no one cares about individual success. what they care about is opportunity. they also care about a politcal system that doesn't cater to the rich.
Nobody hates successful people. What is hated that in economic hardships like we are currently facing, the poor and middle class have to make all the sacrifices to fix it, while the wealthy keep getting more and more breaks. The programs being cut hurt the poor and middle class. Yet the wealthiest make no sacrifices to help fix the problem. That is true despite the fact that they are best able to make those sacrifices. The chart by North Side spells it out nicely. In addition we see that the US isn't first in people rising out of poverty, and we've previously seen that the US is behind nations like France, Spain, and Denmark (as well as a host of others )in upward mobility. So our system is not the best at allowing people to move out of poverty or upward in social class. We aren't even in the top 5.
I think you give too much credit to most for being fairly normal and rational about this. Pressure and animosity is building and sooner or later it will boils over and things could get ugly. For the last couple of years it's been such an 'us' vs 'them' mentality, eventually that can lead down a very bad path. I have no dog in this fight and don't really care, to be honest, this is simply an observation. I surely can't be the only one that sees this.
I share your concern about the frustration spilling into violence. However I'm less concerned about the group peacefully protesting while unarmed erupting into violence than I am about the group protesting with semi-automatic weapons, who support candidates who talk about 2nd amendment remedies to political problems.
No. When a Tea Partier committed actual violence, his response was a little more casual: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=194589&page=2
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