First they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Erin Burnett on CNN declared Occupy Wall Street protesters were all ignorant, Bongo-drumming circus acts who do “not know what they want,” and then featured a video clip of herself triumphantly outwitting an apparently clueless protestor - by actually misrepresenting the facts concerning TARP and the American taxpayer. Burnett’s twitter response to a journalist’s question ‘What’s the purpose of Occupy Wall Street?’ was ‘Bang on the Bongos, smoke weed!’.

Over at The New York Times, that now famous and maligned piece.‘Gunning for Wall Street’, about the early days of the movement, is still touted as evidence that Occupiers are merely “a noble but fractured and airy movement of rightly frustrated young people”, featuring naked chicks who look like Janis Joplin with a lot of fire and passion, and little aim. In comparison to this almost glowing report, according to Jim Cramer, Larry Kudlow and Joe Kernan, Occupiers are “freaks”, “long-haired hippies”, “Anti-American” “law breaking”, “anarchists”, “flying the freak flag” and “aligned with Lenin”. Presumably attacking your President and government is American, but protesting about Corporations and corruption isn’t.

At first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you.

More insidious and less obvious attempts to ridicule and denigrate the movement can be found in an example from ‘The New York Times’ shifting its framing of the Brooklyn Bridge Arrests. A blogger called Aluation posted two screenshots of The New York Times front page, only several minutes apart. In the first screenshot, the opening sentence, written by Colin Moynihan, reads:

‘After allowing them onto the bridge, the police cut off and arrested dozens of Occupy Wall Street protestors’

Half an hour later, this article was amended and credit now shared between Colin Moynihan, and a man called Al Baker:

‘In a tense showdown over the East River, police arrested hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators after they marched onto the bridge’s Brooklyn-bound roadway.’

Who is Al Baker? The police headquarters bureau chief at The Times. Read the two versions carefully to see how blame is subtly shifted by Al Baker’s changes to Colin Moynihan’s piece. This is not an isolated incident, and framing facts has been used widely in the mainstream press and TV to undermine the movement. Other examples of deliberate smear tactics are TV stations (MSNBC) claiming snidely, “They like to sleep late. Nothing gets started until 9” - with their cameras trained religiously on empty tents mid-afternoon, as demonstrators are gathered ten meters away in droves protesting outside a bank. When they are not denying Occupiers’ existence and less-than-subtly trying to imply the movement is comprised of slothful sleepers-in, they are concocting the dangerous myth that Occupiers are blood-fueled, merciless revolutionaries “like Robespierre”. Glenn Beck says Occupiers are “radicals” who will “drag you in the streets and kill you”.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you.

Occupy LA’s website has been attacked repeatedly in the last few days by a DDOS (distributor denial of service) - the same method of attack that Operations Anonymous used to overload access to certain sites and bring them down with heavy traffic. It’s a primitive - but effective - method of trying to halt the movement’s seemingly inevitable momentum, but it is evidence that the movement is increasingly seen as something which needs to be fought and needs heavy tactics to destroy. “Direct and participatory democracy” - democracy which does not align itself with an interest group - is being recognized as what it is. A simple movement which has the potential to undermine and destroy the established interest groups, political parties and classes - the 1% - from their firm grip on the governing and running of this country.

Even those ostensibly, ‘on the Occupation’s side’ don’t seem to get their point: that this is a movement representing the 99%, the people. It is not affiliated with, or funded by, any Trade Union, political party, social or economic class, any race or any organization, although we welcome support and donations, including those who may identify with these groups. We distinguish ourselves from the 1% only - the 1% who represent a corrupt corporatocracy. Despite this, we have Trade Unions attempting to co-opt us and insisting we align ourselves politically with them. A refusal to do so has been taken by many Trade Unionists as “Union bashing” - despite Occupiers’ reasons for not being co-opted by them is simply that we represent the people and direct democracy, the power of consensus. To then represent an organization’s interest - an organization which represents only 20% of the population - directly contradicts The Principles of Solidarity adopted by Occupy Wall Street. Even moveon.org, a liberal media outlet, attempted to claim credit for the Wall Street Movement in an attempt, perhaps, to gain traction for their own campaigns. Occupy Wall Street and its fraternal offshoots is a movement which has evolved naturally and without ulterior motive other than a demand for transparent democracy which serves the people.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Maybe Gandhi had a point. On the 15th October, all the occupations across the world will march in a show of solidarity. Please join us.