Media and Politicians highlight extremist viewpoints in Protests, ignore major demands

[Original Poster]

There have been two major protests in the US since Obama took office, the Rightwing Teaparty which was against the Bailouts and the Leftwing Occupy Movement which is against the Bailouts. The Teaparty was discredited because the Republicans swooped in and twisted the original intention of the protest into a pro-gun, pro-God, anti-gay rally, thus turning the nation's rage against the Bailout's into an ignorant and misled mob in the eyes of the larger nation. The Occupy Movement was discredited because the Media painted an image of confused hippies that didn't know why they were there. Protests were combed through by journalists to find the few idiots that didn't know what they were talking about and using that footage to portray the Occupy Movement as a disorganized and ignorant mob. It's clear now that Sean Hannity hurt the Teaparty far worse than he hurt the Occupy Movement because while he ranted the Occupy Movement was a bunch of Bolsheviks trying to reign in totalitarianism, it can be assumed this opinion is not reflected by the movement as a whole and people that buy into that probably wouldn't have had an open mind to being with. But Hannity's portrayal of the Teaparty was villainous. While it was going on, he'd often act as unofficial spokesman along with the rest of Fox News. Meanwhile they twisted the motives away from the Bailouts. Here's an interview with the Teaparty founder explaining how this happened.

[ninja9578]

The Occupy movement is still largely on track. The catalyst was the bailout, but it's been about corruption in the government. Have you seen the Tea Party people? They do tend to be gay bashing rednecks, the Occupiers are still a diverse group of everyone, how it started is not relevant now, he seems logical. The drum circle is still a tiny part of the occupy, most are blue collar people who've lost their jobs.

[Alric]

All that talk about the tea party but no mention of Ron Paul? Instead of saying how no candidate represent the values of the tea party, how about mention the guy that started the entire movement? Both groups should be supporting Ron Paul. It always made me sick when they supported Palin who is an idiot and made the entire group look like idiots, and ignored Ron Paul. Though that is mostly just the media and politicians talking, and if you look at the core people, people who are serious, Ron Paul is still getting a lot of support.

[Original Poster]

The Occupy movement is still largely on track. The catalyst was the bailout, but it's been about corruption in the government. Have you seen the Tea Party people? They do tend to be gay bashing rednecks, the Occupiers are still a diverse group of everyone, how it started is not relevant now, he seems logical. The drum circle is still a tiny part of the occupy, most are blue collar people who've lost their jobs. The thing is, this is exactly the mindset the right side of the spectrum has about the Occupy movement only replace redneck and gay-basher with dirty hippy and communist. The Teaparty was also mostly blue collar people fighting corruption but all we ever heard about were the Guns, Gods and Gays cause that's all the media wanted to show us. Certainly a lot of those feelings were prevalent, especially after people like Sarah Palin started getting involved, but my point is the opinion we have about the Teaparty is just as manufactured as the opinion people have about Occupy. Both sides of this country are protesting the exact same thing but the media has twisted it into extremist viewpoints to discredit the movements and keep the country divided. Truth be told, the only real difference between the protests is that the Occupiers didn't want to be glombed onto a racist, reactionary, anti-Obama protest that was obviously about a petty political tug-of-war the Rightwingers didn't want to admit they lost.

[cmind]

Both sides of this country are protesting the exact same thing | | | | | | | | (cognitive dissonance) | | | | | | | | anti-Obama protest that was obviously about a petty political tug-of-war the Rightwingers didn't want to admit they lost.

[Original Poster]

I'm just trying to represent a viewpoint but go ahead and get on the defensive. That's what you're trained to do, after all.

[ninja9578]

I disagree with what you said that the tea party coverage is just showing the extremists. Whether or not the media made it this way is irrelevant, but the moderate tea partiers who at first identified with it, no longer do because of the extreme stance it has taken on socially backwards issues. While Occupy is holding onto almost everyone. People tend to look at "Tea Party" in a negative light, but even blue collar workers who would largely be republicans are asking for help from the Occupy, such as what happened with the dock workers and truck drivers yesterday. Occupy didn't shut down the docks, the dock workers did, the occupiers just added strength in numbers and media coverage to it. I think people also tend to take Occupy more seriously because over 90% of people polled, have college educations, whereas tea partiers tend to have very little. I think this attracts the more moderate crowd and is why the tea party went so extreme so quickly. Poorly educated people tend to believe whatever Bill O'Reilly tells them to, whereas highly educated people tend get the jist of things from the news and fill in the rest through actually researching the issue. This is why the Tea Party shouts about god's will and the Occupiers shout statistics. Also, isn't the tea party only like a few thousand people? I rarely see anything about them on the news, whereas occupy is on the news every night. I've seen pictures of "large tea party rallies" and the biggest ones I've seen are smaller than Occupy Wall Street on a Wednesday afternoon.

