I am sure you all remember the TEA Party movement of late 2008 and early 2009. It was much more a grass roots organization. Keep in mind it was not a true grass roots organization. Several Republicans that were out of office were spearheading the operation, but the main goal was anger at the establishment and of course taxes.
Then the Republican Party completely took over the movement and it became nothing more than a political sideshow.
The reason that Republicans and those that follow every word they say are so scared of the Occupy movement (to the extent that they have opened up the dictionary to find nasty words to describe people in the movement) is because they know, this time around, they can not get their political hooks in this movement.
Contrary to Republican and self-described Conservative (most of these people do not really know what Conservatism is) ideas about the Occupy movement, it is not a purely political one. This movement is much closer to the original ideas of the original TEA Party. The main difference between the two movements is that the Occupy movement has several different key ideas that they are protesting and fighting for, while the original TEA Party movement really only had two.
Even the co-founder of the TEA Party movement, Karl Denninger, has thrown his support to the Occupy movement and has issued some advice to the new movement that the original TEA Party learned to late:
The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait until the people go home, financial blogger Karl Denninger observed. And then they can ignore you.
Well, Occupy Wall Street was a little different, he continued. And back in 2008, I wrote that when we will actually see change is when the people come, they set up camp, and they refuse to go home. That appears to be happening now.
The Republican Tea Party is, naturally, completely against the Occupy movement because their leadership has told them to be. The Republican Tea Party does not think for themselves or look at things objectively. They always do and say whatever they are told to do and say.
The one thing going for the Occupy movement right now is that they are not making any demands (which is further upsetting Republicans and the media) and they are not letting politicians take over the movement or speak on their behalf.
This movement has been a peaceful, non-violent one. That is unless you listen to Republicans and the media. They only give out on side of the story (and they typically leave out important parts of the story or in some cases completely reverse the story) and sadly those people who think what the Republicans want them to think believe everything they are told about the Occupy movement.
Case in point: When the situation arose that Mayor Bloomberg had asked the protestors to leave so they could "clean" the park. It was reported and re-told that he had the protestors had been ordered to leave because they were making such a mess and ruining the park. Also, not only were the Occupiers not going to leave they did not care that they were making a mess. Nowhere in the original "story" was the truth, that the Occupiers smelled a rat and believed that they were being asked to move so that Bloomberg could close the park. Also nowhere mentioned in the original "story" was that the Occupiers state that they would clean up their own mess.
I keep hearing and reading that the Republican Party does not understand the Occupy movement. That is purely hogwash. They do not care to understand the Occupy movement because they can not control it. They are running scared leaving trails of childish name-calling.
The Occupy movement is winning and gaining popularity and the Republican Party can not stand that.