I’m thinking back to another Summer and Fall prior to an election year, when another noisy group of citizens, some armed with guns, received a disproportionate amount of attention compared to their size. Luckily, their agenda was focused and coherent, so they deserved the massive amount of coverage they received from the mainstream media.
Memories
by @mistermix.bsky.social| 62 Comments
This post is in: Our Failed Political Establishment
Southern Beale
Luckily, their agenda was
focused and coherentcarefully crafted by professional PR experts who were paid well for their work and disseminated by a network of political media interests under the guise of being “fair and balanced.”Fixed your typo.
Barry
That’s entirely different, because they were
right-wingersReal Americansserving the richworking for a better America. And they didn’t wear strange clothing likefrikkin’ 1700’s re-enactorstie-dyed t-shirts. And their signs made total sense; they didn’t have crazy signslike ‘keep government hands off my medicare’.RosiesDad
That’s a lot of snark for so early on a Monday morning.
Li
The media serves the interests of those that own the press.
Baud
Although I don’t disagree with the sentiment, there was concrete legislation (HCR) that was also big news at the time to which the tea party attached themselves.
And they were sponsored by a major news network.
So not exactly the same.
TheMightyTrowel
(continues munching popcorn [and donating money via BlueAmerica] from safe vantage point across the atlantic)
JGabriel
Reason #23 Why It’s Maybe A Good Thing I’m Not Rich (Or Maybe It Would Be A Good Thing If I Were):
Because I’d probably buy a couple truckloads of pitchforks and ship’em to the protesters at Wall Street to wave around at the traders and CEOs.
.
Comrade Javamanphil
A few more misspelled signs and Medicare purchased scooters and Occupy Wall Street would be the talk of the networks.
OzoneR
@JGabriel:
you’d think so, but wait till you actually have the money and see how fast your allegiances change.
SnarkyShark
Beautiful rant by Kunstler this morning
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-owsers.html
Get it while it’s hot. If you were one of the “get off my lawn you dirty kids” types, you might not want to read.
4tehlulz
“Occupy Wall Street” needs to embrace birtherism to become part of the accepted mainstream.
Baud
You joke, by my inner concern troll from the beginning has been worried that OWS will realize that they can get favorable media coverage by going full anti-Obama.
OzoneR
@Baud:
probably true, but there’s already a faction of Ron Paul nuts down there.
JGabriel
@OzoneR:
That is a foul slander, sirrah! We shall duel with my weapon of choice: pitchforks!
.
agrippa
It was the recession/economic meltdown. And, the RW was helped to get motivated, and the Democrats were not motivated.
It did not matter that there was no consensus on what to do about the economy ( put ten economists in the same room at the same time and you will get ten opinions). People voted their fear and anger. People do that in hard times.
OzoneR
@JGabriel: Nothing personal, but I’ve seen what happens when labor-supporting progressive working class falls into money and becomes a teabagger. I’ve seen it happen in a relatively short period of time.
SnarkyShark
My biggest fear is Obama will try to jump on this thing like the craven oppertunist he is.
But I do feel confident the nebulas leadership will nicely disasociate itself. Obama belongs in the 1% camp by his own actions.
Obama’s name will NOT be brought up by OWS. So you may now apply a shotgun to your inner concern troll.
Linda Featheringill
@TheMightyTrowel: #6
:-)
OzoneR
@agrippa:
I’m 32 years old and I’ve seen the American people NOT vote their fear and anger like twice in my whole life.
I don’t think we do that in hard times, I think we just almost always do that. We’re a nation of cowards who hides it under a giant American flag and the wingspan of a bald eagle. Every 15-20 years we get sick of being afraid and vote hope, but are quickly relapse into the coward role again.
Look how fast the country turned against Gitmo closing and climate change in early 2009.
ericblair
Since I live in the hive of scum and villainy that is Metro DC, I’ve been worriedly warned by my winger aunt about when teabagger protests are being held, since I’ll have trouble getting around the area due to the vast crowds. Er, yeah. It’s the anti-war and immigration protests that will screw up your commuting day, and you only hear about them vaguely as part of the traffic updates.
The biggest physical danger any teabagger protester risks is being dogpiled by overzealous Fox News camera crews.
arguingwithsignposts
@agrippa: ( put ten economists in the same room at the same time and you will get
ten20 opinions)FTFY
SnarkyShark
From Kuntler
Snark’o’licious
zmulls
@Baud #5
Totally. They had not only network sponsorship but corporate sponsorship.
I think the peasants in 1789 were a little unfocused as well.
In every article about OWS, I look for the references to how the protesters smell, or how often they have or haven’t showered. It’s a tell.