[Original Poster]

The Teaparty started out originally with the same goal as the Occupy Movement. However because of the time we were in with all the backlash against Obama no one on the left wanted anything to do with the protest because they didn't want to get glombed onto the side they disagreed with in a petty political war. It's the same with conservatives defending the Patriot Act even though secretly they know it's wrong but they don't want to side with what they perceive are communists. Because there was such a violent reaction from the rightwing after Obama's election, no one wanted to touch any of those protests except all the uneducated people who bought into the idea that Obama was a socialist and weren't afraid of looking a little racist. You have to see this as an intentional PR tactic. Extremist views were highlighted to the point where no one of reasonable mind wanted to touch the demonstrations.

[Alric]

The tea party doesn't really do protests any more, and you never see them on the street. Though they did get several people elected into office last election, so I wouldn't rule them out yet. You will need to wait til the next election to see if the 'tea party candidates' do well again.

[Original Poster]

The tea party was absorbed by the republican party. Elected Tea Party candidates promote no tea party values (except spending caps) and all republican values. The success of the Occupy movement could be gauged by their political success in 2012 but if a bunch of politicians sweep in and hijack support for their own interests, it'll be another failure.

[ninja9578]

It's the same with conservatives defending the Patriot Act even though secretly they know it's wrong but they don't want to side with what they perceive are communists. Incorrect, the right wingers tend not to look into what The Patriot Act really was. Like I said, they went with what Fox News told them and nothing more. There is an argument I had on DV a year or two ago where I was pissed off that they were allowed to detain americans with no proof indefinitely. Universal Mind (who is a lawyer, so not exactly uneducated) continued to insist that it only applied to enemies abroad and not citizens until I showed him the actual wording of the section about American citizens, at which point he immediately changed his mind about it. Conservatives think what they are told to think. If they bothered to actually read anything put out by Bush or Reagan, they would not be conservatives.

[Original Poster]

Incorrect, the right wingers tend not to look into what The Patriot Act really was. Like I said, they went with what Fox News told them and nothing more. There is an argument I had on DV a year or two ago where I was pissed off that they were allowed to detain americans with no proof indefinitely. Universal Mind (who is a lawyer, so not exactly uneducated) continued to insist that it only applied to enemies abroad and not citizens until I showed him the actual wording of the section about American citizens, at which point he immediately changed his mind about it. Conservatives think what they are told to think. If they bothered to actually read anything put out by Bush or Reagan, they would not be conservatives. My thread is supposed to reveal to you how this sort of bigotry about the other political party goes both ways. If you continue to assume conservatives are just too faithful in propaganda to think for themselves all you do is provoke them to dig their trenches in further, a wash is created and Public Opinion is once again defeated by Public Relations because the people can't sort out their differences and form a United Front. Conservatives say the exact same thing about Liberals you just did, but of course you have the right information, they don't. But Conservatives talk nonstop about how the gays are indoctrinating our kids and shit like that. Yeah it's propaganda, but it's propaganda about the enemy's propaganda, now how can you say Liberals are not guilty of the same thing?

[ninja9578]

how can you say Liberals are not guilty of the same thing? Some are, find a single argument I've made that I was wrong about. You won't be able to find it because I do research before spouting dumb crap. "Propaganda" implies things have been twisted to serve a cause without displaying the real facts. Liberals spin things too, but not nearly to the extent of conservatives. The reason for this is that the conservative base is on average far less educated than the liberal base so the liberal spinners know they can't get away with as much twisting. This is propaganda by marketing experts This is science by legitimate scientists Both the other side would call propaganda, the difference is that one is just words, the other is verifiable, quantitative, hard data. It's entirely possible that there really was a study and more doctors did smoke Camel than any other brand, Big Tobacco made the unscientific jump that that meant that doctors approve of smoking Camels. Whereas scientists make correlation data based on standard deviation, variable elimination, and the scientific method.

[Descensus]

pro-gun Minor correction: Being a semi-libertarian movement at first, started by Ron Paul and his ilk, it was already a mostly pro-gun movement before the republicans took it over.

[greenhavoc]

The Occupy movement is still largely on track. you're delusional, plain and simple Have you seen the Tea Party people? They do tend to be gay bashing rednecks is it possible for you to be any more ignorant the Occupiers are still a diverse group of everyone, how it started is not relevant now, he seems logical. The drum circle is still a tiny part of the occupy, most are blue collar people who've lost their jobs. apparently so

[ninja9578]

I'd love to hear more about how I'm delusional. Occupy started protesting the control of big money on the government, how has that changed? Go to Tea Party Patriots. On the lower right hand side of the page is a list of the people who "Like" them on facebook. Browse a couple of their profiles.

