The Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street
So, a crowd of “occupy Wall Street” cry-babies surged past my office in New York late yesterday afternoon, shouting, banging on drums, blowing whistles, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. The police, which had lined the sidewalks with parade gates, looked bored. My colleagues at The New Criterion and Encounter, peering out of the windows as the menagerie passed, seem to regard the spectacle with a combination of bemusement and contempt. One of my New Criterion colleagues sent along this message:
“Guess it wasn’t a green crowd”: Occupy Los Angeles protestors leave tons of trash.
Yesterday’s tantrum was heavily, indeed ostentatiously, union-fed, which explains the odor of thuggishness which accompanied the crowd as it marched down Broadway. What do they want? More money. When do they want it? Now? Where will it come from? You!
Repeat as necessary.
The funniest aspect of this macabre puppet show is the “anti-capitalist” trope that is so prominent a feature of the OWS rhetoric. Just where do these children think that money, and the astonishing affluence it has brought in its wake, comes from? I sometimes suspect they are innocent of the facts of life, that they think the stork brings money into the world. The fact that capitalism is far and away the mightiest engine for the production of wealth that the world has ever seen hasn’t penetrated the adipose folds of their ideology. The pleasures of preening self-righteousness all but guarantee that such home truths never will be taken on board.
For a vivid taste of the humor, savor this delicious tidbit from The New York Times‘s daily report on OWS:
The composer Philip Glass will make a statement at a General Assembly at Lincoln Center Thursday evening, where his opera, Satyagraha, on the life of Gandhi, is closing.
Occupy Wall Street. Philip Glass. Gandhi. It really is droll. There is a reason that George Orwell began his devastating essay on that Indian fraud with the observation that saints should be considered guilty until proven innocent. (It cost a lot of money, the historian Paul Johnson observed in his tart assessment of Gandhi in Modern Times, to keep Gandhi living in poverty.)
In any event, for anyone who wishes to understand the inherent futility of the whole OWS movement, I’d like to recommend Richard Epstein’s new Encounter Broadside, “Why Progressive Institutions are Unsustainable” (Kindle edition here.) And for a taste of what’s at stake, take a look at this short video summary of Epstein’s argument, “The Tea Party vs. occupy Wall Street”:
I believe that there is a correlation between the ignorant, thuggish and in some ways naive OWS crowd and decades of reeducating (i. e., indoctrinating) the uneducated in our schools and universities.
F. A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) seems especially relevant today.
The indoctrination in the better schools, public or private, needs to be specified. I did that in my latest blog: http://clarespark.com/2011/12/02/the-whiteness-of-the-whale/. But see also the one contrasting Hayek and David Riesman: http://clarespark.com/2010/10/09/david-riesman-v-friedrich-hayek/.
Correlation? Indoctrination is sine qua non of union/government (public) controlled education.
Yes, “correlation”: a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things. There is a connection between the OWS crowd and decades of re-educating the uneducated. The people in the OWS “movement” are the re-educated uneducated
Some specimens from Portland, Maine
Pat O’Connor, a member of USM Philosophy Dept. and formerly a member of Occupy Maine’s media team: “We’re appropriating spaces and bodies to begin those sorts of conversations (about goals)….To make demands kind of presupposes a level of trust in that system that just isn’t there anymore….If this all looks sloppy, that’s because it’s not a revolution for the media.”
Leah Deasy, Activities Coordinator for Amistad Inc., a Housing Support worker: “This movement is about creating a process for a more equal and inclusive democracy. That’s what we’re doing every day. Meetings by consensus can be long and painful, but are a lot better than representative democracy, which doesn’t work.”
Jacob Lowry, a student at University of Southern Maine: “We’ve only been here a week, so the majority of people’s effort is going toward internal decision-making. The next step will be coming up with a template for external actions.”
Katherine Hulit, a student in the USM Philosphy Dept. “The goal now is continued occupation and discussion, trying to get even more people involved…We don’t know yet what comes next. If we knew, we’d be doing it.”
More information on the Portland’s Flypaper Jamboree
Portland Police Dept. Arrest Log to 11/29
11/24/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/12/11 1 civil summons for possession of Marijuana
11/14/11 1 arrest for probation violation
11/15/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/17/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/18/11 1 arrest for Aggravated Assault and Probation violation
1 arrest for Drinking in Public and Violation of Bail
11/19/11 1 arrest for Carrying a Concealed Weapon, Failure to Give Correct Name, Fugitive from Justice, and Parole Violation out of New York.
