“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Paul Krugman: Panic of the Plutocrats
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.
And this reaction tells you something important – namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.
Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police – confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction – but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.
New York Times Editorial: The Myth of Voter Fraud
It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote – 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election.
Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities. They insist that laws requiring government identification cards to vote are only to protect the sanctity of the ballot from unscrupulous voters. Cutting back on early voting, which has been popular among working people who often cannot afford to take off from their jobs on Election Day, will save money, they claim.
None of these explanations are true. There is almost no voting fraud in America. And none of the lawmakers who claim there is have ever been able to document any but the most isolated cases. The only reason Republicans are passing these laws is to give themselves a political edge by suppressing Democratic votes.
Will the Wall Street Occupiers morph into a movement that has as much impact on the Democratic Party as the Tea Party has had on the GOP? Maybe. But there are reasons for doubting it.
Tea Partiers have been a mixed blessing for the GOP establishment – a source of new ground troops and energy but also a pain in the assets with regard to attracting independent voters. As Rick Perry and Mitt Romney square off, that pain will become more evident.
So far the Wall Street Occupiers have helped the Democratic Party. Their inchoate demand that the rich pay their fair share is tailor-made for the Democrats’ new plan for a 5.6 percent tax on millionaires, as well as the President’s push to end the Bush tax cut for people with incomes over $250,000 and to limit deductions at the top.
And the Occupiers give the President a potential campaign theme. “These days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded,” he said at his news conference this week, predicting that the frustration fueling the Occupiers will “express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we’re getting back to some old-fashioned American values.”
But if Occupy Wall Street coalesces into something like a real movement, the Democratic Party may have more difficulty digesting it than the GOP has had with the Tea Party.
William Rivers Pitt: Bank On It: They’re Scared
Far be it from me to accuse Gandhi of missing a note, but in the case of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests, the Mahatma’s famous quote appears to be lacking a few essential words. “First they ignore you,” he said, “then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
That’s not quite correct.
Certainly, the OWS protests began with a great whistling silence from the “mainstream” news media. It is only because of the resources available to the average person in this marvelous technological age we live in that word of the protest ever reached beyond its original location.
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First they ignore you.
Then they ridicule you.
Then they get scared.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
I don’t think the Mahatma would mind this small edition to his statement. It fits.
And it’s true. They are scared.
You can smell it.
Les Leopold: Ten Things to Know About Wall Street’s Rapacious Attack on America
But now Americans are fighting back and there’s no telling where Occupy Wall Street can lead.
When you climb out of the subway at Wall Street, you might wonder why there are no protestors in the cavernous alley by the stock exchange. That’s because since 9/11, Wall Street has been barricaded shut to prevent possible attacks. But up the block at Zuccotti Park between Liberty and Cedar streets, west of Broadway, the party’s on.
There you’ll find a festive group of about 1,000 people, mostly young folks having a good time accompanied by the occasional cluster of old lefties singing songs. People make signs while sitting on the ground then prop them up wherever they can find a space. They gather at tables filled with donated food and browse boxes of donated books. You also can’t miss the swarm of media folks milling around asking questions, taping interviews and taking notes: they’re the ones in dress suits who spend most of their time interviewing each other. My favorite sign held by an occupier is painted on a skateboard: “This is what Freedom Looks Like.” My son would agree.
And my recurring thought is, “It’s about f’ing time.”
John Nichols: Hypocrisy Share Values Soar as Tea Party Republicans Accuse Occupy Wall Street of ‘Dividing Americans’
If share values could be devised for hypocrisy, Eric Cantor’s would be soaring.
When Tea Party activists swarmed Washington, DC, in 2009, the Virginia congressman hailed them with “fighting” words.
>Now, however, the No. 2 Republican in the House is attacking the Occupy Wall Street movement for pitting “Americans against Americans.”
Cantor’s not the only protest hypocrite. Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, a Tea Party favorite known for his anti-Muslim rants, is attacking Occupy Wall Street protests as “Un-American.” Rush Limbaugh is condemning the demonstrators as “parasites.”
But it is Cantor who is cornering the hypocrisy market.
David Macaray: Who Can Believe How Far We’ve Fallen?
How many stockbrokers, lawyers, bankers, accountants, or aluminum siding salesmen would turn down a big, fat pay raise if it came with strings attached? What if accepting that raise was contingent upon future new-hires being denied the opportunity to earn those same wages? Would they make a personal sacrifice for these unsuspecting, future employees-reject a pay raise as a matter of principle-or would they take the money and run? My guess is that most would take the money.
And yet we hear the pejorative term “sell-out” applied to union negotiators who agree to two-tier arrangements. Under a two-tier wage/benefit schedule, new-hires can never receive the same compensation as those employees already on the payroll. We hear “sell-out” applied to the UAW (United Auto Workers), and, unfortunately, we hear it applied with little or no understanding of how ferociously the union resisted it, or how forcefully the two-tier configuration was crammed down their throats.
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