Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: Moral Equivalents?
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Many liberal politicians and members of the mainstream media are suggesting a moral equivalency between the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Is this legitimate?
The Tea Party seeks to strengthen our Republic by restoring government to its original form and function – as defined in the US Constitution by our Founding Fathers, while the Occupy Wall Street crowd seeks to destroy capitalism and democracy – replacing it with a Marxist form of socialism.
Let’s take a look at one of the major players behind the Occupy Wall Street protests – the Workers World Party.
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary socialist party in America, founded after splitting-off from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958. They have consistently defended groups like the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground.
You remember the Weather Underground or “the Weathermen” (WUO)? The clandestine revolutionary party for the violent overthrow of the US government! This is the group that conducted a terrorist campaign of bombings in America throughout the mid-1970s!
A positional document at the time of the group’s founding declared:
The most important task for us toward making the revolution, and the work our collectives should engage in, is the creation of a mass revolutionary movement, without which a clandestine revolutionary party will be impossible . A revolutionary mass movement is different from the traditional revisionist mass base of “sympathizers.” Rather it is akin to the Red Guard in China, based on the full participation and involvement of masses of people in the practice of making revolution; a movement with a full willingness to participate in the violent and illegal struggle.
That document was signed by, among others, Bill Ayers! You know, the unrepentant terrorist and buddy of President Obama who was quoted by The New York Times in 2011 as stating, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough!” You know, the ardent supporter of wealth redistribution who is purported to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy in 1970 when he stated, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s were it’s really at!”
Between 1970 and 1974 the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for 12 bombings and the jail-break of Timothy Leary.
The group’s founding document, You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows, declared that:
The “oppressed peoples” are the creators of a nation’s wealth and “it is to them that it belongs.” According to the Weatherman, “The goal of revolutionary struggle must be the control and use of this wealth in the interest of the oppressed peoples of the world [wealth redistribution]… the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”
But I digress… back to the Workers World Party and the Occupy Wall Street protests…
The early roots of the Workers World Party are in the global class warfare movement. They supported the People’s Republic of China as a workers’ state and proclaimed “We are the Trotskyists. We stand 100% with all the principled positions of Leon Trotsky, the most revolutionary communist since Lenin.” The also supported the the Soviet Union’s suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.
The Marxist-Leninist group supported all the socialist states during the Cold War era and called for a united socialist bloc. The Workers World Party adheres to a Leninist concept of cadre membership and their party platform includes guaranteed rights of work, housing, education, justice for oppressed social groups, the release of political prisoners, absolute amnesty for illegal immigrants and working class solidarity. They have consistently focused their resources on street demonstrations – including the current Occupy Wall Street protests.
The WWP motto is “Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite” and they consider Che Guevara an international hero of the people.
Sound familiar? It should! It’s the same motto of Andy Stern and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)… you know… another buddy of President Obama and major financial contributor to Obama and the Democratic Party!
In June 2010, the Workers World Party united with FIST to promote revolutionary socialism during the United States Social Forum held in Detroit. FIST (cute acronym huh?) is a youth organization known as Fight Imperialism, Stand Together.
According to the Workers World Party website, the stated goal of their intervention was “to make a major push for uniting around the need to overturn capitalism and fight for socialism and to [recruit for] Workers World Party and FIST.”
During that event, several workshops were held… including a “Capitalism Is Killing Us – Fight For Socialism” workshop sponsored by WWP and FIST. They also distributed copies of the Workers World newspaper, which featured the front-page headline “Abolish Racism, Capitalism” and “Fight for Socialism.”
Regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests, the Workers World Party made this statement on their website:
This [movement] might best be described by the famous statement attributed to V. I. Lenin, leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This quote is not just a clever description that happens to fit the moment. It is a perfect Marxist explanation of the unfolding occupy movement. It is an explanation of the way true change happens, according to the laws of dialectics.
Marxist dialectics, exemplified in the works of Carl Marx (Das Kapital), Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin and intertwined with historical materialism, seeks to resolve the conflict between the social and political parts of a society through class struggle (aka class warfare).
Is it any wonder that Obama and other leftists politicians are coming to the defense of the Occupy Wall Street protestors – if not outright supporting and encouraging them? While they were highly critical of the Tea Party movement? It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone – the Occupy Wall Street protests are right in their Marxist/socialist wheelhouse!
In fact, in October of 2009, the Democratic Socialists of America released the names of 70 Congressional Democrats who belonged to their caucus!
The Tea Party has a strong reverence for the democratic foundations of America – seeking peaceful change within the system. The Occupy Wall Street protests are an anti-American movement aimed at destroying capitalism and replacing our democratic Republic with a socialist form of government. There is absolutely no moral equivalency between the two movements.
© 2011, Mr. Common Sense. All rights reserved.
This post was written by
Mr. Common Sense – who has written 148 posts on A Return to Common Sense.
Defending Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by providing the people with common sense commentary. The key to restoring America to greatness is an educated citizenry equipped with critical-thinking skills. Follow on Twitter: @Common_Sense4U
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Tags: Andy Stern, Bill Ayers, Carl Marx, Che Guevara, communism, dialectics, Fight Imperialism Stand Together, FIST, Friedrich Engles, historical materialism, Joseph Stalin, Marxism, Occupy Wall Street, Service Employees International Union, socialism, tea party movement, Vladimir Lenin, Weather Underground, Workers World Party, WWP
Spot on with this write-up, no resemblance between the two at all! Will be sharing this with my friends and followers – great work.