Forum Post: One more plea for maturity

If we -- the Occupy Movement -- truly believe that we are made up of the 99% of Americans who are at the mercy of the one percent, we have to stop excluding those with whom we disagree simply because we disagree with them.

I disagree with just about everything I have heard about or from Tea Party members or the organization. But that does not mean they should be excluded from this movement.

If we really want this to be a democratic movement and all-inclusive, we MUST welcome them into this movement and we MUST find ways of building bridges and finding common ground with them rather than antagonising and disenfranchising them. If we do not, we are as guilty as the one percent of being elitist.

With that said, if the Tea Party wishes to be part of this movement, it too, MUST find ways of building bridges with the rest of the movement and cannot seek to impose their will on the rest and stop antagonising those with whom it does not agree.

If we wish to be an inclusive society, we have to lay aside the partisan bickering and power struggles that have brought our country to the place it is in now. What I see going on here between several people on the left and right of this issue is the exact same thing I see going on in Washington and state capitols throughout the country. Each side is taking a Ross Perot attitude of "My way or the highway." Either we put that attitude aside, or we admit that we do not -- and do not wish -- to be the voice of the 99% and focus our attention on that portion of the populace that marches in step with us.