re: #715 Obdicut

I don’t actually think the Tea Party dudes had that specific an agenda, really. They followed, I’d say, whatever got presented to them by the right-wing media.

I think one difference is the remarkable consistency of the right-wing, the odd, nervous way it coalesces around whatever latest outrage or issue is. What I’m not clear on is whether the lack of that in the OWS stuff is due to a lower competency level among people like Adbusters in getting their message memed out, or whether those on the left are actually more resistant to such consensus and stuff. It’d be nice to think it was the latter.

I don’t think Adbusters could be accurately described as Marxist, though. They make common cause with some Marxists. But they’re more… abstract. I dunno.

What freaked/freaks me out about the Tea Party is the way the message is constructed, directed, and marketed by moneyed individuals and interests groups—the people who created the message are speaking out of conviction, but are casting self-beneficial policy as rooted in principle. Getting individuals Tea Partiers to pick up talking points was a matter of marketing to their niche. The funny thing is that was stage one…as the people who “bought” the marketed product were them used as endorsements to create a larger marketing campaign.

It’s like a kayfabe fight being used to start a real one.

I don’t like Adbusters or ANSWER (the former are just noxious; the latter broke their plate by being stupid enough to back Hamas and Hezbollah), but I don’t get the impression that they’re marketing OWS in a similar cynical fashion. Their message sucks, but they’re being honest about what their message is and to what end they pursue it. The other thing is that the crowd is not being handled and managed in a similar fashion to Tea Partiers so that everyone stays on-message.