OWS has meant just as much - if not more- than the teabagger movement to politics...
This was thought just discussed on the Stephanie Miller Show...
What did OWS accomplish? They changed the entire subject in politics to Income Inequality.
The 99% vs the 1%. And that message stuck, imho alot more than people running around with teabags hanging from their hats and threatening 2nd amendment remedies.
Enter Mitt Romney and his car elevators, dressage horse, off shore bank accounts.
It's no wonder people can't stand Mitt and his snooty better than you attitude.
I would love to see 99% of Americans vote against Mitt, but of course that won't happened. 43% of Americans have been brainwashed to vote against their own best interests.
IF President Obama wins by a large % in November, I think we need to thank OWS.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Like it or not the movement received attention and the message resonated.
The conversation went from 
to they have a point and because their message was harmful to the 1%, negative incidences were covered more than the message itself. Too late, that message got out anyway.
Some heard it loud and clear.
I usually avoid OWS threads as they tend to be more polarizing than enlightening. You hit a major point that has been my major contention with OWS. While it's wonderful to be politically energized and want to express your frustration/anger, the way to gain results is not by sitting in drum circles, it's organizing voters and pushing politicians to listen and then accept objectives of the group (or councils or whatever you want to call them). It's working to get results inside the system as opposed to standing outside and being ignored. This is what teabaggers have been able to do with the heavy funding of right wing corportists who have been able to convince people to vote against their best interests. Both groups are similar as they're throwing "political tantrum"...just one group IS being heard, the other is still struggling to find a voice.
The fact the teabaggers are dominated by corportists is a very good comparison to Weimar as people's frustrations were used to specific political advantage leading to disastrous results. Unfortunately I expect you (and me) to get jumped on in this thread cause we're not "getting it"...
Cheers...
It is odd, and intriguing, that any DUer would, very apparently, despise such a clearly left wing progressive movement with such intensity and persistence.
Are you a proponent of the ideology of the Third Way and its goals?
Are you pro-Wall St.?
I get a kick out of you.
We are the 99%. We, the People.
It's so ironic that you totally missed this. It would almost be funny, if it weren't so ineffably sad.
These are some of the Democrats who have genuinely represented us.
The fact is, Democrats are supposed to represent OWS:
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
I think that we started calling them teabaggers because they were so hateful towards liberals - calling us lazy, stupid, welfare queens - thinks like that. Then they showed up to rallies with signs belittling the President, calling him a Marxist, Communist, Fascist, with bones going thru his nose, dressed in a lion cloth. Signs saying that he was a Muslim, send him back to Africa.
When Congress went on recess and went to their districts to discuss the Affordable Healthcare Act, they would interrupt to the point where townhalls couldn't even be held. Constituents would come out to listen to how "Obamacare" would benefit them, and instead they got a three ring circus. They literally stopped any discussion from occurring. We found out that people were being bused in by buses paid for by the Koch Brothers.
There was just so much hatred coming out from their movement, so much pure vile that it crossed a line. And at the same time, much of it was laughable. Seeing people wearing hats with teabags hanging from them holding signs that said "Keep the government out of my Medicare". Between the vulgarity, the pure hatred for our President and for people that support him - and the signs they carried, they became known as teabaggers.
And what is so sad about all this, is alot of what OWS has to say and what the grassroots Teaparty movement has to say is the same thing.
We are all fed up with Wall Street. We are all fed up with lobbyists. We want a government by the people, for the people - not the corporations. While our ideologies are quite different...liberals do believe in equality for all - and yes that does mean some entitlements, there still is common ground there. At what point will that discussion ever happen in this day and age is beyond me.
Hope that answers your question
