Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Delegitimizing Occupy Wall St.

As the Occupy Wall St. protests continue not just in New York but also around the world, the main stream media... I'm sorry, I meant the lame-stream liberal media... seems to be doing everything it can to delegitimize both the movement and the protesters themselves.  I wake up this morning on my day off (you know, from running away, being "brave") and see this on the front page of Yahoo! news. 

NYC arrest records: Many Occupy Wall St Protestors Live in Luxury

"For each of the 984 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested in New York City between September 18 and October 15, police collected and filed an information sheet recording the arrestee’s name, age, sex, criminal charge, home address and — in most cases — race. The Daily Caller has obtained all of this information from a source in the New York City government.

Among addresses for which information is available, single-family homes listed on those police intake forms have a median value of $305,000 — a far higher number than the $185,400 median value of owner-occupied housing units in the United States.

Some of the homes where “Occupy” arrestees reside, viewed through Google Maps and the Multiple Listing Service real estate database, are the definition of opulence."

A couple things to address here.  

Why is this important?  Why is the media publishing financial information about those arrested?  It's bad enough that these people got arrested for expressing themselves under the first amendment of the Bill of Rights.  Now they have to have their personal lives and finances under scrutiny not just by the police, but by the general public?  It's one thing if you're a politician and you put yourself out there to be scrutinized by the general public.  But people who are protesting should not be afraid of losing all their privacy.

Even if the people protesting are "wealthy", they are still part of the 99% as defined by the protest movement.  Can anyone in the media really defend the 1%, those 400 top earners who make the top wealth in the entire country?  It's easy to generalize and entire group of people, but just because some of these protesters have higher home values does not make them any less legitimate or make their grievances any less legitimate.  If that were the case, then not a single one of our elected officials would have anything worth listening to.

Lastly, the whole point of this article is to frame the protesters in a way that makes the movement seem absurd, violent, illegitimate, and privileged.  Some examples of the article that does this.

"While it would not be fair to conclude that the arrested protesters are fully representative of a movement that is not completely understood, this information forms the most complete snapshot yet of the demonstrations’ more militant participants....
 "It also reinforces the persistent critique of protesters as entitled, upper-class agitators with few legitimate grievances....
 "Sleeping beside the hardcore activists are increasing numbers of wealthy students turning up to make the most of the party atmosphere, drugs and free food..."
"While they dress down to blend in, the youngsters’ privileged backgrounds are revealed by glimpses of expensive gadgetry or the absent minded mention of their private schools during heated political debates...."

Apart from being deceptive and dishonest, some parts of this article are straight up lies.  This movement has been non-violent and non-militant from the start.  If there has been any violence, it is being initiated by the police.  And this lie of drugs at these protests is completely unfounded and has had no proof at all.  But hey, if you keep saying a lie or group of lies over and over and over again, people are bound to start believing you, right?

On a final note, this was linked from Yahoo!'s front page to a "news" organization called The Daily Caller.  Who is the Daily Caller?  With a little research, I find that the Daily Caller is a "news" website founded by disgraced TV host Tucker Carlson with the help of his bowtie.  He founded it with Neil Patel who was a former advisor to Dick Cheney.  Who knows, maybe a certain former Alaskan governor can join this "news" site to make it even more important?  *cough* conservative circle jerk *cough*
 
When you go to their website (which I will refuse to link to here), you will see the following articles after the above discussed articles:
-  "Study: Public School Teachers Aren't Underpaid"
-  "Roger Stone Warns GOP of Great Danger of Third Party Candidate"
-  "The Quick and Dirty Guide to Sexual Harassment"
-  "Cain Sexual Harassment Allegations May be Fundraising Boon"
-  "Regulation is This Halloween's Goblin"

And on that note....*pitter patter*...Brave Sir Robin Ran away!  Bravely ran away....

p.s.  Free food at protests?  Those communists!  E-V-I-L

2 comments:

  1. Hey! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you have a blog. I appreciate this post SOOO MUCH- it's very frustrating to watch the way the Occupy protests are being portrayed in the mainstream media.
    -Cole

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  2. Shit...I didn't know it was "club 99%", if I knew the protests gave away free food and drugs I would have been all over that! Too bad it is not true! FYI - The average housing in NYC (NOT THE USA) is $457,000. So the people arrested in NYC were below the average cost of housing, oh and should I mention the high in NYC housing is $8 mil. Just saying. http://www.zillow.com/local-info/NY-New-York-home-value/r_6181/

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