Media Blackout, Police-State Tactics, and Liberal Infighting: Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street movement began on September 17th, 2011. At the time of my writing, the protesters have been there for 10 days. In the beginning, it received very little media attention--for better or worse, that is starting to turn around. In this post I just want to provide some helpful links for understanding the movement, as well as some of my commentary on the contextual issues at play in this event.


This is not the first time that the "mainstream media" has ignored significant protest movements on the left. The US Uncut protests received little attention, despite the fact that Uncut events have taken place world wide, with millions of suporters. In fact, it is rare to see any media attention given to left-wing movements, and yet any time 50-100 tea partiers show up in lawn chairs at any given location it receives massive coverage. The best explanation for this, in my opinion, is that corporately-owned media outlets have little to gain from covering a movement that exposes and seeks to dismantle the corporatocracy we live in today. Why would any right-minded corporate stakeholder want to shed light on an issue that threatens its very existence?


The police brutality that has taken place on Wall Street, however, has received some attention. This is promising. Female protesters being penned and maced in the face, a (fairly belligerent but non-threatening) man being kneed in the throat, a young woman being dragged across the street, a man knocked to the ground while acquiescing to an arrest, and so on. Now, the NYPD has to do their job. There is no doubt that they are in a difficult position, most of them simply taking orders from on high, but these videos and others show, in my opinion, excessive police force. Unarmed citizens, many of them submitting to arrest with little or no resistance, being kettled, knocked to the ground, maced, dragged, and physically assaulted is a travesty.


By now, some mainstream media outlets have picked up on the story, reporting on the accusations of police brutality, the arrests, and the goals of the demonstrators. The Washington Post, abc News, MSNBC, and other news outlets have started to report on the protest, now in its second week. So perhaps there is a silver lining to the police-brutality reports--the mainstream media is now paying attention.


The "progressive" media, however, is experiencing some infighting with regards to the protest coverage. Ginia Bellafante wrote this controversial article, depicting the protesters as loopy, misguided youth with no real goals or objectives and essentially mocking the demonstrators. True, if you head down to the protest I'm sure you can find those individuals with little of substance to say, wearing silly clothes and there simply to "fight the man" or because their cousin Nikki wanted to start a drum circle. But many of the protesters have meaningful grievances with the financial industry, with the government, with the global elite, and they have poignant things to say regarding the protest's purpose. A very well-written letter to the editor takes Bellafante to task for her mockery of the movement, arguing that "nonviolent direct action... needs to be taken more seriously" by the press. Allison Kilkenny did a great job posting at The Nation, accusing Bellafante of "rubbernecking," doing journalism a disservice by failing to ask meaningful questions about the movement, and depicting the demonstrators as "scatterbrained, sometimes borderline-psychotic transients." 


Mother Jones also posted a critical article on the protest, starting with the assumption that it isn't working. Readers posted many disapproving comments on the article, and the issues with the author's premises are fairly obvious. 1) The purpose of the demonstration is to give individuals a chance to contribute to a statement of goals. The fact that they have yet to develop one, but are still working on it in the face of arrests, police brutality, and food shortages is not a failure. It is, by definition, a success. 2) Police brutality has, to an extent, stolen the spotlight, but as I stated before it has also brought media attention to the protest, which is a blessing, albeit one that comes with a heavy cost. 3) Who says you can't build a movement using the tactics of Anonymous? In fact, I might argue that Anonymous' tactics are the solution to the inherent problems of grassroots efforts in the age of globalisation. The author does not give any reason for this premise, and I think it is simply faulty. 4) The author claims that the movement has failed to bring in a "wide swath" of Americans, insinuating that the demonstrators are mostly young college kids with time to take off. That, however, is grossly untrue. In many of the links I have posted above, statements are made by protesters from various age, ethnicity, and status groups. Young, old, wealthy, poor, educated, uneducated... the protest has drawn people from all backgrounds, even if many of them are young. The article itself depicts an ex-Wall Steeter, as if to contradict its own point. 


Of course, this is nothing new for progressives. Being the big-tent party comes with many hazards, infighting being one of them. But I leave you with this: artist Immortal Technique does a fantastic job of summing up the takeaways from the movement, what matters, what doesn't, what challenges we face, what is at stake, and why we fight. I highly recommend watching the whole thing, it's a great video.

Edit: I uploaded a different video, same content but a bit longer and better quality.

