OWS: GRASSROOTS MY ASS

Well-known spontaneous Grass Roots volunteer demonstrators who have no political agenda or organization and certainly wouldn't do stuff just to get on TV.

While the Tea Party has long been dismissed as an “Astroturf” movement, marching in lockstep to a secret cabal of Republicans pulling strings behind the scenes, the media has gone out of their way to either vilify members or squelch coverage of Tea Party events.

But lo and behold, the Occupy Wall Street gang is being touted as a popular “Grass roots” movement that just happened to spring up spontaneously without any political agenda or professional agitators and organizers involved. Yeah, right. You probably won't recognize the names of any of the totally objective, agenda-less, non-partisan everyday citizens involved.

"Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy Wall Street email distrop public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media.

Journalist 2.0 includes well known names such as MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi who both are actively participating; involvement from other listers such as Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald plus well-known radicals like Noam Chomsky, remains unclear. The list also includes a number of radical organizers, such as Kevin Zeese.

In these emails we see MSNBC’s Ratigan, hawking his book in the footnotes, instructing occupiers on how properly to present their demands and messages while simultaneously appearing on television reporting “objectively” on the story (when he’s not taking part in the protests himself as content).

...We’ve only begun to discover the full scope of MSM’s involvement and are still combing through the archives after the list was brought to our attention late last night. (If you find something interesting that we have missed, please leave us a note in the comments.)

We know that the original movement was kicked off by a [George] Soros-funded group called Adbusters; that union groups and radicals routinely overthrow leadership unfriendly to an occupation of the occupation (check out how Occupy St. Louis was hijacked by ACORN off-shoot MORE); and now we know that media, including MSNBC itself, is apparently helping occupiers better influence the public by both writing their messages and giving them a platform.

So how long are we going to pretend that this is a “grassroots” uprising?

And how can the media continue to report on the occupy movement objectively when it’s part of it?"

PMSNBC's Joe Scarborough has gone so far as to defend rioters for creating jobs. I thought only government could create jobs. Anyway, H/T Jim at Real World Libertarian for this.

"MIKA BRZEZINSKI: … 951 cities in 82 countries were scheduled to take part in demonstrations after online organizers called for a worldwide rally. The mayor of Rome said $1.4 million in damage was caused after rioters who broke away from a peaceful protest smashed windows and torched vehicles around the city.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Now, see, that will help with the construction industry in Italy.

(Cross talk)

SCARBOROUGH: No, you have to rebuild Rome because people burned it down. That’s actually a plus up. This Occupy Wall Street group, look at that, they are creating new jobs."

That's right up there with a general in Vietnam saying, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

The ghost of William Randolph Hearst, who boasted a tad bit more integrity than our current mainstream press manipulators, also briefly flickered onto the screen at one point, saying, “We should invade Cuba, too!”

PMSNBC also brought in their often used “expert” Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy “Malaise” Carter’s National Security Adviser and, by mere coincidence, host Mika Brezezinski’s daddy. He waxed eloquent on the "distribution of wealth", aka Socialism. Guess what his favorite word is:

Brzeznski said we need a “list” of the rich to be publicly disclosed by the media because, “Public pressure, public condemnation, public shame can be very effective.”

“When it comes to government…Congress has to realize the fact that the financial economic system cannot operation autonomously.

“We have to have disclosure.”

“We have to have transparency.”

“We have to have control.”

“So, more control over banks.”

“More control over hedge funds earnings particularly.”

“We need more control over earnings.”

“More fair distribution of social responsibility through taxation…”

“And Pressure even on the rich to avoid flaunting their wealth.”

This, of course, would not apply to rich politicians, the lobbyists who own them, Hollyweird celebrities, or media figures, such as his daughter Mika, who’s worth $4 million.

At a Saturday rally, with no hate-filled rhetoric or calls of violence like those nasty Tea Party folks, Professional “Grass Roots”™ Agitator the “Reverend” Al Sharpton fired up the crowd.

A succession of speakers [including completely spontaneous non-agenda-driven apolitical “Grass Roots”™ concerned citizens such as] American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, offered support.

“They warmed up the crowd for Sharpton, whose raspy voice rang out, “No justice? No peace!” as the crowd shouted along with him, over and over.

“If you won’t get the jobs bill done in the suite, we will get the jobs bill done in the street!”

“This is not about Obama! This is about my mama!”

[Another speaker at the rally said, without any hate-filled rhetoric], “I’m not sure why the Republican Party has become such a mean and vicious entity in this country.”

As an aside, notice the appeal to the Left’s well-known towering intellect with short, semi-meaningless easy-to-chant phrases, often with rhymes. Catch phrases similar to, “Yes we can!” “Hope and change!” “I wants money!”

So, as I've said before, I must conclude with "Grass Roots" my ass.