Occupy Wall Street's statement

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I think we actually agree on this - their lack of a coherent, unified message or statement is how they are almost identical to the tea party. The other similarity being how ill-informed most in the movement are.

 

Ill informed? I wouldn't say so, as a general whole. Granted, there are always going to be nutjobs in any large grouping of people, but I don't think they are representative of the whole.

As for their message, it's basically about income inequality and the plutocracy that has come out of it. I would say they are diametrically opposed to the Tea Party in just about every issue.

 

What's your source for this info? I would like to see the data, if you can provide it.

 

They probably have some that are like that, but what makes you think they are even a large minority, nevermind more? The (right-wing) media loves to not take them seriously. imo .

 

From a quick Google serch

There was also a great article in the Boston Herald about this, but I couldn't find it quickly.

EDIT

Occupy Wall Street Protesters stay at $700 a night hotel

 

So 2 checked into expensive hotel rooms and <10% of those arrested have rich parents. 10% is many? Even if they were rich kids, does that mean that their opinions and actions are worth less? I mean, we know that the actual poor are already ignored, but should we ignore those who emulate poverty as well?

 

The media focus appears to be on those arrested and the more affluent students showing up at demonstrations. I still remember the conservative outrage on this board and the dozens of posts that followed when the same was said of those "middle-aged white boys" who made up the tea potters. All the comments about "rich white kids" coming from the same group now have a particular hollow ring to them.

 

Funny, I don't remember that. Why would Tea Party supporters be upset about being called middle aged (most taxpayers are) ?

 

I think they are. I think you are the exception - or outside the norm at the very least. Maybe they have some deep-rooted conviction that they just aren't very good at putting into words, but more likely they don't understand all the issues at hand.

And while I agree that their views are very different from the Tea Party, their actions and their information consumption of the issues are nearly identical. (And in case it wasn't obvious - I have a rather low opinion of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements.)

 

I'm not sure. Of course, I don't have any personal contact with the OWS people, but in my experience radicals and nutjobs tend to attract disproportionate media and social attention, because they are the ones that do crazy stuff - the kind that makes good news or good gossip. As for whether the people protesting understand all the issues, once again that depends. I'd say that the majority doesn't have a great grasp, but aren't totally ignorant either. The point is, they are speaking for a certain viewpoint - one that hasn't been taken up all that often in polite circles, and has often been marginalized as a "radical" one. I think it is a point that should be mentioned more often, and might not be so outlandish as often thought.

Now, since this is a more or less open movement, you have all manner of people with all manner of lifestyles or viewpoints that can (and do) go there and try to get a few minutes of fame. Some may well be rich or at least well off (btw, does coming from a family making 200k per year count as rich or middle-class?), they can still support at least some of the things the other people are calling for. From what I can tell, this isn't some kind of Maoist movement shouting "Death to Capitalist Pigs".

 

This is a rather hard thing to debate since you can't really know for yourself unless you go down there, because like Shaman said the media disproportionately picks up on the crazies. I will say though, that even if they are ill-informed I agree with their basic sentiment and think they are doing something very worthwhile.

 

Oh, no doubt they think they are doing something worthwhile - otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. However, much like the Tea Partiers, other than making news cycles they likely won't affect any type of policy change. So unless you get something changed, affect the outcome of an election, or otherwise have some tangible benefit, are you really doing something worthwhile? Or, to put it another way, is a principled stand enough for something to be worthwhile?

 

Ask Rosa Parks.

It often takes time for the full impact of a particular action to be felt.

 

I think the Tea Party did have some impact, in that it helped shape the (GOP) political discourse for the 2010 elections and generally contributed to electing more radical candidates than we might have otherwise seen. It is possible that the OWS movement have similar impact - I think there were some studies that issues such as income inequality were mentioned more often recently. I'd say it could do at least as much if it had someone to hype it the way Fox hyped TP, but no such luck .

A principled stand is certainly worthwhile; the question is how influential it turns out to be. We have yet to see how that plays out.

 

True - but IMO, that's not a terribly accurate comparison. The civil rights movement lasted for a couple decades and involved millions of people. OWS has been going on for a couple of months, and numbers in the thousands.

Well, I think the GOP hierarchy wasn't thrilled with some of those elections. Sure, it worked at the time, but those are seats that they stand to lose this election. A more traditional candidate might have had more staying power. But I concede the larger point - we have to see how this plays out before making firm conclusions.

 

I don't think merely thousands is an accurate number any more. The protests have spread to many major cities, colleges, and even other countries like Europe and Canada. I think it would be more accurate to say tens or even hundreds of thousands at this point.

 

The European Union, with it's constitution, central bank, courts, and parliament, could almost be considered a country. So there

 

A pretty big "almost," I'd say. A pseudo-constitution that few people know and fewer care about, a monetary policy body almost half of the EU doesn't care about (not every EU country adopted the Euro) and fewer have any good word for, and an elected assembly treated as an afterthought don't really go all that far in remedying the fact that these are countries that, until a few decades ago, treated each other as "the other", defined themselves as exceptional and special, and whose history included centuries of (often armed) struggle against their neighbors.

 

But what do they actually want to have happen? Do they want all rich people to walk out into the street and throw their money into the air?