Occupy Wall Street is continuing to provide a challenge to the status quo media, and as it does, the difference between those who want to point and laugh without thinking, and those who give it a fair hearing, is pretty instructive.
CNN is clearly in the former camp, and Jay Rosen caught more than one of their seasoned, savvy crew acting like the Heathers of the mainstream media. Another crew that isn’t covering itself with glory are Mataconis and Joyner at Outside the Beltway, both of whom turned in Statler and Waldorf pieces on those damn hippies.
In contrast, here’s Ezra Klein, picking up on what I also think is the most interesting and durable message to come from the protests so far, the We are the 99 Percent blog.
One of the functions of protest is to bait the establishment into a telling reaction. By that standard, the Occupy protests have been more effective than I’d have imagined.
gumbo
I was stuck at the airport on Monday and heard Erin Burnet on CNN openly mocking the protest. “What do they want? Nobody knows. Drum circles! Hippie Chicks! Nothing to see here, move along.” I don’t watch TV news and was kind of shocked, honestly, to see what CNN has become.
arguingwithsignposts
Comments are borked on your iPhone post.
Elizabelle
@gumbo:
Yeah, I was really disappointed with Erin Burnett. Had pegged her as smart, but apparently not.
May she come to regret her incuriosity and shabby reporting.
arguingwithsignposts
If network execs were really interested in producing “news” shows and not entertainment salad with a news dressing, they’d poach some of the presenters from the Beeb. That one guy, Martin Beshir, has seemed to be a pretty good journalist when I’ve watched him.
MattF
I get the feeling that the commentariat is rather weirded out by the idea of leftists. Protesting leftists, even. Actual soshalists. Protesters who think that some class warfare would be a good thing. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Comrade Javamanphil
Nobody could have predicted that staffing America’s newsrooms with attractive people who have the intellectual curiosity of a bowl of jello would lead to vapid and worthless reporting. I’d say heckuva job, media, but I’m quite certain this was a feature, not a bug. Third morning in a row CBS Early Show lead with Amanda Knox. Shoot me now.
mistermix
@arguingwithsignposts: Thanks for the heads-up, fixed now.
Surly Duff
Yes, the Occupy Wall Street protesters have pushed multiple greivances during the protests. However, instead of the of considering that protesting so many significant issues (foreclosures, taxes, the wealth gap, social issues, etc) demonstrates that this country faces a huge problem, the media has pushed the narrative that so many greivances reflects that there really is no message at all. It is telling.
Feudalism Now!
When 90% of your coverage is tongue bathing the 1%, someone pointing out that there is some rigging of the game for that 1% is inconceivable.
Mark S.
Mataconis:
Maybe to give dummies like Doug the illusion they’re being regulated? It may surprise Doug, but most dictatorships don’t abolish legislatures, newspapers, courts, etc. but keep them and make them ineffectual.
kd bart
My one question to those partaking in Occupy Wall Street activities is what percentage of them bothered to vote in the 2010 election? Protesting is all fine and good but if you didn’t vote last time out in great numbers and don’t plan to vote in great numbers in 2012, it’s all going to fall on deaf ears. As crazy and illogical as the Tea Party’s protests were in 2010, they did follow it up by going to the polls in vast numbers.
vtr
We’re in the midst of a horrific economic collapse. Thousands of people, including recent college graduates unable to find work, demonstrate on Wall Street against an obviously corrupt financial establishment. Major news organizations fail to report on it intelligently, because they can’t figure what all these folks are upset about. A couple of years ago a “movement” sponsored by right wing groups comprising a bunch of elderly sitting around in a park on lawn chairs grousing about Washington and taxes, a it gets co finite coverage. Bulletin – the elderly don’t like taxes. The difference between the coverage – Fox News.
PurpleGirl
It’s been awhile since I saw the movie, but Broadcast News (1987) I thought had a good take on what news was becoming with the focus on the attractiveness of anchors.
MattF
@Mark S.: Also, it’s hard to believe he could have written that list without noticing that every one of those agencies is on the conservative hit list.
WereBear
I am amazed and thrilled at how the Occupy Wall Street movement is coming along. This weekend my little family is going up on the We are the 99 Percent blog.
That site makes me cry.
mrmcd
I liked this NYT article where ARS openly admits he takes his reporting assignments from bank CEOs.