[greenhavoc]

I'd love to hear more about how I'm delusional. Occupy started protesting the control of big money on the government, how has that changed? because it's done nothing, and will continue to do nothing. but you still seem to think it has, and will, hence: delusional Go to Tea Party Patriots. On the lower right hand side of the page is a list of the people who "Like" them on facebook. Browse a couple of their profiles. so your argument here is: look at this link, read what some idiots have to say and then assume they're all like that. it's the only thing that comment could mean, ninja. i don't particularly care what either movement has to say anymore, as they both have become pundits. i don't understand you, at all

[ninja9578]

This isn't Egypt, change can't happen instantaneously, why would you think it could? Occupy is all over the news and forcing the media to look closer at the financial problems and the root causes. They will cause major overhaul in the next few elections, especially in New York and other places that it is prominent. Bloomburg for example, will be gone in 2013 so your argument here is: look at this link, read what some idiots have to say and then assume they're all like that. it's the only thing that comment could mean, ninja. Look up statistics, and in particular "statistically significant sample size." 40 is usually considered the sweet spot.

[ThePreserver]

What were you expecting? Everyone to agree with the people who want them out of office and out of jobs?

[ninja9578]

What were you expecting? Everyone to agree with the people who want them out of office and out of jobs? Who is this aimed at? Me? Because most people do want them out of office. Bloomberg held a steady 75% approval rating through 2 and a half terms. Since the protest his approval rating has dropped to less than 30%. Occupy is making New Yorkers actually look closer at the issues and see that Bloomberg couldn't give two shits about New York's middle class. That's happening all over the country, New York is just the most notable.

[ThePreserver]

Who is this aimed at? Me? Because most people do want them out of office. Bloomberg held a steady 75% approval rating through 2 and a half terms. Since the protest his approval rating has dropped to less than 30%. Occupy is making New Yorkers actually look closer at the issues and see that Bloomberg couldn't give two shits about New York's middle class. That's happening all over the country, New York is just the most notable. Not aimed at anyone in particular, just the general mistrust of the media. I meant Why would the media agree with Occupy, who want some form of justice brought to the corporations that essentially GIVE media employees their jobs? Whether they are funded by advertisements, a newspaper, news network, somehow corporations fund THEM. What benefits would come from accurately and fairly depicting Occupy protesters if they pose even a slight threat to their own well-being? They'd actually have to start WORKING, and reporting REAL news... they aren't used to that kind of journalism. Unfortunately, people are led to believe that they only have two choices, Conservative or Liberal, even though both support larger government, both support wars, both restrict personal rights and support corporate greed. We can't "oust" Congress without educating voters about third-party alternatives, even though third parties could lead to some coalition-building, COMPROMISE, and actually representing constituents. /RantRantRant

[Original Poster]

Minor correction: Being a semi-libertarian movement at first, started by Ron Paul and his ilk, it was already a mostly pro-gun movement before the republicans took it over. That wasn't a founding issue, a bunch of people paranoid about their guns because a democrat was in office decided thats what they wanted to protest. The Teaparty was not worried about Obama taking their guns, but many teaparty protesters were. That's a key difference.

[ThePreserver]

That wasn't a founding issue, a bunch of people paranoid about their guns because a democrat was in office decided thats what they wanted to protest. The Teaparty was not worried about Obama taking their guns, but many teaparty protesters were. That's a key difference. I think he means the Tea Party originators were already pro-gun; libertarians generally support the Second Amendment; one of the stances they share with the mainstream Republicans who ended up taking part of (and eventually taking over) the movement. I love the idea of a low-taxes, small-government country, and I completely supported the Tea Party movement until social conservatives capitalized on it and pushed it away from libertarianism and into social conservatism.

[Original Poster]

I'm pro-gun too but only paranoid and misinformed individuals thought Obama was going after guns. The Tea Party was not about protecting the 2nd amendment. That demand got tacked on by Fox News and cohorts who highlighted the pro-gun element as a means of discrediting the real demands.

[ThePreserver]

I'm pro-gun too but only paranoid and misinformed individuals thought Obama was going after guns. The Tea Party was not about protecting the 2nd amendment. That demand got tacked on by Fox News and cohorts. No one said the Tea Party was about protecting the Second Amendment... all we simply said there was already a pro-gun mentality involved with the originators of the Tea Party. it was already a mostly pro-gun movement before the republicans took it over. He didn't say the Tea Party was founded partially on Second Amendment principles, but Republicans did not "add" that on. Libertarians are pro-gun. They essentially began the Tea Party. The Republicans did not "change" that part of it, they just emphasized it (since it goes hand-in-hand with social conservatism today.) In fact, that is a reason Republicans could more easily associate themselves with the Tea Party. Now it's just turned into social conservatism, essentially pushing out libertarians (who are pretty much 100% opposed to social conservatism, which at its furthest extent is fascism). It's a darn shame, because I love the Gadsden Flag, but the NeoCons in the Tea Party are giving it a negative connotation (just like Russia did with Communist symbols).