The mainstream media's coverage of the Occupy movement has been to sum it up in one word: pathetic. This was demonstrated again today with the headline above that appeared on MSNBC describing an altercation that occurred yesterday between protesters and security guards at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum:
Washington's National Air and Space Museum was closed Saturday afternoon after sign-wielding demonstrators tried to storm the building on the National Mall.Yikes! Batten down the hatches, honey! The hippie barbarians are at the gates ready to rape and pillage!
So how bad was it? Judge for yourself:
At least one person was pepper sprayed when the crowd pinned a guard against a wall and another guard came to his rescue, Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas told NBC station WRC.Wow--that's quite a "storming," all right. I'm surprised anyone got out of there alive.
"You cannot bring that stuff in the museum under any circumstances," St. Thomas told WRC.
A video of the Smithsonian incident has since appeared on You Tube, which seems to indicate that far more than just one person was pepper sprayed by the security staff:
And this horribly slanted coverage is by the supposedly liberal MSNBC. It's like I've said before, any individual or institution owned by or that takes any money from big business or Wall Street is not to be trusted.
The Daily Kos had an interesting write up on the fact that there are plants in the crowd specifically trying to stir things up.
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@Joan - I actually take it as a good sign if Wall Street stooges are going to the trouble of planting troublemakers among the protesters. That means they are worried that the usual tactic of just ignoring them isn't going to work this time. :)
ReplyDeleteIn true Washington DC fashion there are several competing factions, of which "Occupy DC", "Stop the machine" (aka "October2011") are apparently the prime groups and are split between MacPherson Park and Freedom Plaza.
ReplyDeleteThe machinists (pun intended) from Freedom Park were apparently behind things.
Adam Kokesh has at least two good videos, one for each group, that show general obliviousness to their espoused value.
Either way it seems to me that even the protesters can't seem to get anything done in DC at this point.
@MrNiceGuy - I take more of a long-term view of the protests. These are merely the opening salvo. They'll likely die down without accomplishing anything. But the stage is set for much larger and more vehement protests later on as things get progressively worse.
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/09/339788/conservative-infiltrate-99-percent-movement/
ReplyDeleteThe civil rights movement(s) of the 60's were equally fragmented at the start. As with any system where people are involved, order will grow out of the chaos.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is, who is trying to direct and control that emergence?
You know what scares people in America more than almost anything else? The specter of people who potentially cannot be bought.
ReplyDeleteThe great fear of the right, the left, the media, etc. is that these folks might actually be so pissed off that they can't be either bought or dismissed. In a capitalist society, what the hell good is money if you can't buy people off? That's why you see all these people trying to pigeon-hole the protesters into identifying some kind of "goals" or "list of demands" (like they were kidnappers or terrorists). Once you have goals or demands, you can start to negotiate, by which I mean, buy people off.
Who knows if this movement will really maintain that feel of an amorphous groundswell that it seems to have at the moment. Personally, I hope so. After all, a little revolution every now and then is a good thing.
@Bill - Why oh why do TPTB tend to recycle their gameplans?
ReplyDeleteThis (The OWS protests) seems to be a remix of the "Summer of Love" leading right up to a mashup of Kent State and the '68 DNC Convention next summer. Makes me wonder if the Tea Party and Oathkeepers are going to have a "Redux Bonus March" soon, maybe even an East LA Watts-style riot over immigration for a trifecta.
All I hope is my asparagus does well this year as it goes into first harvest next year.
@MNG - interesting that you would mention the '68 Democratic convention. The organizers of the '12 version have to be getting a little nervous right now.
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