Hyperbole much?
Former Alltell CEO Scott Ford gave a speech to the local Chamber of Commerce in Fort Smith, Arkansas during which he drew a comparison between the 99 percent Movement and the Rwandan genocide:
Ford was the featured speaker at the event held in downtown Fort Smith at the Holiday Inn City Center. He shared his journey from Alltel, a company he was president of from 1996 to 2001, to Westrock Coffee and the Rwanda Trading Company.
“There’s a common denominator (with the Occupy Wall Street movement) that I understand. But what they could learn from Rwanda is this: if instead of being angry, they could figure out how the system works and have an economic impact within that system rather than just a political one, they could actually form the world they want to form,” Ford said.
~snip~
Ford shared his journey at the event as well as similarities he sees in Rwanda of 1994 and the Occupy movement that has been the subject of national media attention.
“We’re really not working on solutions right now. We’re working on our political positions. Until we get sick and tired of being sick and tired with our lack of progress, and we get a set of leaders in that will fix it, nothing will be solved. I don’t think we’re sick and tired of ourselves enough yet, but I think we’ll get there in the next five years. I hope we do,” Ford said.
Ford compared the “We are the 99%” Occupy protest slogan to the turmoil that existed surrounding Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. There, he pointed out, was where 90% of the poorest looked upon the 10%, “who were wealthy enough to own cows,” and said “that we the 90% being the bravest people we know are so poor, and the 10% are so rich, they must be cheating. How can they be making more money than us? They’re less than us,” Ford said.
Ford continued: “And from there it went to ‘you (the 10%) are subhuman.’ Then, the political leadership and the wife of the (Rwandan) President embraced it. They gathered their children together and held seminars for how to use a machete. From that point, it went from, ‘you are subhuman’ to ‘you are cockroaches and need to be killed.’”
“In 90 days, they killed a million people by hand,” Ford said.
Bringing the comparison home, he noted the Occupy movement is “so dangerous economically that you should be putting money in other countries.” He clarified he didn’t see the Occupy movement turning to the violent extremes found in Rwanda, but that “when you start this kind of class warfare, it ends not with people doing better, but worse.”
This comparison is outright absurd. The sloganeering leading up to and during the genocide in Rwanda ultimately was about ethnic cleansing. Occupy Wall Street is about income inequality. The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another. This sort of rhetoric is desperate and irresponsible.
[via Columbia Journalism Review]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Keith G
Hyperbole. desperate and irresponsible and designed to incite and fuel a backlash.
Good catch.
skippy
slightly off-topic, but i’ve pledged to funnel all ad revenue from my blog to the #ows supply campaign. details here.
who will join me?
Villago Delenda Est
This guy is just BEGGING to have a machete used on him.
Seriously.
Linda Featheringill
I’m going to guess that Mr. Ford actually knows that the OWS occupiers aren’t likely to come after him with machetes. But he does understand that they want to do away with the social position of the gilded 1%. And he is afraid.
The Dangerman
Lesson for the 1%: Don’t act like subhuman cockroaches.
Linda Featheringill
@Keith G: #1
I didn’t think of that. Good catch to you and to ABL.
James
@efgoldman: Did you mention you were reading a student’s thesis on the Diggers this weekend?
gbear
Sounds like someone forgot about the internets when he gave that little speech in Arkansas. Wonder how many people were in the audience listening to that jaw-dropping shit?
Davis X. Machina
One big difference, this time Mr. Ford’s friends own and operate Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines.
Fort Smith Arkansas
Interesting choice of location to give this speech as Whirlpool just closed down its last manufacturing plant it had in Fort Smith and moved those jobs to Mexico.
and Whirlpool just whacked over 5,000 jobs in North America. after chopping 1,100 jobs in Evansville Indiana last year.
but of course that had nothing to do with making the 1% richer and all to do with the unreasonable demands of the 99%.
http://news.google.com/news/more?hl=en&gl=us&q=whirlpool&gs_upl=1296l3427l0l3948l9l9l0l5l5l0l265l707l0.2.2l4l0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dWAAqeiYxbVs5EMVSGvwa_26t2_yM&ei=Qp2sTsqhOeP10gG94IDGDw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=2&ved=0CEYQqgIwAQ
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=whirlpool&oq=whirlpool&aq=f&aqi=g3&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1296l3427l0l3948l9l9l0l5l5l0l265l707l0.2.2l4l0
Dustin
This is what con-men always do, run away and try to scare their marks into fighting their battles for them. Apparently Mr. Ford thinks that there’s nothing wrong with systematically gaming the system and government cumulatively and for generations and leading to the destruction and defrauding of the middle class. But the moment the children of the middle class say they’ve had enough then that’s class warefare.
