Can tea partiers, occupiers join forces?

Opinion: November 2, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By John Kass

Chicago Tribune

Call me crazy, but I happen to be one of those flinty-eyed conservatives who appreciates the leftist verve of the Occupy Chicago protesters.

I loved the tea party protesters for the same reason I get a kick out of the occupiers. They don’t sit glassy-eyed in front of the TV, waiting to be told what to think. And they drive the establishment crazy.

And both groups know that scoundrels are running their government, and that sleek corporatists and politicians in both parties have been in league against them, bailing out Wall Street and accepting Wall Street political cash while the little guy drowns.

Someday, will both groups — occupiers and tea partiers — realize we have enough common ground to join together as libertarians and bend the nation to our collective will?

“No,” said my friend of the left, Jerry Vasilatos, 45, a freelance filmmaker who wants to tax the rich. “But nice try. We’ve got to hold the 1 percent with all the wealth and make them accountable.”

Mike Akyol, 18, a DePaul University student, hasn’t been part of the Occupy Chicago protest. But as an economics major, he wanted to study it up close. Like me, he admired their passion, but not the lack of focus.

“The tea party was about anger and so is this,” Akyol said. “But is that anger sustainable without a clear focus?”

Young people

OK, some of the Occupy Chicago folks may be young, and like their Occupy Wall Street brothers and sisters in other cities, many of them mistakenly believe that America can tax its way back to economic vitality.

And yes, a few of them may communicate by the use of hand puppets.

But where else would you see protest signs like this?

“Jerry Reinsdorf is a Welfare Queen!”

That one was carried on LaSalle Street on Friday by George Tiller, an unemployed teacher.

Tiller told me that he was inspired by reading a column in the Chicago Tribune ridiculing a sweetheart government deal that allows White Sox boss Reinsdorf to keep all the profits from a stadium restaurant built by taxpayers.

“That’s exactly the kind of corporate welfare that drives us crazy,” said Tiller. Bedeviling business people who gush on about the importance of free markets until they can grab a government subsidy isn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon.

The occupiers have petitioned Mayor Rahm Emanuel, asking that he give them a home.

And, they want a permanent settlement in Grant Park. I guess it would be considered a land grant. But through proxies, the Rahmfather wisely said no.

He’s not 100 percent right here. Americans should not have to ask permission from government to protest the government. They should be free to protest on public lands and squares and streets,

Potential disaster

But the mayor is right to deny them a permanent campsite. If he gives in, you know what will happen. They’ll camp there until the G-8 economic summit and the NATO summit and it will soon become a disaster.

Soon, you’ll see acres and acres of Grant Park devolve into a muddy shantytown, thousands of plywood huts and roofs of tarp and orange crates. Hobo fires with pots of watery stew on tripods. Folks scurrying to bury potatoes in the coals.

Meanwhile, some professor of Keynesian economics plays a guitar, and other Keynesians blow on harmonicas and kazoos, singing Woody Guthrie style songs about spending more government cash, as the throngs huddle in the snow and begin to hum.

Come to think of it, that singing part in the snow doesn’t sound all that bad. So I’ve decided to change my mind. I’m now all for an encampment.

Just as long as the anti-Wall Street organizers put up a big sign and name their Chicago shantytown after the one politician who has accepted the most Wall Street political donations, millions and millions more than any of his opponents.

And what would we call it?

Obamaville.

John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Distributed by MCT Information Services.