Looting America?
“Even after backing of his most aggressive comments, Gingrich this week in South Carolina continued to talk about 'crony capitalism' on the campaign trail. Texas Gov. Perry also has made hitting Romney on his private equity roots a mainstay of his campaigning across the state, saying that Bain 'looted' businesses.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71411.html
Now let me get this straight. Republicans and their “crony capitalist” financiers have launched every sort of attack imaginable against the Occupation Movement, but when it comes right down to it, they agree in principle?
There's a few ways of looking at this. As has been pointed out here, the issues are there for anyone to latch on to, but it took the movement activists to point this out to the mainstream media who continue to operate under the assumption that voters have their heads planted somewhere such that they are oblivious to it. Meanwhile, even Republican presidential candidates are aware of it, to the extent they are referring to it, even co-opting the message, in their campaigns.
The mainstream media is in quite a spot here. They have to figure out a way to ignore OWS and at the same time provide coverage to candidates that are openly agreeing with the principles. If they can figure that out, they should be able to find a way to make Greyhound bus driver Ainsworth some sort of hero for demonstrating that the adversaries of OWS are generally assholes that are reliant on suppressing free speech and often they commit violence against protesters, trash constitutional values, and toss paying customers off buses to keep them from speaking of the things that Republican presidential candidates are agreeing with.
You people should get on the same page, think this through, because right now you appear to be confused and grasping for a message that you have openly denigrated at every opportunity. How about you guys keep Ainsworth as your poster boy for the opposition and we'll stick with Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Payne and see who does a better job of articulation?
Video from Occupy Congress:
Note to Fox News: No matter what happens at Occupy Congress, you can always fill some time and give O'Reilly something to rant about by focusing on the styrofoam cups and water bottles that are left behind. Wanna' see how to do this journalism stuff?
From citizen journalist and Hero of the Movement Eugene Davidovich, the following report to go with his now-viral video of the Greyhound/Ainsworth fiasco which of course took place on MLK Day, a precious irony:
“When the bus pulled into the Las Cruses station at 7:30am, everyone’s hopes for a working restroom were shattered as the sign on the door read, 'Restroom Not Operational.'”
Another great moment in Greyhound history, a truly third-rate company that often treats passengers like cattle. Much like the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.
Restrooms open? More from Occupy SD
Democrats coming around?
“The idea of a state bank – a favorite of the Occupy movement that sees it as an alternative to Wall Street – has strong support among the Democrats who control the state House. Speaker Frank Chopp called it a top priority last week in a speech opening this year’s session of the Legislature.”
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/16/1985404/occupy-movement-boosts-...
Top priority huh? We'll see.
Sue Basko's blog:
Attorney Sue Basko has written extensively on this subject here and elsewhere, and her latest blog confirms what others have experienced and have come to accept as another “occupational hazard” that goes with the territory. Predatory instigators targeting the weak and stupid:
“The OLAASM and Blackblocmedia profiles have been skillful to weed out and publicly alienate participants they know are too smart and too mature to fall for the con game. By doing so, they are more likely to catch either the hard-core actually intent on violence, or those too inexperienced to know any better.“
http://occupypeace.blogspot.com/2012/01/online-agitators-diversity-of-tactics.html
This from OWS that has been dealing with this crap for longer that the rest of us. The people that engage in these tactics are often clownish morons that are so obvious about their tactics, it sometimes appears they are the only ones that think they are fooling anyone. Yet they persist:
“Negative and disparaging comments, personal attacks against individuals and the Occupy Movement are hallmarks of intelligence agency activity designed to disrupt and demoralise the movement (psychological operations – ‘psy ops’ for short). They also waste peoples’ time with distracting and irrelevant comments.
“The FBI and other agencies pay American agents to write these type of comments. FBI agents (and other ‘secret police’ activities) are a big part of the systemic corruption problem in our political/economic system – these people are a ‘scourge’ on strong democratic values (liberty, equality and justice), they are the foot soldiers at the front line helping undermine democracy. They savage legitimate protest movements and causes like OWS for the personal financial gain of the agents who are more interested in their careers than protecting democracy.
“Just ignore their comments and ban them from the site. Stay focused on the OWS cause – corrupted democracy and corporate interests. As one US senator said, we are living with a new form of fascism – this is the problem the Occupy Movement is addressing.”
http://occupywallst.org/forum/fbi-spam-aiming-to-demoralize-and-disrupt-occupy-m/
Don't forget the obvious: Huff Post weighs in on MSM coverage
“Reports were focused on the outliers in the camp; homeless people from the adjacent skid row, Venice Beach drifters, paroles from nearby Central City and people recently released from County Jail who the police reportedly encouraged to go to the camp.”
No shit? It was unfortunate that some of those released chose to serve their jailers by moving into the encampment and obliging them with the sort of behavior that probably got them jailed in the first place. The movement speaks to larger issues of course, but there is no doubt that anyone with an agenda was free to roam, steal, attack, threaten, or commit any number of crimes that were erroneously attributed to the occupation.
News outlets demonstrated a propensity for allowing those described above to portray themselves as political activists knowing they weren't. In some cases these people were recruited because of how ridiculous they looked pretending to be “spokespeople” for the occupation.
And of course we also saw people hanging around the media tent that never had anything to do with media output, some apparently with no other purpose than to gobble up the donations that came in or wait for an opportunity to rip off someone's electronic equipment. Hard to watch knowing that the policy was to avoid calling the cops for any reason including some rather serious offenses that went unreported.
So all of this is connected. Sue Basko's commentary is no different than the OWS blog which is no different than the experience of many other occupations. The tactics are the same, the sometimes-comical demonstrations of aberrant behavior amazing to watch. The tweets and comments exactly the sort of thing one would expect to be part of their strategic effort to derail the OWS message.
And unfortunately, due to the persistence of these people, many of the organizational groups and the General Assembly process itself was subject to their antics because there was simply no mechanism to remove them no matter how outlandish their behavior. It's all part of the story, an occupational hazard, but still it is tragic that so many of those that are clearly at the bottom end of the 99% would be so willing to serve their masters as useful tools. They have little regard for anything besides their own self-gratification and the cops are always happy to oblige when they step forward as volunteers.
You won't see them at a Teach-In or a class on peaceful protest. You won't see them picking up trash, contributing to the movement in any tangible manner. You won't see them writing blogs, or serving food, or offering the movement anything useful. But you will spot them tweeting, screaming, threatening, and beating on drums. You will find them making ridiculous proposals and waiting for an opportunity to hard-block a good one. You will find them making accusations and spewing insults. You will find them anywhere occupiers seek to spread a message of peaceful protest and institutional changes because they are chumps for the 1% that guide them and give them their instructions.
They are uniformly immature, egotistical, loud, obnoxious and deceptive. So they aren't that hard to spot. Look for them at an occupation near you or stop at any organizational meeting and watch how they operate. Read a few of their tweets and notice how they are always trying to associate themselves with OLA or OWS. (Somehow they can't manage to get their message across without putting #OLA or #OWS in front of their tweets despite the fact they represent only their own inane agenda). These people are con artists in the true tradition of their benefactors, the banking institutions that hide from the truth like cockroaches hide from the light of day.
Video from MLK Parade:
Wikipedia down on Wednesday SOPA protest:
“Joining the protest against two proposed federal Internet regulation bills, (SOPA and PIPA) Wikipedia's English-language site will be blacked out for all of Wednesday, co-founder Jimmy Wales announced on Twitter today.”
New Lee Camp video:
Grumpy
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