Well fuck that. My son is two years old and neither I or he will likely have the standards of living that even my parents did. This trend started before either of our generations were even born. If he thinks that the problem is that we don’t know how the system works he’s a self-deluded fool. The problem isn’t that we don’t know how it works, but that we do. It’s only now that we exist in sufficient numbers to pose a threat that he and his are voicing their concerns.
Waynski
@Linda Featheringill:
Good. I want these people to be afraid. Force is the only language they understand. Hmmm. What party have I heard that kind of rhetoric from before?
Chris
They’ve spent decades equating any resentment for wealthy elites with anti-semitism, so this is probably just them trying to update their bullshit (plus making it look like they give a shit about black Africans).
General Stuck
If memory serves, Rwanda happened due to colonial meddling by mostly Belgium, favoring one tribe over the other in their exploitation of the country’s natural resources among other plundering by the wealth class of Europe.
Leave it to a plutocrat to indict himself through rank ignorance of the destruction of worlds by condescending assholes like him.
The Hutu’s picked the wrong enemy is all, should have been white greed merchants they went after, instead of the Tutsi’s.
OWS has it about right their aim on the guilty one percent.
disclaimer, if I got the Rwanda genocide and it’s roots wrong, then I did.
gbear
ABL, the CJR link goes to the same ABL posting as the ‘income equality’ link. Is that a booboo?
Keith G
Also. this Scott Ford is on the board of the Christianist affliated The Kings College, of which was written:
Think, “Dinesh D’Souza” and you will get the picture.
me
I’ve never been a fan of genocide but this guy is trying hard to convince me otherwise.
MaximusNYC
@Villago Delenda Est:
@General Stuck:
Wrong and wrong, but thanks for giving that guy and his kind confirmation of their insinuations about what the left really wants.
gbear
@MaximusNYC: Concerned reader’s concern is noted.
Reality Check
I think this weekend’s latest bout of global warming (in the form of a half foot of snow) should probably clear out the OWS Kiddeez.
Scott P.
They have figured out how the system works…that’s what they’re protesting, moron.
General Stuck
Insinuations do not lead to violence. They can however, lead the guilty to experience a little existential fear. Which is not a bad thing , imo. People, the masses, are enraged/ the bloodsuckers should be afraid, and this asshole was the one who introduced genocide into the mix. “insinuating” violence from those doing drum circles in an American park. I was just offering Mr. Ford a little history lesson to his bullshit.
Ben Cisco (mobile)
You have been on fire of late ABL. Great job.
hhex65
lol, Arkansas
bin Lurkin'
@MaximusNYC:
You say that like it’s a bad thing..
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Reality Check: How’s it going asshole?
James
@efgoldman: Hm. Sorry. Someone mentioned it on a thread yesterday and I thought it was you. Was just wondering how the thing was turning out. It’s been decades since I thought about the Diggers….
Yutsano
LOLWUT Ford?
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Apparently he’s not stupid enough yet to forget how to breathe.
jl
Jeez, I just wanted to report a burgulry, and suddenly this guy is saying I will be committing genocide soon.
Didn’t know I was on such a slippery slope. I guess I need a time out.
On other hand, if one side or the other does get violent, I guess following this guy’s logic, we could blame it on the Belgians.
I can imagine the 1 percenters staying up late at night feverishly trying to alter their identity cards with the big figure 1 in gold.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Yutsano: Yea but if we just reason with him. . .
Ga Tech is killing Clemson.
Violet
This guy is ridiculous. It seems like the 1% and their lapdogs in Congress and the media get stupider every day. I hope people are figuring that out.
