This Marine knows his stuff! I won't even apologize for stealing his stuff because I know he wants it to be read by others.Open Letter from a Marine Tea Partier to All Occupiers.Cpl. Stephen Mark Allen, USMC. It specifically addresses occupiers but has a much broader message. In particular to those supporters here on this site:
Our politicians (yes, including our President) are bought and paid for by corporations and the mega banks. In fact, Obama’s biggest campaign donor is Goldman Sachs. His Treasury Secretary worked at Goldman Sachs himself. Why do you think some Europeans call us the United States of Goldman Sachs?
I can talk about these people because they made themselves know with their rants as comments to my diary about the President yesterday. My diary was essentially an attempt to understand the President. This Marine simply puts him right in with the 1% and makes him a major part of the problem we face. Some of the Goldman Sachs people insinuated that I wrote my diary because the Occupy movement is
But I can explain the rash of Obama-hating diaries in recent days.
As OWS implodes (note that "occupy" diary frequency is falling fast) the oblique attacks on the Democratic Party are giving way to more frank and direct ones.
Read on below for these people need to be answered.
That idea was refuted at least in part by this diary New poll shows Occupy Wall Street support growing, public discontent with Congress at record levels by Chris Bowers. Such rants really do not need refutation for the idea that we can not be critical of the president without being labeled "Obama Haters" puts that faction of his supporters in the very same class as Faux News, Rush, and their ilk. Anyone here who sees the Occupy movement as a negative force has to be either naive or part of the group who still don't understand the whole idea and side with the 1% because of that.
Cpl. Allen sure seems to have his head on straight:
And by the way, we do need to start calling actions like the bailouts what they are: Theft. The corporations, through their rental politicians, used government force to take from the people trillions of dollars. If we refuse to pay the taxes to pay this “debt” off we face risk of government guns carrying us off to jail. That is the very definition of theft.
This brings us back to the commonground we share. The original Tea Party (not counting the historical Boston Tea Party) was focused on ending the corporatist (fascist?) model ourselves. The original Tea Party was for ending the wars and against policing the world. We are against legislation that invades privacy of citizens here and abroad. Think unPatriot Act and the recently passed NDAA bill. The NDAA gives the military the authority to raid homes without warrants and imprison citizens indefinitely without trial.
If we actually want to change this country, we have to unite on issues like these and others. General Assemblies: invite Tea Party groups to participate. If you can find shared values organize joint protests. If you can find local Tea Parties that want to occupy with you, encourage it.
The system we live under is a corporatist model rapidly deteriorating into a fascist police state. The reason I added “Marine” to the heading of this letter was to (hopefully) attract active duty servicemembers, veterans, and law enforcement. We took an oath to the Constitution in order to join. The oath clearly gives us not only the option, but the responsibility to disobey ALL illegal orders. The police attacking peaceful protesters in the streets are in direct violation of that oath. If you are attacking peaceful people you are already on the wrong side of history.
The overwhelming reality of the meaning of the 1% vs the 99% has to be made clear to the 99%. That will not happen in the two party bad guy vs good guy context. This Marine knows that. I am proud to be one of his brothers!