A TIME poll taken on October 9 and 10, with a base of 1,001 people, has turned up some interesting results about how Americans view the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and dysfunction in Washington. 81% of respondents think the country is on the wrong track, but they’re reluctant to place the blame fully on President Obama for the problems; 50% of the respondents disapprove of the way he’s handling the job, but 59% believe that he cares about them, and half of the respondents say he has the toughness necessary to see this through. On an exceedingly grim note, only 4% of the 1,001 polled feel positive about the state of the country today.
The poll asked people to identify which faction of government best represents their views. 30% identified with Democrats, while 17% said Republicans and 12% went with the Tea Party. So if you’re looking for a left-right bias, it leans slightly to the left (30% left to 29% right), assuming the designations of Democrats to the left; Republicans and Tea Partiers to the right. A whopping 39% of the respondents identified with no party or the always-popular “other” designation.
When asked for their view of the Tea Party, 27% of the respondents went with favorable, while 33% said it was unfavorable. When asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement, 54% looked at it as favorable, while 23% viewed it as unfavorable. In short, twice as many respondents viewed OWS as the favorable movement.
You know maybe the reason that more Americans are finding themselves agreeing with the OWS protestors over the Teabaggers, is that THEY are not represented by Victoria Jackson, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, or the crazy cat lady who walks up and down the street talking to herself, and instead are represented by well educated, knowledgeable people who seem to actually understand the problems facing this country and don't simply rush to blame everything on the black guy!
I'm a crazy cat lady who walks up and down the street talking to herself and I really resent being lumped in with Bachmann and Palin. I am not trying to impose an ideology on anyone, create a theocracy, or fleece people, and I approve of Occupy Wall Street.
ReplyDeletePlease stop insulting cat ladies by comparing them to the likes of those 3 idiots.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a comparison of the signs in these movements. I have yet to see an improperly spelled sign at an OWS event. while it was hard to find one that was correct in the Tea Party dressup events (but the guns were in plain sight.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this picture of a T-party rally. As you can see, their PR effort at winning America over to their side includes disfiguring pictures of our popularly elected president in an ugly, childish way.
ReplyDeleteI also receive emails from some of my South Carolina T-party relatives; they are full of bitterness and anger.
The OWS movement has a completely different feeling. NPR had a brief clip of a OWS young woman describing the intentional community she and others are creating.
They are self-organizing and "process is important. Every voice is heard". What heartwarming words. This is America at her best.
When it started to rain and they sent out a request for dry socks, they received so many socks so quickly, it was overwhelming.
a sign i want to see -
ReplyDeleteFAIR TRIALS FOR BANKSTERS
Of course it's more favorable ergo the shift in message from the candidates who are trying to spin and coopt it into their own twisted viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteSeveral organizations have created fabulous artwork freely available for download for the OWS movement.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite has a young woman, hair flowing out behind her, striding boldly forward into the streets. My favorite statement is "It's not a crisis. It's a scam." with arrows pointing up and down.
current cnn poll . Which protest movement do you favor more, Occupy Wall Street or the tea party?
ReplyDeleteOccupy
70%
74819
Tea party
30%
32561
Total votes: 107380
Another difference is that the OWS supporters were NOT paid, bussed in and given boxed lunches. Another difference - the OWS people are intelligent, non violent, unarmed citizens. That must scare the living HELL out of the TP supporters.
ReplyDeleteSally in MI makes a good point. No one I have heard or seen in the OWS movement is carrying guns or making reference to "2nd Amendment solutions".
ReplyDeleteSome of the artwork for a OWS poster is the brass bull on Wall Street with a ballerina balancing on his back.
Yes, she is "riding" him using just one of her toes! What this poster means to me is that brute power and money can be guided and mastered with beauty and grace.
Matt Taibbi Suggests 5 Reforms for Wall Street
ReplyDeleteThese are, briefly:
1. Break up the monopolies - The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions"
2. Pay for your own bailouts A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives
3. No public money for private lobbying A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him.
4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires.
5. Change the way bankers get paid We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later.
Read the whole article at
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012
Gryphen,
ReplyDeleteGreat job linking to this article. I found it very interesting.
The main difference is that OWS protestors are on the side of the angels.
ReplyDeleteSimple case in point: the Tea Party was inspired by a jerk on the Chicago trading floor ranting about people who were about to be evicted from their homes getting any mortgage assistance.
Yesterday, numerous OWS protestors showed up at a foreclosure auction and staged a sing-in to try and thwart the auction. They didn't stop, even after they were handcuffed. http://www.scribd.com/doc/68502661/O4O-OWS-Press-Release-Brooklyn-Supreme-Court-protest
only a rethug could think that a mixed race black child who was raised (in the 60s/70s) by his single white mother, who died at a young age and then later his elderly white grandparents, who worked his way through hs, college, law school, to become the first black president of harvard law review all on his own, is a spoiled brat...
ReplyDeleteand people wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us
--The Right Alice
where is the frigid bitch? where is her POTUS endorsement? I can see the "candidates" calling her and BEGGING her NOT to endorse them!
ReplyDeleteGryphen - some POWERFUL photos here of eerily calm protestors being brutalized by enraged police. http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/14/8319674-nypd-clash-with-occupy-wall-street-protesters-make-arrests#.TphZeQC6rgU.facebook
ReplyDeleteI have a lump in my throat right now, I really do. These kids...they are so determined...so full of strength...even as they are being struck by the fists of police who seriously look like they take steroids.
There's something happening here, people.
Make this go viral!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
I had that thought too, The Right Alice. John McCain was the "spoiled brat" in the 2008 election. Had his Admiral grandad not pulled strings on his behalf, little Johnny would have spent some time in the brig.
ReplyDeleteA sign that my T-party relatives thought clever is "Some where in Kenya, a village is missing it's idiot."
They had a little laugh over that one during the last holiday get-together. I was there and laughed the longest and hardest. That was the best they had? That his dad was from Kenya, and he was "stupid"? Poor saps.
You GO, Matt Taibibi, exactly!
ReplyDeleteThe perfectly useless Democrats are trying to co-opt the OWS folks and make them appear to be Democrats.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/move-on-tries-to-take-over-occupy-wall-street-protests.html
Thanks for posting this, the teabagger photo says it all!
ReplyDeleteI'm with Matt Taibi! And TY for the business insider link! CQ Aussie
Great Stuff!
I'm so proud of the peaceful OWS protesters, but was appalled to hear from someone that a commenter on "Morning Joe" (don't recall who) this morning, even suggest they need a "visual" to get their message across and galvanize their cause, you know, something like the Kent State massacres.
WTF is wrong with people? Nothing comes from violence, and THAT'S the beauty of this movement.