PurpleGirl
September Job Cuts Surge To 115,730
Job cuts surge to highest level since April 2009.
From Challenger, Gray & Christmas press release
smelter rat
@kd bart….just who exactly should they have voted for? Far right nut jobs, or moderately right gasbags? There is no choice in America, that’s the point.
FlipYrWhig
@MattF:
This is the ’60s hangover again: for two generations of media types, mass action on the left is, as a rule, thoughtless, smelly, and either violent or capable of becoming violent at any moment — and, accordingly, Democrats always have to distance themselves from it as much as possible, lest they freak out the norms (whose interests the media styles itself as representing).
SnarkyShark
@Mark S.:
Dude makes the case.
Watching as each one of those organizations is gutted and turned into jokes in turn is a window into the takeover process and a fleeting glimpse of the shadow people at work.
There is something wrong with Mataconis’s thought process that he doesnt see it.
arguingwithsignposts
Mataconis is really pathetic. One of Joyner’s more boneheaded moves was giving that guy a bigger platform.
Chris
@MattF:
This. Can’t blame them, it’s been so long since that’s happened…
What strikes me is that they’re not even soshulists or leftists, as far as I can tell. They’re people who want to know why they’re supposed to take as much shit as they have while Wall Street got off with a golden parachute.
And I agree… it’s fucking sad to see what CNN’s become.
Isidor
Presumably in response to the We are the 99 Percent blog a conservative friend posted this on Facebook: Look At This Fucking 99 Percenter.
So does this fit into your “One of the functions of protest is to bait the establishment into a telling reaction.”?
HRA
@vtr:
This at #12.
Then, of course, it took a UK news service to show the pilots marching on Wall Street while our “glorious” media ignored it as it occurred and barely touched it later.
It really boggles the mind to read they do not know the purpose of the marching. What else can they do when there is nowhere else to turn?
Today my U has a protest happening by the students over the $300 hike in tuition and the bleak future of them getting any job when they graduate to pay back their loans.
singfoom
@kd bart: That’s a fair question, but I don’t think it necessarily delegitimizes the protest if they didn’t vote.
While the “We are the 99%” tumblr is a great messaging machine, the takeaway for me from this protest is the corruption of our political process by large corporate and wealthy individual donations and incredible lobbying efforts by the moneyed.
Given that context, I feel like my vote is worth less than it should be. Not worthless in and of itself, but certainly less than it should be.
IMHO people should get out there and protest and when the time comes around make sure they vote and everyone they know votes…
flukebucket
For the occupiers. Give ’em hell!
batgirl
@Surly Duff:
But protests by the over-50 white bread America displaying fear and hate of the “black man” get very serious coverage because we must take seriously people who march with signs that equate health care reform to the Holocaust and tell us to “get government out of their Medicare.”
Is it too early to start drinking?!
SnarkyShark
This is the dynamic that has to be changed. The norms are so programed that any image of a hippies is enough to make them run screaming to a voting place to pull the lever for some Republican daddy. Then they pat themselves on the back about how noble and heartland they are.
Personally I would be ashamed to be so easily manipulated.
I sure wouldn’t celebrate it.
Stefan
@Mark S.:
He’s never heard of the concept of “regulatory capture”?
singfoom
@Mark S.: It’s like he’s never even heard the phrase “Regulatory Capture”. Fuck, how can one look back on the financial collapse of 08/09 and not see the problems with our regulatory agencies?
Deliberate obtuseness, thy name is Mainstream Media.
bjacques
CNN International are pretty useless too. Talk about squeezing around and limboing under the elephant in the room. Can’t jeopardize their Rolex and bank advertising accounts.
As I see it, the OWS protests do have a few things in common with some of the Arab Spring protests. Protesters met in the street to put faces to names they may know online. People learned how to organize and work together. Both of these will be important when these specific street protests end, as they surely must (really bad weather, police impatience). What’s really important is how the people involved can keep the ball rolling afterwards. Sure, a lot of protests had day-trippers just out for a good time. But there were always a few who formed the cores of effective organizations.
In 2008-2009, it was true of Teabaggers, even if they had big money behind them. Earlier this year, it was protesters in Ohio and Wisconsin. Now it’s people at OWS rallies.
