And speaking of Occupy Together protests in other cities besides the Big Apple, it seems at least one conservative magazine editor has admitted to joining Occupy DC as a mole with the intent of causing problems…and was at the incident where protesters were pepper-sprayed at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.
An assistant editor with a right-wing magazine admitted in a column Saturday evening to posing as part of the 99 Percent Movement in D.C. “in order to mock and undermine” it. Patrick Howley, an assistant editorfor the American Spectator, was committed enough to his deception to be at the vanguard of a demonstration that saw police firing pepper spray and closing a downtown Washington museum.
In his column, Howley says he took part in the demonstration Saturday at the Smithsonian Institute’s Air and Space Museum reportedly directed at an exhibit about the unmanned drone aircraft used by the U.S. and others for spying and, increasingly, targeted killings in far-flung hotspots.
As between 100 and 200 anti-war demonstrators arrived at the steps of the museum — some of them affiliated with a group organizing the “Occupy DC” spinoff of the Wall Street protests — a few intrepid protesters made a rush for the door despite apparent warnings from security guards. One of them was Howley, who recounts that “as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside the museum.”
Howley’s own words are revealing:
[A]s far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story. Under a cloud of pepper spray I forced myself into the doors and sprinted blindly across the floor of the Air and Space Museum…
And of course, he got his story. Maybe he got swept up in the moment, maybe he actually learned something about the Occupy Together protests, maybe he’s an adrenaline junkie, maybe he’s just an inveterate liar of the first order. He admits to joining the protest at the Air and Space Museum under false pretenses and cops to being in the thick of things when the pepper spray started to fly.
So yes, no matter what motive you assign to Howley’s actions, the establishment is taking the various Occupy Together protests very, very seriously. If you’re headed out there this week (Occupy Cincy ended up in downtown right on Fountain Square this weekend with peaceful demonstrations) be aware, and be careful.
Liberty60
As a MoveOn coordinator, I always caution my people to be aware of their words and actions, to be aware that another Breitbart or O’Keefe may be filming, and to always remember that each of us is a representative of the larger progressive movement.
The other side will nutpick of course, but no sense in giving them cover and ammo.
As for Howley, it would make a tingle up my leg to see him prosecuted fully, but I won’t hold my breath.
JGabriel
Zandar:
Also known as an: agent provocateur.
.
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: Or melanoma.
JGabriel
@Chad N Freude: Yes, that too. Heh.
.
Dougerhead
Interesting story.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
As it was in the 50s and 60s, only conservatives get to cause violence.
Mister Harvest
Although, to be totally fair to the security guards, if I saw his smug, preening face, I’d mace it, too.
Chyron HR
“But… but I’m still part of the 1%, right, guys? Guys?”
Jay C
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
You forgot the corollary “…but liberals get the blame“
Amanda in the South Bay
This country would be in an all out civil war if a left wing journalist admitted to infiltrating the teabaggers to incite violence
JGabriel
Patrick Howley:
So. Let’s get this straight. When the protesters were asked or ordered by guards and/or police to stop, they did.
The only person who disobeyed, the only person who actively sought to cause mayhem and ignore requests to maintain order, was a teabagger.
Fucking typical. Once again, the right accuses the left of its own sins. Projection, it’s not just a booth in a theater.
.
Bill E Pilgrim
Interesting response from Krugman to Ezra’s piece.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/was-failure-inevitable/
Mike G
Because the cops took one look at his blue blazer and Reagan Youth pin and realized he wasn’t really part of the protest.
RossInDetroit
Clever title!
You HAD to know this was going to happen. Conservatives see all those peaceful demonstrators and think all it will take is a spark to set off the riot they think ought to be happening. Had to be too attractive to pass up.
Note that he was the only one rushing the building who got in. Maybe he was the only one who really wanted to.
As the old line goes: “Let’s you and him fight!”
Chyron HR
“I deserved to get disentigrated by an energy blast, and Lord Freeza acted with more courage than I saw from any of the Saiyans.”
MikeJ
@RossInDetroit:
When I read this story earlier I was expecting a Steve Bartman reference.
Dee Loralei
What cracks me up is the guy wore a brown shirt. Either he was woefully unknowing of history, or his hipster irony meter is broken and he thought it would be funny. And yea, I get that he was a rightwing nut job, and therefore prolly not hipster or cool. But sheesh way to be fucking tone deaf dude!
