The 99% v. The Tea Party

I just finished writing about the contrast between the 99%/Occupy Wall Street protests/sit ins and the Tea Party movement for my column in The Marianas Variety, and then I came across this on Tumblr. It puts in a very succinct way the differences between the two movements.

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How to compare and contrast America’s two “populist” movements — the Tea Party movement vs. the Occupy Wall Street/We are the 99%ers movement…
- Both are angry at Wall Street bailouts, American plutocracy, and our whorish two-party system.

- One blames the poor, immigrants, unions, non-Christians and Americans who happen to be liberal for what’s wrong; the other blames Wall Street, plutocrats. and whorish politicians.

- One is funded by right-wing billionaires and corporate money; the other isn’t really funded by anybody.

- One got major media coverage (lead by FOX) even when they could only produce a few hundred people at a rally in Washington, DC; the other got almost no media coverage even when they produced demonstrations coast to coast.

- One shouted down Democratic constituent town meetings, threatened secession, packed guns, somehow were never hassled by police, and were called “patriots;” the other came without guns, threatened no one, appealed to American ideals, got arrested, and were called “mobs.”

- One trades on what divides us because they are proxies for powerful interests who benefit from public division; the other appeals to what unites us because they still believe in an American Promise which actually includes all Americans.