Tag: Glen Greenwald

Keith Olbermann interviewed Matt Taibbi of Rolling about the movement and the lack of media attention.

Occupy Wall St. may be gaining strength but it’s not without its critics on the left. Many have applauded the movements support of the 99% in the lower rings of the ladder who will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption if the 1% on the top but the group had indeed yet to articulate any specific demands. While it may be performing a crucial roll in helpng to educate the uninformed abouthow they have been victimized by Wall St. and the “To Big To Fail” banks, the deliberate, almost lack of organization, the self-styles leaderless resistance movement and its refusal to articulate demands, could both hamper its growth and slow its being taken as seriously as it would like to be.

Glenn Greenwald also weighed in on the reasons for the scorn for the protest:

It’s unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street.  Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists.  That’s just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges.  As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it’s going to provoke.

Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters.  In an excellent analysis entitled “Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street,” Kevin Gosztola chronicles how many of the most scornful criticisms have come from Democratic partisans who — like the politicians to whom they devote their fealty — feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain.

One of the chief complaints, besides the “leaderless” and lack of a list of specific demands, that has been heard coming from the left is attire, as Kevin Gosztola noted in his FDL article:

Liberals have shown scorn, too, suggesting the occupation is not a “Main Street production” or that the protesters aren’t dressed properly and should wear suits cause the civil rights movement would not have won if they hadn’t worn decent clothing.

Even the liberal Mother Jones was critical:

Liberals have shown scorn, too, suggesting the occupation is not a “Main Street production” or that the protesters aren’t dressed properly and should wear suits cause the civil rights movement would not have won if they hadn’t worn decent clothing.

Both articles, Greenwald’s and Gosztola’s, need to be read in full to understand not just the reasons that the media is ignoring this movement but why and how Occupy Wall St. happened and continues.

Occupy Wall St. Is now spreading across the country:

‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest slowly spreads across the United States

The protest spread to other cities over the weekend.

A small group of “Occupy Los Angeles” demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to show their support for the protesters in New York City.

“Corporate interests seem to be controlling both parties,” one protester told LAActivist.com. “The ‘little man,’ the ‘American every man,’ just isn’t getting their voice heard. When you need $35,000 to donate to a campaign to get your voice heard, to have a meeting, that’s not democracy.”

“Occupy Los Angeles” protesters plan to begin a demonstration at City Hall on October 1. The “Occupy Los Angeles” Facebook page had nearly 2,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.

Another demonstration popped up in Chicago over the weekend. Around 20 “Occupy Chicago” protesters gathered at Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, on Friday and then marched to the Federal Reserve Bank. Some protesters have remained camped out in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the organizers said the “occupation” had grown from 4 people to about 50.

Other “occupation” protests are being planned for Detroit, Denver, Cleveland, Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. The site occupytogether.org has been set up in hopes of coordinating the protests.

I have a message for the the so-called “Left”:

Get off your butts and get behind this movement because unless you are part of the 1%, they are YOU.

Last month Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) celebrated its 25th Anniversary. It held an event in Manhattan on May 11th with four of the most well known voices of the the left and advocates for fairness, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Amy Goodman and Glen Greenwald. Glenn’s 30 minute speech is now available on You Tube. The DVD of the entire night is available for sale at FAIR’s website.

Oops. Glen Greenwald points out a major flaw in Jon Stewart’s premise for his rally in Washington DC on 10/30/10 to counter the extremism on either side. While Jon has always been fair in his criticism of both Democrats and Republicans, left and right, his comparison of those the left saying that Bush is a war criminal as opposed to the right saying that Obama is a socialist, Muslim, non-American is a false equivalence since there is ample evidence to the former but not the latter.

The perils of false equivalencies and self-proclaimed centrism

I think Jon Stewart is one of the most incisive and effective commentators in the country, and he reaches an audience that would otherwise be politically disengaged.  I don’t have any objection if he really wants to hold a rally in favor of rhetorical moderation, and it’s also fine if, as seems to be the case, he’s eager to target rhetorical excesses on both the left and right in order to demonstrate his non-ideological centrism.  But the example he chose to prove that the left is guilty, too — the proposition that Bush is a “war criminal” — is an extremely poor one given that the General in charge of formally investigating detainee abuse (not exactly someone with a history of Leftist advocacy) has declared this to be the case, and core Nuremberg principles compel the same conclusion.

Leave aside the fact that, as Steve Benen correctly notes, Stewart’s examples of right-wing rhetorical excesses (Obama is a socialist who wasn’t born in the U.S. and hates America) are pervasive in the GOP, while his examples of left-wing excesses (Code Pink and 9/11 Truthers) have no currency (for better or worse) in the Democratic Party.  The claim that Bush is “a war criminal” has ample basis, and it’s deeply irresponsible to try to declare this discussion off-limits, or lump it in with a whole slew of baseless right-wing accusatory rhetoric, in order to establish one’s centrist bona fides.

However, Mr. Greenwald gives Jon’s co-rally partner, Stephen Colbert, credit for being “extremely well-focused and on-point.”