Tea Party and Occupy
I think that both groups have a lot in common but have different focus. On one side, there is concern that the constitution was being ignored and on the other side that the big banks and other financial institutions got a free bail out from the tax payers.
The different approaches to protesting by the two groups is that one held ralleys for a few hours and another tried to make a sustained protest lasting for months. Comparing the crime done during either protest is not accurate because of the amount of time is different.
The constant problem with the Occupy movement was keeping violent people out. As you noted, this did not work. Several kinds of people were attracted to the Occupy movement and that included people who were using the protest as cover for their own intentions. The people who committed the violence and vandalism were the same folks who used the same tactics for the past 15 or so years (before Occupy was started). The characteristics of the vandalism was the same, a provocation followed by window smashing and fires.
I am sympathetic to the Tea Party and the Occupy movement but I disagree with forcing ideas onto people without giving respect to the "other "side. Our rights to privacy and protections from unreasonable search and siezure have been watered down since the middle of Clinton's administration. We also have allowed financial deregulation that let banks bet with customer's money and play games with LIBOR rates that hurt the smaller banks. TARP bailed out the major banks but failed to prevent the excesses that helped create the worst recession since the depression. There should not be any bank that is too big to fail and if the same banks create another crisis then the tax payers should not bail them out again.
