truly sad, and indicative of how far politics in America has fallen. Those politicians from both parties used to be referred to as "leaders." Now, they're just finding fast-moving parades and jumping in front of them to give the appearance that they are leading. They're not.
You want proof?
According to a recent Rasmussen Report poll, 33% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters. (40% have no opinion, and 27% have an unfavorable opinion).
By comparison, a recent ABC poll shows that only 14% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Congress, and 82% disapprove of the job Congress has been doing.
That means the Occupy movement, filled with what Fox News characterizes as slackers and lazy out of work bums, is twice as popular as Congress after only being in existence for three weeks.
To the protestors and supports of the Occupy Wall Street movement that has now moved to Main Street in a number of states, the message is clear (even if your demands aren't...yet):
Stay pure.
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