I would like to see the protesters adopt the guillotine as their symbol — to the point of wearing cute little guillotine pins. That would focus their message…
Linda Featheringill
@zmulls: #23
IIRC, about the only thing the majority of people in 1789 seemed to agree on was a dislike for the royalty and the nobility.
JGabriel
@agrippa:
Depends on the economists. I tend to read Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, Joseph Stieglitz, Noruiel Roubini, John Quiggan, Jamie Galbraith, Barry Ritholtz, Duncan Black (granted Atrios is more a blogger than a working economist these days, but he still has the credentials), et. al.
There’s eight, and while I think they’d each bring different ideas and foci to the table, there would also be a broad consensus that we’re in a classic Keynesian liquidity trap and need stimulus to rebuild the economy. Hell, you might even get Greg Mankiw to agree to that much, if he doesn’t think any teabaggers are watching him.
.
zmulls
@Linda Featheringill:
Exactly. I hear a lot of complaints that the protesters are just angry at Wall Street Bankers with no specific complaints.
The snide tone of the coverage is missing the point that the wave of rage and frustration is just the start of a long conversation.
Tone in DC
@ericblair:
Having lived here almost all of my life, I must say: I think you just insulted Mos Eisley, dude.
It may be too early for Star Wars refernces…
handsmile
Few things better focus an agenda than racism.
Also too, they had a flag, snappy headgear, an adorable albeit frail demographic, and an emotional slogan, “We Want Our Country Back,” that while lacking specific policies or legislative proposals, required no grasp of mathematics (“We are the 99%!, c’mon really?)
It should be remembered that the rise of the Tea Party predates Obama’s HCR initiatives. Rick Santelli’s “rant heard ’round the world” in February 2009 is credited as its birth cry and that fulmination was provoked by mortgage refinancing proposals. The first widespread “Taxed Enough Already” protests were held on April 15 of that year and its bugaboos were taxation and the TARP program.
“Death panels”, “Morans”, and “Kenyan Marxist Socialism” did not emerge as “coherent” Tea Party messages until the summer and fall of 2009.
amk
teabaggers’ agenda was focused & coherent ?
Dictionary is your friend, my friend.
terraformer
I wonder how many more examples people need to witness before they recognize the complete media control that a few entities have in this country.
Weeks and weeks and thousands of people protesting in Madison. A few mentions, mostly localized. People protesting WS, barely a mention. Yahoos with guns and motor scooters – wall to wall coverage as if it’s the modern-day Omaha beach.
Has anyone photoshopped Marie Antionette into the “champagne-sipping” WS fatcat looking down onto the protesters picture that circulated last week? That’d be a good one.
OT – drove from Minneapolis to Arkansas this past week for a family emergency. Saw so many billboards with text “Jesus said – ” (insert poignant biblical passage here). After the fifth or so of these went by, my wife turns to me and said, “I wish we could get some money together and by one of these billboards, use the same font and design, and say “Jesus said – get away from me, you freaks.” I do love her so.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@SnarkyShark:
I would recommend Firefox to do some spell checking.
I do think, though, that Obama should figure out a way to tie this into getting his job bill and a few other things passed. I suspect his references to it will be a bit vague: “People are now protesting around the country about how the rich damaged this country and yet have not paid their fair share.” And here’s a line he’ll never say but it popped into my head: “Maybe the wealthy need to start being concerned about what they haven’t been paying for. Maybe they need to start being worried about what happens to the wealthy when the middle class and poor begin to feel that there is no way to earn the way for their children to eat, to sleep under a roof, or to get an education so that they can have a better life.”
Wilson Heath
Cokie Monster’s conventional “wisdom” this morning concluded without evidence that OWS was anti-Obama. Waiting for Hamsher to sue for copyright infringement.
El Cid
@SnarkyShark:
But since it turns out that no one here was actually like that, really, they weren’t, they meant other things instead, it’s hard to know who would be like that.
Chris
@OzoneR:
Depressingly accurate.
@handsmile:
That’s the beautiful thing about tribalism. It doesn’t require any agenda, it doesn’t require anything coherent, it doesn’t require anything more than a sense of “here’s us,” “here’s them,” and “fuck them!” It doesn’t take ideas or proposals, or any clue of how to run a government or even any suggestion that you intend to run a government. It makes no promises and has none to break or keep.
The good guys have to know what’s wrong with the system and how to fix it, and make people believe in it enough to elect them, and then pass their ideas despite furious opposition, and hope that they work. Nationalists don’t need anything more than a few shitty slogans to earn enough public trust for elected office.
And that’s one reason why it’s such an uphill battle to try to get anything passed.
Virginia Highlander
I have a candidate for a simple and easily understood demand: corporate death for Goldman Sachs, after a show trial, of course.
amk
@SnarkyShark: wanna bet ows dies before this month is out ?