OT — I’m making braised lamb shanks for dinner. They’re almost ready. They smell so good and I’m hungry!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
It’s funny too considering he completely ignores the role of media in the genocides….and where are we seeing OWS supporters calling people subhuman? Now…compare to Limbaugh, Fox News and the like. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaahh….
Asshat. Giant motherfucking asshat.
General Stuck
The kind of greed we have been, and still have, from the one percent corporate class is not without causing death and destruction even in an advanced and generally well off society as is the US.
I wonder if Mr. Ford ever ponders how the Wall Street sociopathic drive to risk millions of peoples money lifeline on their schemes, includes the reality that that greed took a real toll, and still does on real people. How many suicides from losing everything of the innocent to the guilty? How many strokes and heart attacks from the stress these fuckers created in people who worked their whole lives and idiots in three piece suits gambled it away for their own designs?
Then have the cold arrogance to mock their victims they put out on the street to fend for themselves. It may not rise to genocide, what these people wrought on the innocent, but it ain’t without a big cost in blood and treasure, either.
I suspect Mr. Ford and his buddies are experiencing some Freudian transference. Born of some small capacity to feel guilt because they are in fact guilty, with subconscious rendering to an acute fear of pitchforks and lanterns coming for them, cause they know deep down, they deserve it.
Keith
I distinctly recall when the Tea Party was also characterized (by their supporters) as “angry”, and it was said with pride. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it’s somehow an awful thing to be angry, and revisionist history has the Tea Party as a happy, positive group of people.
scav
If they really were as clever as they insist they are (in order to merit the rising more rapidly than profits paychecks) then how come they’re so freaked by a little change? Don’t the smartest people earn the biggest bucks by rapidly adapting to a changing environment? Don’t whine about rapidly moving cheese? Run down and eat what they kill instead of whining when the kobe burger isn’t delivered on a silver platter? Relish the thought that they’re going to have to re-invent themselves and their careers in this brave new world, jumping agilely from ladder to ladder like a demented 21st century flying squirrel?
Simple heuristic: The loudest and wildest squawkers are the ones that know they’re road kill in any environment less tilted in their favor than the current one. Cheese-Huggers.
tommybones
@Reality Check:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YdHCcTs2u0
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
As usual what gets me about these assholes are their clumsy attempts to be both provocative loud mouths AND chicken shit cowards. Why not go all the way with the scary oggabooga shit? Is this dipshit running for office or something?
Translation: Shaddup and keep yanking on yer bootstraps.
karen marie
What’s with Arkansas?
Dustin
What the left really wants? Really? We want to systematically murder our fellow citizens? Hell that may be true in some of my darker fantasies on days of particularly egregious news, but in reality you’ll be pressed to find more than a few random nuts with that position.
No, what we want, as a general sentiment, is a level playing field. You know, one where the political machinery of our country isn’t used to stack the deck against the 99%. One where someone who defrauds millions receives a more severe punishment than someone who rips off a convenience store. A world where people don’t get foreclosed on even if they paid cash for their house. A world where we don’t raise taxes on the poor, cut social services, fund wars on credit, and give the rich tax cuts all at the same time. You know: a SANE world.
So if wanting that makes this particular liberal a genocidal maniac well damn, I guess I am.
Reality Check
We could really, REALLY use some more global warming where I live right about now!
Reality Check
Shorter @Dustin
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS!
Villago Delenda Est
@MaximusNYC:
Fuckstick should STOP TAKING ACTIONS THAT DESTABILIZE THE SOCIAL ORDER.
You know, like insisting on tax cuts for the rich who FAIL TO CREATE jobs. Like supporting outright fraud in the financial sector for the benefit exclusively of the CEO 1% class. Like trying to turn the 99% into debt peons who will have no option but to resort to violence to affect change.
I’m sure that French aristocrats and Russian boyars felt the same terrible oppression of the masses and were all butthurt when the mobs came for their heads.
History. It’s there to teach you something. LEARN FROM IT.
Bismarck figured this out. TR and FDR figured this out. You can too if you get your head out of your fucking ass.
