Tea Party co-founder supports OWS

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty has noticed the similarities between OWS and the Tea Party (circa 2009). A co-founder of the Tea Party, Karl Denninger, has recently expressed his support for the OWS movement:

“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.”

About a year ago, he wrote about how the Tea Party was hijacked, and today warned against letting that happen again:

“Tea Party my ass. This was nothing other than the Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with the Republican Party’s own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the ****ing money!”

And finally, he addresses the issue of not having a list of formal demands:

“One of the things that the Occupy movement seems to have going for it is it has not turned around and issued a set of formal demands,” he explains. “This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Everyone is looking for a set of demands. The problem is that as soon as you pipe up with a list of four or five things — and you’ve got to keep it simple and short — then somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, we gave you 70 percent of it, now go home.’ And the fact is, that’s exactly the sort of thing that happened with the Tea Party.”

“Stay on message, which is that the corruption is not a singular event,” Denninger urged. “You can’t focus in one place. You have to get the money out of politics, which is very difficult to do, but at the same time you can’t silence people’s voice.”

And there you have it. The core issue: money, and the influence that it buys. No one person (or corporation, union, etc) should have any more influence over representation than another. Every election cycle, politicians are bringing in more and more money for their campaigns. The amounts are staggering, and you can bet they get preferential treatment from said politicians. By protesting on Wall Street, not only are protesters showing their disgust with wage disparity, Wall Street's recklessness, and the crony capitalism that's been rampant for decades, they're showing Washington that they know what/where the source of the problem is. The problem is systemic, so working within the system will not do anything to address the grievances of the protesters.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

As I have noted prior threads...

The Tea-Party and OWS have much in common in that they both view the cozy relationship between corporate and government interests as interfering with the proper function of both.

Where they differ is the proposed solutions.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Also, IMO, they differ in that many of the policies advocated by the tea party benefits corporations and if anything increases the "cozy relationship" with government. I'm not saying they're not sincere, I'm sure many of them honestly think the tea party is the best way to dismantle that relationship, but I see no evidence of that goal in the things they actually advocate or the actions of their representatives in Government.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"Also, IMO, they differ in that many of the policies advocated by the tea party benefits corporations."

Not necessarily. The proposed solution by one group is to keep the bears away by placing more traps everywhere a bear might approach, the other by removing the honey that's attracting them. The 'traps' are the regulations, the honey is the desired authority to govern over an industry.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. They differ in how they view the world. I certainly view the world more like a TEA partier... only round... but I can certainly sympathize with OWS and think the national debate can be a bit richer if they pull a message together.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

A list of demands doesn't do much good if they aren't followed by a list of threats or promises that will hurt whoever the demands are being directed to.

"I'm going to sleep on this sidewalk until you give me back some of my money!' doesn't have quite enough bite to it.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

+1

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Latest I see is Occupy is getting ready for "Phase Two". What that is I have no idea.

In other news a City Alderman has told Council that enough is enough and we can't have Occupy camping out on our streets anymore.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

If Phase Two has anything to do with Bank Transfer Day (I haven't looked - it may have nothing to do with it, it may have everything), then OWS is on the right track - even if they have 1/30th of what would be needed to do any damage.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Politics: more incestuous than rural Mississippi.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A rather obscure way but legal way to make effective changes in the country is being discussed lately. Since the early 1980s there has been a movement to call a constitutional convention. Only two more states need to pass it for it to work. I don't know if the statue of limitations on it has passed, but I know in 2008, Ohio nearly passed it, and only one other state was needed to ratify. The idea would be for the convention to essentially do what Congress can't do, get the money out of the system. The reasons for calling the convention don't even matter, as long as the state legislature calls for it, it counts.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I think this is something that a lot of people don't even consider, but I think it's really the only thing we can do at this point. The US has the worlds oldest working constitution. I recall reading that Thomas Jefferson said that the constitution should be rewritten every 19 years.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Once a generation but ya.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

http://callaconvention.org/

Article V of the Constitution gives the states the power to call for a Constitutional Convention. To do so, two-thirds of the states—34 out of 50 state legislatures—must pass an application calling for a Convention. If enough states pass this simple resolution, then Congress must call a Convention so that states can propose amendments to the Constitution.

