Occupy Wall Street The Media is the Message

The Invisible 99%: Sunday Morning Talk Shows Ignore Occupy Wall Street

PoliticsUSA October 2, 2011

By Jason Easley

The five Sunday morning talk shows on CBS, Fox, CNN, NBC, and ABC devoted zero segments with zero guests to Occupy Wall Street today. To the media inside the Beltway, the 99% do not exist.

A day after over 700 protesters were arrested during a march over the Brooklyn Bridge, the five network Sunday morning news shows virtually ignored the story. The only program that the arrests were even mentioned on was ABC’s This Week, “More than 700 demonstrators protesting corporate greed, among other issues, were arrested last night on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. The grassroots movement has swamped Wall Street for more than two weeks now.”

What was more important than thousands of Americans taking to the street to protest greed and corruption?

CNN’s State of the Union spent their time allowing Dick and Liz Cheney to rewrite the history of both 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Fox News and This Week were hyping up the latest corporate media creation, the revived presidential candidacy of Herman Cain. The media created the rebirth of Cain story after the candidate won a non-binding Florida straw poll, which became a story after the corporate media decided that the meaningless poll did in fact, mean something.

The other media generated story is the speculation over a potential Chris Christie 2012 presidential campaign. All the talk shows spent some time talking about Christie even though he isn’t even running. CBS’ Face The Nation trotted out John McCain to talk about Chris Christie, Libya, and DADT, and Meet The Press gave us a couple of governors and a roundtable discussing the 2012 election.

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"Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us."

Chris Hedges at Truthdig

Identified: NYPD Officer Who Maced Peaceful Protesters

Common Dreams
Tuesday, September 27, 2011

A photographer has identified the cruel and cowardly NYPD supervisor who point blank maced a penned in group of young women and then slinks away Saturday at the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Deputy Inspector Anthony V. Bologna of the NYPD Patrol Borough Manhattan South.

Source: Common Dreams

Friends of Libya; Globalist's meet to carve up the spoils of war

AlterNet

03 Sep 2011

CERNOBBIO, Italy, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A second "Friends of Libya" conference will be held in New York on Sept. 20 to help with reconstruction after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Saturday.

Western powers met Libya's new interim leadership, the National Transitional Council (NTC), in Paris on Thursday in a first "Friends of Libya" conference. They handed over $15 billion of Gaddafi's foreign assets.

                               Fair and Balanced News

CNN

We've been talking all along about the importance of ultimately establishing democratic, inclusive, legitimate government in Libya

Uruknet

“Friends of Libya” meet in Paris for imperialist carve-up"

VOA

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council, and Mahmoud Jibril, the head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council"

The Telegraph

David Cameron hails new dawn for Libya as countries jockey for oil contracts

NASA Scientist, Religious Leaders Arrested in Tar Sands Protest

Environment News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, August 29, 2011 (ENS) - NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen was arrested today in front of the White House where he was demonstrating in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would bring thick crude oil from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Dr. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and is a climate research scientist at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Arrests are continuing at the White House, where about 140 people gathered on the sidewalk as part of a two-week long sit-in to protest TransCanada's proposed 1,700 mile pipeline.
Dr. James Hansen is arrested protesting the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House, August 29, 2011 (Photo by Ben Powless)

The protest has led to the arrest of 521 people since August 20, when protestors began the Tar Sands Action sit-in at the White House. The protest will continue until September 3.

Because the proposed pipeline would cross the United States-Canada border, a Presidential Permit issued by the U.S. State Department is required for the project to proceed. The protestors are demanding that President Barack Obama decline to issue a permit for the pipeline because of the environmental damage it would cause.

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Standing up to the Corporatocracy

Three Things That Must Happen for Us to Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy

Truthout Friday 26 August 2011

by: Bruce E. Levine, Alternet | Op-Ed

Most Americans oppose rule by the corporatocracy but don't have the tools to fight back. Here are three things we need to create a real people's movement.

Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.”

The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness. It is the two other requirements that can empower, energize, and activate Team Democracy— a team that is currently at the bottom of the standings in the American Political League.

Read article at Truthout

Debt Ceiling Deal All Cuts No Taxes

Here's a link to a documentory based on Tom Ferguson's book

This film is based on Thomas Ferguson's book Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems. Many people appear in it, but it is based primarily on a 5 hour interview I conducted with Ferguson (with the help of 2 fellow youtubers), and on numerous appearances & interviews with Noam Chomsky. The film offers an in depth look at the influence of money in politics--analyzing social forces and events that the mainstream media and scholarship have largely distorted or kept hidden. It also analyzes the meaning of democracy.

Hat tip to  the director and publishers of this excellent documentory