@Dustin:
My machete comment is a warning of what will happen if guys like Mr. Altel CEO don’t wake the fuck up.
Because he WILL find a machete at his neck eventually, if he doesn’t get his fucking act together.
Let’s try to avoid all that bloodletting, shall we? Or does he really want to relive the Reign of Terror?
mclaren
Shorter Alltell CEO:
The solution to problems in a democratic society is bigger bribes.
Good thinking there, chief.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Should we add “OWS Kiddeez” to the long, long list of people that the Tea Party wants dead?
Arundel
“There, he pointed out, was where 90% of the poorest looked upon the 10%, “who were wealthy enough to own cows,” and said “that we the 90% being the bravest people we know are so poor, and the 10% are so rich, they must be cheating. How can they be making more money than us? They’re less than us,” Ford said.”
First, it goes without saying that this person has no fucking idea of what he’s talking about, knows nothing about the history of the Rwandan genocide. Clearly. This passage jumped out at me because it’s one of those instances of right-wing projection, where they inadvertently blurt the truth about themselves, as they ascribetheir own worst thoughts and dirty deeds to progressives/liberals/Dems.
“They must be cheating”- This wasn’t germane actually to the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, in any significant way. It wasn’t an economic war/genocide. No, in the case of OWS and related protests worldwide, we know they cheated, we know they continue to cheat, we know that we have been cheated. It is not conjecture at this point, though the media will continue to obfuscate. His hyperbolic comparison of OWS to Rwanda is grotesque, astronomically wrong. As if the Big Lie that OWS wants to destroy capitalism wasn’t big enough. But it’s interesting to me that he put that bit in, the crux of the matter. It’s not wealth and capitalism people are protesting- it’s the cheating. And I wonder if it’s some psychological thing that he knows that. He’s indirectly saying it’s the OWS, not Rwandans, saying “they must be cheating”, and he is saying they are wrong. As always with Republicans, the opposite is true. Even in reversal, it at least gets to the heart of the matter in an interesting way- even addressing “cheating” as the matter, rather than saying they hate capitalism, or somesuch.
Reality Check
@Chyron HR:
List of people The Left wants dead:
1. The Top 1%
2. The Bourgeoisie
3. Anyone who is even remotely religious in the traditional sense
4. The Kulaks
5. Veterans, unless they come back and loudly scream about fictional “war crimes”
6. Geroge W. Bush
7. Dick Cheney
8. Sarah Palin
9. About 80% or so of white males
10. Heterosexists
11. “Homophobes”, where “homophobe” is defined as anyone who does not say that the LGBTBLTLMNOP lifestyle is morally the same, nay, is SUPERIOR, to the heterosexual lifestyle
12. “Racists”, where “Racist” is defined as “Anyone who disagrees with the Democrat Agenda”
13. Everyone on AM Radio
14. Everyone on Fox News
Did I miss anyone?
The Other Chuck
@Reality Check:
Marx? Works for me. Oh was the proper response to fall down and beg forgiveness for such apostasy against the holy capital? Sorry, I’ll have to work on that.
Fact is, it’s you fuckers rehabilitating communism by making capitalism and all its proponents such an unceasing celebration of assholery.
Mike G
CEOs who rise through the ranks of established companies (as opposed to those who actually built their companies like Jobs, Gates, etc.) are among the most useless crapsacks on the planet relative to their compensation — amoral, credit-hogging, self-entitled organizational politicans distinguished mostly by their aggression and ruthlessness, bullies and adept liars, willfully ignorant of inconvenient facts, and frequently dumb as posts. Scott Ford seems like he wouldn’t break the trend.
Reality Check
@The Other Chuck:
So Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, that all works for you, too?
(Bet s/he chooses at least 3 of those as either “not bad” and at least one of those as a “great man”).
Ken Pidcock
@scav: Cheese-Huggers. Christ, I will remember that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Reality Check:
George W. Bush = commissioned officer who deserted. Death is an appropriate punishment, if only to set the proper example for the troops.
Dick Cheney = five draft exemptions from his generation’s war because he had “other priorities” than to put his ass on the line in a war he thought was necessary.
Reality Check
@Villago Delenda Est:
So you DO want them dead?
Villago Delenda Est
@Reality Check:
They’re criminals. By “conservative” logic, they get exactly what they deserve.
Both are the basest of cowards. Neither deserves quarter.
The Other Chuck
@Reality Check:
I’m going to take your tactic: which answer annoys you the most? Would going the full Hitler be even more effective?
Do you honestly think I intend to engage in even the slightest level of constructive dialogue or debate with the likes of you, whose entire purpose here is to sabotage it?
The only reason I even saw you is because I don’t have the pie filter installed on this machine.
What truly makes me hate is the fact that we’re actually now being governed in the real world by internet trolls. Congratulations.
Lyrebird
Hm, i don’t have a pie filter yet — maybe we should invent a makeshift one, like, for each new post from an insulting provocateur, i should commit to asking 1 additional friend if he/she needs an invite to a credit union, or sending one slice of pizza to OWS.
Human
Dignity.
What’s not to get?
Mr Stagger Lee
As Dr. Cornel West made point last night on Bill Maher Show.
It was the teabaggers who brought guns to their rallies, they founded groups like the Tenthers and OathKeepers who swore to overthrow the US Government if FEDGOV did not return to the original form of the Constitution. Making threats to Congress people. Signs with threats of coming armed next time. Whose world would you rather live the Tea Bagger or OWS?(Buckeyes score again!!!!)
Cacti
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
The biggest giveaway for that one being a Koch whore, is no matter what the thread, it always starts talking about climate change.
rikyrah
They are truly ridiculous
Dustin
@Reality Check: Oh, I’m sorry, was that a lame ass attempt to paint me with a communist boogieman brush? You do realize that for those of us born in the 80’s or later that ship has sailed and we don’t give a fuck about the previous generation’s propaganda, don’t you?
We already have a form of the dreaded communism, only in America it’s called “socialize the risk, privatize the profits”. Who the fuck do you think bailed the investment bankers out this round?
ABL
@gbear: sure was! thanks.
soonergrunt
@MaximusNYC: Concern troll is concerned.
@Reality Check: When Bush and his handpicked FED chief gave billions of taxpayer dollars to the banksters–THAT was socialism, fuckwit.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Damn, who dumped all this pie in the comments?
Yutsano
So on top of everything else Reality Check hates the gay. You per thang. Straight white males still can’t catch a break.
soonergrunt
Hey, ABL–check the moderation filter. I used the ‘s-word’ and triggered it.
b-psycho
They have figured out how the system works. That’s why they’re angry, moron…
NobodySpecial
@Reality Check: If anything, I’d have wanted them incapacitated before they had a chance to damage the nation with their poisonous ideology. Now’s too late.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Yutsano: The response to its global warming denial schtick cooled off so it’s trying some other buttons.
For some reason they all launch pies.
piratedan
OT: but not really since we need no more evidence that civics needs to be taught multiple times
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/ad-gun-training-bars-muslims-obama-voters-153954962.html
Jebediah
@Lyrebird:
That’s an excellent idea – it reminds me of something I read somewhere or other – someone’s (Democratic) yard sign kept getting stolen, until they put a sign next to it saying that each stolen sign meant another donation to the Dem’s campaign.
Jebediah
@Reality Check:
Hey there troll – you do realize that a) global warming doesn’t mean winter never happens anymore and b) warmer oceans and warmer atmosphere mean more water in the air, which comes down as more snow, right?
In other words, are you pure troll or troll mixed with retard?
Jebediah
@Reality Check:
As an Official Spokesperson of The Left, the only thing I want dead is your internet connection – your signal to noise ratio is a thing of epic awfulness.
And I’ll bet you really thought you had him there. You thought you had checkmate but all you got was another smackdown. Protip: Villago is a lot smarter than you.
The Dangerman
@Jebediah:
My toenail clippings are smarter than him.
hhex65
@b-psycho: excellent point, ‘game tight’ as the kids say
Lojasmo
@Reality Check:
I hear it was big fluffy flakes. What conditions cause that, hmmmm?
Lojasmo
@Reality Check:
Everybody dies eventually. Our wishes regarding death are irrelevant.
