The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Let's [Occupy Wall Street]
Distram
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
I'm surprised no one has posted about this yet.
I think the event itself is interesting but the media blackout of the event is even more interesting:
Website: https://occupywallst.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Wall-St/184749301592842?sk=info
LiveStream: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
I support what they're doing but the most important thing about this is the deliberate media blackout of the event. I think it's disgustingly sad and serves to highlight the massive conflicts of interest that are slowly chipping away at our society. Even if the importance of the event was nil, you would expect to see at least one story in the mainstream media about it, but instead it's being totally ignored because such an event conflicts with the interests of the corporate mainstream media.
https://occupywallst.org/ wrote:Our Mission
On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.
Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.
Who is Occupy Wall Street?
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.
I think the event itself is interesting but the media blackout of the event is even more interesting:
Blackout: CNN, Fox, and MSNBC Ignore Thousands Of US Day Of Rage Protesters
Most Americans are being kept in the dark about the US Day of Rage by the corporate cable news giants at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC who have imposed a de facto blackout on the protest.
Even though estimates have varied from hundreds to as many as 50,000 protesters flooded into Manhattan and others cities to take part in events around the country to, “nonviolently disrupt the disloyal, incompetent, and corrupt special interests which have usurped our nation’s civil and military power, spawning a host of threats to our liberty, lives and national security,” the three cable news networks have devoted no airtime to the story.
This is becoming an all too familiar scene. In Wisconsin hundreds of thousands of regular people took to the streets each weekend to protest the theft of their rights, and were completely ignored by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
Sarah Palin’s Iowa tea party speech was 1/50 as big as the Wisconsin protests, yet she was deemed worthy of national media coverage.
The kowtowing of the corporate media to the conservative agenda continued last week as CNN climbed in bed with the Tea Party Express to host a Republican presidential debate that was chocked full of rhetoric about how taxes must be cut to protect the same “job creators” who crashed the US economy in 2008, and have continued to reap record profits by sitting on bailout money, and not hiring any new workers.
CNN decided that the Tea Party was a worthy news partner, but covering a protest that is happening right under their very noses in New York City is not important to the American people. (In fact as I type this, CNN is running another self-congratulatory segment on their Tea Party Express debate/total sellout to the right). No one expects the pro-business corporate propaganda/GOP propaganda mouthpiece Fox News to devote any coverage to the occupation of Wall Street, but the supposed progressive news network, MSNBC can’t “lean forward” long enough to turn off their true crime doc block to cover an event that is happening minutes away from their studios.
The corporate cable news media ignored Wisconsin, and now they are ignoring the protests of regular Americans who want their democracy placed back into their hands. The corporate media have proven time and time again that they are an obstacle to, not a provider of truth. Unlike the bogus tea party movement, the Occupy Wall Street protest features people of all ages, colors, shapes, sizes, and political affiliations. These people are protesting a broken system. They are protesting a loss of freedom. They are protesting inequality, and they are fighting for our rights.
Whether or not the corporate media cameras are in attendance, the protests will go on. Americans will continue to march, and those who love their country will continue to battle to make it better.
The conservative media bias of the cable news industry can and will be overcome. We don’t need video to feel the heart of America beat strong.
(Note: The 50,000 was an estimated attendance. Other estimates place the number of attendees in NYC in the hundreds to the thousands. The title has been changed to reflect conflicting attendance estimates).
Website: https://occupywallst.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Wall-St/184749301592842?sk=info
LiveStream: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
I support what they're doing but the most important thing about this is the deliberate media blackout of the event. I think it's disgustingly sad and serves to highlight the massive conflicts of interest that are slowly chipping away at our society. Even if the importance of the event was nil, you would expect to see at least one story in the mainstream media about it, but instead it's being totally ignored because such an event conflicts with the interests of the corporate mainstream media.
Distram on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
It's amazing how much change they could affect in just two short years.
The article I quoted was about "US Day of Rage" (http://usdayofrage.org/) which was also the first day of "Occupy Wall Street," which is on-going.
And I don't type that with any snark either.
An event called a 'Day of Rage' indicates that it only lasts like one 24-hour period.
Yeah, it was confusing since they seem to have been a combined event at first. Both article I found, that were about the media black-out, referenced both things; not at all clear.
Arrests are happening there, and Anonymous folks have joined the ranks of the arrested.
There is apparently a silly NYC law that only two people are allowed to wear masks at the same protest.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Wow.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
A lot of gay NYC residents would be pissed if their Haloween Parade was wrecked.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
http://gizmodo.com/5842194/yahoo-accidentally-blocked-emails-about-the-occupy-wall-street-protests
People should be out in droves for this sort of stuff. Massive financial firms blow billions of dollars on fraudulent trades... then get taxpayer money in return, only to continue giving themselves massive bonuses and engaging in shady activity. Most of the rest of the world is freaking out over this stuff, and rightly so. But the good old US of A, the one that started it all.... nope. Baffling.
BBC did an article of why Americans are so reluctant to start major protests or civil unrest. Interesting read.
