Dear Dirty America

Rich Summers

Joe Macaré writes:

The occupation of Zuccotti Park (a.k.a. Liberty Plaza Park) in Lower Manhattan, New York City, continues today, after a Saturday marked by a crackdown from the New York Police Department.

It is estimated that around 80 people were arrested during a breakaway protest march, and after handing out an “eviction notice” the NYPD surrounded the park that has been used as a campground and staging area.

The “Occupy Wall Street” protest began on Saturday, September 17, and was originally prompted by a call from Adbusters, as described by Patrick Glennon here, for people to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.”

The nature of yesterday’s police action has led to widespread condemnation of alleged police brutality, and it’s hard not to remove the word “allleged” upon viewing the photos and video footage that has emerged – which has been enough to make the not-always-political Gawker take note and use the headline “Cops Tackle, Mace Wall St. Protesters for No Obvious Reason.”

…the best ways to keep up to date on Occupy Wall Street are the #occupywallstreet and #occupywallst Twitter hashtags, andlivestreaming video. See also Kevin Gosztola who has been live-blogging for FireDogLake from the protests, and the “official” Occupy Wall Street website.

I must say I am surprised (although I shouldn’t be) by the lack of coverage of Occupy Wall Street. Where is the Huffington Post on this one? Arianna Huffington and her online news juggernaut has been on a crusade speaking out against criminal Wall Street activity. She ran the “move your money” campaign, which encouraged Americans to take their money out of multi-national, corporate banks and move it to community banks.

And yet, the Huff Post has shown very little about Occupy Wall Street. I’ve only seen a couple of articles about it — one of Bloomberg’s NYPD thugs macing innocent, peaceful female protesters and then walking away. Chilling video. The fact that so many people are willing to camp out and take this kind of abuse should be front page Huff Post material.

If this was the Tea Party, at least Fox News and MSNBC would be covering it (one promoting, one mocking), but at least it would be getting coverage. The Tea Party, of course, is not against multi-national corporations, but instead for stripping all government regulations holding back corporations, which is why big business loves the Tea Party and moves them around like pawns on a chessboard.

To me, the most frightening part about the lack of Occupy Wall Street coverage is that we can truly see who is in charge of America’s largest media networks. If they are wishing to keep this revolution quiet, they are failing, because their lack of coverage is glaringly obvious as social media has spread the word rather sufficiently.

David Shankbone