Occupy Wall Street, Part 1: Alternative Media Reactions to an Episode of Corporate Propaganda

"Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.

Cenk Uygur, "CNN Anchor Mocks Occupy Wall Street - Cenk Responds," The Young Turks, 06 October 2011.


As this episode illustrates, I think one can only conclude that the corporate media intentionally seeks to mislead its viewers (although of course they would deny that). In seeking to understand why the U.S. population is so ignorant, not only about the world outside U.S. borders, but about their own country, one must identify the source, the instrument, of their ignorance. As in many other cases it's too easy, and wrong, to blame the victims for their ignorance. They are deliberately kept ignorant and there is a reason why that ignorance is sustained, encouraged, promoted.

You can learn some of the history of the great American ignorance machine by watching Adam Curtis's film The Century of the Self (BBC, 2002).

Meanwhile, I encourage you to switch to the alternative media. Some examples:

• Democracy Now! (Amy Goodman)
• The Young Turks (Cenk Uygur)
• GRITtv (Laura Flanders)

Links on #OccupyWallStreet and/or the Media:

• Occupy Wall Street.
• Occupy Together.
• Occupy Austin.
• We Are The 99 Percent at Tumblr.
• October 2011: Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed (this is the "Stop the Machine" group).
• freeman, "Occupy Wall Street’s Misconceptions According to Obama’s Job Czar," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
  I have always thought that Jeff Immelt was a very strange choice by Obama for a U.S. "Jobs Czar". And after viewing Leslie Stahl's puff-piece I still think that.
• Charlie Grapski, "Anatomy of a Deception: How a Conservative Magazine Attempted to Discredit the Occupy Movement," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
  Agents provocateur, whether employed by the government or otherwise, will attempt to disrupt and subvert every popular movement.
• "Stéphane Hessel on Occupy Wall Street: Find the Time for Outrage When Your Values Are Not Respected," Democracy Now!, 10 October 2011.
  Links for Hessel's book Time for Outrage / Indignez-vous!: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.
• Yves Smith, "On #OccupyWallStreet and the Power of Open Source and Consensual Processes," naked capitalism, 10 October 2011.
• "Today Liberty Plaza had a visit from Slavoj Zizek," OccupyWallSt, 09 October 2011.
  I think Slavoj Zizek is one of the more interesting thinkers of our time.
• Yves Smith, "#OccupyWallStreet Publishes First Issues of 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal'," naked capitalism, 09 October 2011.
  You can read or download copies from this article. Also, BreakingCopy website has copies and links for Issue 1 and Issue 2.
• MontanaMaven, "Is This the Start of the Century of 'We'?," Corrente, 08 October 2011.
• Brian Baresch, "Social Movements Expert on Occupy Austin," kut.org, 07 October 2011.
• Alan Maki, "An excellent interview with Michael Parenti about 'Occupy Wall Street'," FireDogLake, 06 October 2011.
  I had difficulty playing this audio until I pasted the second link (http://www.kdvs.org/m3u.php?show_date=2011-10-02&show_id=1838&kbps=192&show_name=New%20Day%20Jazz) into the Advanced Open File... menu of VLC. As usual, everyone has to figure things out for themselves. Note that the first hour of this audio file is music and poetry; the Parenti interview is in the second hour (of three) beginning at 1:04:20 and is about a half-hour long. I think of Michael Parenti as in the same league as Noam Chomsky, but he's a much better public speaker than Chomsky. Michael Parenti's website.
• ""We Are the 99%": Voices From the Occupy Wall Street March," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
• "Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
• "Naomi Klein: Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Controversy Shows How Wall Street Is Occupying U.S. Gov’t," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
  Second part of the interview in the preceding link.
• "Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street & Chile: Courage to Ask Questions We Don’t Have Answers For," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
  Continuation of the interview after the above two links.
• John Schmitt, "Occupy Wall Street Gets What the 'Very Serious People' Have Missed for 30 Years," AlterNet, 06 October 2011.
• Naomi Klein, "Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now," The Nation, 06 October 2011.
  A version of this article appears in Issue 2 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal on page 1.
• "Frances Fox Piven at Occupy Wall Street: 'We Desperately Need a Popular Uprising in the US'," Democracy Now!, 04 October 2011.
  Insightful observations, and it's a pleasure to listen to someone who the right-wingers target for demonization.
• "Joseph Stiglitz rocks Zuccotti Park," Corrente, 04 October 2011.
  If you don't know who Joseph Stiglitz is -- he isn't just some grey-bearded old fart -- I recommend you check out his website, read his popular essays (popular meaning non-technical), and watch the trailer for Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz; his best know book may be Globalization and Its Discontents (2002). And Jeff Madrick is no slouch himself, either; his latest book is Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (2011). Yet these are the kinds of people whom the U.S. mainstream media tell you are a bunch of hippies stinking up the place in NYC.
• Occupy Wall Street archive at Democracy Now!
• Nathan Schneider, "Occupy Wall Street: FAQ," The Nation, 29 September 2011.
  A version of this article appears in Issue 1 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal under the title "Occupation for Dummies" on page 4.
• Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis: The TV elite has lost the plot," The Register, 20 November 2007.
• Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis : an audio special," The Register, 23 November 2007.
  Adam Curtis "gets it" as expressed especially the first two audio clips here; and I suppose this is why I find his films & blog so watchable & re-watchable.
  btw, Curtis mentions Radio Popbitch as an alternative to Pandora. I like the sound of it!
• Andrew Orlowski, "Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits," The Register, 03 October 2008.
  Note: This article refers to when the US Congress rejected the first version of the TARP.