RossInDetroit
IIRC in the longer column he evaded a security guard who tried to stop him from leaving as well.
I wonder how his bosses feel about his ringleading civil disobedience and escaping the consequences.
burnspbesq
@RossInDetroit:
I wonder how his bosses feel about his ringleading civil disobedience and escaping the consequences.
Somewhere between content and gleeful, I would imagine. They’re getting lots of eyeballs and didn’t even have to post bail.
KCinDC
An additional complication is that the group in Freedom Plaza in DC started as a Stop the Machine protest (october2011.org) that was scheduled before Occupy Wall Street even existed and was focused much more on opposing the wars than on OWS’s main issues (though of course war spending ties into the economy as well). There’s an Occupy K Street group in McPherson Square that’s specifically inspired by OWS, and I don’t think they were at all connected to the people who went to the Air and Space Museum.
There’s quite a mix of people in Freedom Plaza with different agendas. There are certainly people who’ve gathered there because of OWS, but not all of them have. I’m not sure it’s accurate to describe the museum protesters as Occupy DC, though I suppose with a leaderless movement anyone who says they’re with it is. But I believe most of them were actually with Stop the Machine.
Dee Loralei
And on 2nd thought, that had to be why just in the last few days, the Rightwing talking heads and some politicians started fretting about left-wing violence. I mean for 3 weeks these mostly peaceful protests have gone, and since Friday or so, they are hyping the possibility of violence. And then when it kinda occurs, it leads back to only one group of agents provocateurs who are bragging about it.
Seriously, the memo must have gone out, or there would not have been so many of them bringing it up. They knew this action and others like it would and will occur.
They are so afraid of this movement, they are trying to kill it from the inside, and scare off the middle-class who agrees with the protesters. That can be the only logical reason, I can see.
Villago Delenda Est
Anyone who works at The American Spectator is, essentially, a shitstain.
Period. End of discussion.
RossInDetroit
Are we allowed to play the ‘one bad apple’ card here, or have they patented that maneuver?
M. Bouffant
The American Spectator‘s Young Journalist Training Program.
VOR
IIRC the Teabaggers were claiming that all the people with mis-spelled signs, racist signs, etc… at Tea Party events were all Liberals out to dis-credit them. Can’t recall any actual proof provided, but I’m sure Fox “proved” it. So now when a conservative is admitting to trying to start problems, I am sure the line will be that he is secretly a liberal plant pretending to be a conservative, pretending to be a liberal.
Projection – it’s what’s for dinner.
Yutsano
@VOR: Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. Or something.
KCinDC
@VOR, more likely the reaction will be to high-five each other because the conservative was able to fool those stupid liberals by the clever tactic of showing up at a public event. Clearly any smart demonstration should be running instant background checks on anyone who wants to join.
PeakVT
FTFY.
Marcus
FDL claims:
Which is written below the photo of this guy being behind a bunch of others at the protest which he joined rather than created. And the photo where he’s not the guy screaming at the guard. Right.
It’s like every time I go for coffee and have to wait in line. If it wasn’t for that 3rd guy in the queue, none of us would be there.
Linda Featheringill
@Dee Loralei: #21
I wonder if that is what’s happened to OccupyAtlanta? I mean, what the hey? The meeting regarding Congressman Lewis was just plain weird.
The people in that group who are serious ought to track down the person who talked them into that nonsense, kick him/her out, and try again. And this time, act like normal human beings.
Sheez!
Chris
@VOR:
Yep – I read the Pajamas Media article warning their people about “liberal infiltrators” with swastikas and racist signs and whatnot. It was just their way of covering their tracks – they need the racism to power the movement but they need the plausible deniability too.
henqiguai
@Bill E Pilgrim (#12):
And he still generally refused to acknowledge political realities and whether anything actually could have gotten through beyond what was passed. Only in his item 7 does he suggest that there may, just may, have been some issues with passing anything more than what was actually passed. Just maybe.
Linda Featheringill
@VOR:
Well, to be fair: I always thought that the “Youth in Asia” sign holders might be infiltrators of some sort.
B W Smith
@Linda Featheringill: I viewed the Lewis incident as more of a power struggle. The young organizers wanted to set the agenda of the meeting and were resisting giving in to the older establishment. I’m not saying it looked good, that’s just how it appeared to me.
