A grassroots movement of middle class Americans have taken to the streets to express their outrage over the status quo. No this is not the Tea Party. This is #OWS. Yet many pundits have tried to make the comparison:
Both Occupy and tea party movements are angry. They just see different remedies.
When tea party rallies flared up across the country more than two years ago, conservative activists were mad about bailouts and their impact on the national debt. To them, government was part of the problem.
Occupy demonstrators are also upset about the financial crisis and the economy. But they see government as part of the solution.
Of course this assessment is all wrong. The Tea Party is not an issues oriented movement.
the Tea Party did not start "flaring up" over the bailouts, as the bailouts started up under Bush. And not a peep came from any of the conservative "grassroots" then. And far before that the Bush administration had progressively built up the debt through unpaid programs like the Pharma give-a-way Medicare part D, two wars (at least one was purely at our leisure), and a series of massive tax cuts that went disproportionately to the wealthiest among us. I'm sure you can cite anecdotal evidence of a few conservative interest groups being displeased with the overall state of the national debt back then, but it was nothing anywhere close to the anger that they are expressing now.
Furthermore, even with regard to health care reform you have a bit of cognitive dissonance. Romney proposed the same thing in Massachusetts and he is the front runner for the Republican nomination. And before him Bob Dole in the 90's. Heck, it was Chuck "pull the plug on grandma" Grassley who first called for an individual mandate - the same thing being challenged in the court by the teabaggers. Clearly, the teabaggers deep down do not think that HCR is as toxic as they would have you believe.
No, the beginnings of the Tea Party movement started during the Palin rallies of the '08 campaign. And what were they upset about? Not about the debt. Not about the bailouts. But that a progressive minded black man was about to become their president - as compromising as he may be.
Their anger is focused on a man who had virtually nothing to do with the financial crisis and its cause - however bad you may think he has handled the aftermath of the economic collapse. While the actual banks who got us into this mess and actively lobbied for the bailouts are barely criticized by the tea party.
And what about their proclamations of being a pro-American organization? Incidentally, their largest benefactors, the Koch brothers, are doing business with America's sworn enemies all in the name of greed:
As big funders of the Tea Party, billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have underwritten a populist movement against oversized government and ‘excessive’ regulation.
Now a new report suggests that in their own corporation, they’ve taken a different approach to government regulation: They’ve simply ignored it.
An extensive investigation in Bloomberg Markets magazine finds that Koch Industries has made multiple ‘improper payments’ (read: bribes) to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East; rigged prices with competitors; and used foreign subsidiaries to sell equipment to Iran.
Now who are these teabaggers? If you look at the overall demographics they tend to be older, white, conservative men who are wealthier than the average American.
The Tea Baggers are exactly the kind of people who have benefited from the excesses and mismanagement of our nation during the Bush administration. And now they are mad because all of that will end. They are not mad about the economic collapse. They are angry that the '08 election took this country in a different direction. Bailouts etc. are just proxy battles for their anger over a black progressive man becoming the President. And I'll reiterate, they are not angry about the economic collapse and its causes (or at least as angry as they would have you believe).
Whereas, #OWS is. They are the people, which compromises most of the nation, who have been harmed by this economic collapse. They want to fix the problem, so it never happens again. #OWS is an issues oriented movement that is actually concerned with fixing the system so this never happens again. That is the difference.