Occupy the Library

by Red Raven Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 at 3:47 PM

America’s majority who supported the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS), within the 99% of all Americans, are being smeared by agent propagandists within the punditry of mainstream media (MSM). For example, Michael Gerson’s black demagoguery, of the closet-right-wing Washington Post, is a good example. In one of his recent columns he declared the OWS movement seems little more than a “…confused set of grievances…” and paints the movement to have little ideological coherence save Marxist socialism and anarchy. Equally he attempts to blame the Democratic Party (that he claims is their “desperate” political calculation) for this phenomenon of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.

Occupy The Library

By Red Raven

America’s majority who supported the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS), that is a large majority within 99% of all Americans, have been smeared by agent propagandists of mainstream media’s (MSM) punditry.

For example, Michael Gerson’s demagoguery, of the thinly-veiled-closet-right-wing Washington Post is a good example. In one of his fairly recent columns (in the second week of November) he declared the OWS movement seems little more than a “…confused set of grievances…” as he paints the movement to have “little ideological coherence save Marxist socialism and anarchy”—referring to a “Paris Commune” in Oakland constructing barricades, setting fires, throwing concrete blocks and explosives. He also says city governments now begin to “…look hapless for their accommodation of squalor, robberies, sexual attacks, drug use, vagrancy, and vigilantism.”

Equally he attempted to blame the Democratic Party (which he claims is “their” desperate political calculation) for the phenomenon of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.

Yet in actuality this movement exploded precisely because the Democratic Party has been, more or less, in lock step, (save some domestic quibbles here and there), with the equally corrupt Republican Party—that is by protecting and serving powerful interest groups and especially those on Wall Street.

Nevertheless Gerson’s smear campaign is a better than average (after all he writes for the Washington Post). Or at least he is some part of a step up from the “satanic,” and ghoulish Ann Coulter with her anemic and bare-shouldered Halloween persona as frigid Nordic Hel of Scandinavian myth).

Nevertheless Gerson whined: “News coverage of the movement has been both disproportionate and fawning…” claiming Occupy DC encampments has less people that a small, retail convention at a nearby hotel for the American Apparel and Footwear Association. But what is he really implied with such a statement is the aftermath encampments are the “core” of persons who represent the movement and represent its values and issues (as he also exposes “…reports of sexual assault in Zuccotti Park and a penchant for public urination”. (Obviously there was little fawning in his own opinion of the OWS movement that he derided as “laughable”).

Assume for a moment the movement represented 51% of Americans (which polls verify over 50%) rather than 99%. (And 51% would naturally encompass even some within the socioeconomic realities of journalists who work for corporate controlled mainstream media—so there is bound to be “some” pockets of sanity therein somewhere?). 51% is still many millions of people more than “any” convention could contain—and far larger than the democratic or republican parties (let alone their staged events).

Apparently this movement really was a threat or why would Gerson use so much effort to maim it? In his first paragraph he quipped: “At what point is utopianism discredited by the seedy, dangerous, derelict fun fair it creates?”

Yes clean-cut, high-healed, defamation artists of the mainstream media, want the homeless to go back to their off-off-Broadway niches—that is back into the hinter alleys of society where they can continue to be not just homeless but powerless and voiceless. Supposedly then we wouldn’t bother to talk about the fact most cities don’t bother to provide enough bathroom facilities for their homeless (but perhaps then we can tolerate public urination and other seedy insinuations in those neighborhoods?).

However you really need to compare Gerson’s previous opinion column for his “selected” economist opinion peices, where he argued that both the rich and the middle class have higher incomes, and inequality can be justified in a “fluid” society, etc. In another words his take was the status quo has been just been more or less “normal” capitalism.

Yes one could argue Michael Gerson was just playing to what the rest of the lame stream media focused on and since they “focused” on police, anarchist clashes; so then he was merely doing his job. But this really was one perfect example of a mainstream media pundit doing his weasel-best to continue to argue against any tax hikes for the wealthy. And despite the opinion piece as one example of this kind of sliming the entire movement—still “who” was acting low-life as being the judgmental ideologue?

