Yes, the Occupation is very exciting now.  There was some ‘violence’—the police attacked some marchers at Union Square—and then celebrities showed up, and suddenly the blogosphere was alight with commentary, much of it totally ignorant.  However, the week-long silence which preceded Union Square business, even locally, was really quite remarkable.  I mean, from their point of view there were hundreds of badly-dressed people doing something weird and evil in a park in downtown Manhattan, and without a permit, too!

Anarcissie said:

The original complaint was not that the media were abusing the Occupation, but that they were ignoring it.  This was true until the arrests at Union Square and the now famous pepper-spraying incident.  Then, following the law of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, the media corps evidently decided business trumped ideology.

As Amy Goodman pointed out, if the Tea Party had picketed ‘Wall Street’ there would have been one reporter for every demonstrator.

Frankly, 1000 Tea party people getting together is no news unless the media can spot one sign that makes us look bad. Thats just how it is. Bad stuff makes news. Why do you think that the Left should be an exception?

In fact the Left demands to be the exception. This camp-out illustrates it. I have never seen the press cover two hundred people so closely. They are actually getting tons of coverage for such small numbers.

The Wall Street Journal had a huge article on it yesterday. Thats a fact. I read the whole thing on page 4. It mentioned how the Campers are fed and how they are camping and what they want to accomplish. Nothing bad was pointed out. Another fact: Fox News has covered the Campers daily, and there was no bad event reported from what i saw. I havent seen any coverage on the arrest or fracas or whatever it was.

So the Campers are being treated very well, camping out on private property, getting plenty of nice news coverage far beyond their numbers, getting fed, and the fact that they dont have permanent shelter is mentioned incessantly everywhere. We should feel bad about that apparently.

Something bad happened that got reported? What do you want, a news black-out?

Enough with the ‘Left is discriminated against’ line. If you cannot be truthful with yourself about something this obvious, then Amy has done a number on your brain which serves to keep you more emotional than you usually are. Amy also makes the protestors more emotional, feeling more isolated, makes them yearn for more attention than they are already getting. All of which is the whole goal of the Amy Goodman whine, in case you havent figured it out.

The Campers are actually getting preferential treatment far beyond their numbers, and you still are taught to nurse a grudge against the media by your handlers? Amazing to me that you couldnt detect that manipulation.

The original complaint was not that the media were abusing the Occupation, but that they were ignoring it.  This was true until the arrests at Union Square and the now famous pepper-spraying incident.  Then, following the law of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, the media corps evidently decided business trumped ideology.

As Amy Goodman pointed out, if the Tea Party had picketed ‘Wall Street’ there would have been one reporter for every demonstrator.

The actual content of the New York Times article was offensive, but practically everything in the Times is offensive, at least if you’re offended by the haute bourgeoisie looking down their noses at everyone and everything else.  This article was merely one more example—nothing to get so excited about.

Sorry folks. Anyone who steps out and make a public stand will find the press tears ya to pieces. It served you real well that the press was so ‘objective’ about the Tea Party.

Now that the same ‘objectivity’ is applied to you it suddenly isnt fair? Its a conspiracy? My my, your double standard is so inventive.

No surprise. Leftists always demand special treatment. No wonder then that ‘objective’ treatment isnt enough, and only rhapsodies of agreeable praise will do.

These young women would not have been maced if they had been dressed in business attire.  The police felt free to treat them like dirty hippies because they were dressed as such. Despite what the corporate media is telling us, this is what true class warfare looks like.

Objective media is like saying honest Republican. A fantasy in both cases… and I am being objective!

Exactly.  And the kind of lies we got from the Times—well, those are the kind of lies we get from the Times.  So why bother reading it?

Let’s not get caught BSing with the semantics.  THE POLICE ATTACKED PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS.

When a journalist calls it a “battle” in these circumstances, it’s as ridiculous as calling it a “battle” when the Nazis were gassing people in concentration camps.

Prior to the police attack on the marchers, the Wall Street Occupation had been largely kept out of the boss media, and I think this was what desired.  Thus I believe the attacks were loose-cannon stuff.  Notice in the videos that the cop doing the mace-spraying is wearing a white shirt.  The standard-issue cops wear blue.  They have mostly been pretty cool so far.

Of course if the protests grow and our lords and masters become nervous, all bets are off.  And all gloves, too, perhaps.

I thought it was funny to describe the Times report as ‘objective’.  The New York Times is propaganda, haute-bourgeois flavor.

This is a fascinating example of something I just
(re) read in, of all places, a Robert Heinlein story.
Describing counter revolutionary efforts against a
theocratic police state in the U.S.A., Heinlein goes
into detailed analysis of the use of speech
pathology, semantics, and their functions within
psychometrics and psychoengineering (i.e. the
manipulation of individual or group opinion).
If we take the worst case scenario as a given (that
the nebulous “They” are in control of the rest of
“Us”) it might work a bit like this; you have a
growing protest movement focusing on obviously
corrupt business practices. Powers that be implicated
in these corrupt practices know that, if the protest
movement is allowed to grow, their positions as
“powers that be” become threatened. Making use of
their influence with the country’s media outlets, the
Powers That Be attempt to “deligitimise” the protest
movement. Articles (print and otherwise), that are
ostensibly “objective,” are carefully crafted;
emphasis on this factor rather than that factor,
using this word instead of that word, etc. A standard
rate for success is also calculated as part of the
overall strategy (you can bet that “they” take a more
than slightly militarized approach); the best (or
most manageable) goal is to inspire dismissive scorn
for the protest movement causing it to fizzle out
through lack of popular interest, though a degree of
outright antipathy would add spicy emphasis and allow
for the use (and subsequent replacement) of expensive
policing equipment via violent skirmishes between
opposing opinions.
  Granted, this all comes through a prism of fiction.
But in light of the creep of state control over
individuals (wherever they may be), this sort of
phenomenon warrants consideration at least. “A clever
tyrant doesn’t use force to maintain control.”

