Ya know, sometimes the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart gets it right. In fact, I’ve even commended him on this blog when he does.
This, however, is not one of these times. Wednesday night he wondered out loud why conservatives were criticizing the Occupy Wall Street protests now going on nationwide, arguing:
I don’t get it! Here’s a group of Americans, disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts, angry because they played by the rules, worked hard, now they’re in debt from student loans and they’re unemployed… I mean, look, if this thing turns into throwing trash cans into Starbucks windows, nobody’s going to be down with that. We all love Starbucks.
But these protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party? Alright, some of them, you know, smoke and have pants made out of pot. So call them the THC Party. Aren’t these folks real citizens with real problems? Aren’t they also speaking for America?
I guess an adequate proficiency in criticial thinking skills was not a requirement for Stewart’s position at Comedy Central.
OK, Jon, really? You actually need it explained to you how OWS is not like the Tea Party? Other than at the former they’re smoking lots of weed. Fine …
Of course, I’m not the first one to note the obiously stark contrasts between OWS and TP. Wednesday morning, even before Stewart’s broadcast, my girl Ann (Coulter) wrote:
I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point.
No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want—as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate “Wall Street.” You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government.
This would be like opposing fattening, processed foods, but cheering Michael Moore—which the protesters also did this week.
But to me, the most striking difference between the tea partiers and the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd—besides the smell of patchouli—is how liberal protesters must claim their every gathering is historic and heroic. …
The modern tea partiers never went around narcissistically comparing themselves to Gen. George Washington. And yet they are the ones who have engaged in the kind of political activity Washington fought for.
The Tea Party name is meant in fun, inspired by an amusing rant from CNBC’s Rick Santelli in February 2009, when he called for another Tea Party in response to Obama’s plan to bail-out irresponsible mortgagers.
The tea partiers didn’t arrogantly claim to be drafting a new Declaration of Independence. They’re perfectly happy with the original.
Tea partiers didn’t block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama’s unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare.
Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning.
In the two years following the movement’s inception, the Tea Party played a major role in turning Teddy Kennedy’s seat over to a Republican, making the sainted Chris Christie governor of New Jersey, and winning a gargantuan, historic Republican landslide in the 2010 elections. They are probably going to succeed in throwing out a president in next year’s election. …
So, if I may humbly pick up where Coulter left off, here are just a few way that OWS is completely different from the TP:
1. The Tea Party’s key demand is to restore the size and reach of government to that enshrined by the Framers in the Constitution. The Tea Party wants lower taxes, less regulation, less federal spending, and less intervention by the federal government into citizen’s private lives and businesses. To reiterate, the Tea Party’s rule book is the U.S. Constitution; they want to restore America to what it was supposed to be, as prescribed by the Framers. Thus, the Tea Party’s goals are spec ifically and uniquely American.
By stark contrast, the demands of OWS are for more taxes, more regulation, more federal spending (on them, of course), and more government intervention in people’s private lives and businesses (not theirs of course, just those of the eeeeevil rich).
Have you even seen a reference to the Founding Documents at an OWS? Of course not. Then there would be no room to display to Marx and Lenin literature. If you listen to any of the myriad demands of OWS attendees, it is clear they seek a revolution (their words, not mine) and start from scratch based on a Marxist-socialist model. Thus, OWS’s goals are spec ifically and uniquely un-American. They are not, as Jon Stewart ridiculous suggested “speaking for America.”
2. The Tea Party consists predominantly of the nation’s producers, those who own businesses and employ people, older citizens who have worked their entire lives to secure a home and retirement but who are seeing the value of their investments plummet and the financial security of their offspring diminish. They are, as Obama likes to say, “working Americans.” They value success and don’t want to see it punished—by the government or anyone.
On the other hand, The so-called occupants of Wall Street are primarily aging hippies, avowed Marxists and socialists, professional protesters like MoveOn.org and Code Pink, and tattooed, multiple-earringed, rainbow-haired twentysomethings who in all their years of college apparently never learned one single damn thing about how the economy works. They resent success and exist precisely to see it punished.
3. One can safely guess Tea Partiers are mostly members of the 53% who pay some sort of the share of the nation’s income tax burden. From them you’ll hear messages of personal responsibility, hard work, and absolute moral standards that are essential for a prosperous civil society.
