Another day, and more Occupy Wall Street protests continue to fill a good chunk of the news cycle. After a month of protests, which are now happening around the world, it doesn't surprise us that there are those in the media - especially on the right - that are attempting to denigrate and smear the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The most well-known smear merchants of the right wing propaganda squad - Andrew Breitbart, and his acolyte, James O'Keefe - have been spotted at Occupy events, spreading lies and attempting to tarnish the image of the protesters.
There are those who claim that the Occupy movement is anti-semetic - which it is not. The lobbyists on Wall Street have also been raging against Democrats and those on the political left for supporting the Occupy movement, attempting to paint the grass roots uprising as a fake political ploy - which it obviously is not.
The most disgusting smear of all though, came from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, and pollster Doug Schoen. Schoen attempted to claim, based on his own polling data, that a majority of the Occupy protesters (in his less than scientific sample size) were opposed to free-market capitalism and supported radical redistribution of wealth.
What makes Schoen's conduct so disgusting to ethical members of the media, like us, is that Schoen's own claims can't be backed up by his polling.
His polling said the largest percentage of the Occupy protesters - 35% - had "Influencing the Democratic Party, the way the Tea Party has taken over the GOP" as their major goal. "Radical redistribution of wealth" didn't even make it into Schoen's poll.
If Schoen had examined his own polling data, he would have seen that the single biggest problem Occupiers have with our current government has nothing to do with left or right. It's the influence of corporate and special interests on the decisions our government makes – in other words, the unequal influence of unlimited, big money.
As most legitimate members of the media have already acknowledged (including us), the Occupy Wall Street protests are focusing attention on America's second biggest problem - fiscal inequality.
Sadly, America's biggest problem was aptly pointed out by Rep. Barney Frank two nights ago - that Americans love to complain but don't really seem to want to do anything about it.
As Frank noted, while not everyone agrees with every point of every protester, the general thrust of the Occupy movement is something most Americans favor. But agreeing with something isn't enough. We have to act if we want to get anything done. And in America, in our political system, that means voting.
If this movement is to mean anything, those involved must do more than simply hack away at the pillars the fat pigs on Wall Street are hiding atop right now. There must be political solutions created, and then people will need to get involved in the current political system - and VOTE. The ineffective legislators will need to be voted out, and effective ones voted in.
Pressure will need to continue to be applied until those new legislators do what they've been voted into office to do.
Those at the top are actively working to save their personal bacon right now. The rest of us, in our own way, need to similarly follow through.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Thirty Or Less
One of our staff members recently got a new iPhone - along with quite a few other people we know - and the thought that bounced around for us today is that modern technology has given us some pretty incredible developments. With those advances in technology come a lot more numbers than we ever used to deal with.
For example, a pile of polling results were dumped in the laps of the media yesterday. Apparently, New Yorkers - even Republicans - back the Occupy protesters at a 3-1 rate over the bankers on Wall Street. Ninety percent of New Yorkers think it's "okay" that that Occupiers are protesting.
If you'd prefer earnings numbers, Citigroup on Monday announced a third-quarter profit of $3.8 billion, up 74%. For a company American taxpayers bailed out three years ago, things don't seem all that tough on Wall Street these days.
There were even Pew Research Study numbers that have finally proven, once and for all, that the media is no longer liberal. When Sarah Palin gets favorable media coverage more than 30% of the time, while President Obama receives less than 10% favorable media coverage on average, anyone who claims the media leans left is neither fair nor balanced.
The strangest number we've seen lately, though, happens to be GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan - which sounds disturbingly like a Godfather's Pizza special, instead of a governing, tax, and budget theory.
Every legitimate examination of Cain's plan that we've seen says it would be a disaster for the Federal budget, and even worse for poor and working class Americans. In short, it would turn the current tax code on its head, and bury everyone but the wealthy with higher tax rates. The 9% sales tax alone would destroy many on the bottom rungs of our economic ladder, who find it difficult to even pay for a pizza.
Put bluntly, if your state and local sales tax is already 9%, Cain's idea would add another 9% on top of that.
Cain even admits it would raise taxes on the middle and lower classes - and yet for some reason, he still thinks Americans will rally around his plan, even after they figure this out. Maybe Cain should use a technological development known as "YouTube" to see exactly how large chunks of Americans feel about the wealthy being taxed less, while the rest of America has to suffer.
