Wall Street protests

We begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement. While it goes by the official name ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era. ---Brian Williams on Oct. 5, 2011 gushing with extreme hype over OWS.

Despite all the friendly hype given to the Occupy Wall Street protests by much of the mainstream media, OWS is now in its death throes according to this Reuters report by Chris Francescani. He also notes that as OWS is about to be taken off life support, the much maligned Tea Party movement is doing quite well by contrast:

Rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West have once again expressed their love of gratuitous violence. The pair has released a new music video, “No Church in the Wild,” depicting a violent riot, with police and rioters engaging in full-scale mayhem.  

“No Church in the Wild” opens with a protestor throwing a Molotov cocktail at police. The violence only escalates from there; the video is a patchwork of firebombs, fights, and destruction.

Following a report on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News about the dropping value of Facebook's initial public stock offering and possible investigations into what went wrong, anchor Brian Williams saw an opportunity to adopt the talking points of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement: "Is this a case of the rich get richer, another advantage to the 1%...?"

Williams posed that question to New York Times reporter and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin, who enthusiastically added to the class warfare rhetoric: "Boy does it feel that way, Brian. This is that and probably a lot more. And it couldn't come at a worse time given the enormous distrust that the public has of Wall Street. And it goes to this sense of fairness. This is the ultimate 1% versus 99% all over again."

Monica Davey and Steven Yaccino reported for Tuesday's New York Times from Chicago, the site of the NATO summit and left-wing protests and put the best spin on the violent clashes that led to 90 arrests over the course of a week: "Day of Subdued Protests Follows Night of Clashes in Chicago." The text box: "The prospect of widespread chaos does not materialize."

Apparently left-wing protests are graded on a curve, as "about 90 arrests" is considered "an uneventful weekend." And the Times decided it was safe to mention the Occupy movement's involvement in the protests, after conveniently leaving them out of its previous reporting on terror threats and violence against cops in Chicago.

The NATO summit meeting in Chicago this weekend was the target of a diverse collage of left-wing groups as people with the Occupy movement streamed into Chicago for protests that culminated in violent clashes with cops and 45 arrests on Sunday. Before the summit the Times reported the protest would be a sign of how strong Occupy remained. Yet once the violence and terrorism charges began flying in Chicago, the Occupy movement all but disappeared from the paper's coverage.

It's a pattern for the Times, which routinely downplayed violence in the Occupy movement, yet fretted over hypothetical threats of violence posed by the Tea Party.

Three NATO protesters were in court Saturday facing terrorism charges for allegedly planning to bomb Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house.

The Washington Post published an article about this Saturday and mysteriously waited until the third paragraph to inform readers the trio were Occupy activists:

We all know that the radical left has no sense of humor, but does the Washington Post have to encourage them by devoting stories that legitimize their absurd petitions? The Saturday Post's Style front-page devoted 22 paragraphs to two Occupy D.C. protesters who ginned up a petition effort against, of all things, Fojol Brothers, a popular D.C. street food truck whose employees don turbans and wear fake mustaches as they serve up ethnic cuisine.

At time of the article's publication, the petition -- which objected to an "Orientalist and racist appropriation of South Asian and East African cultures" -- had a paltry 950-some signatures on Change.org, a left-wing petition site. What's more, Post staffer Tim Carman waited until paragraph 14 to disclose that petition author Arturo J. Viscarra's comrade-in-arms/roommate Drew Franklin "is the son of the Post’s Travel editor Zofia Smardz." 

It is ironic that one of the two guys who founded Google was originally from Russia because the Russia Today news channel producers should have checked that search engine before featuring a certain Justin Wedes in their "American Spring" documentary about the Occupy Wall Street protests. Had they done their homework they would have discovered that Wedes, described in their documentary as an "OWS Organizer, School Teacher" is in reality a FORMER school teacher.

And why is Justin Wedes a former school teacher? Because he was forced to quit his job last year as a Brooklyn school teacher when he was discovered forging signatures in an attempt to fraudulently scam several thousand dollars in government grant money.

The last national press reports on the five men arrested Monday for plotting to blow up a Cleveland-area bridge reassured everyone that none involved were in responsible roles in the Occupy movement. On Thursday, the Associated Press's Thomas J. Sheeran wrote that Occupy Cleveland spokespersons "said the men were associated with the group but didn't represent Occupy Cleveland or its non-violent philosophy." An earlier AP report paraphrased a claim that they "had been associated with the anticorporate Occupy Cleveland movement but don't share its nonviolent views." Reuters carried this quote: "They were in no way representing or acting on behalf of Occupy Cleveland."