Fascist intellectuals at the Washington Post, which includes the likes of one crap-hammer hammering home his crap to wherever it might stick, believe one major social problem of OWS is that some of the homeless have come out of their passivity (a very small percentage to be sure) to try to be part of a democratic process of protesting, via civil disobedience, they too are “not” represented by this government nor served by “vast” corporate and governmental corruption. Heaven forbid the hoi polloi of the vulgar class were up to demonstrating—even if not so “refined” in judgment as Washington Post columnists.

But then again opinion pages, as we have learned over the decades, have little to do with fact, and have much more to do with fabrication and dissimulation of impression. Far too often such bloviaters are bullshitting their readers—that is engaging in them with various forms of demagoguery, such as manipulating their prejudices. They write as if they think their readers dumber then they themselves (as they obviously presume themselves not to be too dumb—at least when comparing their “erudite” learning and common sense to that of the “silly” masses).

Yet, to one’s surprise and dismay, many other newspapers still carry such “syndicated” daily diatribe as if such stuff still passed the smell test? No wonder people are rushing to the Internet for alternative explanations on reality. And hopefully they will continue to do so—because the MSM is one of the “major” problems in this corrupted political culture.

Still you have to admire the tactic. What better way of using this kind of impression management then by smearing the Democratic Party for the OWS movement as a “…dangerous, derelict, fun fair…” so he could foment about “anarchist” clashes with police departments (as most of the “regular” news coverage in print “equally” focused on such clashes as “thee” common theme about the protests the MSM covered).

Although some news writers and opinion columnist have given a more balanced and supportive account of this movement, and righteously so—after all how corrupt does a government, media, and corporate culture have to become before some of its insiders start to question it? You need to remember the MSM ignored the movement until it occupied the Brooklyn Bridge as crisis. Editors didn’t even want to cover it and so when forced to they would naturally focus on alienated elements such as spirited youth, homeless campers and anarchists. (Not that they didn’t exist as they too most certainly do.)

Yet another rather obvious indication the Democratic Party did not come up with the OWS movement is the fact it is true socialists have been passing out anti-capitalist literature. This was equally true over the last years, such as during demonstrations against invasion of Iraq back in 2002 and 2003. There were few high power democratic groups directly involved in organizing such protests and the Democratic Party distanced itself from those protests. After all history shows us the Democratic Party for a long time has been a war party.

Yes unions were quick to be involved with OWS and have strong loyalty to the Democratic Party. They bring in numbers of protesters. Their ox is being gored. And, yes, poor, minority and disadvantaged have traditionally sided with democrats, but this combustion of a movement had more to do with these peoples’ frustration with the Dems in power as “not” working for The People.

Nevertheless there are those party leaders and affiliate groups now trying to “coral” this movement back “into” the traditional Democratic Party fold, as far as votes go, to make it seem like some kind of equivalent to the Tea Party, which became “occupied” by some Republican Party presidential candidates claiming to speak to the broad concerns of those people. Yet if either of these movements had any brains they will realize “both” parties need to be dumped—as far too corrupt and toxic to either trust or deal with.

Granted the kibbutz game plan of radical democracy with everyone supposedly having an equal voice, and no supposed leadership, at general assemblies, against a backdrop of anarchistic insurrection (likely agent provocateurs), did seem somewhat amateurish and almost insincere (even if many typically expect that some young people be naïve and idealistic). Meanwhile MSM didn’t waste a breath to paint pictures, by the likes of Hannity, Coulter, and Gerson, and “project” this movement as full of “anarchists” defying order and law—and therefore the average mug was suppose to conclude the OWS movement does “not” represent any kind of mass movement of U.S. citizenry, or living awareness—just some disaffected “minority”.

Truth be told that most Americans still believe in a “regulated” capitalism that includes some important and realistic socialist programs—but not either an extreme of socialist utopianism nor a law-less anarchy. Besides how could anarchism (that which recognizes no authority or values save the self’s priorities) collaborate with the idea of utopian democracy of peaceful assembly? They do not reconcile—they are different personality structures and value sets.

And yet one way or another some anarchistic personality types, or “paid” agent actors have infiltrated some these movements (as likely the result of “covert” operations deliberately meant to create opportunity for negative press) but equally by personalities who have anti-authority issues, drug issues, personality disorders, etc. Nevertheless the MSM now can continue to focus on them as primarily a homeless or dregs-of-society problem camping in non-designated spaces).