The application states must pass does not need to provide a reason for the Convention—states can call a Convention for any reason. However, there is no guarantee the Convention will address the complaints of the states, as delegates at the Convention may introduece and pass whatever Amendments they see fit. (States may try to remedy this by electing their delegates to the Convention.)

Any amendments that come out of the convention have to be ratified by the legislatures of, or by conventions in, at least three-quarters of the states to become part of the Constitution of the United States.

Lawrence Lessing was on Rachel Maddow talking about this, and the video is on her website.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As one of the people in the community most in favor of the idea, that's encouraging news. The one question I wonder about that is what such a convention would look like, as it's unlikely to resemble the cabal that end-ran the Articles of Confederation. Of course that still requires one other state to do this and that'd require James Buchanan Mk. II.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The main focus for the call for the convention is to get the money out of the political system, since Congress can't apparently reform itself, and the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United made the previous Congressional attempt to stem the money illegal.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

A constitutional convention sounds good at first but the idea makes me very nervous. Who would be in this convention? Who would get to decide what goes into the new Constitution. This is the problem. The tea party and the GOP will want to have at least an equal amount of representation. While getting money out of politics would be great, the process could just as easily (probably more likely) go the other way with Citizens United enshrined permanently in the Constitution. Even if the cons don't get a majority, they'll make sure they have the same power they have in Congress to completely derail anything they don't like. Essentially, it is my fear that the convention will either produce a document much more hostile to freedom (if the tea party gets their way, you can kiss most parts of the First Amendment goodbye to begin with) or it'll devolve into a shouting match and nothing will get done.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Since the early 1980s there has been a movement to call a constitutional convention.

Let's see. We have a deeply divided nation that thinks a political discussion is a screaming match in town hall meetings and calling each other Nazis. Every election is another "Throw the bums out so we can install new bums" battle cry. We can't decide our way out of a paper bag.

And we're supposed to get together and write a new Constitution? ROTFLMAO.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There is indeed a lot of similarities between those two movements. I despise the Tea Party as representing all that is evil about mass movements, and for the same reason I also despise OWS. Neither of them contribute much to the endurance of democracy and mass movements generally instead contribute to undermining and worming through democracy.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

they're showing Washington that they know what/where the source of the problem is.

If this were true, they'd be in D.C., not NYC.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

They are in DC and many other cities across the world. However, while there is an entire party in Washington causing all these problems (hint: their symbol is a pachyderm), they cause those problems largely because of lobbying by companies headquartered in NYC. Without all that money coming out of Wall Street, the average American might get some notice from Washington.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I disagree, for reasons outlined in the rest of the OP.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"And there you have it. The core issue: money, and the influence that it buys. No one person (or corporation, union, etc) should have any more influence over representation than another. Every election cycle, politicians are bringing in more and more money for their campaigns. The amounts are staggering, and you can bet they get preferential treatment from said politicians."

I still like the idea of placing a restriction on qualification for office as taking only non-pooled funds. It maintains the legality of being able to offer funds regardless, you just can't receive them from pooled sources and still be eligible.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I can get behind that. I also like the idea suggested in Lawrence Lessig's presentation of small-donor reforms (http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-04/to-save-politics-adopt-small-donor-reforms-commentary-by-lawrence-lessig.html). As suggested above, though, none of this will happen as long as Congress makes the decisions. That's why protesting in Washington is a rather pointless exercise. A constitutional convention is in order.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

A co-founder of the Tea Party, Karl Denninger

http://www.dailypaul.com/138684/now-karl-denninger-claims-he-started-the-tea-party-movement

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Gee, what a surprise that a Ron Paul website claims Ron Paul started the Tea Party. Like OWS, there were many hands in getting the movement up and running. Karl was one of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Denninger