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I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican Party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. It might feel like this is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable. Perhaps you will feel even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's many unions that cozy up to the Democratic Party (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of some union leaders and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological
-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

6- On the web, you can prevent a lot of hijacking simply by checking the small print, or going to the about pages of a group or individual. Non-profits and political action groups are legally obligated to disclose a lot of things, and you need to be aware of this. If the information is nowhere to be found, do a whois page. Image searches can also be helpful. Examine who is posing with whom. Company owner? Where is that company located? Did they have a convention/charity event?

7- If you hear people who you know are part of the machine saying stuff like, "Progressives need to be more like the tea party," don't accept it on face value. Always follow the money, study past statements and groups they claim to be part of. If such people are suddenly telling you to emulate organizations that they once consistently denounced as evil or racist, without any rhyme or reason, they are lying to you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDIT: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared:

tl;dr Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."

Thanks to Whiskey With My Coffee, Feed the Protest, The Free Patriot Press, OccupyWallSt.org, Don't Feed the Animals, Politics in Zeros and all the other redditors who have been shared this letter. http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/kyjo2/an_open_letter
_and_warning_from_a_former_tea/

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And add to the fact that they're being manipulated, like so many muppet characters, it's more of freak show than an actual movement.

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Yet the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

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Ever since the midterm congressional election last year, Republicans have been repeating the phrase "The American People" as often as they can, as a sort of mantra. This isn't all that unusual, since politicians claiming a popular mandate is par for the course in the political game. But Republicans are exhibiting a rather large amount of overreach when it comes to claiming what "The American People" really want the government to do (and not to do).

Helpfully, a new poll put out by the Wall Street Journal and NBC shows a clear list of priorities for what the people really want to see cut, and what they don't.

For instance, while Republicans are obsessed over deficits, the public's number one issue is jobs and the economy -- which it pretty consistently has been for months. Republicans, though, have largely dropped the "jobs" issue like a hot potato after the midterms. No jobs bills have made it through even the House of Representatives, while Republicans pat themselves on the back and hold the ridiculous hearings and ridiculous votes they have been itching for, during their time in the minority party wilderness. The public even supports, by a thin margin, the government doing more for people rather than less -- which is not exactly what the Republicans ran on in the last campaign.

But that's not the real news. The poll actually made a good attempt at tackling the question: "What do Americans want to see the federal government cut?" They asked the question in two slightly different ways, with an extensive list of options for people to choose from. The poll isn't perfect (no poll is). [in startling contrast to the OPINION PIECE which claimed it knew precisely what comprised the OWSers] But the answers to these questions showed some very interesting differences in the priorities of the American people versus the priorities the Republicans are hewing to in Congress. From the full poll report (pages 16 and 17, in specific), here is the list, in order of the relative public support for each idea:

[Numbers given below are, in order: "percent approve" followed by "percent disapprove"]

[81-17] -- Placing a surtax on federal income taxes for people earning over one million dollars a year

[78-17] -- Eliminating spending on so-called earmarks for special projects and specific areas of the country

[76-22] -- Eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says are not necessary

[74-22] -- Eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industry

[68-29] -- Phasing out the Bush tax cuts for families earning two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more per year

[62-37] -- Reducing Medicare and Social Security benefits for wealthier retirees

[57-40] -- Cutting subsidies to build new nuclear power plants

[56-42] -- Gradually raising the Social Security retirement age to sixty-nine by the year 2075

[52-45] -- Cutting federal assistance to state governments

[51-46] -- Cutting funding for the new health care law so that parts of it will not be put into effect or enforced

[48-51] -- Cutting funding for scientific and medical research

[46-52] -- Cutting national defense

[45-54] -- Reducing agriculture subsidies or supports to farmers and ranchers

[45-53] -- Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventative health services

[44-50] -- Gradually turning Medicare from a system in which the government pays for most beneficiaries' medical bills into a program in which seniors would receive government-issued vouchers in order to purchase private health insurance

[43-55] -- Cutting unemployment insurance

[41-56] -- Cutting funding for the Head Start pre-kindergarten program

[39-59] -- Cutting college student loans

[34-65] -- Cutting heating assistance to low-income families

[32-67] -- Cutting Medicaid, the federal government health care program for the poor

[23-76] -- Cutting Medicare, the federal government health care program for seniors

[22-76] -- Cutting K through 12 education

[22-77] -- Cutting Social Security http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704728004576176741120691
736.html#project%3DWSJPDF%26s%3Ddocid%253D110302233016-962e97512a5b45d7b64c022c35d65248%257Cfile%253Dwsj-nbcpoll03022011%26articleTabs%3Ddocument, that pretty much reflects everything I've seen and heard and read about the OWSers.

