By TG BRANFALT JR.
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
On September 17th I boarded an Amtrack headed to New York City. My destination? Zuccotti Park, also referred to as Liberty Square. My purpose? To observe, and participate in the #OccupyWallSt protests.
When I arrived back in Albany on September 18th, after I slept, I wrote a Facebook note about myexperience during the first day (dubbed the Day of Rage) of the enduring protest. The second line of that note reads: “spectacular failure.”
And it is.
It fails to show that America is still, truly, a democracy.
It fails in showing that the American people still have a voice in the mainstream media.
On the rare occurrence that mainstream US media (the so-called “fourth branch”) covers the story they use terms like hippies, hipsters and stalwarts to describe those occupying.
The mainstream US media covered popular (democratic) uprising in both Egypt and Syria. The New York Times refers to the rebellions with theartsy “Arab Spring” moniker. Anderson Cooper even travelled 5,530 milesto the Middle East to cover the revolution(s), yet he, like so many other New York based pundits, cannot be bothered to take the time to cover a popular uprising five (5) miles away.
MSNBC and Fox went on coverage crusades against one another during the labor movement last February. The former painting the union supporters as patriots and heroes, while the latter painted them as thugs while supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. However MSNBC and Fox coverage of the Occupy Wall St movement has been, in MSNBC’s case spotty, and in Fox’s case grossly misrepresented, reporting that on September 17th, day one of the ongoing protests, there were “hundreds” of people, when realistically, the numbers were well over 1,000.
I use Fox and MSNBC as examples because, while vastly different, they both have just as much to lose by broadcasting the truth. They refuse to mention the PBS correspondent arrested on September 24th. They refuse to play the ten-minute video showing blatant police attacks on protesters. (To their credit MSNBC has publicized the two-minute video of two young girls maced by police while penned in by mesh netting bearing the phrase ‘Police Line Do Not Cross.’) That image has since provoked more coverage, but not the 24-hour coverage Arab Spring received.
MSNBC is owned, in part, by Comcast, a recent deal that had to be approved by the (Obama’s) FCC. During the last election cycle 84 of the 97 Congressional FCC representatives that begged, in writing, for that deal to take place received campaign contributions from Comcast, according to OpenSecrets.org, Intellectual Property Watch and verified by the Center for Responsive Politics. Republican Presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann and Hilary Clinton are among those who received Comcast money.
If you do not see Fox’s obvious desire to keep the status quo, you have never watched Fox News. Never. Not even on YouTube.
The fact is both corporations need Wall Street. The Street, not the people, is their lifeblood (and ATM). NewsCorp (the owner of Fox) and Comcast need Wall St to keep trading their stock. While the programs of Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly appear be polar opposites on the political spectrum, the two have far more in common than meets the eye.
The corporate media need the Occupy Wall Street movement to fail. They need to keep The People polarized. The polarization provides them with ratings. Without ratings the talking heads would quickly be out of work.
Unfortunately, this media discrimination is not isolated to the major news channels. Twitter, Yahoo and Google are all co-conspirators in the media blackout perpetrated in quelling this “grassroots movement.” (Not to mention print, but far more people receive their information from television and the internet.)
Twitter has blocked all #Occupy hash tags related to the Cause from trending (but allowed, “anal bleeding,” a phrase muttered by WWE personality Michael Cole during the 9/26 episode of Raw) and has, in my case, un-followed many that frequently use the tags (by “frequently” I mean every post). Yahoo and Google are both guilty of “experiencing technical errors” when users attempt to send e-mails containing the tags.
The censoring of the Occupy Wall Street story is not some hare-brained conspiracy theory. The story is deserving of as much, if not more, exposure as Arab Spring coverage on US media outlets. But it is cast aside and ridiculed.
I will admit: the #Occupy movement is confused. There are no stated goals. The “General Assembly” meetings can seem more like, as one activist I spoke to called it, “Hitler Youth.” (They repeat what the GA speaker says in unison in order to augment the sound because the NYPD has banned amplification devices. Still, it is sort of unsettling.) The drum circles that pop up give it more of a festival vibe than that of a protest. The fact is that there are still 20-somethings, expressing their frustration at the power money has on our elected officials. Standing up against the corporatocracy America has become.
We the people were outraged at the thought of Egyptians being beaten by the police during their “fight for democracy.” But we will watch it happen at home, scoff, and call them hippies.
We the people were sending the Egyptians money and food; hell our government was giving $2 million per year to the dictatorship they overthrew (that cash flow has not stopped). But we can’t be bothered to even recognize that American people are sleeping on New York City streets in an attempt to get their voices heard.
When we marched down Wall St on that Saturday, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” (The march and chant happens more than once daily), we attracted the attention of diners at Cipriani (an ultra-high-class restaurant) who told us to “Get jobs.”
I have a job, so do many of you and your siblings and your parents. We are the fortunate ones. However, many of the dissenters do not have jobs, nor do their siblings, or their parents. The very hedge fund managers that had a hand in taking away jobs (and future jobs) told those very people to “Get jobs.” The very same lot that gambled with other people’s livelihood and homes told a crowd of young people to “Get jobs,” (not to mention threatened to dump the contents of their glasses on us, while laughing about “how much money that would waste.”)
Our entire generation should be appalled by how little regard our opinions matter to the power brokers. We should be looking at those brave enough to take a stand as our siblings, parents and friends. We should be supporting them as we would those we care about. There are some heartbreaking photos depicting members of Grannies for Peace sitting on the curb, bound at the wrists with zip-ties. How would you react if that were your grandmother? Would you stand by and watch her be arrested? For peacefully protesting?
A democratic society does not condemn its citizens for demanding their voices be heard. We should condone it. A ‘government watchdog’ does not ignore and vilify the citizens they are thought to protect. A “social” media should not alienate a large, and irreplaceable part of society.
The selfless people that are sleeping on the streets of New York City (and Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Nashville, Austin, San Francisco, Michigan, New Jersey) are fighting for us. For the disenfranchised. For the Troy Davis-es.
What do they have to gain by putting themselves at risk?
Tangible, societal, change.
The #Occupy movement is spreading. Smaller groups have turned up all over the United States: Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Boston, Buffalo, Binghamton, San Francisco, Tampa, Madison and right here, in Albany.