Isidor
To be clear… the link may not necessarily be reflective of “the establishment” but it may be a “telling reaction”.
Scott
@SnarkyShark:
There is something wrong with Mataconis’s thought process that he doesnt see it.
Mataconis’s paycheck requires him to never see anything the big bosses don’t want him to see.
@Isidor:
Presumably in response to the We are the 99 Percent blog a conservative friend posted this on Facebook: Look At This Fucking 99 Percenter.
That person is not your friend.
FlipYrWhig
@bjacques: My sense is that the Egypt protests, to which the major media were rather sympathetic, opened a space for rethinking how one might cover other instances of collective action. But they haven’t quite overcome their hesitancy yet.
SnarkyShark
@Isidor:
I love the way he runs down all those stories in turn. He the great arbitater of all thats good and true.
Yeah….it drives em crazy and the more sociapthic of them heve to let their freak flag fly.
When I read this guys facebook the only thing missing is neon flashing signs saying “Asshole and proud of it”
arguingwithsignposts
@Isidor: Yes, telling the lack of empathy there.
Brian R.
@Isidor:
Christ, what an asshole.
I don’t use Facebook, but if I did, I’d post that site under the title “This is What a Heartless Republican Asshole Looks Like.”
fasteddie9318
I keep saying that Outside the Failway should be on the monitor and mock list, but does it get moved? No, because balloonbagger John Galt Cole secretly loves that place (the trolling, I am doing it right, yes?).
MikeJ
@fasteddie9318: Needs more cudlip.
PurpleGirl
@Isidor: So your friend thinks his rewrite is funny? Wait until he loses his job and its benefits… How much will he whine and complain then?
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ: WAI!
SiubhanDuinne
@PurpleGirl:
One of my all-time fave movies. I haven’t seen it in a while either. Can’t believe it’s been almost 25 years!
Isidor
@Scott
FWIW – He’s not a close friend, but a ex-college dorm acquaintance with whom I’ve always been on good terms (minus some creative college-style pranks). Regardless, I find it useful to try to better appreciate his viewpoints, and I don’t choose friends solely based on whether I agree with their political views.
@Snark
To add further clarification, he posted the link, he’s not responsible for the web site itself.
Regardless, “telling”.
Linda Featheringill
Romney called the occupy movement “class warfare.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/mitt-romney-occupy-wall-street-is-dangerousclass-warfare.php
And he’s right, of course. I think that means he was actually listening. Chalk up a point for him.
Scott
@PurpleGirl: When he loses his job and benefits, he’ll whine because he’s a victim of Evil Democrats and Minorities. There’s always someone he can find to blame, as long as it’s not himself…
Isidor
@PurpleGirl
Again, he just posted the link. He did add this comment though: “Got my humor in for the day. :)”
So yes, he thought it was funny. And no, I did not.
I think it would be worthwhile to try to better understand his views, but my experience is that the type of discussion required would be rather clumsy over Facebook (and I wasn’t up for calling him from Taiwan where I am at the moment).
cleek
@smelter rat:
wrong.
if you want a choice, promote candidates you like.
look at what the teabaggers did: they promoted their preferred candidates over the party’s choices, got a ton of them elected, and have made a huge difference in Congress.
sure, it’s easier to say it can’t be done and to pretend The System can’t work, than it is to do the hard work of actually doing getting your candidates elected. but that’s just laziness.
Li
Being pissed off at being hoodwinked, suckered and screwed by Wall St. and the major international banks isn’t so much a left/right issue as an awake/asleep issue. If voting for Republicans gets you Goldman and Merril screwing you, and voting for Democrats gets you the same, eventually people will find a third way. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to create a viable third party in the US currently due to laws that discriminate against them. And without major corporate support, a friendly media, and huge piles of money, an internal protest movement like the Tea Party can’t take hold. So, like a raging torrent of water, this powerful desire to get a fair shake and stop the abuse and fraud is following the path of least resistance; revolutionary protest. We have a long history of that in this land, after all.
