Occupy Wall Street v Teabaggers

Jon Stewart compares the Occupy Wall Street and Teabagger movements

As the Occupy Wall Street protest movement spread to cities all over America, including Los Angeles, Boston, Tampa, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia — Amy Goodman reported Friday that people in some 800 cities are trying to organize their own occupations– the M$M has finally taken notice. As Stewart points out in the clip above, their previous coverage had only two settings-  “blackout,”  e.g., NPR had totally ignored coverage for the first ten days; and “circus,”  e.g., a couple of topless women were enough to garner some early attention. (Cue Bob Hope‘s theme song: “Thanks, For the Mammary…”)

In addition to the usual suspects at Fux News, Hannity‘s hypocrisy was especially notable: “They really don’t like freedom,” he sneered.

Coultergeist played the N Card, comparing the occupations to the time: “… when the Nazis were coming to power” adding  This is always the beginning of totalitariansim.”

Limpbot was particularly exercised (now there’s a cognitively dissonant allusion). In an implicit acknowledgment that OWS is stealing some of the Teabaggers’ thunder, yesterday he changed his previous characterization of progressive reaction to the ‘Baggers from one of “fear” to “jealousy.”

Leave it to the Ruling Class’s chief pimp Rep. Eric Cantor to deliver the GOP’s standard class warfare, insanely hypocritical talking point: “Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

A key difference between the two movements is that where the early version of the Teabaggers put Wall Street corruption at the top of their agenda, it has nearly fallen off their radar screen now that they have been co-opted by the likes of the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey. As Paul Krugman  pointed out his column yesterday: “…we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.”

And via Washington’s Blog comes this from Jim Quinn, who writes at The Burning Platform:

Sorry MSM, but your storyline of communists, socialists, unions, and Obama supporters being the force behind the Occupy Movement is nothing but bullshit. All you old farts on this blog who think the Millenials aren’t worth spit, are about to get a rude awakening. This Fourth Turning is starting to take shape. [Note from Washington’s Blog: “The Fourth Turning” is a book on the cycles of history, endorsed by such a diverse group as Newt Gingrich on the right and Al Gore on the left. “Millenials” (sic) is (sic), basically, a group of young people within a certain age range.]

A generational war is coming. The Millenials (sic) are not dumb. They can see they’ve been screwed by the older generations. They didn’t create this debt. They didn’t make promises that can’t be kept. They didn’t build an unsustainable military empire. But they are the ones being stuck with the debt and no jobs. They have a right to be pissed off.  The future is still cloudy, but I think I see conflict and chaos coming to a city near you.

What he said.