Willful Ignorance
Category : Corporate Media, Godammed Bastards, Latest Outrages
One of the more amusing things about the Occupy movement is the fact that so many clever righties claim that they just don’t get it; what,after all, do these people really want? Oh sure, conservative commentators and pols are completely up-to-speed on the amount of poop generated by the protesters, in fact they’re nearly obsessed by it. And clever righties are certainly not strangers to speculation. They’ve speculated wildly and absurdly about President Obama’s birth records, the imposition of Sharia law in South Carolina court rooms, the deleterious effect of increased taxes on the “job creators”, and the conspiratorial nature of climate change science. But they just can’t get their heads around what the Occupy protesters really want.
Part of the blame goes to the mainstream media and their penchant for seeking out the most exotic or disturbing characters at the various protests, usually the guy with the rainbow hair, pounding on conga drums, or the topless chick.
And the list of grievances by the protesters is pretty fluid, expanding by the day. But to suggest that the movement is vague or inchoate or incomprehensible about it’s demands is ridiculous. Occupy began as a protest against out-of-control investment banks who’s fraudulent and reckless practices brought the economy to its knees in 2008. The protesters have also taken on the mortgage industry for the heartless, inflexible, dishonest, and possibly illegal way they have thrown millions of Americans out of their homes, in many cases while pretending to be re-negotiating delinquent loans.. And since the beginning, Occupy has been about the corrupting influence of money in the political process, about joblessness, about the exorbitant cost of higher education, and about the exportation of jobs and capital overseas.
Don’t you love it when right wingers pretend to not “get it”, whether the no-brainer is global warming, evolution, or public schools’ attempts to provide nutritious alternatives to frozen pizza. It’s their default position when confronting something that makes sense to everyone else, but doesn’t conform with their propaganda.
So imagine my surprise when I read this in the San Francisco Chronicle about this weeks’ attempt by Occupy Oakland’s to shut down the port of Oakland:
“To the folks who argue that an action against the corporations hurts the workers, what are they doing to help the workers?” Riley said. “We’re building working-class unity. The only way you’re going to loosen that grip is by the 99 percent realizing that the collective withholding of labor is the only way to change the wealth relationship.”
Huh?
Those would be the words of Boots Riley( not Dog House Riley), a spokesman for Occupy Oakland, explaining why it was important to make a statement at the port monday morning, even if it meant that a lot of guys, mostly non-union truckers, would be fucked over financially if the protest succeeded. The International Longshoreman, or many of them, simply took the day off, with pay of course.
And sure enough the protest did succeed, especially if success is measured by hurting the people you’re purporting to help, while achieving no other discernible goals. The reaction among the port workers was more confusion than anger, and a lot of 99%-ers were perplexed by the provocation. Even some Occupy protesters didn’t see the point. “The 99 percent is nonconfrontational,” said Ellis Goldberg, a marketer who has organized Occupy protests in Dublin and San Ramon. “You don’t use a bat to get your point across, and this port action is a bat. It’s going to hurt innocents - in this case, port workers and truckers.”
I believe the Occupy movement is at an historic juncture. It needs focus and direction more than ever, and a healthy dose of good p.r. wouldn’t hurt either. Confusion by the willfully ignorant is one thing, but more confusion by the 99%-ers as to Occupy’s ultimate goals could be something else entirely.
The other big theme among the anti-Occupy movement is the “dirty unemployed hippie” commentary. I see that all the time. And while that element is likely present, that’s not the basis for the movement. I think every “liberal” or “lefty” movement, for better or worse, will attract that element of professional protestor. But to dismiss the entire movement without analyzing its impetus and motive is, as you say, “willfully ignorant”. And THAT is the underlying theme of everything Fox News and right wing radio.
I think the Oakland protester has a point albeit a difficult one to pull off now. Might have worked 100 yrs ago. I was with a friend who’s a police officer a few nights ago who stated the occupy sd movement has turned into a bunch of homeless and drug addicts.when I was down there at the beginning , there was discussion of bringing in the homeless.i thought it a bad idea pr wise,but was outvoted.
This movement is relishing in having no leaders.history has shown this not to work, but it’s a new day and maybe time for us old lefties to sit back and watch.hopefully it will organically grow into a history changing movement.
The right wing plays ” look at them not us” politics. They warn that we must not look at their hypocrisy, corruption and lack of answers. They portend to be our only protection against Sharia law, homosexuality, fascism, taxes , whatever.They scare people with imaginary issues to divert from their lack of solutions. As you said they understand full well what the Occupy movement is about. I think you summed up where the movement has been and where it should go very well.
You lay it out very well, but maybe the real point is that until we all just stop together nothing is going to change.
