Well, here’s one idea for small businesses to help get us out of this economic mess we’re in: Stop hiring people! That’s the proposal from Tea Party Nation member Melissa Brookstone in a manifesto picked up (and derided) by Gawker and Wonkette. Brookstone’s post accuses the Obama administration, the “progressive socialist Senate,” the “global progressive socialist movement,” and the liberals that make up most of Hollywood and the media of teaming up with the “marxists, socialists, and even communists” of the Occupy Wall Street movement in an effort to wage class warfare, redistribute wealth, collapse the US economy, and turn the nation socialist. And because of that, Brookstone encourages small-business owners to go on strike and stop hiring “until this war against business and my country is stopped.”
So, er, does this mean the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers will never work together? Too bad, because President Obama said in a recent Nightline interview that the two movements are expressing similar frustrations (watch at left, courtesy Mediaite). The Raw Story also notes that there is a quiet, but growing, call for the two to combine forces; after all, many in the Tea Party are also part of the 99%, and even Tea Party co-founder Karl Denninger supports the Occupy protests. “What is inspiring about this movement is its potential … to rally our country around an idea that we all believe fundamentally: This government is corrupt,” said Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig in a recent address to Occupy DC. That video, as well, is in the gallery. (More Occupy Wall Street stories.)