Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Matt Taibbi Propaganda about 'Occupy Wall Street'

Matt Taibbi was caught giving advice to OWS protesters in a Google OWS chat group. His advice, in part, was:

If OWS could identify a few basic problems -- over-concentration of capital, regulatory capture, overweening influence of money on politics, excess financialization of the economy, tax unfairness, etc -- and propose some first-step solutions to all of those things (break up the banks, force bailout recipients to give up lobbying, end the carried interest and capital gains exemptions as Michael points out, etc), you'd have more allies, you'd be educating the public about a subject that it has a tough time getting real information about through normal media, and it would prevent the other side of the debate from being able to define the movement in their own (inevitably unflattering) terms.

The only thing preventing millions of people from going out onto the streets on their own is that they don't understand how Wall Street works or what it does. That to me is why the movement needs to be specific. It has a responsibility to explain these problems to the general public and to show that solutions do exist and that they're attainable. People I think need more than just the knowledge that they can protest -- they need to believe that they can fix things and that someone out there has the answers. And a lot of the people on this email list do have the answers and could provide that leadership that is so desperately needed.
Guess what? Taibbi is now out with a piece at Rolling Stone detailing some of the bankster abuses. He claims it is these abuses that are at the heart of OWS and that the protesters want these abuses fixed:

These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Yeah right. One question that must be asked is why Taibbi is attempting to wash and dress these characters.

Anyone, who has been following the Occupation closely knows that the protesters are looking for government interventions and free rides. Bill Anderson gives the straight scoop about the occupiers:
While I have tried to be sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street (and about everywhere else) movement, the problem I have with it is fundamental in nature. No, it is not the anti-capitalism that seems to underlie it or even the fact that Obama and Michael Moore are trying to get allied with it.

No, the fundamental problem as I see it is that the vast majority of people on that movement have no idea at all as to what a free society might be. They have no reference point at all, none. Since the Progressive Era of 100 years ago, virtually ALL education, both government and private, has undertaken to destroy the idea of all the aspects of liberty and especially the fundamental point that the State is oppressive and needs to be restrained. Instead, people are taught — and seem to believe — that an all-powerful state will make them free.

Instead, the vast majority of people in the Occupy movements believe that the problem they face is that there is too much private property and private enterprise. Forget their aversion to "crony capitalism;" they don't want ANY kind of capitalism.

Instead, the call for taxpayers to pay ALL of their college education expenses, for more subsidies in life, and for the immediate end of the use of oil, coal, and natural gas. This hardly is the stuff of a "freedom movement." Instead, it is a movement that, as Anthony Gregory correctly pointed out, EMPOWERS the ruling classes.
While it is not entirely clear why Taibbi is heaving out propaganda about 'Occupy Wall Street', be aware propaganda is exactly what Taibbi is heaving and it comes nowhere near the truth about what the occupiers are all about.

8 comments:

  1. Well, it was the Tea Party that knew where the abuses were, because they were the people getting it in the neck in the stock market.

    The OWS crowd doesn't have enough money to be in the stock market. So they weren't the direct victims of what happened in the markets. The tea party is made up of people whose savings Wall Street extracts through manipulating the stock exchange.

    Wall Street buys off the politicians so they can get away with it.

    The government buys off the voters with benefits. Those voters are the OWS folks.

    The Tea Party folks are the TARGETS of ALL THREE - the OWS, the corporate-government-expert complex, and the Fed-Bankster-Speculator complex. So how the heck can any one of these three turn on the other?

    That's as simple as it gets.

    It's against the OWS crowd's self interest to figure that out. That's why they don't.

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  2. Good point, Lila.

    How can people like Taibbi, and Naomi W, who so eloquently expose the evils of financial imperialism, be so blind to the evils of economic imperialism and the roots within the FED? It seems so simple, and obvious, to anyone who understands basic economics.

    Gubmint skoolin done brainwashed dem good.

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  3. I think it's much deeper than government schooling.

    I think it's ego.

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  4. Robert, I really, seriously doubt that more than a tiny minority of people at the OWS are socialists. Most would just be very confused people that understand that something is wrong but they have no idea how to fix it. In this environment the socialists are an extremely opinionated and motivated core, and are able to sway the rest.

    I am not in America but here in Australia we have basically the same situation in relation to protests. Meaning that socialists are extremely adept at co-opting and taking protests over. I remember I attended an anti-Iraq war protest in Sydney, that was more or less taken over by socialists. It was obvious that the vast majority of the crowd were not socialists, and just wanted an end to the war in Iraq, not a society structured around the theories of Karl Marx.

    For libertarians, surely there are some lessons that we can learn. If socialists can dominate a protest, why can't we? We need to study their tactics.

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  5. Quote from Richard Dale Fitzgerald: "How can people like Taibbi, and Naomi W, who so eloquently expose the evils of financial imperialism, be so blind to the evils of economic imperialism and the roots within the FED?"

    Because as much as they say they want to change the system, what they really want is to be in charge of it.

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  6. http://mindbodypolitic.com/2009/10/31/the-easter-bunny-on-the-dtcc/

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  7. I have suspected for some time that Taibbi is a shill for the powers (CIA?) that be (whether he knows it or not). Some of the scoops he gets writing for ROLLING STONE magazine are strange...

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  8. Hi I am also living in Australia (Kentucky by birth) and it shocks me how so many of the commentators dont even seem to read Taibbi.

    He has never directly talked about some of the issues talked about in this article. Only a fool would think that the system isnt stacked for those already possessing money. (and i mean a people with A LOT of money)I mean here in Australia they limit the amount of water you can use in relation to when the GRAND PRIX comes. WTF

    I laughed out loud when someone said Taibbi is a shill for the CIA..hahahah...thanks for that

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