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The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.

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Oh, fucking BULLSHIT!

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Bernard Harcourt describes in the New York Times Opinionator, “Occupy Wall Street is politically disobedient precisely in refusing to articulate policy demands or embrace old ideologies. Those who want to impose demands on the movement may show good will and generosity, but fail to understand that the resistance movement is about disobeying that kind of political maneuver.”

According to Harcourt, recognizing a lack of policy initiatives in the protests is precisely the point. The protesters don’t want to change the law; they want to change the system. They resist ideology because they reject the legitimacy and efficacy of political institutions. Ideology is seen as a tool—a destructive and avaricious weapon—used by the ones in power and wealth so they can retain their power and wealth.

What matters to these protesters is the society we live in, and society inherently contains a multiplicity of messages.

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(From The Tower, news cite of the Catholic University of America - http://www.cuatower.com/quill/2011/10/21/debate-of-the-week-occupy-dc-
does-not-aim-for-ideology/), which states the same things you can find all OVER the place about the lack of "ideology" of the OWSers.

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Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

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WHAT research? They don't say. If we're unrepresentative, how come the things we want are so similar to what the "American people" want? Civil disobedience is an AMERICAN VALUE, for heaven's sake, and something the Founding Fathers themselves propounded. As to violence, how much violent rhetoric did we hear, fairly consistently, from the Tea Party? "Support violence to advance their agenda"..."support", not "threaten", as the Tea Partiers did outright. What were the actual question, how were they phrased?? The OWSers have stated quite clearly their intent to "loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement". Those in New York and other places haven't BEEN violent, they've RECEIVED violence at the hands of the cops.
The whole thing is so slanted it's not worth paying attention to. The buzz words are in every paragraph, pejoratives abound, and its assumptions and flat statements are diametrically opposite to what I have experience and read. It's not just us, it's happening all over the world, as opposed to the EXTREMELY ideological Tea Party, which is a purely national phenomenon. There have been Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in London, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Australia and many other countries.

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What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

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The American people don't want the rich taxed (which is no doubt what they mean by "radical redistribution of wealth"? Check ANY poll on that one! Deep commitment to left-wing policies? Bull. Intense regulation of private sector? They give no FIGURES on most of the things they claim, so who can know? They claim all kinds of things, with no numbers to prove them.

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Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans

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SO DO MOST AMERICANS, by a large marginm for a LONG TIME NOW:

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Contrary to Republican dogma, polls show that the American people strongly support higher taxes to reduce the deficit and improve income inequality. Following are 19 different polls since the first of the year that say so.

A June 9 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 61 percent of people believe higher taxes will be necessary to reduce the deficit.

A June 7 Pew poll found strong support for tax increases to reduce the deficit; 67 percent of people favor raising the wage cap for Social Security taxes, 66 percent raising income tax rates on those making more than $250,000, and 62 percent favor limiting tax deductions for large corporations. A plurality of people would also limit the mortgage interest deduction.

A May 26 Lake Research poll of Colorado voters found that they support higher taxes on the rich to shore-up Social Security’s finances by a 44 percent to 25 percent margin.

A May 13 Bloomberg poll found that only one third of people believe it is possible to substantially reduce the budget deficit without higher taxes; two thirds do not.

A May 12 Ipsos/Reuters poll found that three-fifths of people would support higher taxes to reduce the deficit.

A May 4 Quinnipiac poll found that people favor raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 to reduce the deficit by a 69 percent to 28 percent margin.

An April 29 Gallup poll found that only 20 percent of people believe the budget deficit should be reduced only by cutting spending; 76 percent say that higher taxes must play a role.