On the other hand, despite their martyr-like “99%” moniker, it would be safe to say that OWS participants are part of the 47% of Americans who receive rather than contribute to the income tax burden of the U.S. They are members of your quintessential entitlement generation, having been reared in a liberal-dominated educational system rooted in self-esteem, multiculturalism, and a “whatever feels right is right” code of morality. Their sense of personal responsibility is as developed as the horns growing out of my Jewish head.
4. Whereas the Tea Party was falsely accused of being corporate-funded conservative-media-backed “astroturf,” when it is a legitimely grassroots movement, there’s evidence that OWJ has big-powered and big-moneyed support, including unions and Hollywood useful idiots like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon.
5. As documented by Brent Bozell and the folks at NewsBusters, the peaceful assemblies known as the Tea Party have been fallaciously depicted by the mainstream media as violent, angry, dangerous, and extremist mobs.
By stark contrast, the actually violent, angry, dangerous, and extremist mobs called OWS have been championed by the MSM as the nation’s most beautiful display of democracy in action. The blatantly biased culprits include the NY Times, CNN, NBC, the NY Times again, NBC again, ABC and the NY Times yet again.
6. The Tea Party was (and still is) relentlessly smeared by the highest officials in the federal government. A prime example is Nancy Pelosi. Keeping his own hands clean, Obama gleefully allowed then-House Majority Speaker to swing mercilessly at them. First, she accused them of being “astroturf” being funded by big-moneyed people. Then, she likened them to Nazis and spun public tales about seeing swastikaaaaahs. She mocked them in March, 2010, as she emerged from the Capitol building upon the passage of the Obama(S)care bill, wielding that huge gavel and cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West as she walked through an understandably angry crowd. She also said the Tea Party’s supposedly violent rhetoric reminded her of the social unrest that occurred in San Francisco in 1978, the year gay mayor Harvey Milk was murdered.
The actually violent, physically threatening OWS? Politico reports:
“God bless them for their spontaneity,” Pelosi told reporters. “It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.” Queen Nancy also said, “The focus is on Wall Street and justifiably so,” Pelosi said. “The message of the American people is that no longer … will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.”
Actually, the focus on Wall Street is not justified, San Fran Nan. Rather, the correct message is that the recklessness of you and your fellow Democrats in Congress and the White House is what has caused massive joblessness on Main Street.” That was the message of the Tea Party, of course, and you have spent the past two years smearing and libeling them.
Veep Joe Biden has also recently smeared the Tea Party as “barbarians at the gate” in the presence of none other than the Community-Organizer-in-Chief himself. That was at the same event where Union thugster Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., said they needed to “take the sons of bitches out” and that those present were Obama’s army that were ‘ready to march,” also to Obama’s approval. So much for that New Civility Obama preached about this January in Tucson.
What about the malcontents at OWS? Yesterday Obama incredibly legitimized them by declaring that they “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel.”
No, that would be the Tea Party, you a-hole. (Oooooo, someone better let AttaaaaackWaaaaatch know I just called the president an a-hole!)
7. As far as I know, no one at a Tea Party has called for the targets being beheaded (compliments of Hollywood actress and “comedienne” Rosanne Barr) or eaten.
I don’t believe a Tea Partier has suggested people kill their parents either, as did this clearly frustrated gay guy at OWS. While the Tea Party is accused of violent, hateful rhetoric despite no substantive evidence, the violent rhetoric of OWS is boldly on display.
Hell, even their name contains “occupy,” which is a military term meaning to overtake by means of physical force!
8. As far as I know, no throng of Tea Partiers has blocked traffic or overtaken bridges, nor have they started brawls with police and gotten pepper-sprayed and arrested on masse. This, of course, has been happening nationwide at OWS protests.
9. As far as I know, no Tea Partiers have blamed the Jews for our economic mess or hurled antisemitic slurs at people, such as at least four which have occurred at OWS rallies.
10. As far as I know, none of the lovely ladies of the Tea Party movement have gone topless or in bras to make their points. If, however, you’d like to see young ladies publicly brandishing their bras or bearing their breasts for their cause, please head to your nearest OWS protest [h/t Mike Haltman at the Political Commentator].
So there you are, Jon Stewart. Merely ten of the myriad ways Occupy Wall Street is nothing like the Tea Party. Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it.
And for those of you at OWS who need a job, there might be a spot for you over at Comedy Central. Apparently, having a properly functioning brain is not a job requirement.
Yom Kippur y’all. I is outa here!
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