Well, last night, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Michael Sangiacomo reported that at least one of the five was once in a sufficiently responsible position within the Occupy group to represent it while signing a lease for space the group used. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the wire services just noted and others will do with what follows:

When the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement first arrived on the scene back in October of 2011 the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks greeted, what they viewed as the left’s answer to the Tea Party, with a whopping 33 full stories in just the first 11 days of coverage and a total of 81 stories in that month. However, when that movement proved to be an embarrassment to the left and Democratic Party with its acts of violence, most recently on May Day, the Big Three breezed past the ugly actions of this leftist movement with just one full story.

From May 1 through the morning of May 3 ABC, CBS and NBC, in their morning and evening newscasts, devoted a total of just 4 minutes combined to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s day of disruption that included blocking traffic, vandalism and sending simulated anthrax letters to banks full of white powder.

There's real paradox in romanticizing squalid, rat infested tents in one section of your publication while in another advising well-heeled readers where to buy a $5,000 Chippendale rug. But such is life at a liberal big-city newspaper.

The Washington Post swooned over the Occupy Movement last year, devoting thousands of words and gallons of ink to covering the complaints of the self-described 99 percent, which claims “to fight back against the richest 1% of people that are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.” The Occupy Movement is calling for a general strike on May 1, and the Post is now itching to favorably cover Occupiers.

Americans are destined this day to by bludgeoned by liberal media members gushing and fawning over the May Day and Occupy protests all over the country.

The farce of a so-called “news network” MSNBC certainly did its part Tuesday by promoting Harrison Schultz, one of the original Occupy Wall Street organizers who right from the top admitted to being an anarchist while later expressing his desire for radical changes to America’s capitalist structure (video follows with transcribed highlight and commentary):

According to the reporters at Good Morning America, May Day is a "traditional day of protest," one in which members of the Occupy movement can get "fired up about." Reporter John Berman ignored the communist influence that has held sway over May Day.

Instead, he blandly announced, "Well, May Day is International Workers Day, a traditional day of protest. And the Occupy movement is expected to use this to stage some of their biggest protests in months." In a follow-up brief, news reader Josh Elliott similarly insisted, "It's all a part of civil disobedience for May Day, also known as International Workers Day."

The left-wing site Salon published on Sunday a 3,000-word excerpt from an essay by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells (his wife) published in The Occupy Handbook, a collection of essays from a spray of left-wing economics writers (plus Tyler Cowen) released yesterday in support of the leftist sit-in. From the book description at Amazon: "A guide to the occupation, THE OCCUPY HANDBOOK is a talked-about source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation's income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with."

Under the full headline "Economy killers: Inequality and GOP ignorance -- By failing Econ 101, Republican leaders failed the country and repeated the errors that caused the Great Depression," Krugman and wife spent almost 3,000 words blaming conservatives for the "rising inequality" that has caused an ineffective response to the financial crisis of 2008. In other words, don't blame Obama, but "the right."

The left-wing Occupy Wall Street sit-in was kicked out of Zuccotti Park months ago, but the New York Times claimed to see its handprint in Wednesday's lead story, "Citigroup's Chief Rebuffed On Pay By Shareholders." Reporters Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Nelson Schwartz plugged the influence of the left-wing sit-in high up, in paragraph two:

Monday brought more downplaying of violence and vandalism within the Occupy Wall Street movement, from the New York Times. Joseph Goldstein and Colin Moynihan reported for the Metro section: "3 Arrested in Manhattan as March Turns Into a Melee."

A group of people who had attended an anarchist book fair in Manhattan later marched to a nearby Starbucks on Saturday night and began swinging at the windows with metal pipes, as frightened customers hid under tables, the police said.

New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt fretted about the loss of public attention on the "populist" (not left-wing?) Occupy Wall Street movement on Sunday: "For Occupy Movement, a Challenge to Recapture Momentum." (The Times didn't exactly treat the plight of the Tea Party with such sympathetic concern.)

Just when you thought Occupy D.C. was dead and gone and, with it, the Washington Post's gauzy coverage, the paper has resurrected it's puffery of the leftist movement just in time for Easter.

This time, the Post fondly remembered the left-wing squatters' camp by awarding its sixth annual Easter Peeps Diorama Contest to Cori E. Wright of Falls Church, Va., for her "OccuPeep D.C." display.  Wright, a decorative painter who works for the Architect of the Capitol told the Post that she "[doesn't] necessarily agree with the occupiers, but I agree with the right to occupy." [see photo of diorama below page break]

In what may be the most obvious over-employment of journalistic resources since the Associated Press assigned 11 reporters to review Sarah Palin's book in late 2009, seven journalists with the AP (yep, again) worked up a Friday afternoon item (saved here for future reference, fair use, discussion and embarrassment purposes) entitled "6 months later, what has Occupy protest achieved?"