Southern Beale
Major shit going down in Nashville tonight. They’re arresting protestors AGAIN for this arbitrary curfew the governor has made up. Meanwhile, at the same location, elites gather for a $450/plate fundraiser for our performing arts center. It’s really unbelievable.
Oh, also a working member of the media was arrested last night and the state police claimed he was intoxicated. Sad for them, he managed to video tape his own arrest and clearly he’s not.
So the governor has gone after free speech, freedom of the press … what next?
For a rundown, I recommend our alternative newspaper, the Nashville Scene. Their reporter is the one who was arrested. There’s a lot of info on their blog.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Reality Check: I can think of one.
TenguPhule
They have figured it out, the 1% haven’t.
The Social contract is basically the rich pay high taxes or we cut their arms and legs off, hang them from a lightpole and then set them on fire with old tires.
Pick one. And fast, or else the rest of us will choose for you.
Villago Delenda Est
@TenguPhule:
The thing is, these people could continue to live in absurd luxury at a fraction of the wealth they’ve hijacked from everyone else.
They could avoid all this shit if only they’d be less greedy.
If they were actually accumulating all this wealth to DO SOMETHING with it, instead of sit on it and take pleasure in the suffering of the 99%, they wouldn’t be facing the OWS movement.
They’ve lost their way. They will be brought back on track, it’s a matter of whether it’s voluntary or coerced.
MacKenna
There is no low the rich out of touch whining thieving psychopaths won’t sink to.
Did I just demonize him there? No, he demonized himself by behaving like a fucking asshole.
AxelFoley
@Reality Check:
Oh, lookie who showed up here. Don’t know who the bigger asshole is–this douche or Uncle Clarence.
Odie Hugh Manatee
It almost sounds like this asshole is implying that the President speaking positively of the protesters means that Michelle and him will soon offer machete training.
Sorry, but that’s what jumped out at me.
Either way, talk about fucked up and saying something this fucking pig ignorant. Assholes like him are totally out of touch with anyone ‘below’ them.
They are the ones who have the class problem. My problem is not that they were successful but rather that they cheated and gamed the system against everyone else to do so. I don’t care that they are wealthy, I care that they manipulate and ripped everyone else off to get there.
The ones that cheated us are the ones that are going to howl and protest the loudest against us.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule:
@Villago Delenda Est: I cannot remember where I read it it, but I once saw something suggesting that the best piece of advice for any ruler, manager, etc., was this: Don’t be an asshole. You can be aggressive, strict, acquisitive, blah, blah, blah; just don’t be an asshole.
LosGatosCA
If you’re poor it’s called ‘shared sacrifice’ if you’re rich it’s called ‘class warfare’ – you can see how the former is noble and greatly appreciated by those not sharing in the sacrifice while the latter is indeed a genocidal threat to their wealth. Paying taxes is actually worse than the Rwandan genocide because taxes involve money that is like property theft, whereas the Rwandan genocide only involved non-job creating parasites, aka human beings.
priscianusjr
You may not have thought of this, but what’s animating the Occupy Wall Street movement is the same spirit that propelled Genghis Khan and his bloody Mongol hordes in their orgy of rape, pillage, slaughter and destruction across Eurasia.
Jay C
@Reality Check:
Yo, troll! Let’s revise your list @ #49 just a bit, shall we:
1. You.
* “Dead” revised to mean: “shut up, go away, and stop cluttering Balloon Juice threads with assholish ‘communist’ nonsense”.
tz
@Reality Check:
Such a typical and ubiquitous “conservative” comment. Don’t discuss any sort of realities, just demean those with whom you disagree.
Tuttle
Leftys don’t see the historical dialectic as a plan, but rather as a warning. Wingnuts see it as some sort of dare.
Zagloba
Folks, don’t feed the shills. It’s not even trolling, it’s just shilling.
harlana
Well … make up your minds, establishment and masters of the universe. Is it (a) an incoherent, disorganized movement with no clear, discernible message or (b) a bunch of mobs whose primary intent is to drag the one percent out into the streets and kill them? (as per Glenn Beck and other ludicrous comparisons such as the above). Cause I think that would be a clearly discernible message, there.