An open letter and warning from a former tea party movement adherent to the Occupy Wall Street movement

vaslittlecrow

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDITS: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared: http://vimeo.com/20355767

If my essay seems too conspiratorial for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."