In the end, one of the most critical steps for the success of this movement will be avoiding the distracting partisan arguments in favor of a focus upon what is really going wrong in this country. Thus far, their discussion based decision making process has been succeeding at this, and I can’t help but think that this is a significant reason that the media can’t understand the Occupy X protests. Unless a group can be shoved through through the left/right/socialist/capitalist meat grinder and reduced to ground horse (race) meat, the media doesn’t really cover it. It is invisible to them. But they can’t ignore this evolving sit in, and so now their cognitive deficiencies are getting a full airing. Hopefully, the result will be that more people will just stop listening to the major news media, their blindness and their lies.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I accidentally ended up at the CNN website yesterday. It resembles the National Enquirer. They have a weird obsession with China that borderlines on racist and then there’s riveting topics like:
* What we don’t tell our husbands
* Police: Mom glued toddler’s hands to wall before beating her into a coma
* Gallery: Cell phone use by the numbers
What a waste of electrons and pixels.
Corner Stone
Erin Burnett made her career on CNBC. Why would anyone expect her to have a decent (in the human sense of the word) approach to just about anything?
Corner Stone
@MattF:
If you meant the BJ commentariat then you are absolutely correct with this observation. But what you have to remember is that a huge chunk of commenters here are non practicing Republicans at the current time.
PurpleGirl
@Isidor: Oh, I understand his views… he’s not one of the 99%, he thinks someday he’s gonna rich so why hurt rich people now, etc. And someday it might dawn on him that no, he won’t be rich and that he’ll live a lot less nicely because he supported the 1% and made fun of the 99% and that there’s nothing he can do now. I talk to several seniors in the development where I live and they are republican/teabaggers and putting other people down hides their bitterness about how their lives turned out. (And based on certain criteria, their lives aren’t bad.)
Corner Stone
@fasteddie9318:
I used to pop by OTB a few times a year but one day I asked myself “why”? So now I don’t bother. Why would I want to read anything Doug Mataconis has written?
SensesFail
@PurpleGirl:
Exactly. Conservatives/Republicans will NEVER acknowledge the fact that they could easily have a run of bad luck (e.g. failed business followed by massive medical bills) that will place them in need of government assistance, right there along with those who they are deriding.
And of course, in their usual hypocritical style, they won’t hesitate to grab any and all government hand-outs they can get their hands on.
Corner Stone
@Isidor:
There is no way to better “understand” his views. Because he doesn’t have any. He has talking points and dogma, that’s it.
I’m surrounded by wingers, and have conversations with some of the more palatable ones all the time. They can’t argue, in any sense of the word. They repeat slogans or talking points until you debunk them, then they slip back to Circle B and repeat that series until you debunk them, and by then lunch is over or I just start talking about sports.
I’ve had the same conversation a half dozen times with the same guy. Never changes. No point to “understanding” it.
FlipYrWhig
@SensesFail:
But even if this did happen, they wouldn’t see themselves as “along with” the bad people. Theirs would be a special case. They just need a little temporary help; it’s not like they want a handout or to make a lifestyle of it, like the bad people do. The fact that the bad people are, when you get down to it, hypothetical, and that everyone has his own story of how he got hosed by the system, doesn’t change their views either. It’s all a matter of maintaining a distinction between you and the Others, people who aren’t really like you, no matter how similar their circumstances; and the Democrats want to reward those people, but the Republicans want to punish them.
RalfW
Mataconis was a total dick on Joyner’s OTB thread. I mentioned, early on, that one of the crises is in the wave of student loan debt.
Mataconis’s response: College loans? Oh, are the latte-sippers mad?
I pushed back, pointing out that I work with black and other young adults of color who have taken on serious debt to be the first in their families to go to college, and they’re graduating with $40K in debt and no jobs.
TO which Mataconsi said “people make bad choices, or have bad luck.”
Fuck that, I countered with some healthy points about how Wall Street destroying the economy wasn’t bad luck, it was a premeditated disaster.
So Mataconis called me a socialist hack as boring as the campus rabble when he was in school 25 years ago.
And so on.
These very, very inside the beltway men are all nobless and no oblige.
Its vile, their contempt for middle class and working class people who bought the American dream, mortgaged their lives, and then got royally screwed.
NickM
You know, the norms aren’t so norm any more. I’m frequently one of the only people on the beach or at an amusement park w/o tattoos. Nose rings are not particularly punk anymore.
Linda Featheringill
Very interesting discussion of the occupy movement:
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2011/10/hacktivism-meets-wall-st.html
[gotta get back to work!]
handsmile
Actual, sorta, kinda, data in response to kd bart’s comment above (#11):
Because of my commitment to GOTV efforts, the question of personal voting practices is a topic I invariably raise when discussing political activism.
