Operation Destroy Occupy, It’s Making The Bosses Nervous
WASHINGTON – The CBS report says it all, no hedging: part of a day of mass gatherings in response to efforts to break up Occupy Wall Street camps nationwide. At two months, that’s where Occupy stands, with political and corporate establishment forces utilizing law enforcement at all levels to stop the movement.
Occupy Wall Street people understand that not only are more difficult times possibly around the corner, they know that the current government will likely do as it has historically done, which is to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the long term interests of the middle class. Some of the most financially successful people in America continually remind us all that capitalism is a contest. There are winners and losers. And the winners want to enjoy their success and they want the losers to keep it down. The noise of the vanquished is spoiling the victors’ fun. – Alec Baldwin
Occupy protests across the country are being targeted, because they threaten the two establishment parties and the businesses that back our corporate political system. It all sounds so cartoonish when bluntly written. However, the dire economic situation people are facing today has torn the private American discontent away from the silent suffering, giving a voice to the 99%.
The ground has been laid for Occupy protests to get very bad PR. Public Policy Polling now reveals it in “Occupy Wall Street Favor Fading.”
The controversy over the protests is starting to drown out the actual message.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers, fueled and backed by big and small business, putting pressure on mayors and other elected officials, as everyone looks at the holiday shopping season, means more pressure to discredit the Occupy protesters, as the 99% look on believing in the core principles that continue to bring people out into the cold.
You can blast negative images, as cable yakkers rant about the rabble, but the core message of Occupy resounds.
Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday actually said one goal of Occupy Wall Street protesters was to destroy Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and ruin it for families. The hyperbole on wingnut radio has gone nuclear. That’s because the 1% Rush and Sean represent know that if Occupy continues to take hold Republicans have more to lose than Democrats, even if both parties are to blame for our current economic plight.
Police in riot gear, while protesters mark two months, send a frightening message, but then it’s been planned that way. Can’t have democracy breaking out in America over something as silly as income inequality, now can we?
The establishment business class is doing their best to help.
But it’s this report earlier this week by Rick Ellis in the Examiner out of Wisconsin that is getting deserved attention, because it points to the escalations we’re seeing.
‘Occupy’ crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.
Scary pictures and videos on TV going out to middle America, along with right-wing radio blasting the dangers of Occupy protesters, all of this is how a movement is discredited.
What’s the dangers to people if peaceful protests were allowed to continue without interruption, as is their right?
The fear is to businesses impacted by Occupy protesters presence wherever they rise up, as well as the message that continues to build, which threatens politicians not able to help their corporate sponsors. That freaks the establishment, with the loss of business revenue enough to inspire engagement by the federal government and Homeland Security to become involved in helping locally.
Our democratic republic isn’t what it used to be.
Taylor Marsh’s new e-book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, the view from a recovering partisan, has been chosen by Barnes and Noble as one of 4 books in the launch of “NOOK First” Featured Authors Selection. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.
9 Responses to “Operation Destroy Occupy, It’s Making The Bosses Nervous”
I think that Robert Reich said it best recently: “A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.” (From his article Occupiers Occupied: The Hijacking of the First Amendment)
That quote really sums up a lot. I am sure the OWS will now take on a different form. I have no idea what that form will be but just because they went in and knocked protesters out of the town square, what brought them there in the first place is still simmering, and turning up the heat will not stop that.
“Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday actually said one goal of Occupy Wall Street protesters was to destroy Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and ruin it for families.”
So Sean Hannity is clearly off his nut, as per the usual clap-trap of the right-wing shill “news” programs, but it’s very easy to do this for one reason: the Occupy movement doesn’t, to my knowledge, actually have any well-articulated goals. It’s not tough to create believable false narratives for those who have no true narratives with which to replace the lies. Nobody loves a good grassroots movement against the man like this Berkeley social justice activist, but even while I furvently agree with the message of the Occupy movement, I haven’t joined in the Occupy demonstrations near my house. I haven’t done so because I can’t see this working out. No doubt that, at least a month ago, the Occupy movement had enough power to get something done. However, they did not make any demands with that power. “The structure of wealth distribution needs to change” is a great long-term goal, but the movement does not have the first step — the first set of demands — articulated.
My other difficulty with this is the lack of organized tactics deployed. Building an army of campers only works if those campers can use that momentum to do something to push the changes they want to make. Sitting in a camp until practicalities like waste removal become an issue is not a good tactic. It was a great one to begin the movement — something visible to show the number of supporters — but it is not sustainable. Some other thing needs to be the spark to set the fire, to move things forward, in order for the movement to grow and mature into something that has the power to enact real change.
Barring something to catalyze the movement, I do fear it will just die a death by apathy or police brutality, or both. That, I think, is exactly what we’re seeing now. It’s very easy for people not to care what’s going on right now to the protesters, because the forward momentum has dwindled. I hope I’m wrong, and they get their act together, but I think this movement might be nearing its last breaths.
I do like that quote, I like it a lot …
But OWS, in the end, did not act smart. By turning their truly valid protests into a long live-in, they opened themselves up for usurpation by idiots and partiers. The spoiling of their message was inevitable.
People like the Vietnam protest analogy, but they also didn’t learn from the Vietnam protest analogy. The protesters back then were not respected by the mainstream because of their antics. Granted there were massive generational differences back in the day, but it’s also largely because they looked like drug-addled slacker-stoners. That meant their message was ignored for years. I wonder if the Vietnam War would have ended differently if the anti-war movement was more mainstream, more sane??
OWS should have realized the mistakes of that era and done things differently.
I give them credit and praise for what they have done, but it should be over by now. They had 2 months of camping in NYC before the “police brutality” (what a laugh) kicked them out.
Jeez, this has been a walk in the park compared to Greece.
We get the message, already.
“police brutality”
There have definitely been too many actual cases of real police brutality, no scare quotes needed.
There was a rational anti-war movement in 1968. He was named Robert F. Kennedy. He got shot.
“We get the message, already.”
If only.
What part of the message, don’t we get?