True Face of the OWS Protesters

Ninety-nine percent of Americans should join or support the OWS protesters. While many of the people who show up at the Occupy events are young, idealistic, well-educated & jobless, as the movement has grown, so has its diversity.

Right wing politicians and corporate interests quickly co-opted the Tea Party for their own special-interest ends (a takeover which some Tea Party members are still fighting). But it will be hard for the establishment to pat these well-educated protesters on the head, give them "Vote Democratic" signs & get them to march in lockstep.

Unlike the Tea Party, the Occupy protesters don't want to abolish the government and return to the good ole days when rich white men ruled. The protesters want the government to DO something. Republicans got confused Tea Partiers to oppose healthcare reform; the Occupy protesters want the government to guarantee health care for all. Republicans got Tea Partiers to oppose the regulation of Wall Street "freedoms"; the Occupy protesters want the government to come down hard on Wall Street, with both prosecutions and regulations. Republicans got Tea Partiers to oppose all taxation; the Occupy protesters want the federal government to return to the progressive tax structure of the 50s and 60s. The Tea Partiers were pawns of secretly-financed ad campaigns; the Occupy protesters want drastic campaign finance reform. They want the government to answer to them, not to fat cats who finance their campaigns.

In short, Republicans got Tea Partiers to work against their own best interests; the Occupy protesters are way too smart for that. Both groups have real grievances, and generally speaking those grievances are the same -- ordinary Americans have become serfs of the one percent. The Tea Partiers are still working toward exacerbating the problems. Occupy Wall Street is working toward fixing them.