I have visited the “Occupy Wall Street” protest on three occasions and have spoken there with approx 30 people. To better inform myself of the protest’s objectives and tactics, I deliberately chose to speak with a broad representation in terms of age, race, and gender. Of those who answered my question (>25) about voting in 2010 and 2008, 9 had not voted last year. (Only 3 had not voted in 2008; two were age-ineligible; 1 not a US citizen)
To me, those percentages were an impressive display of engagement with the conventional mechanisms of participatory democracy. However, what did alarm me was that a high percentage of protesters with whom I spoke were ambivalent or indeed hostile about their voting intentions in 2012. Nose-holding for Obama (and one ardent vote for Ron Paul) seemed to be the dominant trope.
I need not be reminded that a random sample is not reliable data, but this first-hand account does address to some degree the important issue raised by kd bart.
FlipYrWhig
@NickM: True, but if you’re in the news business, there are verities that never change, and two of them are (1) people don’t much like protesters, and (2) anchor-people’s hair should be big and fluffy.
Corner Stone
@handsmile:
People are angry, and desperate. They don’t take very kindly to the “less evil” rationale. It’s easier to focus frustration on one guy than any subset of 535.
Rafer Janders
This “corporations run the government” meme has been around since the 1970s, and it’s no more true now than it was then. As Rick Moran points out, if corporations really ran the government would we have an EPA, OSHA, SEC, the EEOC, the FHA, the Department of Labor, or any of the other number of state and federal agencies regulate corporate behavior? If corporations truly “ran” the government, then why would any of these organizations exist?
This “the Communist Party runs China” meme has been around since the 1940s, and it’s no more true now than it was then. As Rick Moran points out, if the Communist Party really ran the government would China have businesses and corporations, millionaires, private land ownership, Special Economic Zones, foreign business investment, a stock market, four of the world’s ten most valuable companies, banks, private equity and hedge funds, a sovereign wealth fund, a court system, judges, a legislature, or any of the other number of state and private agencies and organizations that allow for an investment and export-led economy? If the Communist Party truly “ran” the Chinese government, then why would any of these exist?
schrodinger's cat
I just checked the Daily Dish and you can add Andrew Sullivan to the people who is mocking the Occupy Wall Streeters. BTW what the hell is Adbusters? That post made no sense to me.
Rafer Janders
Can we just get a couple of our protestors to don white powdered wigs and tricorner hats, start playing a fife, and march around under a Gadsen flag and screech about liberty? Shouldn’t that do the trick?
schrodinger's cat
I think Obama did buy into the conventional wisdom of mainstream economics, after all he did teach at the mecca of conventional econ, U of Chicago. Whether he has changed his mind about what is to be done now, remains to be seen.
Chris
@Li:
I would argue most of the issues between left and right are really “awake/asleep” issues. There really shouldn’t be anything ideological about evolution or global warming, or about whether Saddam was involved in 9/11 or we found WMDs in Iraq, or about whether universal health insurance is more efficient than the private kind, or about whether torture is a necessary or effective form of interrogation, or about whether black people caused the recession, or about whether or not the Founding Fathers established a separation of church and state in this country, or… many, many, many things.
Conservatives chose the insane route on every one of those issues, hence the conflict.
Li
#64 Well, our own revolution was as much against the rapaciousness of the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company as against the crown, so in many ways the 99% protestors have more right to those symbols than the fake modern tea party.
Remember, the original tea party protest involved breaking into corporate property and tossing their goods into the harbor!
#66 The near enslavement of the American people by international corporations is what is driving these protests, and the only issues that you mentioned that are driving that dynamic are our useless wars and the for-profit health care industry, and particularly the financialization of that industry.
Unfortunately, support for our for profit death industry and our for profit health industry is fully bipartisan.
Chris
@Corner Stone:
This. SO true.
What I love most about those arguments is that if you just argue the merits of this or that issue without any labels, it’s actually quite possible to get them to agree that the liberal position is the right one. But, the minute they find out it’s in fact the liberal position, their minds hit RESET and you’re back to square one. Doesn’t matter that when they actually start thinking about an issue, they can get to a liberal conclusion – the tribal labels overrule that in an instant.