Somehow, we're not entirely surprised at Cain's feigned ignorance of facts regarding his own 9-9-9 plan.
His ties to the right-wing corporatist Koch brothers are well-known, through the misleading and mockingly named group "Americans For Prosperity." Cain's 9-9-9 plan would heavily benefit groups like AFP, companies like Koch Enterprises, as well as extremely wealthy individuals like the Koch brothers - and even Cain himself.
Even with all the numbers, statistics, and technology we've talked about today, the one constant that still hasn't changed is this: as long as nearly unlimited money is allowed to control our political process, the person who has the most money in most elections wins ninety four percent of the time.
If it takes you longer than thirty seconds to figure out that isn't an example of a properly functioning democratic republic, we're not sure anyone can deliver you from your sad state of delusion.
For example, a pile of polling results were dumped in the laps of the media yesterday. Apparently, New Yorkers - even Republicans - back the Occupy protesters at a 3-1 rate over the bankers on Wall Street. Ninety percent of New Yorkers think it's "okay" that that Occupiers are protesting.
If you'd prefer earnings numbers, Citigroup on Monday announced a third-quarter profit of $3.8 billion, up 74%. For a company American taxpayers bailed out three years ago, things don't seem all that tough on Wall Street these days.
There were even Pew Research Study numbers that have finally proven, once and for all, that the media is no longer liberal. When Sarah Palin gets favorable media coverage more than 30% of the time, while President Obama receives less than 10% favorable media coverage on average, anyone who claims the media leans left is neither fair nor balanced.
The strangest number we've seen lately, though, happens to be GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan - which sounds disturbingly like a Godfather's Pizza special, instead of a governing, tax, and budget theory.
Every legitimate examination of Cain's plan that we've seen says it would be a disaster for the Federal budget, and even worse for poor and working class Americans. In short, it would turn the current tax code on its head, and bury everyone but the wealthy with higher tax rates. The 9% sales tax alone would destroy many on the bottom rungs of our economic ladder, who find it difficult to even pay for a pizza.
Put bluntly, if your state and local sales tax is already 9%, Cain's idea would add another 9% on top of that.
Cain even admits it would raise taxes on the middle and lower classes - and yet for some reason, he still thinks Americans will rally around his plan, even after they figure this out. Maybe Cain should use a technological development known as "YouTube" to see exactly how large chunks of Americans feel about the wealthy being taxed less, while the rest of America has to suffer.
Somehow, we're not entirely surprised at Cain's feigned ignorance of facts regarding his own 9-9-9 plan.
His ties to the right-wing corporatist Koch brothers are well-known, through the misleading and mockingly named group "Americans For Prosperity." Cain's 9-9-9 plan would heavily benefit groups like AFP, companies like Koch Enterprises, as well as extremely wealthy individuals like the Koch brothers - and even Cain himself.
Even with all the numbers, statistics, and technology we've talked about today, the one constant that still hasn't changed is this: as long as nearly unlimited money is allowed to control our political process, the person who has the most money in most elections wins ninety four percent of the time.
If it takes you longer than thirty seconds to figure out that isn't an example of a properly functioning democratic republic, we're not sure anyone can deliver you from your sad state of delusion.
Monday, October 17, 2011
We Have Yet To Reach The Promised Land
We hope you had an enjoyable weekend - or at least got the chance to spend some time outside.
If you did get outside, maybe you saw still expanding growth of the Occupy protests. They seem to be happening everywhere these days - in Minneapolis, in Lincoln, in Omaha, in DC, and in places all over the world. The media continues to focus on both the peaceful arrests of protestors, and the occasional violence - like in the protests in Italy - because many in the media still don't seem to understand what the protests are all about.
Sadly, it appears that much of the media would rather focus on the political garbage being flung about as the 2012 election battles begin to take shape.
The real issues that are behind all of the anger of the Occupy protestors are things that some groups of Americans have been facing since well before the days when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington - the kind of extreme economic inequality that takes away any real chance to succeed for millions of Americans.
The issues of jobs and justice were exactly what Dr. King was fighting for when gave his historic "I Have a Dream" address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial nearly fifty years ago.
In Washington, DC this weekend, there was another march for those same reasons - The Justice and Jobs March. Many of the Occupy protestors joined that march - and, we feel, rightfully so.
