An Open Letter from Occupy Wall Street to All Americans and Progressive Media

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An Open Letter from Occupy Wall Street to All Americans and Progressive Media
http://thebloodycrossroads.com/about/
Marc Adler

http://thebloodycrossroads.com/an-open-letter-from-occupy-wall-street-to-all-americans-and-progressive-media/221314/

(snip)
This is an open letter to all Americans, and particularly to progressive magazines, Web Sites, TV programs, etc. Please spend most of your time focusing on the Occupy Wall Street protests. This is real, this is serious, and this will become a mass movement. I have been here every day for the past week. Everyone is dedicated and determined. People have come from all over the country, and they plan to stay for months. Many have been sleeping outside, on the floors of Zuccotti Park, and others have been arrested, sacrificing their comfort for the most important of all causes. It’s safe to assume the mainstream media either will not cover the demonstrations at all or will do so only to ridicule us. But liberal media outlets must get on board. If you do not, you are essentially useless.

As a journalist myself, I know the only reason any serious progressive does reporting is because he or she wants to motivate people to get off the couch and hit the streets. We journalists write articles, participate in TV segments, appear in documentaries… For what? To inform people of how they’ve been enslaved by the corporate state. And to make them understand that they have the power to restore their democracy if they choose to.

If we in the media don’t do our part we might as well not exist. If we don’t cover these protests day and night to try to mobilize a revolution, then we are just complainers.

Some have done good work. As always, Democracynow! has done excellent reporting. I also commend Keith Olbermann, who in his special comment after the debt deal admonished that all we have left is civil disobedience. He has reported on our movement and called attention to the shameful lack of coverage elsewhere.

(more at link)

[lbrtbell]

1. K&R

This is a movement that needs to spread far and wide...a real movement, not just an astroturf "movement" like the teabaggers.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. M$M perpetuates the lies ,an on running commercial for the 1% and their

Sycophants.

[vets74]

17. Simple explanation ::: CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

Corporations are not going to support anti-corporatist news outlets.

Ever.

So how are these media corporations supposed to survive ??? Surely not by biting the hands that feed them.

Let us not act surprised.

Gold rules. Every chance it gets.

[saras]

19. Gold ruling would be a HUGE improvement over the mercury and lead poisioning that's currently ruling

If gold ruled, we would have genuine conservatives, concerned with preserving their wealth for hundreds or thousands of years. Instead we have rabid dogs who are too sick to even eat what they bite.

Not that we couldn't do better, of course...

[vets74]

22. The only honest conservative I know of is Nicole Gelinas.

In a "media" position anyway.

Every generation they get one genius. The rest of them aren't worth the proverbial bucket of piss.

[patrice]

3. K&R with all my heart.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[redwitch]

5. K & R nt

[Riley18]

6. They are patriots who put their country before their own comfort.

[Scuba]

7. K & R Thanks for posting

[Tutankhamun]

8. Ginormous K&R

[hay rick]

9. K&R

[sabrina 1]

10. Democracy Now is still in Liberty Park tonight interviewing the

protesters who were arrested earlier and have been released. They are the best.

The cops arrested a PBS reporter also. He was kept for 9 hours! PBS did do a piece on the protest. And I haven't seen it yet, but CNN supposedly did a fairly good piece.

[Divine Discontent]

11. K&R

http://www.zazzle.com/republicans_2012_keeping_millions_out_of_work_bumper_sticker-128002960205017719

[Joe Shlabotnik]

12. support THESE troops

These people are are out there for the common good. Its not enough to notice them when a large group forms on a weekend, and 80 of them get arrested. They've been getting arrested all week, getting rained on and sleeping on the ground. More bad weather is on the way, and its going to start getting cold soon. If they're numbers drop below 100, their resolve could weaken or it would take nothing for the NYPD to sweep them all up and their voices under the rug.

[Paka]

13. K&R.

It's way overdue! :thumbsup:

[fasttense]

14. Wow, these people are impressive.

This is what America is really about. Not those fake tea-bagging racists who come out every time someone's grandmother might get an extra visit to the doctors.

These protesters make me proud of America.

[druidity33]

15. from your link:

Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff and editorial writer at the New York Times, made this candid confession at a banquet held in his honor in 1880, nearing the end of his career:

http://knol.google.com/k/j-y/we-are-intellectual-prostitutes/gcybcajus7dp/19#

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with.

Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

We are intellectual prostitutes.”


Good stuff.

K&R

[txlibdem]

16. +1.... and here we are right back there again!

Perhaps we never left, we only believed we did...

[raouldukelives]

18. K&R

[Michigan-Arizona]

20. K&R n/t

[Enthusiast]

21. We need a million man march on Wall Street.

There wouldn't be much the NYPD could do about one million.

[Remember Me]

23. Uh, million PERSON march, perhaps?

Could we at least try to be a little inclusive on a purportedly progressive discussion forum? Hmmmm? Pretend, okay?

[Enthusiast]

24. I'll keep a close eye on you

from now on.

[vets74]

25. Whine-whine-whine-whine....

The root of all no-brainer political correctness is Passive-Aggression Personality Disorder.

There's gotta be something to complain about.

And, yes, the historical nod to SCLC and MLK and the original MMM is a Black Thing that dates to 1995 and the renewed Civil Rights Movement :::

The Million Man March was a gathering of social activists, en masse, held on and around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1995. Working in conjunction with scores of civil rights organizations including many local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (but not the national NAACP) and the National African American Leadership Summit, a leading group of civil rights activists formed the Million Man March Organizing Committee under the leadership of Dr. Benjamin Chavis.

That's from wiki.

[Remember Me]

26. Careful

You'll end up looking like a CONFIRMED misogynist.

[vets74]

27. There's siding with women, a.k.a. feminism. And then there's PC ass licking.

Whining about "Million Man March" is 100% PC ass licking.

Or simple no-brain ignorance of 1990s history. Understandable for children.