Occupiers + Tea Partiers = Angry Americans

The problem with our Country is not the Occupy Movement or the Tea Party. The problem with our country is our media.

We are led to believe that we have a free press. But how free is our press when our press is controlled by corporations who are bound by the bottom line?

Consider that corporations give money to politicians in order to influence them. Then said corporations who own media outlets need these same politicians to appear on their news programs to comment on the policies of the day. So, in this relationship, how can we expect honesty?

Look at the coverage of the two major movements of the last three years. The Tea Party, which was angry at the government for giving our tax dollars to Wall Street firms and businesses, was castigated by the media as being a “group of angry old white man who hated the Black president.”

Then along comes a movement of Occupiers who are mad at corporations for taking the money and giving nothing back in relief to the people from whom the money came from. Now, the core base of both groups is angry at the same group of people who are in bed together—corporations and government. So how is it that when one reads or watches the media reporting on this, we are given the choice to pick a side? The truth of the matter is that both groups are angry at the same thing.

So when one takes into consideration coverage we should be reading and watching, we see that in order to maintain the status quo we are given coverage that divides—Occupiers are hippy, no-message-having drug addicts who should get a job (the right) and Tea Partiers are angry, racist, old white men (the left). All the while we are given extended coverage of Kim Kardashian and her wedding and divorce.

If the real truth were told, that both groups are angry Americans at Government and their puppet masters, then we would be in danger of real change, a Libya- or Egypt-style revolt and mass protest. But, instead, we are thrown red herrings about debt ceilings, super-committees and class warfare based on incomes.

The bottom line is that we are all angry.

Period.

And when anger is let out in a collective roar neither media nor government can stop it. But I warn you, dear reader, pay attention to how the Occupy Movement is being handled by local governments and ask yourself what is the difference between a protest in the Middle East and one In Oakland? And what is the point in giving me the right to “peaceable assembly” when I have to get a permit from said government to assemble?

Tea Partiers and Occupiers sit down together in a downtown park and see how powerful a message that will send to our leaders-corporate and government.

Shelley Wynter is co-host of "The Ugly Truth," a daily online talk radio show which can be heard Monday-Friday 10a.m.-1 p.m. at www.shelleywyntershow.com.