The sociologist Peter Berger is not impressed with either the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street. Excerpts:

At first there was something refreshing about [the Tea Party]. For once these were people on the right concerned with issues north of the navel, like government spending and the national debt. As the Tea Party became a major force in the Republican Party, the sense of freshness quickly dissipated. A doctrinaire fanaticism against even one dollar of additional taxes repeatedly brought the country to the brink of economic catastrophe. … The Tea Party has become a well-organized constituency in right-of-center politics, thus raising the question whether it can still be called a movement at all.

As for OWS:

Of course those of us who remember the 1960s have a twilight-zone experience of time travel, the pseudo-revolutionaries of that period reincarnated on today’s streets—the same young people, it seems, camped out with their sleeping bags and guitars, mouthing the same mindless slogans against capitalism and “the system”. But of course it isnot the same young people, but their children and (more likely) grandchildren trying to relive the excitement of a supposedly heroic age. Here and there one can still see grandpa himself, no doubt swallowing pills supplied by Medicare (thanks to George W. Bush), his sparse grey hair defiantly tied in a ponytail. It was reported that a lending library was set up for the campers in downtown Manhattan. The books most in demand were by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky (who said that young people today have no interest in ancient history?). … It would be nice if liberals admitted that the current economic crisis began in the housing industry, and was not only the result of Wall Street greed, but also of government policies pressuring banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them.

Berger goes on to say that both movements arise out of genuine, justified grievance, but in their current incarnations, do more harm than good. He would like to see a movement from the “vital center.” As would I. But how do we get there? People who back OWS and the Tea Party both say that the distaste people like me have for both movements is a sideshow, but I think it comes out of a more fundamental disagreement with the movements’ analyses and goals.