An April 25 USC/Los Angeles Times poll of Californians found that by about a 2-to-1 margin voters favor raising taxes to deal with the state’s budget problems over cutting spending alone.

An April 22 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit. It also found that 66 percent of people believe tax increases will be necessary to reduce the deficit versus 19 percent who believe spending cuts alone are sufficient.

An April 20 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin people favor a combination of higher taxes and spending cuts over spending cuts alone to reduce the deficit. It also found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit and it is far and away the most popular deficit reduction measure.

An April 20 Public Religion Research Institute poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin, people believe that the wealthy should pay more taxes than the poor or middle class. Also, 62 percent of people believe that growing inequality of wealth is a serious problem.

An April 18 McClatchy-Marist poll found that voters support higher taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit by a 2-to-1 margin, including 45 percent of self-identified Tea Party members.

An April 18 Gallup poll found that 67 percent of people do not believe that corporations pay their fair share of taxes, and 59 percent believe that the rich do not pay their fair share.

On April 1, Tulchin Research released a poll showing that voters in California overwhelmingly support higher taxes on the rich to deal with the state’s budgetary problems.

A March 15 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that only 31 percent of voters support the Republican policy of only cutting spending to reduce the deficit; 64 percent believe higher taxes will also be necessary.

A March 2 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of people would support a surtax on millionaires to help reduce the budget deficit, and 68 percent would support eliminating the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000.

A February 15 CBS News poll found that only 49 percent of people believe that reducing the deficit will require cuts in programs that benefit them; 41 percent do not. Also, only 37 percent of people believe that reducing the deficit will require higher taxes on them; 59 percent do not.

A January 20 CBS News/New York Times poll found that close to two-thirds of people would rather raise taxes than cut benefits for Social Security or Medicare in order to stabilize their finances. The poll also found that if taxes must be raised, 33 percent would favor a national sales tax, 32 percent would support restricting the mortgage interest deduction, 12 percent would raise the gasoline taxes, and 10 percent would tax health care benefits.

On January 3, a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll found that 61 percent of people would rather raise taxes on the rich to balance the budget than cut defense, Social Security or Medicare. http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2292/americans-sup
port-higher-taxes-really they ask that "no matter the cost", or just make it up?

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Thus Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation. Among the general public, by contrast, 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 36% as moderate, and only 21% as liberal.

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Wrong. As of October 2,

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33.9% of Americans are Republicans, 33.7% Democrats. the number of voters not affiliated with either party fell from an all time high of 33.5% in August back to 32.4% in September.

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having abandoned any effort to work with the congressional super committee to craft a bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, President Obama has thrown in with those who support his desire to tax oil companies and the rich, rather than appeal to independent and self-described moderate swing voters who want smaller government and lower taxes, not additional stimulus or interference in the private sector.

Rather than embracing huge new spending programs and tax increases, plus increasingly radical and potentially violent activists, the Democrats should instead build a bridge to the much more numerous independents and moderates in the center by opposing bailouts and broad-based tax increases.

Put simply, Democrats need to say they are with voters in the middle who want cooperation, conciliation and lower taxes. And they should work particularly hard to contrast their rhetoric with the extremes advocated by the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

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"Increasingly radical" and "potentially violent activists"??? Prove it. I haven't seen Obama "thrown in with" the OWSers, unless I missed something major. I've heard he's said he UNDERSTANDS their frustration, and that's about it. Also, independents aren't "more numerous" and, again, by a large margin, the American people WANT tax increases on the rich. So that's two lies.

As to cooperation and concilliation, who has been the most UNcooperative by demanding cloture on virtually everything, despite the CONCILLIATION from the left (mostly Obama, unfortunately), and jezus, the "lower taxes" thing is assinine, given all the polls that show otherwise!

I reject that article out of hand; I don't know WHO they CHOSE to interview or how well their results reflect those in New York, but they sure as hell don't reflect those of us here, and they don't reflect OWSers in other cities across America and other countries around the world. A sample of 200 out of how many in New York, which doesn't even give figures on most of the claims it makes, which paints a picture of "violent" and "radical" OWSers with no proof, tosses in buzz words intended to bring about visceral reactions, makes statements with nothing to back them up...that's pretty sad.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off