SnarkyShark
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Actually he already told them that the only thing standing between the banksters and pitchforks was his office.
Which is way better than the lame shit you thought up.
But it also reinforces my point you decided to mock do to a spelling error.
Chris
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I read somewhere on the Internets a long time ago that one thing about America was that we didn’t have any memories of violent revolution: as a result, the rich hated the rest, but much more out of contempt than fear.
I think it’s true. We live in a culture where they’re bombarded from day one with the idea that they’re some sort of race of superbeings carrying the entire country on their shoulders, that they’re entitled to everything they have and more, and it’s their God-given right to continue ruling. There’s not even a “noblesse oblige” ethic to act as a counterweight, because they’re told that their selfishness props up society so, really, being as selfish as possible is the best thing they can do for us all.
Even if they could be convinced logically that paying their fair share was a good investment for their future security, a lot of them would be so incensed by the idea on “moral” grounds (feeling like it’s a shakedown or a racket) that they’d just refuse to do it anyway.
Virginia Highlander
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
That is more-or-less what should be said, though. I think the BooMan was suggesting something along the same lines just yesterday.
RalfW
I do think the out-of-touch factor needs to be dialed up. I made an ill-advised foray over to Outside the Beltway yesterday and was treated to several disdainful and obnoxious dismissals by Doug Matacondis. He struck me as emblematic of the elite response to OWS ~ they all think its louche white upper-mid kids who have taken a pause from their latte lives to go be hip in a park.
They are totally invested in not seeing or understanding the pain of being 2 or 3 year unemployed. Or finished with college and nearing default on mega-loans for what used to be an affordable in-state public university degree, now nearly useless. Or uninsured and dealing with life-altering illness.
We really are seeing the pulling away of the master-class. I hope Ace Hardware is well stocked with pitchforks. It may be the only response they’ll grasp.
The Other Bob
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
THIS. We can only dream Obama would say something so bold.
JGabriel
@Chris:
I blame Ayn Rand.
Noblesse oblige was certainly NOT universal among our upper classes before Rand came along, but her asshole training tomes taught the past several generations of rich conservatives to ignore and discard any sense of obligation to the societal structures that provide the context in which to grow and steal their wealth.
.
Chris
@JGabriel:
Right. I’m sure noblesse oblige was, at the very least, applied selectively or we wouldn’t have had all these revolutions. But yeah, the elites’ sense of entitlement has just EXPLODED now that they feel they don’t even have to pretend anymore.
beltane
@Wilson Heath: The protests are very bit as much anti-Cokie (and her ilk) as they are anti-Obama. Her sneering, ancien regime cluenessness, is exactly what people hate about the media, and is why some people feel they have no other way of getting their message across than to march in the streets.
brendancalling
@The Other Bob:
Excellent. A friend of mine, who is quite well to do and angry about the current situation, opined recently (copied from an email) “What the banksters, and the politicians that fellate them, don’t seem to get is that their wealth is a social construct. They have gotten title to assets typically land, but also trademarks, patents, monopolies, oligopolies that would not exist without the social compact/construct of our civilization. Without that social construct, any crowd with pitchforks and torches could break down the gates of their gated suburban communities and just take it from them..
You think that they would realize, if not from a sense of humanity and goodness (which they seem to lack) but from a sense of self-preservation and self-interest that making sure that the majority of society functions with a reasonable standard of living makes a lot of sense. Clearly they don’t get it.”
Nutella
Kunstler’s article is worth reading except for the tired and stupid shit about everything being the boomers’ fault.
It’s not stupid just because Kunstler’s a boomer himself (born 1948) but also because it trivializes the conflict. Yes, the battle between the establishment and the outsiders does superficially look like it’s a generational fight if you just look at the average ages of the two groups but this conflict is about economic class, not about age.
A Humble Lurker
@SnarkyShark:
Yep, like how that self-centered publicity hog jumped on the protests in Wisconsin, Ohio, and the vote for gay marriage in New York. Mother fucker just doesn’t know when to stop with his shameless self promotion on the backs of the grassroots folks who do all the real work.
Citizen_X
@amk:
Wasn’t it supposed to already have fizzled out?
Besides, there’s a huge army of unemployed people available as reinforcements. I don’t think I’d take that bet.
SnarkyShark
@A Humble Lurker:
I said it was my fear. I did not say I think he has the political acumen to do it. In fact his reflexive hippie punching says otherwise.
He does seem to glom on to the back of progressive casues around election time however.
So that provides for SOME uncertinty.
SnarkyShark
If the city gets them thrown out of that park(they are trying) than they win and all hope goes down then you might be right.