1 criminal summons reference to an adult’s reported conduct with an underage female.
11/20/11 1 arrest for Carrying a Concealed Weapon
11/24/11 1 arrest for Assault and Violation of Bail
1 arrest for Domestic Violence Assault and Possession of Schedule W drugs (cocaine)
1 Arrest for Domestic Violence Assault
11/25/11 1 Arrest for Domestic Violence Assault and Violation of Bail
1 Arrest for Disorderly Conduct.
Three incidents on the 30th including the arrest of a young idealist who had previously been in jail on manslaughter charges for the death of a guy at Forest Avenue.
From the Portland Maine Flypaper Jamboree
Portland Police Dept. Arrest Log to 11/29
11/24/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/12/11 1 civil summons for possession of Marijuana
11/14/11 1 arrest for probation violation
11/15/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/17/11 1 arrest for disorderly conduct
11/18/11 1 arrest for Aggravated Assault and Probation violation
1 arrest for Drinking in Public and Violation of Bail
11/19/11 1 arrest for Carrying a Concealed Weapon, Failure to Give Correct Name, Fugitive from Justice, and Parole Violation out of New York.
1 criminal summons reference to an adult’s reported conduct with an underage female.
11/20/11 1 arrest for Carrying a Concealed Weapon
11/24/11 1 arrest for Assault and Violation of Bail
1 arrest for Domestic Violence Assault and Possession of Schedule W drugs (cocaine)
1 Arrest for Domestic Violence Assault
11/25/11 1 Arrest for Domestic Violence Assault and Violation of Bail
1 Arrest for Disorderly Conduct.
Three incidents on the 30th including the arrest of a young idealist who had previously been in jail on manslaughter charges for the death of a guy at Forest Avenue.
Don’t forget that many in the OWS are products of the “higher education” in the US for the past half century. Managed by the “best and brightest” the leaders in that Gang of Four in Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. The best and brightest that have solutions to all problems confronting humanity in western capitalistic nations. They have no solutions for non-capitalistic, socialist, communist nations because they have no problems worth consideration.
These best and brightest trained the young who sat at the foot of these masters to knowledge and proper philosophies and principles for living the good life. Using their positions as “professors” taught the good life to come from the superiority of elite’s control of other peoples’ lives.
Those accepting the teacings/preachings to follow as elite. Others common, ordinary, astro-turf, ignoramuses, sexist, racist cowboys of the west, clinging to guns and religion etc.
Without bothering to tell them these ordinary, common cowboys of the west etc. also managed to create the free-est- no gulags or slave camps – richest, most powerful nation in history. The most respected AND envied. The magnet for populations world-widc that they risked their lives and broke all manner of laws for the chance to CHANGE their lives by becoming ordinary common Americans.
Teachings by elite, these best and brightest the graduates are now making whoopee in the usual graduation ritual of disrupting the areas in which they live, or might live. Congratulations on their graduation to the honours and privileges of the elite.
As icing on their cake, they can look at the paragon of their education,selected by them to lead them into their bright future:a man out of nowhere, of unknown provenance, whose major talents appear to be telling tales and navigating into the shoals with child-like glee.
Congratulations all you graduates at OWS and other OCCUPY venues.
I am a product of Stanford and I agree with what you say about the type of education afforded, in general, there. (One must put in the “in general” because many things go on at Stanford. But “in general” it is as you say it is.
If anyone has a son or daughter who they would like to remain Christian, please send this child elsewhere, if you can. I know it’s not always easy to choose a college, because the prospective student may have opportunities (admission, scholarships, connections) at one place and not another. But if a choice is there at all, choose elsewhere. I taught at a very good Community College, and I believe some of these places, as well as some of the smaller liberal arts colleges and trade schools, are good places for young people to get their start. Again, that is “in general,” because there are many varieties.
If you don’t have tons of money, education at an “Ivy League” or Stanford type institution is a waste. Your offspring needs to be well-employed and perhaps, secondarily, to read some “great books” and have some real exposure to the world of thought. You can sometimes get this at “Stanford”, but it is more likely to be honest elsewhere. Not all “Christian” colleges are free of this self-worshiping elite mind-set. Pray for guidance.
This film doesn’t emphasize the fear of having an omnipotent federal government towering over everyone’s life.