CNN this morning “reported” the same story but used the term, “fighting.” The
protestor was “fighting” with the cops. Same problem by a different “objective”
term.

One can only laugh (out of despair) at the “paper of record,” which in its
advertising claims to employ the “best journalists in the world…no doubt about
that.” (Really? I had no idea.)

Stenos will be stenos, though—oddly—stenos at CNBC have said hardly a word,
and when they have it’s been only observation of the fact of protestors presence
and having to pass them on the way into the money temples constituting Wall
Street. (Despite, so I’ve heard, the fact that protestors are cordoned off?) Course
they were implying the protestors are no more than an annoyance, which I’ve no
doubt is how “labor” (other than office-building cleaners) on Wall Street thinks
of them.

Actually, CNBC stenos haven’t said anything more in about two weeks (except
for Jim Cramer, who’s given to snide remarks in general), by now I suppose
pretending protestors aren’t there. Which is how protestors are usually officially
regarded unless, say, tea party people. Unless, that is, power approves. On
those occasions protestors are observed and talked about daily and with
“objective” approval for as long the protest continues.

Doublestandards here makes an excellent point regarding the why of police
actions. No doubt about that too.

The seminal question in my mind is a matter of ‘who gave the order’ to the NYPD to take this marked step toward more violence?

It does not seem reasonable that the NYPD patrol officers themselves decided to take the game to a new level and abuse women—- particularly since any of the officers whose wives see video of their ‘female sisters’ being abused by their own husbands are very likely to find significantly less comfort in the wives’ eyes and arms.  “Hey sweetie, if that was me out there peacefully protesting and one of your brother officers sprayed me all over with fucking pepper spray, would that be fine with you—- because I saw the video of you doing the same cowardly thing to those women?”  Certainly not an endearing thing to do to impress your wife with your manly empathy and compassion for women!

So, since there would be no personal advantage (nor sanity) for the young policemen to initiate such violent provocation, the key question is who gave the orders to attack, hurt, torture, and otherwise publicly degrade women with such extreme violence?

My guess is the violent global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE of dickless sociopaths who used guile, deceit, money and NO PERSONAL COURAGE to take over our former country (and all the honest, hard-working class citizens) by hiding, like gutless little dickless Hitlers, behind the sneaky facade of their TWO-Party ‘Vichy’ sham of faux government.

I always loved the scene in ‘Casablanca’ at the bar where French ‘girl companion’ of the Nazi officer hears the band playing the French National Anthem and is moved to sing down and shout down the EMPIRE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oROASA1v92U&feature=related

However, this newer fascist global corporate/financial/militarist Empire that has its hands around the neck of America may be getting more than it bargained for in ordering its violent gloved fist around American women’s throats and spaying them with poisons—- even if their husbands have been too slow to confront the same damn Empire.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

Liberty & democracy
over
violent
empire

New America People’s Party 2012—- our last chance “Against Empire” [Parenti]

PS. BTW, I just read Michael Parenti’s newest (2011) anti-Empire indictment, “The Face of Imperialism”, which is fabulously insightful and more accessible than his classic (1995) “Against Empire”

There was a time when the people rioted whenever oppressed.

Now the people are so (D) repressed that only the police can riot.

http://www.chenangogreens.org

so what goes through a writer’s mind to pen his current word?...
does a fling of similar notions keep him clinging to one herd?...
do inklings flow from a well of ‘telling’ over-drilled by others?...
must comfy sleep insure itself under certain bedclothes covers?...
will content fit all dog-eared pages turning mainstream’s handbook?...
do featherly trends in his thinking cap show status quo’s fad look?...
shall readers find his news account views groundwork quite objectively?...
or will his next report be more to bury himself in selectively?...

so while a battle of words is going on over a battle on wall street we readers have a battle ahead of us in finding decent journalism…

am i reading this right?

litipeep—Well put.

Stetler works for the NYTimes.

What more do we need to know?

As Pete Hamil once wrote in his book of the same title:

News is a VERB! The Media has become increasingly de-fanged by its corporate masters. Do you all remember NPR’s refusal to use the term “torture” as it was considered “too judgemental?” With a Media like this, who needs it?

“Let’s think about this. “In an attempt not to judge either side,” Stelter characterized both sides as “battlers.” How is that not a judgement in [and] of itself?”

Bingo. Framing every story as if both sides are always equally valid or legitimate is neither impartial nor objective; in fact, it’s the exact opposite as well as being intellectually lazy and dishonest. This kind of editorial cowardice is exactly why the media is replete with so many false equivalencies that obscure and debase the truth.