The fact that there ARE press releases indicates the movement has already been co-opted. Originally, I believe Tom was right that it was not co-opted, but I believe he is wrong that it wouldn’t be easy to co-opt the movement. It was extremely easy for the dems to co-opt the movement and most people didn’t even realize it happened when the shift went from anti-wall st to anti-millionaires.

I think there is a common ground between tea party and occupty wall st. in the anti-corporate beliefs, but they’ve both been co-opted by the right and left such that it makes it hard for people in either party to support the opposing movement. The tea partiers very much support people’s rights to be millionaires whereas the occupty wall streeters originally seemed to have a very diverse group of views, it has recently been co-opted to be very left and very anti-wealth.