This is an excellent video, but rein is misspelled. Something is reined in, not reigned in. During Obama’s reign, nothing has been done to rein in government spending. M
When writing about the Obama Gang, it’s often difficult to ascertain which is correct, “reign” or “rein.”
For the common folk, is it “rein in” or “reignin’ “? Not to mention who’s doing which to whom? Too confusing; who’s on Dancing with the Stars tonight?
“The composer Philip Glass will make a statement at a General Assembly at Lincoln Center Thursday evening, where his opera, Satyagraha, on the life of Gandhi, is closing.”
Hmm, oh yes, I’m sure people were literally banging down the doors to see an opera about Gandhi. I’m sure his sequal, the one on Susan B. Anthony, is going to be a real dandy, too. And I wonder how much public money, say from the National Council on the Arts, let alone private donations from the rich people they hate so much, went into funding this lush “opera” about a guy walking around in a diaper? You see, the far left really hates capitalism and rich people, unless they need them to finance one of their useless projects. Then there is absolutely nothing wrong with them.
But, don’t worry. I hear the new musical-comedy about Eugene V. Debbs is going to be a scream. Of course, it can only be shown at the Kennedy Center in Washington. They would be the only people who would fund it.
Just a quibble but rein and reign have two different definitions and reign is misused in the otherwise very well considered and executed video.
LEE, that’s no quibble. There’s no reining in the misuse of reign, and the reign of the false reins are both rapidly becoming universal. hey appear everywhere. There’s no quelling this scourge.
Nice to hear the term “classical liberalism.”
I’m going to borrow this,
The video is quite different from the mental images that first flashed before me in my imagination when I read the come-on line: “Video: The Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street”. I had visions of a few minutes of vido contrasting the OWS crowd vs Tea Party crowd. Although I like how the differences were presented I’m still waiting for anyone – Fox or others – to present a video montage of OWS and Tea Party gatherings.
Saw this in the comments section of American Thinker:
Tea Party: less government, less intrusion, cut spending, hold government accountable; leave us alone!
OWS (aka Flea Party): gimme gimme gimme, I want I want I want; lazy egocentric deeply indebted ideologues
Point on style:
“Repeat as necessarily.”
What’s wrong with just “repeat as necessary” ?
I know, who am I to quibble with Roger’s writing? Just the fellow reading!
And sad ol’ Bernie Madoff rots in prison for stealing from a few… If only he had understood to run for office so he could be immune from prosecution while stealing from us ALL… a much better deal IMO!
WHAT A COUNTRY!
While the Tea Party was a rather short term movement against all things government (in general) and Obama (in particular) the OWS movement is really quite different.
The Tea Party hates government waste, gun laws, taxes, democrats and the election of Obama making their views heard on a national scale, then faded.
The OWS hates energy greed, financial fraud, war spending, pollution and lack of economic opportunities and is international in their effort(s). In essence, OWS is a long term movement while Tea Party was a reaction to an election event.
Now THAT’s funny! How many in Congress are there because of the TEA movement? How many because of the OWS? OWS doesn’t hate greed, they personify it. Their goal is to steal more for themselves, pure and ever so simple. Sniveling children.
“The OWS hates energy greed, financial fraud, war spending, pollution and lack of economic opportunities”
…along with capitalism, bathing, capitalism, cleaning up after themselves, capitalism, rules, capitalism, opposing viewpoints, capitalism, coherence, capitalism, property rights, capitalism, laws, and capitalism.
@ The Oricle, so you think that the TEA Party was a short term movement? you must live in never never land. You do not realize that TEA Party is operating every day, in the right circles, where it counts. I get updates everyday. They are doing their mission where it counts; unlike OWS acting like spoiled children being led by Union bullies, supported by the Communist Party, Acorn, and so on.
TEA Party is for LIMITED government and Constitutional rights of We the People, they are not against ALL government. The OWS (gimme, gimme crowd)is the pinnacle of the GREED they proclaim to be against. The OWS crowd fails to realize that they have the same opportunities to make a fortune, just as those who actually took the risks involved to make their fortunes did; but the OWS would rather have it handed to them instead.
The TEA Party has not faded; but go on and believe your liberal task masters in another lie, the TEA Party is alive and well.
Please. Not “reigned in” but “reined in”. Sigh. Really, it matters. Well, to me, at least.