I believe that Bradley Manning and the Wikileaks started all of this global eruption. If you follow events beginning with the helicopter video, then Arab Spring, then the war in Iraq is over, and now USA in constant protest…I hear Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” very loud in my mind…Coool!
U-T Editorial Page Crude
By Betty Boobs
It’s local too. Check out what is happening to the local paper.
How to begin?
How, or even why to bother, addressing the evermore evolving hypocrisy of the San Diego Union-Tribune opinion pages? (Only because too many naïve people are willing to accept this standard as a supposed news empire of quality). San Diegans have become inured to intellectual garbage for so long they tend to assume it normal.
Not that everyone hangs with bated breath—but there you had it—a one two punch. On Saturday January 21st U-T opinion page, starring in one corner a seemingly punchy Breen cartoon taking another shot at President Obama, juxtaposed to some supposed follow up crappy jab by Crap&hammer: “GOP Suicide March”. Yet neither of these lead opinion pieces deserved to be thought as reaching a human level of intelligence as both exuded little save imbecilic prejudice).
The editorial page cartoonist Steve Breen plays “crude” on supposed crude oil politics with his cartoon, more or less, stating Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline primarily for “political” reasons. He thus more or less insinuated playing politics is somehow a bad or cheap thing (which is an ironic opinion coming from a political cartoonist, and on an editorial page in which said employees play nothing but politics?). Or what was the point Mr. Breen?
Then on right to this inanity of a cartoon you have the low-heel, blackguard, crap-hammerism spewing forth his typical lowly forms of political cliché, as supposed talking points for an intelligent contingency somewhere here on this part of the continent, again against Obama. (But to imagine that some major newspapers still bother to reprint this kind of subnormal quality of opinion is baffling—even for the so-assumed-as-sanctified Washington Post.) And the Union-Tribune claims to have modernized and re-created a customer-friendly newspaper?
Steve Breen ought discover the word crude to be synonymous with words like unrefined and unprocessed. How else could one suggest the only reason the pipeline would be rejected is because of political reasons as opposed to environmental and health reasons or that these other reasons are highly relevant?
Is San Diego overall that stupid that they would buy this kind of smear campaign? Is Steve Breen equally that dense? Or does he have to comport his work to the “loose” and “corrupt” intellectual standards of some of the rest of the editorial board?
Meanwhile you have another overly bloated nut job, who has somehow managed to stay out of the nuthouse (save the Washington Post masthead as groupie coalition), but who nevertheless continues to hammer away about how President Obama is primarily the blameworthy person for our nation’s national debt and the high rate of unemployment.
Even a high school student can figure out the state of the economy, at any given time, is related to “many” factors over “many” time frames, and that four or less years in office will hardly, on average make that much of a difference on such a complex reality as the soft social science known as economics.
Economics is not some hard science that can rationally be explained and manipulated. It is affected by all kinds of material realities (including the environment), and financial, psychological, social, and political variables. So why is it that just because “Politicos” who want to get elected and go around blaming one another with simplistic, cut-and-dry, explanations about the economy, they extended propaganda machine equally expects most Americans to follow suit with such horse-shit folly?
What level of reading and thinking skills do Californians and Washingtonians have? Granted we are not the brightest nation in the world but are we really that retarded that we want to settle for this level of intellectual engagement (or the lack thereof)?
Stacy, I tried your cumulus email to no avail. I’ve been listening to you for about 4 months. I once had a radio public affairs program. I’ve been a frequent caller in KGO in the past:Gene, Ron, John, and Bernie Ward. I’ve been meaning to call your show but I’ve always been in transit or I would have by now. I’ve never found another on air talent who is as close to my values or beliefs as you are. I’ve heard tomorrows show isn’t going to be live, but I’ll tune in, and maybe give you a call. A guy like you shouldn’t be leaving the Bay Area but where else can you work here? Was this the result of an on air incident? Was this about some inane reaction to the Eucharist, communion, transubstantiation theme that you were talking about on today’s show? It’s hard for me to believe that you can’t get a very substantial audience here.
WTF are they doing at KGO? When this first happened I couldn’t believe it, I assumed it was motivated by cost cutting, but still that it might ironically result in a few hit and miss improvements with some new, younger, cheaper, talent here.The first time I heard your show was on a Friday night, at first I thought John Rothman was starting to grow a pair of balls. Your pitch range is very similar. I was hoping you might eventually get a 7-10, 10-1, weekend, or better yet, a 10-1 weeknight. I notice your show is toned down from what I read on your site, but I do like your blogs as well. You certainly could have rallied the troops here at the inception of the Second Persian Gulf War. Where will you go now?