Occupy Wall Street and Rolling Stone

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone is just about my favorite writer on the internet.  This piece is great:

And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.

We cheer for people who hit their own home runs in this country– not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.
That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.
All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes...

He goes on to describe the many ways in which the banks have been handed free money and bailed out in a myriad of ways from their stupid decisions, while regular Americans have no such advantages.

One thing about OWS that conservatives don't seem able to grasp is that it's a leaderless movement, completely unhierarchical.  It's incredibly diverse, so while there are really cool, smart people like this:

...there are also plenty of crazy Stalinists, heroin dealers, and apparently even a stray Nazi or two.  Right now the best thing the movement is doing is building momentum and getting the issue of inequality into the national conversation.  I'm not sure if anything else will come of it, but if not that's still a pretty good accomplishment.

The comparison to the Tea Party is interesting.  There are plenty of similarities.  But one key for me is that the Crazies in the Tea Party have completely taken over the larger conservative movement.  The Republican presidential candidates are completely unwilling to cross even the most extreme Tea Party talking point.

(I love that sign, from a Tea Party rally.  It's a cheap shot I know.  Stupid protesters are all over the place at both OWS and Tea Party rallies- I concede that readily.)

I don't think that any significant Democrats, on the other hand, are likely to propose forgiving all college loans or socialized medicine.  The kooks on the Left are on the fringe, while the kooks on the Right are in charge of the GOP.

The Republican Party Split

I've been reading lately about the GOP split looming between the Wall Street low taxes crowd and the Tea Party nuts who want the US to default on its debt.  As the Debt Ceiling default gets closer, it seems that Republican elites are starting to worry that they've joined forces with people who are just too crazy to ally with.  This portends a possible breakup of the coalition that has been very successful- old-time economic conservatives allied with Christian evangelicals, who seem to be the people doubling as Tea Party crazies now.

The coalition has worked because the populists in the heartland and South cared about different stuff from the moneyed coastal types.  The elites could live with abortion and gay rights restrictions as long as they got their low taxes.  They even converted lots of evangelicals, who really shouldn't be low-tax types (I don't think there's anything in Jesus' teaching about lower taxes creating economic growth, after all), but are now into it hook, line, and sinker.

So while I enjoy my wistful hopes that this will destroy the Republican party (I know, I know- not very likely but a guy can dream), I'm reminded of some conventional wisdom that has turned out to be wrong.  We warned in 2010 that the Tea Party was nothing more than the same old Republican party recycled, that they would just be "don't tax but still spend" politicians once they got in there, or that they would be co-opted by the power of Washington and would continue to run up deficits just like Republicans have been doing for 30 years.

But it seems to have turned out a little differently.  To their credit, the Tea Party House members are sticking to their guns and demanding lots of cuts to government.  They're also sticking to their guns on taxes of course.  They've never said they would compromise in congress, so they're sticking with their principles there too in refusing to deal with the fact that the House is only one half of one branch of government and they have to deal with other powers in order to govern.  In short, they're everything they said they'd be, much to my surprise.

The problem is that the implications of what they said they'd be aren't any better than if they were just plain old-fashioned Republicans.  US default would be a big deal, and seems to be a possibility.  Responsible Republican elites had better sit up and realize what they're reaping.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (Posted by AS)

While everyone who is not on the far-Right sleeps, the Tea Party movement is growing stronger and stronger.

If you consider yourself a moderate, or a centrist, either on the Republican or Demcratic side, you should be very concerned. Even my fellow Massachusetts residents who voted for Scott Brown should be aware that he is being scrutinized very closely. Senator Brown could easily find himself a target of the Tea Partiers. Even that GOP stalwart, John McCain, is facing a serious primary challenge this year.

I encourage you to read this article and keep yourselves informed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html?nl=us&emc=politicsemailemb1