But what is particularly disturbing about this Washington Post attack dog smear campaign is that it is exactly some within the 1% of the wealthiest and within the government, corporations, and even the new-media-complex, who have acted the most anarchistic—that is who have recognized no laws or rules while, committing enormous crimes, and creating the legal means, supposedly, to steal taxpayer money—and then depriving them of important programs. (Read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism as glimpse into the future.)

Regulation of business—that is actually having laws and norms that businesses are expected to operate—goes against crybaby corporate power that still believes in the right to operate in the psychopathic sense of honoring no value save profit. (Watch the highly important video—Mark Akbar’s “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power to really get a feel of what the people around the world are up against—a very important primer).

Maybe the banksters don’t urinate in public (unless you think some of their angst waste product) but they do much worst. In fact some within their ranks are the most parasitic of all to society—let alone their advocating for corporate welfare. Yet plenty of the MSM minions toady to them as if they had some saintly claim to speak for the nation’s sanity.

More and more people are realizing the editorial pages of MSM newspapers are a scam—not just the likes of Rupert Murdock but also pretty much the entire punditry of the mainstream—and this is truly the crisis we American face—the realization that the information infrastructure has been not just corrupted but willing to go to fascist mode.

Meanwhile there is ample opportunity for the “vast” majority of republican and democratic voters to be “highly” upset with the status quo in Washington D.C., and Wall Street and the media—that is “if” a majority of citizens were better informed on just how corrupt this culture really has become.

There is serious “need” for more education on the part of citizen to become self-resourceful, so as to “articulate” exactly “why” this movement has evolved. (In fact there are even people on the Supreme Court too dense to get it! And these people, in some regards, are not stupid).

But what better way, for example, to incorporate public education then by “airing” live, and quite loudly, audio books like Joseph Stiglitz’s “Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy” (11 CDs masterfully read by Dick Hill). If there was ever a book that defined the OWS movement it is this book. (And what a great educational work for the American people to learn about economics in real life—rather than just staid theory.) Freefall is very well written and highly understandable (even as it goes into much economic detail such as failed and corrupted White House policies).

Freefall is a “real” ear opener. And it does not pull any punches, as it is critical of both democratic and republican leadership. It is a “must” read or listen as very worthy for anyone who really “cares” to understand. (But the audio version is better because it is so well read and user-friendly to people who normally do not read.) Reading much, and reading well, is one of our culture’s problems.

We don’t have enough sophisticated readers doing good analysis. And when good analyses exists not enough people read them to make much of a difference. So therefore this culture can continue to be duped, such as being fed “pseudo” questions and answers—like when read as red herrings as to how to deal with America’s problems at candidate debates focusing on being tough on terrorists or Iranians. (Not to mention few if any realize how many put in Guantanomo were actually innocent.)

The fact is that a “lot” of politicians and journalists do not understand the complications of economics—which is why Stiglitz’ audio book is so fabulous—it is perfect for this kind of occupy movement and it demonstrates a “high” level of awareness about what this movement could be projected to be about. (After all how much technology does it take to amplify a boom box playing CDs? to all who care to listen in the public square?) Nevertheless it seems that in this culture—regardless of economic illiteracy everyone has an opinion on such related topics.

Bill Moyers in his piece “How Wall Street Occupied America” (The Nation Nov. 21, 2011) claims that the book to read is Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s “Winner Take All: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class”. I’m confident, based on his endorsement this read is important as well.

All kinds of people who are affected by this OWS movement in one way or another—bankers, media people (thank goodness for independent and alternative journalism), politicians, police, and of course protesters and activists, as well as the curious and side-sitters, etc. All of them could become familiar with Stiglitz’s “very” important and detailed book. I could almost guarantee that if police officers on duty listened to it as this book blasted from speakers, while they stood around on patrol, they “too” would realize that if anything—such a protest is under-represented and should be larger. (And even people at the Justice Department would be doing “more” white-collar crime investigation as their way of warding off revolution—yes them doing “their” job at tax payer expense—rather than having hundreds of police officers standing around watching mostly peaceful people—and a more elaborate federal program of creating a KGB.) But such an idea sounds like too much sanity for the likes of the United States to much endure.