If the city fails then OWS goes on.
This one has legs and will not die naturally.
It will have to be killed
A Humble Lurker
@SnarkyShark:
But you have no evidence to support your fear. In fact you have evidence to suggest the opposite. Substantial evidence. And it seems a little odd to claim Obama gloms onto progressive causes around election time when this is only his second as President and it hasn’t even truly begun.
Wilson Heath
@beltane: an I just missing something indicating that OWS is anti-Obama generally or even in specific instances?
burnspbesq
@Li:
True, but you haven’t thought it all the way through.
If every self-identified progressive puts his or her money where his or her mouth is, you have a pretty impressive amount of initial capital. Five million shareholders at $100 apiece …
burnspbesq
@OzoneR:
Anecdote is not the same as data, and is a piss-poor basis for prediction. JGabriel has a long track record here, and based on that track record I don’t think that sudden wealth would change his principles. An apology is in order.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I see what you did there.
Speaking only for myself, when I’ve been saying “focused” and “on-message”, my measuring stick isn’t the Tea Party, but the protests in Madison and Columbus.
I’ll admit that Madison and Columbus have something in common that’s lacking in OWS, and that’s optics. In those cases you saw middle class, middle aged people coming out of their shells, which I think you’ve got to admit is out of the ordinary. OTOH, at OWS, you’ve got the same faces you’re used to seeing in free speech zones at any political convention, the same faces you see protesting WTO and other international economic/trade conferences, the same faces that you see dancing inside of the Jefferson Memorial, the same people you see when Chomsky speaks at a campus near you: The Protesting Class of students and older radicals. It’s news when the former group speaks up, not so much when the latter does so.
SnarkyShark
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
You see who you want to see. You see who who you are allowed to see. You see who you are programed to see.
You are part of the problem.
SnarkyShark
@A Humble Lurker:
So I need ironclad facts to voice my fears?
Here is the fear spelled out. OWS takes off becomes populst movement of the decade. Polls show OWS way more popular than Obama/Dems/Congress/etc.
Obama sensing political oppertunity “offers” to send re-election team to organzie.
Facelss leadership says OK. End of movement.
If you dont think it could happen just like that, you are not paying attention. Fortunatly I don’t think leadership would vote OK.
More likely Obama will see the oppertunity as some wide open Hippie bashing and a chance to show solidarity with hard pressed ‘Job Creators’. He just can’t help it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@SnarkyShark:
I see who’s on the videos made by the OWS people themselves, since, ya know, there isn’t a lot of MSM coverage on this.
And of course I’m part of the problem, at least in your eyes- I disagree on some points with you, the arbiter of all things progressive.
SnarkyShark
You hit all the buzzwords and even threw in the gratutist Chomsky reference.
The weird thing is in this one, you have not only the right coming at the protesters but all the discredited Dem party flacks also. And they are using the same language.
Trustafarians and any refernce to Chomsky are dead give aways.
I am not the arbitrater of jack shit. I am the eye that sees the programming. I am the defender of those who lay it on the line while erswtwhile allies continue to operate in the old pardigm to their everlasting embaressment.
For those who cant feel embaressed, I will do it for you.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@SnarkyShark:
You are so full of horseshit.
The long and short of it is not that these kids and old radicals are wrong, but that they’re right so often- AND LET EVERYONE KNOW IT- as to be talking about nothing. And it doesn’t help that they bring every fucking talking point they’ve droned on about before and tried to relate it to Wall Street- Troy Davis was, indeed, one of the 99%, but what good would it do a corporately run prison to execute him rather than keep him locked up and adding to their profits, and, while we’re here, how much of the 99% gets turned off by a message like this because they support the death penalty?- that it’s hard to take them seriously.
You need to lay off of this self-righteousness and admit that to grow a movement that will actually get Wall Street out of Washington there’s a need to pare down the messaging to encourage inclusion of the entire 99%.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
That’s a swell idea. What are you doing to make that happen?
Oh, right, absolutely nothing besides bitching about hippies on this very blog.
But heck, maybe someday the protest with the perfect optics and message will come along, and you can join up without feeling all embarrassed and icky about being near weirdos. A lazy ass like you probably won’t, but you could.
Until that sweet fine day comes, however, OWS is the only game in the entire fucking country. Get out of the road if you can’t lend your hand, asshole.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
I’d talk like this. Probably less focus on the media end of it, but the stuff about the middle class being choked off while the ultra-wealthy make out like never before…That’s paring it down to where you get more inclusion.
Yeah, which is what I do with my down time here in Michigan, between working 30 hours a week at $8.50/hour, and helping out my dad, who just went from chemo to stem cell harvesting. But thanks, he-who-knows-and-sees-all.