Occupy Wall Street

Fox Nation Desperately Seeking An #OccupyWallStreet Bogeyman

Posted by on October 13, 2011 at 12:43 pm. 3 Comments :

With the ongoing success of the Occupy Movement, Fox News is exhibiting their desperation and fear. They know that the American people are waking up and recognizing the dishonesty and corruption of the conservative media, big corporations, and kept politicians. That’s why they are resorting to tactics like this nonsense aimed at George Soros:

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists featured this article with the headline, “Is Soros Behind ‘Occupy Wall Street?'” It’s a question they never get around to answering. That’s because they aren’t really interested in the answer, they only want to plant the suggestion. The Reuters article they link to doesn’t provide any further evidence of a Soros connection to the Wall Street protests. However, it does contain a direct denial of any affiliation. So the Fox Nation inquiry is simply a thinly veiled lie.

This transparent attempt to falsely link their favorite liberal billionaire to a grassroots movement on behalf of poor and middle class citizens is notable in that Fox has never bothered to reveal the actual moneyed interests who bankroll the Tea Party. The Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks have spent millions on shiny, custom painted buses they send around to the country to AstroTurf rallies featuring conservative celebrities like Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity. If Soros were indeed financing the occupation of Wall Street, what was he spending his money on? Cardboard and Marks-A-Lots?

Soros is one of a growing number Patriotic Millionaires who have the integrity to want to see the country recover economically, and to be a part of that recovery. He is proof that the Occupy Movement is not against success, it is just against corruption, greed, and unfair practices.

The Difference Between #OccupyWallStreet And The #TeaParty

Posted by on October 10, 2011 at 11:36 pm. 25 Comments :

As the “Occupy” movement continues to grow and expand across the country, some in the media have been trying to make comparisons between it and the Tea Party. In fairness, there are some similarities. Both are comprised of Americans who are angry about unfairness and corruption in politics and business. But the similarities are mostly on the surface. The differences are far more abundant and disturbing. For instance…

No critic of the Tea Party ever infiltrated it in order to instigate violence as Patrick Howley, an assistant editor for the conservative American Spectator, has admitted doing. He bragged about posing as a protester to “mock and undermine” the movement.

No critic of the Tea Party ever accused the Tea Party of plotting mass murder as Glenn Beck has done – twice. Last week he said that this protesting “leads to gas chambers” and to “millions dead.” This week he claimed that the protesters “will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you.”

Tea Party SignsNo critic of the Tea Party ever made wild, unsubstantiated assertions as to the motives of Tea Party members. Certainly there was strong opposition based on evidence provided by Tea Party members themselves. Their rhetoric and signage expressed some unsavory opinions. But the Occupy critics are inventing criticisms that they cannot support.

No critic of the Tea Party ever encouraged others to break the windows of Democratic offices with rocks and baseball bats as right-wing militiaman Mike Vanderboegh did.

No critic of the Tea Party ever had their own cable news network to hype their agenda and events. The Occupy movement has had to struggle to get the press to pay them any attention, and when reporters did show up they were hostile and insulting. The Tea Party, of course, had Fox News which literally branded the Tea Party as a part of Fox News and gave them hours of valuable air time. Fox praised Tea Partyers as brave and patriotic, but that’s not how they portray the Occupy protesters:

The Occupy movement has been peaceful and focused on communicating a message of fairness and accountability. It is fighting for the rights of the 99% of Americans who have been rolled over by corrupt corporations and politicians. It is not the beneficiary of dedicated news channels and billionaires with vested interests. Other than that it exactly like the Tea Party.

#OccupyWallStreet: It’s Not About Giving Government More Power

Posted by on October 9, 2011 at 4:12 pm. 13 Comments :

The latest right-wing mis-read of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon is that the protesters are advocating giving more power to a government that they don’t trust. That sentiment was expressed by John Fund on Fox News as well as by George Will in this exchange with Jesse LaGreca on ABC’s This Week:

George Will: Mr. LaGreca, I hear a certain dissonance in your message. Your message is Washington is corrupt. Your message is Washington is the handmaiden of the powerful, and a lot of conservatives agree with that. But then you say that this corrupt Washington that is the handmaiden of the powerful should be much more powerful in regulating our lives. Why do you want a corrupt government bigger in our lives?

With the corporate media advancing yet another phony theory about this new movement it is important to set the record straight. No one associated with Occupy Wall Street has ever called for more or bigger government. That is a fabrication made entirely on the part of conservative critics whose only interest is to tarnish the movement, silence the message, and misdirect the public’s attention.

To be perfectly clear: The Occupy America movement is not about giving government more power. It is about taking power away from the corporations, lobbyists, and wealthy special interests who control government, and giving it back to the people.

That’s a perspective that is rarely articulated on television or elsewhere in the mainstream press. The absence of such viewpoints is a shameful flaw in American media. Every newspaper and television network has dedicated business reporters, but where are the labor reporters? LaGreca managed to challenge his TV hosts on this point during his brief segment saying…

“[T]he reality is, I’m the only working class person you’re going to see on Sunday news, political news… maybe ever. And I think that’s very indicative of the failures of our media, to report on the news that matter most to working class people.”

Fund, Will, and other conservatives are quite correct when they agree that the bankers and brokers who got bailed out after throwing our economy off a cliff should be held to account. That requires oversight by responsible public agencies. Citigroup is not going to let me audit their books.

What this movement is attempting to do is bring fairness into the economic process. It is attempting to carve out a place for the working and middle classes who have been shoved aside by the wealthy elites. This is a goal that any sincere Tea Partyer ought to support. And those who have not been irreversibly deluded by the Tea Party’s financiers (the Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, etc.), who are the perpetrators of The Great Recession and the beneficiaries of a weak government that they can manipulate, should hurry down to Zucotti Park or the nearest site of Occupation in their city.

