Corporate media blackout of Wall Street protest

The corporatocracy scores big today as the media it controls so very well mostly ignored a national protest of US Day of Rage protests. CNN, Fox and MSNBC ignored the protest, even though the crowd estimated to be in the thousands descended on Manhattan.   It was ignored even though the crowd was many times bigger than most Tea Party Rallies.

The aim of the rally is expressed at a site called OccupyWallSt.org:

We need to retake the freedom that has been stolen from the people, altogether.

  1. If you agree that freedom is the right to communicate, to live, to be, to go, to love, to do what you will without the impositions of others, then you might be one of us.
  2. If you agree that a person is entitled to the sweat of their brows, that being talented at management should not entitle others to act like overseers and overlords, that all workers should have the right to engage in decisions, democratically, then you might be one of us.
  3. If you agree that freedom for some is not the same as freedom for all, and that freedom for all is the only true freedom, then you might be one of us.
  4. If you agree that power is not right, that life trumps property, then you might be one of us.
  5. If you agree that state and corporation are merely two sides of the same oppressive power structure, if you realize how media distorts things to preserve it, how it pits the people against the people to remain in power, then you might be one of us.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 10 Comments

  1. Avatar of Rejean Levesque
    Rejean Levesque

    One of my Twitter friends was retweeting lots of tweets from the manifestation, relaying information on police deployment and other strategic indications. Many of them complained that the media were deliberately ignoring what was happening. At one point the retweeter was prevented by Tweeter and like he said put in Tweeter Jail. How’s that possible in the USA, the home of the free?

  2. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Michael Moore, being interviewed by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now:

    “Well, it’s highly ironic that now over 100 of the protesters have been arrested and not a single banker, a CEO from Wall Street, anyone from corporate America — nobody, not one arrest of any of these people who brought down the economy in 2008. Who created schemes, financial schemes that not only destroyed the economy, but took away the future of this generation, of this young man and his children in the future. They have completely ruined it for people while they have become filthy rich. Not one of them arrested, but 100 of these people who have stood up non-violently against this madness, and they’re arrested? This just boggles the mind.”

    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/28/something_has_started_michael_moore_on

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    “Wall Street saw yet another surge in protesters today – as hundreds of Continental and United Airlines pilots demonstrated in New York City’s financial district. Over 700 hundred activists, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) carriers, took their grievances to the streets as they protested for wages and benefits in light of a stalled merger between the airlines.”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042680/Wall-Street-Protests-Continental-United-Airlines-pilots-fed-bosses.html#ixzz1ZM1g5BBm

  4. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    I spotted this comment by Danielle Askini Jansson on Facebook:

    One word: Sweden. Look it up. Flattest distribution of wealth, universal education though PhD’s, universal health care, 18 months of 80% paid maternity leave, my same job here pays 30% more than what I made in San Francisco (one of the highest wage cities in the country), an 80% of people are covered by unions who actually get shit done. Socialist utopia? Yes… with a functioning democracy (least corrupt in the developed countries). GDP growth this past quarter of 4.9% and only 6.6% unemployment. It may be damn cold in the winter, but knowing my neighbors have food, a heated house, and nearly no one in the country is homeless if they don’t want to be sure warms my heart. Occupy Wall Street and you could have this.

    She then cites to this page: http://www.scb.se/default____2154.aspx

  5. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    The Wall Street protests have been getting more coverage, but the message is not coherent (except for generalized frustration). One writer on Reddit.com (“Blacksurt”)suggested this as a coherent message:

    The Glass-Steagall act basically separates investment banking from commercial banking. So what does that mean? It means it would be illegal for your bank to gamble with the money you deposit. This part of the act was repealed in 1999, and could be viewed as a direct cause of the merging of investment banking and commercial banking (because it was the only thing holding them apart). Read the Glass-Steagall Act Wiki. its mind-blowing how such a critical regulation could be taken away. And its even more disturbing that neither Republican or Democrat is suggesting we bring it back. This is a very real, very tangible and very important piece of legislation that would put needed limits on banks in a very short order.

    I agree with this suggestion. http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/kwkr2/a_suggestion_for_the_occupy_wall_street/

  6. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    “Genuine grassroots movements don’t begin with poll-tested messages or slick media operations and aren’t fronted by polished spokespeople. In any group of ordinary citizens, be it a Shriner’s convention or an uprising against the Wall Street hucksters who took down the global economy, there will be some number who are in fact confused or clueless. A visiting reporter can shape whatever narrative he or she chooses by simply selecting whom to interview and which parts of those interviews make the cut.”

    http://www.alternet.org/vision/152610/putting_pundits_to_shame:_protesters_know_exactly_what_they're_fighting_for

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