10-31-11

10-30-11

Scream, Dracula, Scream!: Occupy Is Obviously Onto Something



The Occupy movement is several weeks old and has captured the interest, concern and consternation of countless people all over the world.



At the beginning of the protests, before they spread like a rash on the skin of banks, corporations and on the thinnest skin of all, conservative pundits, the protestors and their issues were all but dismissed. This was just the beginning, of course.



A few weeks passed and the protests and their attendees grew larger. The conservative mouthpieces went from making fun of the protestors, citing their appearance, lack of uniformity as they did not have the multi-million dollar funding of a powerhouse like the Koch brothers, and of course, their youthful exuberance. They were just idealistic, lazy kids. The infinitely more interesting when he was on drugs P.J. O’Rourke buried himself recently on Bill Maher’s Real Time show, commenting that the protestors were kids with bongo drums. He summed the movement up: “Hey ho, where do we go?” Maher wrote the protestors off as mere hippies. It makes for good television for the timid perhaps but these sentiments and characterizations fail when one actually goes to the protests and sees who’s there and listens to what is being said. To his credit, Maher recently said during his New Rules segment that, “Republicans have to stop calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters ‘hippies’.” You can flip it, you can flop it but you can’t stop it.



Expect more intellectual cowardice and brutality from these people in the months to come. I say months and not weeks because as much as conservatives would like this to be over yesterday, Occupy is in fact, just getting warmed up. How they handle that fact will most likely be pathetic, violent and as usual with these folks, imbued with a righteous and oddly proud ignorant denial that has become their hallmark.



Recently, as police have been ripping up tents and tear gassing protestors at Occupy sites, there has been an attitude shift in the conservative punditry. The scathing school bully humor has transformed into real anger that barely masks true fear. This Occupy business is getting to them.



The pundits are just the mouthpieces, the lower floor attack dogs for the upper echelon fire breathing dragons of finance. Their livelihood and position at the top of the top is getting a sharp shove from the Occupy rabble. This is where it gets interesting and dangerous.



The upward spike in police violence visited upon Occupy protestors is at odds with the First Amendment of the Constitution but that document has been taking a beating for years, so there’s nothing new or surprising there. The police are taking their orders. The orders are coming from their superiors who serve their corporate backers. The tea party adherents, with their racist signs, guns and often scary demeanor never had this kind of violence exacted upon them during their brief moment of unity.

It is obvious who is on what side of things. Occupy protestors are getting gassed, arrested and in one case at the time of this writing, suffering a skull fracture at the hands of law enforcement. Hell of a way to treat an Iraq Invasion veteran. There will almost certainly be more of this to come.



This is how the big money fights back. The big money shows its snarling contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law and anything else that rocks the boat. The big money hits hard and uses the taxpayer’s own protectors to neutralize disruption and quell all turbulence. I don’t think it’s going to work.



If the banks and corporations, (people) were not seeing a true threat in what is happening on the streets of America, they wouldn’t send the memo down to their errand boy pundits to sound off. The pundits are only human, they could keep their gloves on for only so long before they too were so angered by these protestors that they went at them with their measly hammers and tongs. What’s truly funny is that these corporate mouthpieces actually think that they too are part of the big team. They are not. A fat paycheck doesn’t mean you are necessarily in the club. They are never will be anything more than the help. They are merely millionaire infantry, well paid foot soldiers. They are interchangeable and ever so replaceable. The degree of seriousness with which they take themselves is laughable.



That being said, I must take a moment to be completely self-indulgent. To see and hear these people lose their temper on television and radio is quite enjoyable. It is perhaps the most honest they have ever been. What’s that woman’s name . . . the Fox News “journalist” . . . oh yes, Megyn Kelly—I love watching that look on her face when she gets all huffy and knotted up. You can almost see all her brain cells scurrying, unable to connect the dots as she struggles to attach a human emotion to her bloviations. Priceless. Fox is now the twisted panty channel to me. The chickens of capitalism haves come home to roost and we get to watch.



Which just goes to show, doesn’t matter what you think of the Occupy movement—they are definitely onto something.



To those who oppose: Scream, Dracula, scream!