Fox News Fails to Stunt the Growth of the OWS Movement

Students of the US mass media already know that Fox News puts the ‘crap’ in ‘crapulent,’ as in you have to be drunk to believe the incredible amount of propagandistic slag — misdirection, guilt by association, half-truth and outright deception — that emanates daily from Roger Ailes’ neoconservative cable megaphone disguised as a useful outlet of unbiased information. But Roger’s pet monkey is losing audience as economic reality worsens for the benighted ignorati that still take Fox’s Red River of pig slurry seriously. After all, it wasn’t the ‘dirty hippies’ or socialists or ACORN that is foreclosing on their homes, cutting their pensions, and shifting their jobs overseas — it’s Roger’s pals on Wall Street and in the corporate suites of America. Adding to that, Big Boss Rupert Murdoch is having his problems, both with Fox News parent News Corp. investors wanting to dump him, and the UK government out to prosecute him since he severely antagonized Queen Elizabeth II by illicitly spying on her relatives. But then the final slap in the kisser happened as, according to a Fox poll, a majority of Fox News viewers agree with the OWS Movement the Foxifiers had spent weeks trying to ridicule and vilify out of existence. It must be as jarring a prospect to Roger as human eyes witnessing his bulk stuffed into nothing but a skimpy Speedo, the idea that a large chunk — 69 percent — of the bottom-feeders Fox caters to have finally woken up to who’s at fault for their misery. The worm, so to speak, has turned.

Boy, that’s gotta hurt — all that ‘good’ propaganda down the drain. But that poll was from Oct. 7th; surely things have changed since then? No, as Mark Howard outlines, the Fox sleaze and slime directed against OWS still isn’t working.

How the Bitter Elitists at Fox News Keep Trying — And Failing — to Dampen Support for Occupy Wall Street

Another day, another Fox News attempt to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement. This time they’ve resurrected their favorite bogeyman, ACORN.

Mark Howard
AlterNet.org
October 27, 2011

Another day, another Fox News attempt to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Fox News has been feverishly trying to dampen the viral growth of OWS ever since the movement sprouted in a park in Lower Manhattan about a month ago. Fox’s overt hostility is in sharp contrast to the love affair they had with the Tea Party. Now Fox is slandering decent and passionate protesters as communists, whining about class war, comparing them to hippies, accusing them of violence, and associating them with Nazis. All of these attacks have collapsed from the weight of their own dishonesty, and support continues to grow for the movement. But does that stop Fox News? […]

“Despite this barrage of hogwash, the Occupy movement continues to gain popularity. A CBS/New York Times poll shows that 43 percent of the country agree with the Occupiers. Even more significant is the support expressed for the movement’s economic justice agenda, particularly raising taxes on the wealthy. A Bloomberg poll shows overwhelming support by 68 percent of the American people, including a majority of both independents and Republicans. And poll after poll affirms those results.”

Read the rest here.

Speaking of hippies, here’s an excerpt from a 2007 Mark Morford article that’s relevant to the 99 Percenters in the streets today — turns out, the ‘hippies’ of the ’60s were right!

“[Being a hippie] was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?”
— Mark Morford, “The Hippies Were Right!” San Francisco Chronicle, May 2, 2007.

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Mitt Romney’s Lie Detector Test

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Today’s Music: Otis Spann Three-peat

You never heard of Otis Spann you say? Catch up here — he was one of the greatest post-war blues pianists and played with the Muddy Waters band for nearly 20 years, as well as working as a session man for Chess Records with Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley and others. A tragedy that he died of cancer at the young age of 40 in 1970, but he made a lot of good music in his short time here. In the first clip below, he’s playing his signature tune, “Spann’s Stomp” (AKA “Spann’s Boogie”). If you can’t tap your foot to this one, check your pulse.

And a tune made famous by Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do”:

Otis with Muddy Waters at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, circa 1968 (and look at Muddy playing a solo on a solid-body Guild sans slide):

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Stand With Marine Veteran Scott Olsen

I’ve never been hit with a rubber bullet, but I’ve read they hurt something fierce and damage skin and bone. (See pix below.) Beanbags, from what I’ve heard, cause a sting and bruising, but no other deep injury. It doesn’t seem 24-year-old Iraq War vet Scott Olsen was hit with a beanbag, nor a tear gas canister, as originally reported — he was apparently hit with a rubber bullet, fired at his head. Why someone in law enforcement (not necessarily the Oakland Police) would aim for the head instead of his body is a matter for investigation, but there is no doubt that Olsen sustained a severely fractured skull which put him in the hospital in critical condition (he’s been upgraded to ‘fair’), so the firing was likely at close range to have that much impact. Scott Olsen did two tours of duty in Iraq — seems he was safer over there than in his own country, exercising his Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and protest the government.

“On Wednesday, protesters displayed rubber bullets and beanbags they said were fired at them the night before. [Oakland Acting Police Chief Howard] Jordan said his department used the beanbags but not rubber bullets, but that other agencies may have used the rubber bullets.”
— From “Occupy Oakland protesters regroup — Iraq vet hurt,” SF Chronicle, Oct. 27, 2011.

