Bears LB Dick Butkus goes after backup Packers QB Don Horn during a 1968 game at Soldier Field. (Neil Leifer/SI)
KING: Predicting all the scores for Week 5
DAUGHERTY: The NFL has become boring
KILLION: 49ers winning ways will last
SI VAULT: Butkus, 61, as ornery as ever (7.12.04)
The limited coverage the Occupy Wall Street protest has had from US media has been dismissed on the claim that the protesters “lack a clear objective” other than to protest. This line is widely parroted.
AP via CBS, NPR, ABC, Forbes, Newsday, MSN Money, and many others.
Foxnews spins it as those who “hate capitalism” with “no stated goals”. (Foxnews apparently fails to understand that you can take issue with specific actions without opposing the entire paradigm. But in a twist of irony, the Hindustan Times (below) makes some astute observations suggesting we’re overdue to rethink our economic paradigm.)
vaslittlecrow made a great post that spells out why the US media coverage is currently dismissive, what to expect next, and how this movement may survive becoming the next “Tea Party”.
The media in the US is lying. The protesters are diverse, but have some general unifying objectives. The non-US media sees that.
From the UK, The Guardian has had almost daily, extensive coverage of the protest. The Guardian reports:
“Their message is very clear and simple: get money out of the political process; strive for equality in taxation and equal rights for all regardless of race, gender, social status, sexual preference or age. We must stop poisoning our food, air and water for corporate greed. The people on Wall Street and in the banking industrial complex that destroyed our economy must be investigated and brought to justice under the law for what they have done by stealing people’s homes and savings.
Jobs can and must be created. Family farms must be saved. The oil and gas industry must be divested of its political power and cheap, reliable alternative energy must be made available.
This movement transcends political affiliations. America has been debased and degraded by greed. This has touched 99% of America’s population.”
From China, China Daily puts it more succintly:
“In fact, the message from the protesters is quite clear. They are against corporate greed and influence in American politics, economy and life. These protesters, who call themselves “The 99 Percent”, are angry about the huge amount of wealth collected by the top 1 percent of the population.”
From Qatar, Al Jazeera reports:
“Demonstrators and sympathisers oppose “corporate greed and corrupt politics,” the “gangsterism of Wall Street,” and the disproportionate effect the global economic downturn has had on “the other 99 percent.” “
From Russia, RT reports:
“The Occupy Wall Street movement says they represent 99 percent of Americans who are tired of the corporate greed that is affecting all Americans.”
“Wall Street greed, corruption and the lack of accountability that followed brought these Americans to the brink. Over 46 million people are living in poverty in the US – with 14 million unemployed. Much of this is triggered by the shameless gambling of Wall Street CEOs.”
From India, the Hindustan Times gets to the crux:
“There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous, unforgivable debt. Most were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now being humiliated - faced with a life as deadbeats, moral reprobates.
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. Everything we’d been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid - money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence if governments or central banks required it.
It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an ‘economy’ is actually for. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they’d been before.
We don’t know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers manage to break the 30-year stranglehold on the human imagination, they will have done us the greatest favour anyone possibly can.”
tl;dr: The UK, China, Qatar, Russia, and India all get it. The US media is playing dumb.
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyChicago
REBLOG!
Seems pretty clear to me.
(Source: bluesandbooze)
The man could fly.
PEARLMAN: Excerpt from Sweetness, the Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
GALLERY: Rare Photos of Walter Payton