SensesFail
@Rafer Janders:
This.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
They also believe that if the bad people hadn’t been coddled and helped by liberals and Big Government, they never would have had that run of bad luck in the first place. The system owes them for having fucked them over in the first place.
Somehow, it’s never their fault.
Chris
@handsmile:
If Obama and, more importantly, the system as a whole start feeling popular pressure from the left, that’s not a bad thing. Remember FDR telling liberal activists that they had to force him to do what they wanted, even though he wanted to do it. If Democrats feel that they have to work harder to get votes and that the way to get those votes is to take a tougher line on Wall Street, it’s a step in the right direction.
Lee Baker
Some of the comments on cable coverage put me in mind of the Madoff story when it first broke. CNBC had a rather good show giving the mechanics of Madoff’s operation, including the role (or lack of a role) of the SEC. But this was followed by a roundtable discussion in which the question was posed: “Why has this story generated so much INTEREST?” The only theory the mostly young and attractive participants could offer was that it was due to the celebrity investors — Tom Cruise was mentioned — who had been bit. And I thought (not with great originality, but apropos): “Earth to CNBC. The SEC couldn’t spell CAT after being spotted the C and the A. Twice!” Yes, “clueless” pretty much sums it up. And being smart and sexy offers no protection.
Chris
@Rafer Janders:
Well, the Communist Party absolutely does run China. It’s just not very interested in behaving in a Communist fashion, that’s all.
Jennifer
Since so many media outlets are having such a hard time understanding the “message”, perhaps we should send them one: “We are the 99% who are out of money, which means, we certainly can’t afford to spend it with people who are propping up the d-bags maintaining the status quo. That would be – you. In other words, we’re not going to buy from your sponsors anymore, and we’re going to let them know why. Perhaps when we’re done, YOU will also have no money and you’ll finally understand our message. Or maybe the 1% – you know, your friends – will just throw enough money at you to keep you afloat in gratitude for your service in protecting their interests. Good luck with that.”
slag
Li
@Jennifer: Huzzah!
Jennifer
Here’s another thing I’ve wondered:
What would happen if every person in America who is deeply in debt just sat down today and wrote out letters to all their creditors that say, “Fuck you, I’m not paying”?
Imagine the tsunami that would overwhelm EVERYTHING under such a scenario. The courts. The collection apparatus. The banks. The credit rating agencies. A bad credit score would cease to mean anything, because pretty much everyone would have one. When everyone has bad credit, you stop offering it or you ignore it if that’s the only way you can sell, or you go out of business.
It’s kind of tempting to think about ordinary people wiping the slate clean on their own because the MOTU refused to do it when they had the chance.
Elie
@Mark S.:
I know and agree with you!
Don’t any of these people read history or political thought at all??? First theory class I had in grad school for public health talked about “regulatory capture” as a bonafide means for corporations to control without appearing to…
sigh
Still, these are pots that have not been stirred in a long long time and I am grateful that the spoon of these demonstrations is scraping up some burned on stuff from the bottom. Maybe we and the fates can add some more meat and potatoes to the stew with time? I am all for it!
Surly Duff
@Isidor:
Sweet fancy moses, that blog owner is a dick. The entirety of his summaries of consists of “No one said you should take out loans to pay for school and educate yourself, dumbass. Try getting a job jerkoff.”
It is not funny, insightful, and is pretty myopic – he can’t see the forest because his head is too far up his own ass. There is no honest conversation you can have with that person.
Elie
@Jennifer:
I think that this is why they want to discredit the demonstrations and their impact. They don’t want people thinking, “hmmmm, this is pretty good but what if we did….” types of things… They do not want people to awaken to their own power and to be motivated to want to use it…
Rafer Janders
@SensesFail:
It’s simple, really:
White powdered wig: sign of a Serious Person.
Long hair/dreadlocks: sign of an Unserious Hippie.
Fife and drum: Serious.
Drum circle: Unserious.
Liberty: Serious.
Equality: Unserious.
Rafer Janders
@Lee Baker:
And being smart and sexy offers no protection.
What? Since when?!?
Damn it, I’m fucked…..
Chris
@Surly Duff:
Really?
1) How, exactly, are you supposed to pay for the skyrocketing price of colleges these days without taking out loans?
