... the opposite question would apply as well. Ie. how is the Tea Party a group with legitimate concerns, but Occupy is just a bunch of unwashed hippies who don't want to get a job?

Though, I'm curious where you got the "Tea Party is a vast right wing conspiracy" from. Are people actually saying that somewhere? And not just crazy people? I don't think Dannymac said it.

Personally, I think that apart from the usual squabbling, the only thing that can for sure be taken from the Occupy/Tea Party movements is that a lot of people aren't happy with the way things have been done. It's splitting along political lines, but that seems to be the way of everything in America these days. The Tea Party is the far more organized and coherent of the two, but it had a three year head start. And regardless, people on both sides clearly take issue with the way things have been run, even if they have different ideas as to the problem/solution.

The message that politicians should perhaps take from all this is that people are not satisfied with the results of politics as usual. Unfortunately, the two movements are demanding solutions that are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, which sets them into conflict and makes them easy to play off one another. I'd be happier if both movements were demanding solutions closer to a middle ground between the two sides instead, because that would be a pressure impossible for politicians to resist. But I guess the people who want middle ground solutions aren't often the people who get mad and protest.