Occupying Oneself

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which is now coming up on a month, has become as polarizing as anything in this country -- OK, except maybe how Chaz Bono is still alive on "Dancing With The Stars."

It's actually interesting to watch ... the hypocrisy coming from certain members of the population.

You see, when people were upset with the direction of the country and the direction of the government, they started a grassroots movement called the Tea Party. And they were universally derided by their opposition. They've been called everything from racist to elitist to bible-thumping-right-wing-extremists.

And everytime they were called a name, they cried back that they were none of those things and how dare you say those things about us Americans fighting for what we want.

So, now that people on the other side wants to express itself in ways similar to the Tea Party have done ... they're hippies? They're Anti-American? They're class-warfare-advocating-marijuana-smoking-Socialists?

Pot, please meet kettle.

We get it. People have strong feelings on each side of the issue. But does it accomplish anything more than incite actual class warfare to keep calling each other names?

(And how can it be true class warfare when some of the people who would be hurt by the lower class are on their side?)

Of course, what I have to question about the hate toward the Occupy movement is why? Weren't the Tea Partiers against corporations getting help? Oh, wait, they didn't want the government giving them money ... but it still must be OK for corportations to take money away from the government by exploiting loopholes.

The other thing I don't get is wouldn't most of the members of the Tea Party fall under the 99 percent they keep talking about? Isn't there a good chance that most of the members would benefit from some of these changes, without the sweeping social changes they're afraid of?

Because the social change that they're afraid of has only come in history after physical warfare. The people occupying the streets (and maybe coming soon to Redlands) aren't the types to pick up guns and fight.

They are hippies, after all.