{"id":470,"date":"2011-11-18T08:38:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T13:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2011-11-24T12:32:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T17:32:54","slug":"the-1-problem-with-the-occupy-wall-street-movement-and-why-the-tea-party-arab-spring-succeeded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/the-1-problem-with-the-occupy-wall-street-movement-and-why-the-tea-party-arab-spring-succeeded\/","title":{"rendered":"The #1 Problem With the Occupy Wall Street Movement (and Why the Tea Party & Arab Spring Succeeded)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Occupy Wall Street, Nov 11, 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

I was a member of Toastmasters<\/a> for 4-years.<\/p>\n

I became a Competent Toastmaster in under a year after completing the first 10 speech projects (and went on to obtain my Competent Leader certificate a year after that). One of the speech projects is called Get to the Point<\/em>. The goal is to prepare a 5-7 minute speech that informs, entertains and has one specific point you’re trying to convey.<\/p>\n

And this is the problem with the Occupy Wall Street movement<\/a>\u00a0and other similar movements around the world, including Occupy Toronto (which is my home city).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

While the reason they assembled is quite clear, what they want to accomplish isn’t.<\/p>\n

Compare this to the Tea Party movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tea Partyers<\/a> have one villain – Obama and the Democrats. Obama is taking the country too far to the left, they say. He’s in bed with America’s enemies. Obama is damaging American values with his socialist<\/a>, pacifist<\/a> views. Obama is interfering too much in people’s lives with bloated financial bail out packages.<\/p>\n

The Tea Partyers had only one goal – to fill Congress with more Republicans in the next midterm election. What they did in Congress, the Tea Party movement wasn’t going to tackle that – yet. Instead, the goal was to simply get more Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n

That’s it!<\/em><\/p>\n

The Tea Party movement had one singular focus – one thing they wanted to accomplish in order to dilute the villain’s power.<\/p>\n

Compare this to the Arab Spring movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their villain? Tyrants and dictators hoarding power for decades. The single focus of Arab Spring<\/a>? To dismantle these faux governments.<\/p>\n

Their goals wasn’t to implement democracy or appoint a new leader. That would come after the dictator had been removed.<\/p>\n

Compare this to the Occupy Wall Street movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their villain is the disproportionate\u00a0allocation\u00a0of wealth. Or, in its simplest terms, greed. The 1% who are wealthy and continue to get wealthy. CEOs paid millions of dollars and get millions more even if the company isn’t profitable. Governments who bail out banks and megamillion corporations while Mr & Mrs Jones lose their home for falling behind on their mortgage. The 99% who pay the most taxes and have limited access to programs while the 1% continue to get richer and wealthier.<\/p>\n

I get it.<\/em><\/p>\n

What I don’t get is their goal.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I watch the news, peruse Twitter and read blog posts, those who are “occupying” have different goals:<\/p>\n