The majority of members in the corporate media disparage the Occupy Wall Street protesters as lacking focus and a definite aim. In the article Gunning for Wall Street, with Faulty Aim, the NY Times stated "group's lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably is unsettling." Leuven from Belgium says the article attempted to portray protesters as naive, misguided youth haven taken to the streets to "assuage their adolescent boredom by pretending it is 1968."In Wall Street Demonstrations Test Police Trained for Bigger Threats, Joseph Goldstein of the NY Times argues "to the NYPD, the protesters represented ... a visible example of lawlessness akin to that which had resulted in destruction and violence at other anti-capitalist demonstrations." Leuven says the "piece stops just short of suggesting that, because the much more malign threat posed by terrorists is among the NYPD’s main concerns, they should be forgiven for their disproportionate response to the 'unorganized and, at times, uninformed' Wall Street protesters."In the video provided, Fox News is seen mocking the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Their show Red Eye attempts to portray the protesters as hippies, nude people, and pot smokers. Bill Schulz acts like an ass towards the protesters. He says stupid jokes and is in general just rude. Essentially, Fox was trying to make the protests seem as not serious. The station also tries to link the movement to the hippies from the 1960's.Leuven argues the media and "writers were deployed by the establishment to defend itself against the forces of change (the other main instrument being the police), and tasked with quieting the rumblings of democracy. Poking fun and diminishing the protesters efforts was intended to function as a deterrent, destroying the morale of the people in the street and discouraging others from joining them for fear of humiliation. They raised the specter of what Jean-Paul Sartre calls fraternity terror, putting those within the establishment on notice that open sympathy with the occupation movement will not be tolerated. Like the occupiers themselves, these sympathizers will be summarily judged, humiliated and driven out. And for those who are merely afraid of the implications of the movement for their positions of affluence and security, they provide assurances that the distant thunder that they’re hearing won’t be followed by a storm...Whatever their actual motivation for acting as instruments of the establishment—whether they really identify themselves with it or whether they’ve become enamored of its comforts, or some combination of the two—it should now be clear that these writers are little more than tools of the system. If they merely identify themselves with what they argue, we can hope that witnessing these protests triggers some hidden sympathy for the effort that escapes this self-identification and begins to undo it. Sadly, a darker possibility remains the more probable explanation; that they are so enamored of the comforts of the establishment, so isolated from the suffering that pervades American society, that they truly wish to see the effort fail, since its success would mean precisely the loss of these extraordinary luxuries and their position of power. Girded by these luxuries against sympathy and self-doubt, their identification with the corrupt establishment is allowed to stand unencumbered by conscience or scruple. Any sympathies that they might have had have been buried alive and, because they neither act on them nor allow them to become a part of their social identity, these sympathies suffocate under the weight of their own lassitude and complacency"Leuven says the possible reasons for the Corporate Media resenting the Occupy Wall Street Posters are:They are deployed by the Establishment to defend against change and to quiet the rumblings of democracyThey actually identify with the EstablishmentThey have become enamored with the Establishments Comforts"They are so enamored of the comforts of the establishment, so isolated from the suffering that pervades American society, that they truly wish to see the effort fail, since its success would mean precisely the loss of these extraordinary luxuries and their position of power."What do you think? Why does the Corporate Media resent the Occupy Wall Street Movement?