President Obama continues to beat the drum for jobs, much as he has in one way or another since before he ever took office. Lately, his focus on jobs has become a near-deafening pounding to those who are listening to what the American people actually care about.
While writing legislation is the job of the Legislative Branch, this President did the job that Congress either refused to do or was incapable of doing. He wrote, had scored, and delivered complete, a jobs bill to Congress, so that they could debate it and maybe solve the problems of some of those millions of Americans out of work.
Disgustingly, Republicans in Congress wouldn't even discuss allow the bill to be debated, as they stalled the bill in Senate procedures last week - further proving that their priorities are politics, not helping their constituents.
The President remained unbowed, however, much as Dr. King did in his struggles for racial justice. The President said in his weekly address, that he'll now begin pushing Congress to vote on each piece of his jobs bill, one by one if he has to, beginning with teachers and first responders, like police, fire, and medical personnel.
At the dedication of the monument to Dr. King, President Obama also reminded everyone of the odd similarities between then and now.
He said, "It is right for us to celebrate today Dr. King’s dream... yet it is also important on this day to remind ourselves that such progress did not come easily... it is worth remembering that progress did not come from words alone. Progress was hard. Progress was purchased through enduring the smack of billy clubs and the blast of fire hoses. It was bought with days in jail cells and nights of bomb threats. For every victory during the height of the civil rights movement, there were setbacks and there were defeats.
"Our work is not done... First and foremost, let us remember that change has never been quick. Change has never been simple, or without controversy. Change depends on persistence. Change requires determination... when met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the “is-ness” of today. He kept pushing towards the “ought-ness” of tomorrow..."
"We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount."
If you did get outside, maybe you saw still expanding growth of the Occupy protests. They seem to be happening everywhere these days - in Minneapolis, in Lincoln, in Omaha, in DC, and in places all over the world. The media continues to focus on both the peaceful arrests of protestors, and the occasional violence - like in the protests in Italy - because many in the media still don't seem to understand what the protests are all about.
Sadly, it appears that much of the media would rather focus on the political garbage being flung about as the 2012 election battles begin to take shape.
The real issues that are behind all of the anger of the Occupy protestors are things that some groups of Americans have been facing since well before the days when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington - the kind of extreme economic inequality that takes away any real chance to succeed for millions of Americans.
The issues of jobs and justice were exactly what Dr. King was fighting for when gave his historic "I Have a Dream" address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial nearly fifty years ago.
In Washington, DC this weekend, there was another march for those same reasons - The Justice and Jobs March. Many of the Occupy protestors joined that march - and, we feel, rightfully so.
President Obama continues to beat the drum for jobs, much as he has in one way or another since before he ever took office. Lately, his focus on jobs has become a near-deafening pounding to those who are listening to what the American people actually care about.
While writing legislation is the job of the Legislative Branch, this President did the job that Congress either refused to do or was incapable of doing. He wrote, had scored, and delivered complete, a jobs bill to Congress, so that they could debate it and maybe solve the problems of some of those millions of Americans out of work.
Disgustingly, Republicans in Congress wouldn't even discuss allow the bill to be debated, as they stalled the bill in Senate procedures last week - further proving that their priorities are politics, not helping their constituents.
The President remained unbowed, however, much as Dr. King did in his struggles for racial justice. The President said in his weekly address, that he'll now begin pushing Congress to vote on each piece of his jobs bill, one by one if he has to, beginning with teachers and first responders, like police, fire, and medical personnel.
At the dedication of the monument to Dr. King, President Obama also reminded everyone of the odd similarities between then and now.
He said, "It is right for us to celebrate today Dr. King’s dream... yet it is also important on this day to remind ourselves that such progress did not come easily... it is worth remembering that progress did not come from words alone. Progress was hard. Progress was purchased through enduring the smack of billy clubs and the blast of fire hoses. It was bought with days in jail cells and nights of bomb threats. For every victory during the height of the civil rights movement, there were setbacks and there were defeats.
"Our work is not done... First and foremost, let us remember that change has never been quick. Change has never been simple, or without controversy. Change depends on persistence. Change requires determination... when met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the “is-ness” of today. He kept pushing towards the “ought-ness” of tomorrow..."
"We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount."
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