If the point of all this was to scare away the OWS protestors, it backfired, just as it backfired in New York after police attacked demonstrators with billy clubs and pepper spray. More people are showing up in Oakland, New York and across the country to protest not only the 1 Percent who are stealing from us, but their ‘Praetorian Guard’ who use violence to control nonviolent assemblies. Even so, let’s not blame all the cops — every large organization has its cowboys and nutcases, but many in law enforcement know full well they’re part of the 99 Percent who are getting screwed and are sympathetic to the cause but, especially in these hard times, they need to keep their jobs. I hope the protestors keep this in mind — the cops are not the real enemy and the 1 Percent who are would like nothing better than to play “Let’s you and him fight” between protestors and police while they skate free. Don’t fall into that trap.

Photos from “Yes, They Hurt! Wounds From A Rubber Bullet” of Oakland OWS protestors hit with rubber bullets:

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Music: Pinetop Perkins Friday

Mississippi bluesman Pinetop (b. Joseph William) Perkins played piano with every big name in the blues at one time or another, from Sonny Boy Williamson during the Great Depression to Earl Hooker in the ’50s to Muddy Waters in the ’70s. Pinetop passed away last March at the age of 97. He got the name ‘Pinetop’ from Pinetop Smith who wrote “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” which Perkins played so much, he inherited Smith’s nickname.

And here’s Pinetop with Odetta doing “Trouble in Mind,” followed by some guy named Johnny Cash covering the same tune:

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Cartoons: 1 Percent vs. the OWS 99 Percent

Copyright 2011 W Watson

Copyright 2011 Clay Bennett

Artist Unknown

Copyright 2011 Walt Handelsman

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The Cain Mutiny

A documentary filmmaker who shall remain nameless once said that the easiest way to make someone look guilty or deceptive was to take a very tight close-up of their face, even when they were smiling. Viewing the creepy Herman Cain ad below, it seems as if ‘nameless’ was right — who decided that ending shot of Cain slowly smiling would entice even Republicans to trust him? True, the ad got some free MSM attention, but all of it is negative, as in “WTF were they thinking?” negative.  It’s a testament to just how much Mitt Romney is loathed by three-quarters of his own party that Cain has shot up above the Mittster in the polls, replacing former poll frontrunner Rick Perry, who replaced Michele Bachmann. But, at least, Perry and Bachmann seemed serious — crazy, but serious. Cain doesn’t appear to give a damn; he doesn’t even bother to think through his addled policy positions so they show some hint of internal logic. But there may be another answer, ably expressed by the great Mario Piperni cartoon below — Herman Cain is really just another Sarah Palin, an egotistical Republican halfwit who accidentally stumbled into undeserved national celebrity. Whatever it is, I expect the ‘Cain Mutiny’ to be over before Thanksgiving as even GOP Base Voters figure out, as they did with Bachmann and Palin, that this babbling bonehead could never be trusted with the presidency and would lose in a landslide to President Obama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2011 Mario Piperni. H/T to Bartcop.com.

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The Corporate Nightmare On Occupy Wall Street (Updated)

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Conservative Bingo!

Copyright 2011 Mark McMahon.

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Canned Laugher: Dr. Pepper’s New ‘Ten’ — For Men Who Like That ‘Testicular Taste’

You can’t make this stuff up.

Manliness in a Can? Dr. Pepper’s New Soda Is a Laugh

Jim Hightower
AlterNet.org
Oct. 24, 2011

If you worry that American corporations have lost the innovative, can-do edge necessary to compete in today’s global economy, you need to spend some time with Dr Pepper.


I don’t mean a shrink, but the soft-drink. It’s a brand that, let’s face it, has seemed a bit stodgy. But — Pow! — no more. Meet Dr Pepper Ten, a brand-new concoction that promises to deliver the impossible: a macho diet soda. How’s that for innovation?

It seems that the honchos over at the Dr Pepper Snapple Group have done intensive market analysis and found that men think of diet drinks as…well, girly. So they flinch at buying them.

No sweat, said the corporate alchemists, we’ll make a manned-up soda that has only 10 calories, but still contains a manly dose of real sugar and other stuff. It’s low-cal, but none may dare call it “diet.”

Corporate officials won’t disclose what’s in the formula that supposedly will make men salivate for a can of Ten, but the key ingredient seems to be raw hucksterism. The pepped-up Dr Pepper is being launched with a massive, testosterone-infused ad campaign that bluntly proclaims: “It’s not for women.”

TV ads will run on all networks during college football games, and the promos will reek of machismo, showing men — real men — in a jungle battling snakes. Also, instead of the gentle bubbles on Dr Pepper’s regular diet can, the cans of Ten are gunmetal grey — with silver bullets. Pow!

In case ladies still don’t get the point that this is a manly man’s drink, they might go to Dr Pepper Ten’s Facebook page. There, they’ll find a virtual shooting gallery that invites members of the male species to fire virtual bullets at such feminine symbols as lipstick and high heels. Is this fun, or what?

Hey, China, you think you’re the new economic power on the globe, but we’ve now got Dr Pepper on steroids. Well, let’s see you top that.

Copyright 2011 Jim Hightower.

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