Solidarity

 

The two Michael Moore fans I wrote about in the previous post are probably just as disappointed as I am that our group split up and lost track of each other when we hit New York or we might have been in this picture too.  True, the tall guy second from the left’s no Michael Moore, but still.

Tim Robbins and members of Teamsters Local 445 at Occupy Wall Street, October 5, 2011.  Photo courtesy of Teamster Nation.

Karl Rove has called the Occupy movement “a weird cast of disaffected characters, ranging from anarchists and anti-Semites to socialists and LaRouchies” and said.

Rushing to identify with Occupy Wall Street could well threaten Mr. Obama’s re-election by putting off the very swing voters whom the president needs…Appearing to condone the crude personal behavior of Occupy Wall Street protesters can also further erode Mr. Obama’s standing with culturally conservative blue-collar voters.

I’d pay money to be there to hear Rove say this to the faces of some Teamsters and explain to them why they don’t count as blue-collar voters.

Lots of good stuff at the Teamster Nation blog on the union support for the Occupy movement.

Comments

[actor212]

Trivia note: Tim Robbins and I went to high school together. He was a few years behind me.

He didn't eevn have the lead in the school production of Cyrano that year. Yes, there was actually a better actor than he available. Pity he only made it to the stage. ;-)

(quick denial: it was not me)

[Earl Bockenfeld]

The Occupy Wall Street is "just / nothing" like the Tea Party!

The Tea Party movement began on Feb. 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, the CNBC financial journalist who reports from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, ranted against the government bailing out homeowners who couldn’t pay their mortgages. The teabaggers feel that their masters are benevolent, and that they are being burdened by the sheer weight of those who have no money.

Santelli was mad about bailouts alright, but not the Wall Street bailouts. What sparked his fury was the proposed plan to help average homeowners in trouble with their mortgages. An amazing statment - its OK to bail out the banks - but not ordinary people .

Santelli raved: "Do we really want to subsidise the losers' mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbour's mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It's a moral hazard."

The Occupy Wall Street protest got going two and a half years later, when editors at the anti-corporate Canadian magazine Adbusters were inspired by events in the Middle East to call for a mass demonstrationnothing against the financial industry on Sept. 19, 2011. Both are angry about what they see as economic unfairness—the Tea Party over deviations from free-market principle, the Occupiers over excessive adherence to it. Both are hostile toward society’s elite, though they define that elite differently. Both are frustrated with the American political system.

Critics of the Tea Party have been quick to point out the ways in which it has been driven from above. Fox News used its megaphone to hype and encourage the Tax Day protests that were the Tea Party’s first big outing. Its personalities Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin became darlings of the movement. Wealthy conservatives like the Koch Brothers bankrolled the Tea Party while Republican politicians tumbled over each other to suck up to it.

OWS protestors have come into conflict with the police, and been criticized for creating squalor and nuisance in Lower Manhattan. Their tactics include civil disobedience, confrontation with authority, and a willingness to get arrested — something Tea Partiers aren’t interested in doing. This has already proved effective at drawing attention and sympathy. An episode of brutality by a New York City police officer with a can of pepper spray greatly expanded the profile of protests.

Gandhi's message to the British was simply: Get the f**k out of India. One aspect of the OWS message is simple: to the corporations, get the f**k out of politics. However, OWS is objecting to a myriad of issues in which people rightly see a huge injustice and imbalance throughout our society.

Tea Party supporters should want Liberty from Wall Street corruption as much as Occupy Wall Street supporters do.

Here's how Goldman Sachs took over an education company and turned it into a vehicle for churning predatory, fraudulent loans. These men are not educators, they're pirates. A Predatory Pursuit Of Students And Revenues ... Using exactly the same predatory tactics they used with home mortgage loans. 'Reckless Endangerment': An Exclusive Excerpt From Gretchen Morgenson And Joshua Rosner's New Book

The global economic crisis today is a direct result of the bankers capturing the machinery of governments. The Quiet Coup

I think many and most of Americans have had the creeping feeling the economic deck is stacked against them. We just differ in why/how we deal with it. If one is to take Tea Partiers at their word, they have thrown in with Wall Street and the Occupiers are their enemy. They are already organised around opposing them. The Occupy Wall Street movement does not see the world in such terms. If they are lucky, some of the formerly hostile salt-of-the-earth working folk who might have opposed them on cultural grounds in the past have been radicalised by Wall Street's greed and will join the occupation.

But I wouldn't count on too many of them. This is a political and cultural fault line that runs deep. But then again, in this polarised country, all it takes is a few to cross over and make a majority.

[Gary Farber]

I’d pay money to be there to hear Rove say this to the faces of some Teamsters and explain to them why they count as blue-collar voters.

Did you mean "why they don't count"? Or am I being slow?

[Lance Mannion]

Gary, what you're being is sharper eyed than I was. Yep, I meant to include the "don't". I fixed it. Thanks for catching it.