On the surface, it seems a mystery. Occupy Wall Street protestors organized peaceful protests, concentrated their critiques on the financial institutions responsible for the worst economic downturn in eight decades and consciously used inclusive language to unite people. Yet Occupy was subjected to brutal police assaults as part of a coordinated government campaign against it, and has increasingly faced volleys of disapproval in the mass media.
By contrast, “Tea Party” protestors routinely used threatening language, brought weapons not only to their own demonstrations but to public talks of government office holders, attacked government institutions in denunciatory language and sought to divide people through scapegoating. Yet the Tea Party was lovingly embraced by the mass media and allowed to operate unimpeded by law enforcement and other institutions.
These contrasting responses were not monolithic, and we can all cite exceptions. Nonetheless, there is no mistaking the general tenor of the responses. On the surface this may appear to be a mystery, but it is not at all mysterious once we examine a little closer.
Occupy was and is a genuine grassroots movement, and the hundreds of Occupies that spontaneously followed the example of Occupy Wall Street demonstrated that a large pool of discontent and anger about the corporate domination of the United States exists. That discontent may sometimes be unfocused — leading to a sometimes confusing plethora of messages at Occupy encampments and demonstrations — but it is very real, based on the reality of the lives of working people (including students). And it is precisely this bottom-up self-organization that engendered the wrath of the establishment.
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