Judas Escargot
@Mister Harvest:
Alleged shot of alleged perp (courtesy BoingBoing).
This kid, O’Keefe, Breitbart… wtf is up with that particular “look” in the eyes they all seem to have in common?
JGabriel
@Dee Loralei:
As pacifist as actual philosophy is, I can’t resist snarking that there’s a part of me hoping the protests end with Charles Koch and Roger Ailes in guillotines.
.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@VOR:
Then how do they explain voting for G.W. Bush, Stupor Mundi, King of the Malaprops?
Linda Featheringill
@B W Smith:
You could be right.
Maude
Anyone remember when McCain said that the anti Vietnam protests were infiltrated by commies? He wasn’t fond of those protests at all.
RossInDetroit
@Judas Escargot:
BoingBoing got the shot from a FDL article. I hope more evidence turns up. Considering how these protests are just flat covered up in still and video cameras, especially the smashy hitty parts, there has to be someone with more images.
RossInDetroit
@Maude:
In that case he may have technically been right, but I doubt Communists contributed significantly or that it would have made a difference if they hadn’t.
Overall I’ve been pleased at how few instances the MSM has had to trot out the ‘union thugs’ line or similar. With a loosely organized and semi-spontaneous series of protests there’s always a chance of someone getting carried away, but cool heads seem to have prevailed.
Unless overruled by a punk from a right wing rag.
ETA: OpEdNews.com has more shots from the fracas:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Reporter-and-Occupy-Wash-D-by-Rob-Kall-111008-611.html
Amir Khalid
@B W Smith:
Joan Walsh at Salon says there was no disrespect shown to John Lewis by Occupy Atlanta, and no offense taken by the congressman.
cleek
and MSNBC says:
no mention of the source of the trouble. of course.
Maude
There seems to be a conflict of what happened.
Howley says he was part of the 99 protest, but they were not at Air and Space.
Either he is highly confused, has no idea what he is doing or a liar.
As far as the commies, I know there were some, but McCain was just trying to discredit the protests. He was gung ho war.
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, back in the day when they were spending millions to take down Clinton, many of us in the DC area called it “The American Sphincter”.
JGabriel
A little over an hour ago, in the story directly following this one, Anne Laurie posted excerpts from the obituaries of Civil Rights activists Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Professor Derrick Bell.
I’m pointing this out just to remark upon how fitting it is to have this Howley asshole’s actions contrasted with real heroes and activists.
.
Linda Featheringill
@RossInDetroit:
from opednews:
Love the drums. They could serve the same purpose as bagpipes for Scots.
Villago Delenda Est
@Maude:
Being a liar is not a problem at The American Spectator. More than once they’ve made up shit out of whole cloth and passed it off as “reporting”.
Narcissus
This might be a dumb question, but is there a wiki or something for the Occupy protests? Apparently there was one in my area recently and I had no idea until it was over.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
I totally believe everything Joan Walsh at Salon writes.
Every word.
No, really.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not only is being a liar not a problem at AS, I think it falls into that amusing “feature-not-bug” category.
RossInDetroit
@Linda Featheringill:
To terrify opponents and drive them from the field of battle in disarray? If only. No percussion can match the plaid air-bag from hell when it comes to causing confusion and fear.
B W Smith
@Amir Khalid: I have sworn off all things Salon so I’m not going to read what Joan had to say. I live in Georgia and every time I have ever witnessed John Lewis in any crowd or gathering, he has been a gracious and gentle man. I really do believe the organizers were asserting their authority over the agenda. I don’t think it was meant as slight. I do, however, hope they will invite him back. His support would be a good thing and he could share significant knowledge about non-violent protests.
jaywillie
I’m going to flaunt my Koch-sucking credentials by sharing a great article by Al Giordano, well-known cryptofascist sympathizer (/snark): http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4664/trait-du-savoir-vivre-occupy-wall-street-generations
A couple snippets of Al’s thoughts (Al knows what the fuck he’s talking about btw):
The only thing I’m going to say about the John Lewis incident in Atlanta is that a) organizational paralysis cripples a movement, b) in a city that’s 65% black you had a crowd that was 99% white, c) get smarter; don’t be so easily set up to be mocked and exploited by the right, and take advantage of someone like Lewis to reach out to POC, because OWS simply does not look like 99% of Americans. It just doesn’t.
