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[Büge]

Did you cats know that Wall Street is being protested? Things have gone pretty brutal, too.

This might not be in the appropriate thread, but one of the principal reasons the protest is going on is that the Banks are screwing people.

[Mongrel]

Oh yeah... I keep hearing about that.

Mostly people bewildered that it seems like it's not being carried by any major news outlet and those same people crying conspiracy.

In fact, it IS on CNN, but bizarrely last time I saw it was buried deep down on their "Health" page of all places. So maybe the rumourmongers have something there after all.

[Brentai]

If the MSM refuses to carry it and it becomes widely known anyway, that'll be a successful campaign against TWO corrupt industries.

[Brentai]

Actually I checked the Google News feed and they did acknowledge it.  They featured an opinion piece from something called "forextv.com" with the most hilarious RAH RAH BIG BUSINESS bias and hilariously rude attitude toward the protestors they could muster.

Please, please, please keep featuring these articles.  Thank you.

[Royal☭]

Well, MSNBC.com had the protest in front of the police headquarters, CNN.com I only found reference to the Radiohead hoax concert, Fox has a few things if you search for Occupy Wall Street, TPM has a few things, Al-Jazeera has mentions on the Americas page, as does the BBC. The socialists news sites I read have it everywhere, but that's true of all leftist papers, Le Monde has a few things.

So the stories are out there, just not really front page news.  And the bigger issue is how little they're on the cable shows, which is where a lot of people get their information. This is also tempered by the way the MSM usually treats protests, which is to just kind of dismiss them (unless it's like 5 teahadies, in which case they are all over that shit). These protests seem to be lasting and growing in steam. Still not quite to the Arab or European Springs, but getting there.

[Pacobird]

Well, MSNBC.com had the protest in front of the police headquarters, CNN.com I only found reference to the Radiohead hoax concert, Fox has a few things if you search for Occupy Wall Street, TPM has a few things, Al-Jazeera has mentions on the Americas page, as does the BBC. The socialists news sites I read have it everywhere, but that's true of all leftist papers, Le Monde has a few things.

So the stories are out there, just not really front page news.  And the bigger issue is how little they're on the cable shows, which is where a lot of people get their information. This is also tempered by the way the MSM usually treats protests, which is to just kind of dismiss them (unless it's like 5 teahadies, in which case they are all over that shit). These protests seem to be lasting and growing in steam. Still not quite to the Arab or European Springs, but getting there.

The hope is that the protests keep going and getting larger, at which point the MSM will have no choice to acknowledge them when politicians have to start making statements. 

[Thad]

Eric Cantor:

"This administration's failed policies have resulted in an assault on many of our nation's bedrock principles," he said. "If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.

"And, believe it or not, some in this town have condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans," he added.

Mark Evanier puts it succinctly:

Fun to see Conservatives struggle with how Wall Street Occupiers are UnAmerican scum but Tea Partiers doing the same things are patriots.

Herman Cain misses the point:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told reporters in Houston yesterday that the Wall Street protesters are "trying to disrupt the whole country."

"This is an attempt by the left to create a distraction from the failed policies of this administration," Cain said.

Er, no, I'm pretty sure it's an attempt to DIRECTLY CALL A SHITLOAD OF ATTENTION TO the failed policies of this administration.

Cain, of course, has absolutely no interest in actually being elected to any office:

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," he continued. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!"

I always like the "let them eat cake" talk.  It's a refreshing change of pace when Republicans actually say what they really believe.

I'd really like to see these protests actually come to something.  So far they've achieved the purpose of calling attention to the fact that Shit's Fucked Up, but I want to see more concrete messages.  "Raise corporate taxes" and "reduce corporate influence in Washington" are good starts, but let's get specific.  And anybody who's been listening to me for any length of time knows where I'm going with this.

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech.

[Aintaer]

I went down there Wednesday afternoon. They had lots of hippies.

[patito]

Well, you've got the mentally ill part right.

[Aintaer]

Doesn't that allow me to claim the rest?

[Thad]

Taibbi's on the case, with a list of five suggestions for demands the protesters should make.  (via)

I still think number one should be "End corporate personhood".  It's less specific than Taibbi's list, and more difficult to implement (we're talking Constitutional Amendment), but it's also incredibly soundbite-friendly and easy to understand.

[Mongrel]

So, as a regular reader of the Globe and Mail, I know that they sometimes do snarky captions on their "celebrity photos" page. This week however, they used the Wall Street protests as a touchstone for their jabs. As a result, many people around the world who are unfamiliar with the paper's tradition thought the paper had been hacked, or that a writer had "gone rogue". Hilarity ensues.

This week's photos and captions (the ones that caused the fuss) are linked in the article above. Number 8 is especially hilarious.

[Thad]

Taibbi goes after Breitbart's attempts to paint OWS as a manufactured uprising controlled by him, Chomsky, and Bill Moyers.  And he gives us this:

What nobody is comfortable with is a movement in which virtually the entire spectrum of middle class and poor Americans is on the same page, railing against incestuous political and financial corruption on Wall Street and in Washington. The reality is that Occupy Wall Street and the millions of middle Americans who make up the Tea Party are natural allies and should be on the same page about most of the key issues, and that's a story our media won't want to or know how to handle.

Now, on a congressional level, I've made my feelings on the possibility of compromise and common ground with Tea Partiers pretty clear.  But out here in the real world?  Yes.  Taibbi is absolutely right.

I DO think the Tea Party is a fringe group based on fringe political views that has elected mostly fringe candidates.  But it's hardly monolithic.  The Republicans didn't pick up all those seats last year because people are excited about Ayn Rand, they picked them up because people are sick to death of the Washington establishment.

The "We are the 99%" catchphrase is pretty good, because honestly, my day-to-day life's got a lot more in common with the average Tea Partier's than with any given millionaire's.  And ultimately we all want the same thing: a fair shake.  The rest is details.

There are some people who are unwilling to compromise on any regulation or any taxation.  So forget those people.  But a solid majority of the population thinks Wall Street's fucked up, Washington's fucked up, and we need some sort of reforms to fix the problem.  And most people are at least willing to discuss what those reforms should be, and willing to haggle and compromise.

Which is why people on both sides will seek to play this up as a left-versus-right, faction-versus-faction issue.  They don't want us talking to each other and figuring out just what the hell we can agree on.

[Mothra]

Very true. This is partisan politics at its worst.

[Thad]

Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

[...]

11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

[Pacobird]

Good life advice:

7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.

This pretty much sums it up for me:

10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.

[McDohl]

Yeah, but more often than not, the only problems that they see to solve are the ones that take place inside the building to the exclusion of all else.

[Norondor]

uh, no, they just plain do not care. what we perceive as problems, such as "no healthcare" or "people starving to death" are complete nonissues to them. they got theirs, fuck everyone else.

[Brentai]

I suppose it would be more compelling if you could produce examples of people starving to death in the United States.

[Mongrel]

I've seen some people trying to be dismissive, saying things like "These are all middle-class idiots with ipads! More like the 30%, amirite!"

Now, I don't think there's a revolution brewing (things need to be a lot worse before that's a real possibility), but the funny thing is that most revolutions are actually driven by middle-class malcontents. When it's exclusively the poor protesting, they tend to just get mowed down.