Courtesy of Karl Denninger, The Market Ticker
There’s ignorant and then there’s willfully and intentionally lying.
One is excusable, although regrettable. The other, well, it’s not.
There have been a number of vitriolic attacks that have circulated of late since I showed up on RT the other day in regard to Occupy Wall Street. I guess people have a problem with a media outlet that lets its guests actually speak their minds even if they might not agree with you.
See, in the US when you do that, they cut your mic off or simply talk over you. That’s "how it’s done" with most of them. Or they wait until you leave the set and then take a cheap shot behind your back. I’ve seen both although there are certainly exceptions (Dylan Ratigan being one of the notable ones.)
But then there are those who invite you back even when they disagree. RT is one of those. For those who have the attention span of an ADHD sufferer, or perhaps they simply smoked too many bong hits when they were younger (or perhaps they’re even high now) it wasn’t that long ago that I showed up on RT when they scheduled me to ask about Obama’s health care plan and how it would be "more fair" and "more reasonable."
I disagreed, and went into a nice little explanation of how we can write checks with our scientific ability we cannot cash with our tax system, and that this wasutterly impossible to perform "as claimed."
They didn’t cut me off, like a US outfit would have. And they let me see the segment in front of me, so I knew it was an ambush (I had suspected as much) and was ready for them. Heh, that’s actually "fair and balanced."
See, all media outlets have bias. I know what RTs is; they wear it on their sleeve, which as far as I’m concerned is just fine. That’s how it should be; I wearmy bias in the open too and have never tried to hide it.
Well, if you didn’t watch the interview, you should. It’s here.
Today I traveled to Occupy Pensacola. Yes, folks, it’s spreading. I went for two reasons: I wanted to see this so-called progressive stack in action that I had heard was all the rage (and was basically reverse-discrimination) and I also was very interested in seeing what the composition of the crowd was like. Full disclosure: I went with two officers of the Okaloosa County Libertarian Party, and we had signs too.
Well, here’s one of the first people I ran into:
Hmmm… that doesn’t look much like a young dope-smoking hippie — or a communist for that matter — does it?
Here’s a few more:
Not a lot of love for Obama, it would appear….
Not very hippie-ish there either… looks like some people are interested in…..Democracy? Wait – I thought we were going to see a bunch of dope-smokingCommunists! Where the hell are they?
Wait! There’s one…. oh, I was mistaken. He’s young, but he appears to be rather upset about…. banksters stealing things. Hmmm….
And then there are those that correctly identified the revolving door in Washington… and that guy’s beard is gray. He’s not a young hippie, and neither is the woman with him.
A couple of folks waiving signs (also correctly identifying) the offshoring problem, and looking an awful lot like they’d like a (better) job, eh? Wait….. they’re not kids either, and I haven’t seen a joint yet!
We had the "food, not bombs" people there, yes. But notice the signs on the bench. The bottom one is cut off, but is that the "F" word I see….. why it is!
There were, incidentally, the mandatory "Guy Fawkes" masks — well, a couple of them anyway.
I guess those youngsters figured if I could point a camera, so could they. Fine with me.
There were a couple of signs I thought were a bit misguided. Here’s one that stood out:
I had a nice conversation with her. I don’t know if I changed her mind or not, but I did give her something to think about, and it was actually a pleasant andeducational exchange. Not exactly the sort of "foam at the mouth" view that many people have of these folks, I might add. (Incidentally the sign is not really red; my camera did that, and I’m not quite sure why.)
Oh, now on that Progressive Stack thing. While I was there they did the "people’s mic" speaking deal, where people queued to speak and did the "three or four word" deal that was then echoed back through the crowd. Unlike NYC it’s legal to use a bullhorn, but about half of the speakers decided instead to use the "people’s mic" – myself included.
I’m a white man, the last guy you’d think would get the chance to speak, right? I’d be asked to "step back"? Uh, no. Anyone who stood in line got called in turn without fear or favor. We were a nice motley crew made up of men and women of all ages, races, colors and sizes, and we all took our turn. Nobody hogged the floor or said anything that could be reasonably attributed as communist or racist.
But there was one overwhelming theme: The people have been robbed, the Wall Street and DC people did it, and the people have had enough of the lies, broken promises and outright theft.
So there you have it folks. The truth in pictures, from the ground. I don’t know how many of these protesters will be camping as opposed to dispersing come this evening, and I live a goodly way from Pensacola. If the mood strikes me I may take a drive over there next week and see if anyone’s still there andoccupying as opposed to simply showing up and going home.
Oh, one other thing: I did not see one piece of trash anywhere on the ground, nor any sort of unruly or otherwise impolite behavior.
OWS looks like exactly what it appeared to be from 20,000 feet, despite the claims of many in the media and other so-called "punditry." It’s a group of very*****ed-off ordinary citizens who, as I noted on RT, know damn well they got serially screwed, but they’re not sure exactly how.
They know who did it though, and have identified the correct targets for their wrath.
Now it’s time to see if the political establishment will Stop the Looting and Start Prosecuting, as they should have four years ago, because it certainly appears that this is not a "one-day" protest, it is a movement, and it’s not going away.
Ps: There also was not one visible police officer there either. I’m sure there were a couple in plain clothes, and the occasional cop car drove by as one would expect on any city street, but given the very-ordinary mix of people in attendance and the utter lack of anything that could be considered a criminal act, if they were there they were quite bored.