So, that's it. Thanks for reading. For more information on the movement, visit their website: https://occupywallst.org/

Something Americans Can Finally Agree On: Tax the Rich

Politico has posted an article on a recent Gallup poll asking Americans which of President Obama's proposals for increasing revenue they support and oppose. The President is looking for new revenue not only to reduce the deficit, but also to pay for his new jobs bill that endeavors to inject the American workforce with new employment opportunities in infrastructure rebuilding and teaching, while extending payroll tax cuts and incentivizing small businesses to hire the long-term unemployed. The bill has received a lot of attention, some positive and some negative.

But, it appears, the American electorate is firmly on the side of Obama when it comes to revenue increases. The Gallup poll shows that 70% of those asked support eliminating at least some corporate tax deductions, while 66% favor increasing income taxes on high-earning individuals and families ($200,000 and $250,000, respectively).

This is a big deal. These days, it's hard to get 70% of Americans to agree on what day of the week it is, let alone how to handle the deficit and job creation. Even when you break these numbers down along partisan lines, 53% of republican leaning respondents support the corporate tax hike and 41% support raising taxes on high-income earners. That's almost half of all republicans polled. Half. Wow.

So why is it, then, that the talking point we hear over and over from the GOP presidential hopefuls, from the pundits, from the Washington Insiders, is "Americans do not support raising taxes. Period." Rush Limbaugh calls Obama's speech on the Buffett tax "offensive (if you can make it through the whole transcript then you are a stronger person than I). You know what's really offensive? Rush Limbaugh telling his listeners, his "ditto heads," that the American people's opinion on taxing the rich is wrong, that we just don't understand this complicated tax system. Here, let uncle Rush explain it to you.

Overall this is promising news. If more than two-thirds of Americans agree that the deficit can be shrunk and that jobs can be created by taxing the rich and by taxing corporations, and subsequently putting that money towards education and infrastructure, then Obama can finally get the "mandate from the people" that he's been waiting on for three years. Now we just have to get Congress to support our interests. Good luck with that one.

The "Buffett Rule" and Congressional Elites: Why a Democracy of, by, and for the Rich is a Problem

The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating voters and making our government more transparent, recently published this article about President Obama's new tax proposal. The report lists the 20 wealthiest congressional representatives and their net worth, as well as those reps who reported capital gains in 2009. The basic problem addressed by the article is this: how can the American people trust their representatives to vote in the best interests of the economy and of their constituencies when they will be negatively affected by the new tax plan? Can we expect them to vote for legislation that will require them to pay more in taxes on their income and their capital gains?

In case you're like me and are not savvy to financial lingo, capital gains means the profit one acquires from the sale of "non-inventory assets," things like stocks, bonds, and real estate. So, a capital gains tax requires that you pay a certain percentage of this income in federal taxes. As stated in Michael Beckel's article, the Tax Policy Center reports that the richest 0.1% of U.S. citizens pay 44% of all capital gains tax, and the top 1% pay 68%.

Of course, that makes perfect sense given the fact that capital gains come from the sale of non-inventory assets. How many working-class people own and sell stock? Real Estate? Gold? Obviously, the bottom 80% of income earners have very little in capital gains to tax. But that won't stop conservative pundits from using these numbers as talking points, arguing that the rich already pay their fair share, that taxing capital gains at a higher rate is class warfare, etc. Bill O'Reilly is already trying to differentiate federal income tax and capital gains tax by using himself as an example, when the president very clearly refers to those earning income from financial markets, individuals who do not pay the 35% income tax that O'Reilly is referring to. Market investors earn their income primarily from "non-inventory assets"and so they pay the 15% capital gains tax that Obama is trying to raise.

In short, we cannot trust the rich to raise their own taxes. We cannot expect our democratically elected leaders to vote in favor of legislation that will require them to pay a higher rate on income from financial markets.

Here's the essential problem: a government that is of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich will always work in favor of the rich. The problem grows even larger when the media, that middle-man between government and the people, charged with informing the public on these incredibly complicated and jargon-laden issues, also benefits from maintaining excessive tax cuts for the rich and sheltering their money in corporate tax havens.

In future posts, I hope to go into the campaign process itself, to better understand why and how our government is filled with individuals that do not benefit from leveling the playing field. For now, let's hope that Candidate Obama (I love the man when he's campaigning, though his presidency has been somewhat disenchanting) gets his way and that his new tax proposal gets some support in Congress.