2) How, exactly, are you supposed to get a job that’ll guarantee you enough income to raise a family and retire without going to college? I mean, in the old days, the union would take care of you, but thanks to the Reaganuts those things have been dropping like flies for thirty years. And not everyone can join the military, either.
Christ.
handsmile
Corner Stone (#61), Chris (#71):
As to the “lesser evil” option, I was somewhat surprised (but relieved) how many protesters stated their intention to vote for Democratic candidates next year, in spite of their passionate and often quite well-informed critiques of the Obama administration’s pragmatic/inadequate/complicit (your choice) efforts to reform or redress Wall Street’s rapacious practices.
But voiced almost to a person were expressions of deep disaffection even betrayal by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party leadership.
Their remarks underscored my fear that Democrats will come to regret rebuffing this activist vanguard when they seek contributions of time and treasure (as if!) for the 2012 elections.
slag
@Rafer Janders:
Twitting: Serious
Camping out in the rain to draw attention to the gaping maw that has become our class divide: Unserious
One of the best aspects of that Twitter exchange was when that “BookGirl” person insinuated that, if you can’t explain it in 140 characters or less, it’s not worth understanding. Clearly Very Serious.
Elizabelle
@Chris:
Post 66 — excellent.
singfoom
We must make sure apathy is continued. Beatings and mockey will continue until morale slumps. We can’t have people out there demanding their rights.
Fuck, you know, we can blog and comment all we want, but that’s just mental masturbation. Not a hit on people here or in general, but I love these fucking armchair protesters.
“What? They have a list that has several things. What do they want? They’re so silly. They need to cut their hair and get a job.”
How the fuck has the 60s framing survived for 50 fucking years?
Chris
@handsmile:
I try to avoid taking sides in the Obot/firebagger civil war because I honestly see both points of view and think they both have merits. In this case, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that if those activists had been out protesting in the first two years of his administration, it might’ve made things easier by forcing him to move left.
I say “might” – it’s also possible that the sight of all those DFHs would have given more fuel to the teabaggers, it’s possible that it’s only now, after three years of this shit (and a month of a teabagger congress), that people are finally cluing into the notion that these leftie populists might have been right after all. But maybe not. We’ll never know now. All I can say is I’m happy it’s finally happening.
matryoshka
@Elie: Yes, I think the media et al want us to see the protestors as people unlike us, so they play up the DFH elements where they can find them and tend not to notice when pilots show up in uniform.
@Jennifer: (74 & 77) I will be interested to see if anyone else comments on this. I have pondered the same thing for several years, and people tend to gaze right through me when I throw it out there. I’m not sure where the disconnect is, but I’ve concluded that it will have to get a lot worse before people can entertain such thoughts. I have to admit to a certain amount of conflict about just flipping the bird on debts, though, as I’ve always been extremely responsible about paying mine off. I was also careful not to borrow more than I could pay off, and I think that’s not possible for many people any more.
Corner Stone
@Chris:
I’m going to disagree a little and say this was unthinkable at the time.
A big chunk of these protestors really bought into the idea that changes was possible, and coming. They, for the most part IMO, had helped usher in D majorities and a vibrant D president. And at the time you also had an almost overwhelming force of pushback saying things like, “He hasn’t had time to do anything yet! Give him a little space!”
Of course that morphed into something else too.
But IMO, even though things were scary bad during that period, a vocal and demanding protest did not have the scenario to start or grow.
Corner Stone
@singfoom:
Watch it play out right here at BJ. Given the thousands and thousands of people involved, it takes one less than stellar tweet or visual image of one single protestors and you hear a number of commenters here start howling. “That’s not helping.” “Oh yeah, that’s going to be good for them”
etc.
WereBear
Good heavens, YES. And then they get mad at you for “tricking” them.
singfoom
@Corner Stone: Oh, I know. It’s almost as if we as a culture have concern trolling ingrained into our cultural DNA.
“Oh, that’s not going to work perfectly, so you’re a failure.”
I see more hope in the events around OWS in terms of political movement in this country than ever before in my life.
handsmile
@Chris: (#88)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris:
That’s my take on Obama. Which makes the protests even more important. The Village Idiots have proved they can tie up the entire government but if they are facing pitch forks and torches in the financial centers suddenly Obama stops being the new Joesph Stalin and transforms into a reasonable moderate (with liberal tendencies) you want to listen to.
