Occupy Party

Last September the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests began. It took a couple days before anyone really knew what they were protesting and what message they were trying to send. The Tea Party movement began three years ago with a clear message and organized events. Main stream media made all kinds of negative and even crude comments about the Tea Party participants but seem to treat the OWS folks different.

While doing a little research for this post, I could not find any real numbers of arrests associated with Tea Party events or participants. The events are almost always held after work hours or on weekends at predetermined locations and times at venues often paid for by donors. The events have start and stop times, guest speakers, and encourage civil behavior. But when I searched for arrests associated with OWS, the results were amazingly clear as to the differences. Since the start of the OWS movement, there have been anywhere between 4,000 – 6,500 arrests, with an alarming number of felonies among those arrests.

The OWS claim they speak for the 99%. I would clearly fall into the 99% but I certainly don’t want to be represented by a trespassing tent-dweller who should be spending his or her time and energy finding a job or, at the very least, properly protesting peacefully and respectably.

Let’s look at some of the supporters of the OWS movement: Alec Baldwin, net worth is $65 million, who, in 2009, called on NY lawmakers to reinstate the tax break for the film and television industry. It’s probably tough living on $300,000 per episode. He also stars in Capital One commercials. Although he claims his fee goes to art charities, he’s still endorsing a company that the OWS has deemed as the enemy. Then there’s Nancy Pelosi; net worth $35 million, whose husband is a successful investment banker.

Even the Ayatollah Khamenei supports the movement stating, “It will bring down the capitalist system and the West”. North Korea and China also support the movement.

What’s interesting is that when you see pictures of the protestors, many of them have headphones in their ears connected to iPods. I would think that if they really believed in what they are saying, they would stop using those Apple products and even make a big event focusing on publically destroying those evil, big company devices. Especially since those iPods and iPhones are all manufactured overseas.