"writers were deployed by the establishment to defend itself against the forces of change (the other main instrument being the police), and tasked with quieting the rumblings of democracy. Poking fun and diminishing the protesters efforts was intended to function as a deterrent, destroying the morale of the people in the street and discouraging others from joining them for fear of humiliation. They raised the specter of what Jean-Paul Sartre calls fraternity terror, putting those within the establishment on notice that open sympathy with the occupation movement will not be tolerated. Like the occupiers themselves, these sympathizers will be summarily judged, humiliated and driven out. And for those who are merely afraid of the implications of the movement for their positions of affluence and security, they provide assurances that the distant thunder that they’re hearing won’t be followed by a storm...Whatever their actual motivation for acting as instruments of the establishment—whether they really identify themselves with it or whether they’ve become enamored of its comforts, or some combination of the two—it should now be clear that these writers are little more than tools of the system. If they merely identify themselves with what they argue, we can hope that witnessing these protests triggers some hidden sympathy for the effort that escapes this self-identification and begins to undo it. Sadly, a darker possibility remains the more probable explanation; that they are so enamored of the comforts of the establishment, so isolated from the suffering that pervades American society, that they truly wish to see the effort fail, since its success would mean precisely the loss of these extraordinary luxuries and their position of power. Girded by these luxuries against sympathy and self-doubt, their identification with the corrupt establishment is allowed to stand unencumbered by conscience or scruple. Any sympathies that they might have had have been buried alive and, because they neither act on them nor allow them to become a part of their social identity, these sympathies suffocate under the weight of their own lassitude and complacency"
According to The Call for the 16th Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation throughout "the U.S., Black, Latino, and poor neighborhoods are treated like occupied territory by increasingly militarized armies of law enforcement. People are criminalized and brutalized for their perceived status – socioeconomic, immigration, mental health, and/or racial, gender, or sexual identity. People living in our communities, especially youth, are routinely stopped, harassed, beaten, and even killed." It lists the following examples:In Chicago, the home of the first Black president, police have shot 44 people so far this year, mostly youth of color, including 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon, who was shot eight times.NYPD continues to stop hundreds of thousands of youth of color every year for the most minimal suspicion, fewer than 10% of which result in arrest, and far fewer in charges or conviction.Police nationwide continue to kill with very little consequence. Twelve Miami cops shot at 22-year-old Raymond Herisse 100 times, then threatened those who recorded the incident, destroying their cellphones. A Tucson SWAT team shot at 26-year-old Iraq War veteran Jose Guerena over 70 times, claiming that he fired at them and then leaving him to bleed to death in his home. Both their allegations of gunfire and drug-dealing were later revealed to be false. In New York and New Jersey, at least 28 people have been killed by police since October 22 of last year, while at least 35 people have been killed by law enforcement in Washington State in the last 12 months. The killing of 22-year old Oscar Grant in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 resulted in a rare conviction for the officer who shot him; however, he was freed after mere months in prison, while people protesting the outrageous verdict were met with police violence and mass arrests. In the weeks following that cop’s release, SF cops killed Charles Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, on a subway platform and 19-year old Kenneth Harding after he supposedly failed to pay a $2 train fare, then left him dying on the pavement in front of dozens of outraged witnesses. Police routinely abuse the mentally ill and disabled. Fullerton, CA cops beat to death homeless and mentally ill 27-year-old Kelly Thomas, described by many in the community as “a gentle, childlike soul.” In Fresno, CA, 28-year-old Raul Rosas, Jr. died after being tasered by police. His girlfriend said "I didn't call the Fresno County Sheriff to kill him. I called because he needed help with his mental illness.” Raul went into cardiac arrest and was denied access to three medical ambulances that showed up to assist. Recently enacted anti-immigrant laws have given police in the states of Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama sweeping powers to stop people "suspected" of being undocumented on no other basis than appearance. The hostility and racism stoked by these policies have already culminated in violence, as seen in the killing of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereka by a border patrol agent and the beating death of 42-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the hands of La Migra. More than one million have been deported under the Obama administration.Racially targeted mass incarceration exacerbates the criminalization and marginalization of Black people, playing the same role as the Jim Crow laws that sprang from the Virginia slave codes of 1705. In 1954, 90,000 Black people were incarcerated. Now, over 900,000 Black people are imprisoned, a tenfold increase, while the total U.S. Black population has merely doubled in the same period. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate worldwide, with 2.4 million people in prison.Young schoolchildren are increasingly labeled and treated as criminals by school security and local police. Eight-year-old Aidan Elliot was peppersprayed and handcuffed by Colorado police, and ten-year-old Sofia Bautista was removed from her elementary school, then taken to a NYPD precinct, handcuffed, and interrogated for hours, while police nationwide continue to use tasers on students as young as sixWhat do you think? Are Black and Latino neighborhoods treated like Occupied Territory?
On October 21, 2011, a new movement aimed at ending the Stop & Frisk policy of the NYPD. Hundreds of people marched from Harlem's State Office Building to Harlem's 28th precinct. Car Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party stated at the protest "We are here today to put our bodies on the line to stop this racist, immoral, illegitimate and unjust ‘new Jim Crow’ from the gateway of stop and frisk to the wholesale mass incarceration of Black and Brown people." He continued "We are serious and we will continue until we Stop Stop & Frisk!"According to the NYCLU, "the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop-and-frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino." NYCLU continues saying "during the first six months of 2011, 362,150 New Yorkers were stopped by the police. 317,376 were totally innocent (88 percent), 184,186 were black (51 percent), 119,853 were Latino (33 percent), and 33,805 were white (9 percent)"Does the Stop and Frisk policy of the police need to end?
Occupy Wall Street voted on
Aren't the 'Occupy Wall Street' Protesters Patriots Too?
Does the Stop and Frisk policy of the police need to end?
Why does the Corporate Media resent the Occupy Wall Street Movement?
Occupy Wall Street posted a poll
Are Black and Latino neighborhoods treated like Occupied Territory?
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