And Freefall should be either read or listened to by republicans and tea partiers, because for too long people have “settled” for simplistic clichés about how to deal with complex economic issues. America’s problems are not just about cutting or raising taxes or eliminating or adding budget items. Reality is far more nuanced than sound bites and ideological slogans that sound good and make one’s psyche feel better.

Still you don’t want to play 11 CDs back to back. There is a thing called mental fatigue that requires recovery time. And yet there are a “whole” bunch of very “worthy” books to “listen” to, and be “educated” by, while being in any kind of occupation (including life). James Wolcott’s “Attack Poodles: and Other Media Mutants” is another great example of a highly worthy and interesting book (very witty and insightful—as a masterpiece equally read with perfection by a truly great reader—and good to blast at mainstream media as if holding a cross to a vampire (and by the way where is the paparazzi?)).

Then of course there are books by Kevin Phillips (“Bad Money” or “American Theocracy” etc.) and other worthies such as Adrianna Huffington’s “The Pigs At the Trough” as such a list of possibilities is long. (Not to mention radio interviews from the Internet such as Scott Horton doing radio at AntiWar.com—his interviews are often with people who really are in the know and spreading reality-based awareness as opposed to state approved and sometimes created propaganda and misinformation).

Or how about Mohamed Elbaradei’s “The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times” (recent release) as getting an important view from a “real” insider who was treated as an outsider by U.S. foreigner policy—that is the so-called experts. (And it’s not like they, and Israeli hardliners, are not trying to fob another pattern of lies on the American people to go to war against Iran).

But such ideas as Stiglitz’s Freefall need to be articulated at the street level, and in coffee shops, and all around colleges and at various protests. Audio books are the way to go in a society that does not like to read much in the way of complicated things. The fact is there are “great” information sources available!! SUPPORT YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY BY USING SOURCES THERE NOW !!! (While such libraries still exist as more than homeless shelters—even as they are forced to cut hours and service so as to also increase the likeliness of public urination).

Show those bastards that you are not a bunch of naïve idealists and lawless anarchists playing to some romantic role of Rebel Without a Cause. Don’t just follow ancestral footsteps as if “…well my grand-parents were socialist anarchists… so I should be too”. Walk your own path. If this movement gets side-kicked as a bunch of unruly kids with un-civic attitudes then the Democratic Party gets to maintain its hold on its majority—and nothing truly gets changed. Teach them truth by having intelligent readings speak to power. Bring in more light than what MSM punditry offers.

America needs more “readers” performing “oral” renditions of quality writing in coffee shops and public platforms. Why is there no audio version of, say, the Nation magazine (selected articles even if they too are still expecting Obama to have some kind of change of enlightenment)? And if UC Berkeley is endowed with intellectual fervor it ought have a few good readers at a microphone. Why not get more of those well-crafted arguments already in print spoken to others as the “art” of oral interpretation (especially in this society that requires more of learning curve)?

The Democratic Party is not coming to save the poor people. They get their funding elsewhere. They don’t especially care if some cannot afford college or others cannot pay their student loans. Don’t bother to read their lip service—Obama and his administration has proven rhetoric does not mean anything.

We must become “smarter” than the current status quo of mediocre professionals who have helped corrupt this culture. We need to become the next generation of lawyers, economists, journalists, business people, etc. Just being upset and resentful isn’t going to make it. Just sucking up simplistic clichés about capitalism versus socialism isn’t going to make it. Simplistic sound bites might work for Tea Party cowboys but it cannot work as viability in this complicated culture.

If you have listened to some of Republican Presidential Debates you can realize how much trouble this country is in. Many of their candidates argue from naïve or misinformed perspectives. They act as if the few in the American public are awake. If more people understood Stiglitz’s Freefall (including Tea Party people) we would not see as much of their debate on false foreign policy presumptions and militarism, deliberately “sold” to the American people as present suppositions by MSM and right-wing Zionists with their questions to candidates. After all it is not just Egyptians that need to tell their military power to step down—the U.S. too is a military budget dictatorship.

