Occupy for Liberty, not the Left

To all the libertarians participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement and the various springboard protests across the country: break free while you can.

Okay, for all my agreement with their unalienable right to protest as protected under the First Amendment and my belief the overall "Occupy" movement is getting a few points right, this item is a bit much to swallow: as reported by the Associated Press, out of the $435,000 raised thus far to financially support the protest efforts on Wall Street itself, approximately $350,000 of it has been donated via online credit-card transactions.

Why does this matter? This movement is founded on the notion that financial sector greed is at the root of almost all of the evils gnawing and rotting away at America. So to combat that evil, OWS protesters are funding their effort via the very financial machinery against which they claim to be locked in righteous struggle.

Next, common sense dictates that for any grassroots movement to successfully win over popular support from the public at large they need to be willing and able to interact with traditional media in addition to the new media of the digital age.

When that same common sense employed in the previous paragraph is applied toward a situation where men donning masks engage in open hostility toward a local television reporter in Oakland because she simply is trying to give them news coverage, that should lead most people who choose to use it to realize the movement's radicalization is careening down an irreversible course.

And that is a shame. Occupy Wall Street began with genuine promise for affecting something positive in America. Instead, it has been so thoroughly overtaken in sheep-like manner by the Left it makes the Right Wing's effort to co-opt the Tea Party pale in comparison.

In my final appeal to common sense, take a moment to read a Bloomberg article explaining how there now is a greater concentration of wealth in Washington, D.C., than in Silicon Valley.

But Wall Street remains the central focus for protesters… The things that make you go, "Hmmmm…"

Or, as Lew Rockwell has pointed-out, the wrong 1% in America is being protested.

So, my fellow libertarians and voluntaryists trying to co-opt this movement, the left's infernal hypocrisy in most corners and radical agenda in others are too much to overcome. Splinter off and form you own movement – "occupy" in front of the Federal Reserve, Securities & Exchange Commission, and other public and quasi-public financial entities – but don't be afraid to piggyback on the left's efforts.

If they believe so much in redistribution, they won't mind sharing some of the media attention a few of them are so eager to spurn...

Occupy Wall Street… It’s not just for leftists anymore

Establishment co-opting of a grassroots political movement is nothing new.

Just ask Ron Paul supporters their thoughts on former-Senator Trent Lott’s remarks in 2010 about the Tea Party movement.

While there has been no shortage of commentary and analysis of how various groups and limousine-comfortable celebrities – ranging from left-leaning to radical-far-left in nature – have been rabidly injecting themselves into the Occupy Wall Street movement, the coverage has been missing an important portion of this story.

The leftists are not the only ones active in this expanding scene of protests.

A steadily growing contingent of libertarian protesters has been present all the while. You’re just not hearing about them.

The only ones making mention of them have been libertarian news media figures such as John Stossel and Andrew Napolitano as well as entities led by the Reason Foundation.

With Occupy Wall Street, much like the Tea Party, the libertarians are being widely disregarded by those who blindly seek to disagree with that movement – zeroing-in on the co-opters and making them their focus.

Amidst a sea of so-called 99%-ers holding signs decrying their mounting student-loan debt stand pockets of legitimate activists holding “End the Fed” signs and other displays along that thread. The principle misstep being made by these libertarian and voluntaryist “occupiers” is they’re allowing themselves to blend-in with the kooks.

I appreciate the desire to highlight what ought to be the common thread shared with the left-wing so-called anti-establishment types: the understanding that the unholy marriage of major corporate interests with government regulatory authority is destroying our free market way of life by driving small local competitors out of business through oppressive, ungodly complex rules of operation.

That message is a far cry from the self-described 99%-ers who simply want to exact their pound of flesh from Corporate America. But, messengers for liberty are being largely ignored… unfortunately.

My advice for those who are part of the voluntaryist and libertarian camps in this movement is if you really want to get your views noticed while making a few sphincters tighten in the process, then depart from the corporate offices and march in front of the public institutions that are at the heart of the problem. Migrate away from Wall Street and begin protesting in front of the New York Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For those in Ohio who are looking to participate locally, don’t bother converging on Columbus. Instead, occupy Cleveland – in front of the city’s branch of the Federal Reserve Bank there (by the way, the Cleveland Fed is located at 1455 E. 6th Street).

Forget about Wall Street: Occupy for Liberty.