When the interests of the people are represented in government, then government is not more powerful, it is more democratic.

Fox News Reporters Maced And Beaten While Covering #OccupyWallStreet

Posted by on October 6, 2011 at 10:07 am. NO Comments :

The Occupy Wall Street protests have endured for nearly a month despite little attention from the press. Yesterday there was an incident that, under ordinary circumstances, would attract some additional coverage.

Reporters from the Fox affiliate in New York were covering the protests when they were embroiled in a chaotic scuffle that resulted in the photographer getting maced and the reporter getting struck by a police baton.

The police in New York have been accused of using unnecessary force against peaceful protesters on several occasions. There have even been allegations that they have deliberately targeted citizens with cameras. However, this is the first report that documents the use of such force against members of the mainstream media – and it turns out to be from a Fox affiliate.

[Note: Local affiliates get some direction from Fox News, but also have a measure of editorial discretion. The affiliates most under Fox control are those that are owned by the network and run by Roger Ailes who chairs both Fox News and the Fox Stations Group. New York is one of those owned by the network.]

The story that accompanied this video on the MyFoxNY web site was also uncommonly candid in reporting this incident and on the protests generally:

“The protests on Wall Street continued to grow all day. The rallies and their participants are showing no signs of slowing down.” […] “During the day, unions and students joined the demonstrators. What was once a protest of powerful Wall Street financial firms and banks is growing into a larger movement about the working class, employment, poverty, education, and more.”

That’s a surprisingly accurate assessment of what is going on in Lower Manhattan and across the country. However, no description of that detail and balance has ever been broadcast on the Fox News Mothership. It is also notable that the footage above has not been aired on Fox News even though elements of the reporter’s story unrelated to the assault have been used.

Hopefully this video will get some traction on other media outlets so that the world can see what is happening down on Wall Street. But what I fear is that someone from Fox corporate will get wind of this and scrub the video from the Internet. Unfortunately for them, that will probably not occur until after many copies have been made and uploaded.

It is important that news of this nature be widely disseminated to counter the portrayal that Fox and other rightist media types are making that cast the protests as irrelevant, unfocused, anti-American, or just plain crazy. This is a true populist uprising and the people deserve to have their voices heard. Particularly when majorities of Americans agree with them.

Remember When Fox News Loved Protesters? What About #OccupyWallStreet?

Posted by on October 5, 2011 at 7:21 pm. 10 Comments :

A couple of years ago there was a media frenzy surrounding a bunch of screaming malcontents who showed up at town hall meetings and refused to let anyone speak. They became known as the Tea Party and, while portrayed by right-wing media as a grassroots movement, they were actually organized and financed by billionaires like the Koch brothers and conservative establishment lobbyists like Americans for Prosperity.

At the time they received a warm welcome from mainstream media ranging from talk radio to the Wall Street Journal, to Rupert Mudoch’s Fox News. In fact, Fox News literally adopted the Tea Party and branded it as their own:

Fox News Tea Party

Fox ran hundreds of stories extolling the virtues of these allegedly valiant Americans seeking to return America to the utopian fatherland it was before they had elected a black president. They sent there star reporters and anchors to headline the Tea Party rallies. The Fox Nation posted articles with titles that praised the Tea Party as “A great Part of America’s History – and America’s Future.”

Fast-forward two years and there is no sign of that patriotic spirit in the conservative media that slobbered over the Tea Party. Now that there is a real populist movement advocating on behalf of the middle-class, Fox News has reversed course and declared that such activity is “dangerous” and “anti-American.” Rush Limbaugh called the protestors “human debris and parasites.” Glenn Beck went even further (as usual) saying…

“They are only interested in destruction. That leads to gas chambers. That leads to guillotines. That leads to millions dead. That leads to Mao. That leads to totalitarianism, every single time.”

So Beck thinks that the people seeking compassion for the 99% of Americans who are not wealthy, are plotting genocide. OK, it goes without saying that Beck is nuts, but what is the media excuse for misrepresenting or ignoring the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that is inspiring hundreds of thousands of Americans nationwide?

Comedian Andy Cobb of Second City has helpfully provided a way to break through the media blackout. He proposes a makeover that will turn ragged protesters into just the sort of spokespersons that appeal to a lazy, biased press.

I’m not entirely sure that Cobb’s makeover will work, but he’s on the right track. In order to grab the attention of modern media you need to give them what want most: drama, conflict, controversy, sex, and most of all, ratings. A few months ago I did my own handbook for “How To Be A Media Magnet:”

Media Magnet

The so-called “liberal” media has shamefully avoided accurately reporting on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Similarly, they have failed to cover the fact that broad majorities of the American people agree with the goals of the protesters who are calling for more fairness in tax policies.

“Taxing millionaires in fact is one of the rare political issues to draw bipartisan majority support – 57 percent from Republicans, 75 percent among independents and 89 percent among Democrats. Even among supporters of the Tea Party political movement, 55 percent support raising taxes on millionaires…”

When Democrats and Tea Partyers are both calling for the rich to pay their fair share, the media and our representatives in Washington should start paying closer attention. It’s time to level the playing field. It’s time to undo the absurd legal notion that corporations are people. And it’s time for Americans to come together and retake control of their country from the impersonal monoliths that exist only to accumulate wealth at the expense of our standard of living.

In order to achieve these goals we will also need to hold the media accountable and demand that they do their jobs responsibly and honestly. That means that Fox News, and their audience, should be reminded of their hypocrisy when they promote phony movements like the Tea Party while disparaging the real populists occupying Wall Street (and many other places). And it means reminding the rest of the press, who are not much better than Fox, of the very same things.