Primary writer Meghan Barr, along with "Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia, Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y., Erika Niedowski and David Klepper in Providence, R.I., and News Researcher Julie Reed in New York," recited an embarrassing, paper-thin list of accomplishments. They also completely avoided what most of the nation likely sees as the movement's primary achievement, despite the press's attempts to minimize and cover it up: showing us what the world might very well look like if the movement's leaders and primary instigators ever got their way -- ugly, dangerous, and filthy. Here is the complete list of key accomplishments the seven AP personnel cited (my comments in italics):

Private Joker! What is your major malfunction?

That is what I felt like yelling at Matthew Modine aka Private Joker after watching a bizarre video he produced in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Rather than shed any light on the subject of OWS, all Modine seemed to accomplish was to make the viewer as confused as Lou Costello trying to make sense of what Bud Abbott was attempting to explain about Who's on first, What's on second, and I Don't Know on third. Watch Private Joker's OWS propaganda video below the fold and see if you can make any sense of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

London-based New York Times reporter Alan Cowell sympathized with the British off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday: "British Authorities Demolish Protest Camp at St. Paul's Cathedral."

Moving after midnight, bailiffs supported by police officers dismantled a tent encampment outside St. Paul's Cathedral here early Tuesday, ending a four-month protest that caused tension within the Church of England and resonated with Britons opposed to what they see as runaway capitalist greed.

Times Watch has shown how deeply the Occupy Wall Street movement has embedded itself into the liberal psyche of New York Times reporters, who can’t help clogging their stories with flattering references to the lefty sit-in. The protesters may be dispersed, but the dream lives on in Times stories on such seemingly unlikely subjects as a revival of an Arthur Miller play and the sinking of the Titanic (marking the second Titanic anniversary story from the Times containing a “99%” percent reference).

New York Times theatre critic Charles Isherwood wedged in some praise for the Occupy Wall Street movement in a story on the revival of the Arthur Miller play “Death of a Salesman” in Sunday Arts & Leisure section, “‘Salesman’ Comes Calling, Right on Time.” Isherwood thinks it comes at just the right moment, a corrective to the “ethos of the banker-gods and C.E.O.’s set the overriding cultural tone for much of the last 30 years.” (He’s talking about the Reagan era.)

When the Occupy movement was going strong, the Washington Post devoted generally positive coverage to the Occupy D.C. camp, complete with a front-page puff piece on love (lust?) at Occupy D.C., a Style section puff piece on Occupy propaganda posters, and an "Occupied" Style section front pager gushing about the nascent hippie village-- complete with kitchen and library -- at the McPherson Square squatters camp.

But now the Post is finally getting around to detailing the violent tendencies of the movement, including the fact that an article circulating at an Arizona camp entitled "When Should You Shoot a Cop?" caused a homeland security bulletin to alert local authorities of potential violence in early November of last year.

A man in Berkeley has died as the result of a violent crime. A contributing factor to his death was a failure by the police to respond to a 911 called which was deemed a "non-emergency." The police were in a posture of only responding to "emergency" calls because "were preparing for an Occupy protest headed to UC Berkeley from Oakland."

It will be interesting to see if this gets covered by the establishment press outside of Northern California, especially now that Drudge had it in his headlines during much of the day. Here is part of the original report from KCBS in San Francisco:

Occupy Wall Street earned a shout-out Sunday night on a CBS drama, the kind of Hollywood affirmation the Tea Party could never dream of receiving. “Before we begin,” a judge announced in a Chicago courtroom on The Good Wife, “I want to take a few minutes to talk about something that is happening a mere one hundred yards from this courthouse: Occupy Wall Street!”

“Judge Charles Abernathy,” played by Denis O’Hare, continued to pay tribute to the leftist cause celebre: “Yes, these amazing young men and women are braving 36-degree weather, with the grit in their eyes of a shared cause, and all to challenge the system. And I, for one, I salute them.”

Since the first Occupy Wall Street protest, you haven't been able to swing a dead cat in this country without hitting an Obama-loving media member carping and whining about income inequality.

Yet according to this chart created by the nation's largest federation of trade unions the AFL-CIO, the difference between average CEO and average worker pay has been plummeting since the year 2000: