How does a genuine grassroots movement start? It starts with an idea, followed by the actions of a few, or maybe just one person. It creates a spark through the populace as people spread the word, by word of mouth or through social media, as they tell their friends and family, and those people, in turn, pass it on to their friends and family, and so on and so forth.
And what is the most important thing to be learned from a genuine grassroots movement?
You can’t kill an idea.
Sure, you can shove your fingers in your ears and scream, “la, la, la!” and pretend it doesn’t exists, you can ignore it and hope it will go away, attempting to deprive the movement of oxygen to prevent it from growing into a full-blown fire, but the more you ignore the issue, and the more people begin to notice that you’re ignoring the issue, questions begin to arise.
This is exactly the scenario that we’ve seen play out with the non-coverage from the media of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest movement, which has been marching on Wall Street in New York City for over a week, with nary a peep from any mainstreet media outlet. The movement has grown from a few to many as it enters its second week, and some news and blog coverage has attempted to dismiss it for its lack of focus.
But what this group is doing to itself as it asks for media coverage, may be killing itself. There is no focus to this group or movement. A speaker got up and started talking about a General Assembly. At first I thought they were going to air their grievances to the UN across town. Evidently, there are so many issues this group wants to deal with they needed to form a self-government to manage them.
One woman got up and said that there are a number of issues to be settled and all the issues are equal. This is the point where this venture is due to fail.
Every time you add an issue you lose people. Most of us are certainly for things like reforming Wall Street and curbing the institutionalized greed. But if these folks are going to bundle a Free Bradley Manning Pizza with a 2 liter bottle of Kill the Fed and a box of Take Everybody’s Guns Cheesy Fries — that is not what I want to order.
But when you think about it, its lack of focus is completely understandable, especially when you consider the many-layered, somewhat incestuous problems that face it and the rest of the country, and we know where many of these problems stem from: the monied interests that control Wall Street, which was responsible for bringing the country to its economic knees, and which have polluted the political processes of a democracy and a governmental apparatus that now actively works against the citizenry in favor of the interests that now control it. And what we have to remember is that these same interests now control our media and the flow of information and implodes the myth of a “liberal media bias.”
Roger Alies - Fox News
Let’s just take a look at the major media outlets:
- Fox News: Our favorite, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp
- NBC and MSNBC: All part of NBC Universal, now owned by Comcast and General Electric
- CNN is owned by Time Warner
- ABC News is owned by Walt Disney
- CBS News is owned by Westinghouse
Naturally, these companies have their own corporate agendas which they surely are striving to protect, which probably doesn’t include coverage of a movement calling for reform of corporate power.
Even Yahoo, the internet search engine and email host, blocked emails pertaining to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, later issuing an apology and saying the blockage was not intentional and blamed it on their spam filters.
Uh huh…
As the protests grow, so are the arrests as the NYPD clamps down, with one officer spraying a woman in the face with pepper spray or mace, for no apparent reason; with others violently arresting peaceful demonstrators resulting in numerous injuries; yet another dragging a woman by the hair; and still another jumping a barricade to assault peaceful marchers.
So why this concerted effort to ignore, dismiss and violently reign in this movement?
Because this is a genuine movement, not an astroturf operation, and it’s hitting a nerve. The idea behind this movement rings true with just about everybody, and this movement has the potential to not just spark the citizenry, but turn itself into a full-blown blaze that could sweep across the country, and they know it.
And that’s why they’re running scared and doing everything in their power to block this movement’s purpose from reaching the awareness of the people. It’s the very last thing the monied interests want, because once that happens, their tenuous control over the country ceases to be, and that ain’t good for profits.
On Monday, Occupy Wall Street interviewed author Chris Hedges, who joined the protest:
“I can tell you, having been a reporter for The New York Times, that on the inside, they’re very, very frightened. They do not want movements like this to grow, and they understand, on some level, whether it’s subconscious or in other cases even overt, that the criminal class in this country has seized power.”
That criminal class is multi-layered, with its tentacles reaching into just about every facet of American life and existence, and movements like this terrify them.
About Beth
It’s about time people started raising some HELL!! Too many people have suffured in this economy due to those ” GREEDY FAT CATS”. The “occupiers” have my support.