Take the debate just this eve of December the 10th and you see how blatantly the news media tries to manipulate the masses. First of all some in the debate get far more questions and attention than do others in the debate—intentionally giving the impression some individuals are to be considered more important. And secondly immediately after the debate news commentators and political pundits are in the process of giving the impression certain individuals more or less captured the lime light—as highlighting their statements as congratulatory or slighting others in completely arbitrary and incompetent ways—or in the case of Ron Paul completely not even bringing up his name even though some of his statements were the most competent and succinct—as to suggest the debate was really between Gingrich and Romney. It is so dishonest you’ll think even country bumpkins would realize it. But Gingrich looks a bit like a heifer cow and shifts his weight like one—so farmers might get some idea this guys is trustworthy when he is Mr. D.C. Insider.

Some within the masses will take the hype lead as to help them formulate their own opinions. Yet if you really ask yourself why Gingrich and Romney are getting more attention as to be considered the most likely it is probably they are most willing to subordinate U.S. foreign policy to Israel and state Israeli talking points no matter how biases and distorted. (Funny how the question about the “invention of the Palestinians did not veer into insights into Scholo Sands controversial book: “ The Invention of the Jewish People”? There was no mention regarding Paul’s answer that the United States should not be so involved in all these Middle Eastern conflicts—that Israeli should take its own lead in resolving its conflicts? Why. Because it was the most sane and politically viable answer—despite the fact that it seemed to slight Israeli’s over-dependence of U.S. aid and willing to fight Israel’s enemies.

Republican candidate don’t really know if Iran really has a nuclear weapons program—as even the latest IAEA Report is being misrepresented by some in the MSM and dished to the American sheeple as fact. Read, for example, “Iran: Five Minutes to Zero Hour Tehran in the crosshairs” by Justin Raimondo, November 09, 2011. Read also: “Using Fake Intelligence to Justify War on Iran” by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research, November 9, 2011.

Too much of the mainstream “willingly” brought the elite’s deceit to the American people when we were being told about Saddam Hussein. Now these same people are bringing a similar set of “creative” intelligences and interpretations about Iran. This is why we need to reject the mainstream media and find websites that offer more truth and broader ranges of opinions to be expressed.

Nevertheless change starts with quality education—and why not use the tremendous treasure trove of resources available in your local library. (There is a difference between getting an education and being chained to student loans.) And if college administrations do not want to support students than stop attending those colleges—stop sending them revenues.

The tyrant Socrates (and he was more or less a tyrant) still revealed something very profound about civilization. His insightful theory about blind masses of people who, via metaphor, live in a cave and watch “projected” falsehoods being played on the cave walls—as if Kabuki theatre from a fire’s shadows. Socrates claimed that if one were to leave the cave and see the “real” daylight and if to come back and tell the other masses of the relatively blind they might not take it too well. They might want to kill the messenger.

Nevertheless Socrates, according to Plato, argued a Republican form of government should be represented by society’s “best” people (aristocracy). He was against that the idea that the average Joe was qualified or inclined to make decision on complex issues (and yet ancient Greece did not have much in the way of public libraries and public education back then, and most philosophers were privately paid to teach kids of the wealthy).

Whereas our current governments, both local and national, and many corporate leaders do “not” represent the best of anything—except a corrupt and corroding plutocracy—and this status quo gets more putrid and disgusting by the day—even as “… seedy, dangerous, derelicts have a fun-fair”.

Surely there are some misguided, so-called miscreants, who act as anarchists in the street—and maybe that is part of reality of necessity. But how do you think NeoCon-Artists like William Kristol, David Horowitz and their ilk started their youthful careers (id est., David Brock syndrome—author of Blinded by the Right—a worthy read to the underpinning of the right-wing spin machine)? Funny how some rabid left-wingers so easily switch over to become rabid right-wingers? Apparently some people just need to escape their ding-bat personalities to join any old, seemingly, promising program, of whatever flavor revolution of the month. But still our society needs something far more grounded in its people.

Therefore bring more of the sun’s light to from the Library to The People.

Occupy. Occupy. Occupy—as you regroup to see the “long-term” project that this change must become.


(Note: if you read this whole thing ask yourself why?)