That really sounds about right. Honestly I think decades of having prosperity theology pumped into us on a national level, combined with a lack of civics knowledge/disinterest in politics, and a media ripe to ignore them leads Americans interest in social change to be demoralized, depressed and victims of a collective sense of learned helplessness. People don't know who to blame, people don't want to take the time to learn, and that probably results in a lot of general anger but not enough to coalesce into some kind of mass protest.
Americans are geared to just think Times are tough and not: Times may be tough but we have a solid recovery plan if only we could kick those same gooses out of congress that want to do the exact same thing that got us into this mess. Again I think it points to how people really need to get re-engaged in civics. But it's not going to happen until someone takes the time to make it fun.
I'm currently engaged in an attempt to unionize my workplace and this is exactly how people feel. It is incredibly sad.
I can't protest or call my reps, I've got other shit to do.
Because finding out what the hell is going on is a pain in the ass so far and Twitter thusfar is a mass of Hashtags, poor mobile streams and Retweets that tell me little to nothing
Genuinely curious. It seems that Egypt and Libya were both focused on the goal of overthrowing the government, while Tunisia was more of the latter.
I think it's to raise awareness of how shitty wall street is and how the current economic mess is actually their fault.
Because, you know, the media narrative kinda forgot that whole thing at some point for "OMG GOV'T SPENDING"
This protest is effectively blaming the knife for cutting the person who picked it up by the blade. The right place to have it is in DC.
Man, I wonder why the corporate-owned, shareholder-beholden media would do that...
edit: not to mention its been an economic conservative talking point (and therefore part of the national discussion) since before corporations were psuedo-people.
edit 2: political != economic in the first edit, now corrected
You forgot personally wealthy media stars!
Seriously, you want to get media that don't chase lowest common denominator crap you need to either provide an incentive to do otherwise or demonstrate there is a seriously large market for actual news and credible analysis. Complaining that they're beholden to their corporate overlords does neither of those, and gets nothing accomplished.
Lets not forget that cutting government spending in a recession is something that most businesses don't want to see, nor is it something that they seem to be concerned about. It is, on the other hand, a really quick sound bite which makes it great for short viewing spans or low explanation discussions.
To play devil's advocate for a sec here...
They did (afaik) actually repay all the taxpayer bailout money (and then some), so you can't really make the 'we're invested in you now, and we don't want you making shady derivative deals anymore' argument.
One very strong attitude in the USA is the idea that one has personal control over their destiny. I think it's easier for Americans to blame themselves than others, it's a matter of control. If you did something wrong then you can fix it, while if they did wrong then you are at their mercy. It's also why I think the "ZOMG Gov't Spending" narrative has taken hold, because we of course live in a representative democracy (arguably) and thus have personal control over the destiny of our country. If our government, which is us, screwed the pooch we can fix that. If a small segment of Wall Street elites screwed the pooch, which is them, what can we do?
So I don't believe it's apathy really, but rather a tendency to take personal responsibility (at least the appearance of, if not actually) rather than blame others. So much so, as to the point that we blame ourselves when we ought to blame others.
Hell, point-in-case, when talking politics American-to-American, if a President/Senator/House Member/Governor/Mayor/Etc. does something disagreeable to both one says to the other "Well you voted for him/her" or even "I can't believe we voted for them" or perhaps "If only we supported our candidate more", regardless of the realities of choice*.
*In that, one may choose from a set of choices, but one has little to no choice in their set of choices.
No, this is not true.
TARP, which was one portion of the sum extorted by the banks, was 'paid back' by rifling through programs like the Small Business Lending Fund - a seed of capital that banking cartels kept on hand in order to stimulate growth by giving entrepreneurs lines of credit.
So, think about that: the government gives them this TARP money because they claim that without it, the system will lock-up and they will not be able to loan any money to budding small businesses. So the government concedes to the threat, 'loans' them money, and then the banks 'repay' the loan by using the capital that they claimed would be free'd-up for lending.
The money for that seed, by the way, is given to the banks by the government in the first place. It's a fucking subsidy. So, not only are the crooks happily using the disaster of their own making to browbeat 'loans' from the government, they're repaying the loan with subsidy money the government gave them in the first place. And THEN Randroids like Bernanke say, "Hey now, they paid it back! You can't criticize them! They paid it back, dammit!"
That was $250,000,000,000, by the way.
The $475,000,000,000 that was laundered through insurers like AIG was not paid back AT ALL. They just took it and spat in your face.
It's hilarious to me as an outside observer. They're just stealing your money, and the vast majority of the public seems to be in total denial about it.
"Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand until Barack Obama capitulates," an event organizer tells CBS. But what demand would that be? That all hinges on a Facebook poll, which is totally what Gandhi would have done.
Currently, at the top of the list is "Revoke Corporate Personhood,"
http://gothamist.com/2011/09/07/protestors_want_to_occupy_wall_stre.php
But only to big money.
They can do whatever the fuck they wanted.
Now some effigy burning and riots, you might get some attention. Make them think the 99% are close to walking around with bankers heads on pikes and they might be scared enough to care.
Till then this is all finger waving, nagging and pillow biting. Cute, but futile.