The irony of all this if they had just got out of the way and let Obama clean up the mess none of this would happen. But they had to play hardball so now we get face the possibility of a revolution in this country.
Cris (without an H)
@kd bart: I think you have it a little bit backwards. One of the tenets of activism is that voting is the least you can do. The protesters are already getting far more notice than their votes ever have.
It’s not that I disagree with you — I personally am a ballot box fetishist, I have not sat out an election on any level since I was 18 (22 years ago). Voting is so easy, there’s no excuse for someone who can take the time to protest to not also take the time to vote, or even campaign.
But I’ve also read Emma Goldman, and I have some respect for the point of view that the electoral system is not the first place to look when you need fundamental changes.
cleek
@handsmile:
did any of them have anything to say about the fact that the GOP controls the House ?
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Well, let’s not get carried away… revolution isn’t in the cards here. But voter outrage, late XIXth/early XXth century style, is.
Although it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if running the country the way they have been DID eventually lead to a revolution. Not now, but fifty years or more in the future… whenever that number of people who have nothing to hold onto hits critical mass.
Chris
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, good point. FDR had it different for many reasons, but one of them was that the Depression had already gone on for three years when he came into office. Obama came in when it had just barely started, hence all the “give him some time” goodwill.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris:
Oh I could see it in the near future, the protestors don’t have a long term if nothing changes and the way the elite is going I don’t see them compromising on anything outside direct personal violence (Heck Warren Buffet is now a DFH because he is willing to accept fairer taxes). NOTE: I do not want/am not calling for a revolution. That just were I see the trend going.
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Sure, but the protestors may be people who don’t have a long term, but you need to have enough such people to make a revolution. Otherwise, all you end up with are riots that scare the rest of society away from you and into the arms of the “law and order” crowd. Which I think is all that would happen if these guys turned violent.
Barry
@Elizabelle: “Yeah, I was really disappointed with Erin Burnett. Had pegged her as smart, but apparently not.
May she come to regret her incuriosity and shabby reporting.”
In the end, the business reporters are servitors, carefully chosen to never mention the big stories, instead piling on the odd Maddoff.
Barry
@arguingwithsignposts: “Mataconis is really pathetic. One of Joyner’s more boneheaded moves was giving that guy a bigger platform.”
No, Joyner’s been slipping too. In the end, they’re both right-wingers, and when push comes to shove, they’ll go as hard-right as necessary.
Barry
@cleek: “sure, it’s easier to say it can’t be done and to pretend The System can’t work, than it is to do the hard work of actually doing getting your candidates elected. but that’s just laziness.”
And step 1 is to organize, make a visible fuss. Note that that was what the Teabaggers did (after their corporate p*mps set up the thing, that is).
Barry
@Li: “Being pissed off at being hoodwinked, suckered and screwed by Wall St. and the major international banks isn’t so much a left/right issue as an awake/asleep issue. ”
I disagree – the right’s position is to ignore it until it bites them on the tender spots, and then mostly to blame it on Evul Librulz.
tomvox1
I thought it was also interesting to see a lot of the non-mainstream Lefty blogoshpere get it completely wrong (at least at the beginning). Like, say, this Oliver Willis piling on piece calling on the protesters to dress for success:
I guess sitting around on the Twitter all day bitching is just more respectable then getting your ass out on the pavement and fomenting for change. Even if you’re wearing Superman Underoos while telling other people to dress better to be taken seriously.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris:
Valid points in normal times,.. BUT these arn’t normal times; the teatards are just are just itching to punch DFH in the face for real. Once you get defenseless kid being savaged by fat, ugly cops (taking Officer Tony Baloney as an example)then it becomes something more. Notice the protests ramped up right after the pepper spraying.
The elite can easily play it down by waiting it out and releasing the social pressure by uping the safety net. However they’ve been stroking their egos for so long what I see them doing is trying to send goons into the streets to teach a lesson and then the rioting really starts.
Journalist
CNN doesn’t care about Alison Kosik’s Tweet. In fact it got them publicity. More buzz and maybe more viewers. If you’re unhappy with what she said call or write the network.
Enough calls or letters will get action.