Jebediah
@Chyron HR:
Is “entigration” the process of being made part tiger?
Linda Featheringill
@Narcissus:
Occupy Together on facebook has some information. They are trying to become a clearing house of current activities and plans.
Dee Loralei
@JGabriel: Yea, unfortunately, too often I think that too. And a ton of other folks to the guillotines!
Narcissus
Thank you, Linda.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jebediah:
Lovely! I lionize you in your cubicle, if you can bear it. Hope you’re not a PUMA; I, however, am a cougar if you know what I mean. Panther? I hardly knew her!
/Def Leopard
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jaywillie: I can’t tell if you’re trolling or concern trolling.
JITC
I clicked the link to Howley’s article in American Spectator but I got an error page. I thought the link might be broken so I searched for it from the American Spectator site. I see it listed here when I search for Howley’s name, but when I clicked on the article, I got the error message again.
The American Spectator has pulled this article.
AA+ Bonds
This is actual fascism, gg everyone
AA+ Bonds
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
No, as jaywillie is attempting to laugh off, jaywillie works for the Kochs.
Expect to read a lot from jaywillie in the coming days about how Occupy Wall Street sucks. There’s money in those ones and zeroes!
AA+ Bonds
@Villago Delenda Est:
^ The correct post.
Anyone who doesn’t know this hasn’t read David Brock’s book, Blinded by the Right. And if you haven’t read that book, not only do you not know why Media Matters exists, or why the American Spectator is the vanguard of America-destroyers, but also, you don’t really understand American electoral politics in the 1990s.
maven
To find your local gathering:
occupytogether.org
AA+ Bonds
@maven:
Clickable:
http://www.occupytogether.org
Odie Hugh Manatee
@SiubhanDuinne: “/Def Leopard”
Ahem… “Def Leppard”
That is all.
SiubhanDuinne
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
:: hangs head :: I know. Apparently my auto spell- check doesn’t, and I failed to catch the “correction” until too late.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Wow. The Grey Lady!
Linda Featheringill
A bit OT but just for fun:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/09/1024477/–sekritarmy-rules-4-radical-pooties,-woozles-critters?via=siderec
For animal lovers. :-)
smelter rat
They Shoot Horses Don’t They?
Calouste
@Dee Loralei:
And obviously real Americans are not going to protected from left-wing violence by union thug police, so real Americans have to start an organization (let’s call it the Freedom Corps) to organize themselves for “self-defence”.
Bago
@Chyron HR: SHIT! Was it over 9000?
Q.Q. Moar
This douchebag’s article contains an interesting glimpse into the conservative mindset: “In the absence of ideological uniformity, these protesters have no political power.” Wanting the same outcomes; equality, fairness, justice, human rights, what have you, isn’t enough. Political power comes from ideological uniformity, and that’s why conservative dogma trumps all in the Republican party these days.
Lawnguylander
@AA+ Bonds:
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Did either of you read the post that jaywilie linked to? I did and not only is it a fascinating account of the author’s experience as a protestor and organizer, it contains what seems to me to be some good advice for leaders and participants in the OWS movement. It’s definitely written from a sympathetic viewpoint. How does linking to it make someone a troll or suggest they’re on the Koch brothers’ payroll?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ah forgives ya. :)
Total Def Leppard fan here since their 1980 release of On Through The Night. I’ve seen them in concert seven times now and have all of their material. As a rhythm guitarist myself, Steve Clark was one of my favorite players. Phil Collen is an extraordinary player too but I liked Steve’s style better and worked some of it into my own playing style.
Vivian Campbell had some big shoes to fill and I think he did a great job of helping DL pick up the pieces after Clark’s death.
Legendary band, that’s for sure.
Jebediah
@SiubhanDuinne:
I bow to your superior punnage…
Jebediah
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
The right spelling removes the humorious reference to the rest of the post…
OhioCane
Zandar – My sister and I went to the first couple of hours of Occupy Cincinnati – very peaceful, and everyone was in good spirits.
There was one guy there trying to stir things up – wearing a “Viva la Reagan Revolution” t-shirt and carrying a sign about being a proud 20+ year employee of a huge corporation. He left disappointed, because no one took the bait. A few people were chatting amiably with him, but he didn’t get his chance to show that it’s the liberals that are the *real* fascists.
Anyway – we need to keep these things up!