USA Today‘s Rick Hampson has a piece today (12/7/11) on Occupy Wall Street’s Occupy Our Homes actions, which include efforts to move families into vacant housing. This coverage is a good sign if you think there is still something happening with this movement after the evictions in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
But why does the article include commentary from right-wing scam artist Andrew Breitbart? The paper reports:
Conservative online publisher and commentator Andrew Breitbart said the movement’s new focus demonstrates that Occupy Wall Street is not “an authentic grassroots movement” but a political maneuver backed by organized labor and remnants of the ACORN community-organizing group aimed at boosting President Obama’s re-election campaign.
“This is AstroTurf” rather than grassroots, he said. “This isn’t about helping little old ladies…. This is about fomenting civil unrest, fomenting class warfare.”
Breitbart’s work is totally unreliable. He’s been sounding the ACORN/SEIU alarms about Occupy Wall Street almost from the beginning–just like (at least) one Fox News host. The point is to try and link the movement to an array of progressive institutions and, apparently, the Obama campaign. It’s nonsensical paranoia. Is he included for the sake of “balance”?
Define “conspiracy theory”: http://www.seiu.org/2011/12/day-3-99-percent-march-to-k-street.php.
The SEIU isn’t hiding involvement with Occupy — they’re live blogging it.
It’s a bit difficult to make a case for the perniciousness of helping folks who’ve lost or are in danger of losing their homes, isn’t it?
So you try to make a case for the sinister insincere plot behind it.
Enter one Mr. Breitbart.
Funny that whole thing about the federal gummint colluding with city admins to obliterate Occupy sites.
You always hurt the one you love.
“But why does the article include commentary from right-wing scam artist Andrew Breitbart?”
Being a scam artist is one necessary feature of the skill set needed for right wing leadership. How else could the 1% ride herd so effectively on the 99% for the last thirty years?
No Scam, no right. Obama and his idolatry and emulation of Reagan included.
Andrew Breitbart accusing a movement of being AstroTurf is just the sort of hilariously ironic projection I’ve come to expect from wingers.
Was the SEIU not sending paid staff to the Occupy K Street protests yesterday (and live blogging it to boot)? If not, then by all means this was unfair reporting … but they were. Clearly you’re not arguing with what was said, but who actually said it. And that, my friends, is a logic fallacy.
The K street action SEIU was part of had nothing much to do with the action being discussed. I was at the action in East New York and if any SEIU members were present they kept an awfully low profile. Unlike on November 17, when they broke agreements with Occupy Wall Street organizers and prevented disruptive action on the Brooklyn Bridge. Breutbart should thank SEIU for their actions with OWS.
@umad – Let me offer you a definition of ‘conspiracy’: “secret planning to do something unlawful”. The SEIU are not doing anything unlawful, and by live-blogging it, they’re not exactly being very secret about it. Secret Planning would involve whatever editorial decisions are made behind closed doors at the USA Today offices that promote the dishonest and incredible statements of Andrew Breitbart as ‘expert commentary’. Surely they know better, surely they seem to think that the readers don’t, and while it isn’t unlawful, it can be seen as promoting the perhaps less than lawful police actions at these demonstrations.
USA Today chose to interview Breitbart. What more do you need to know about USA Today?
Once again you show your bias by calling Andrew Breitbart a scam artist. If you want me to believe you can actually write and post an unbias commentary, could you please just stick with the facts and not resort to name calling. It is beneath you!
No one here needs to call Andrew Brietbart a scam artist, he announces it himself with everything he does.
The OWS movement, has gone out of it’s way to remain non-partisan, and criticizes both and all parties that collude with Wall Street to steal from the 99%. ALL but the 1% were welcomed in the movement, including the truly Astro Turf Tea Party. That some that support the OWS movement are union member is only logical as they are most definitely a big part of the 99%. Many, many organizations have shown videos of events and protests, does that make them supporters of any party? I don’t think so.
Unlike the Tea Party sycophants, who were and are complicit to the insanity that is the Republican Party these days and facilitating their own demise by supporting the 1%, the OWS movement disdains partisanship. If anything this movement will hurt Obama as many are saying that they will not vote for anyone at all.
And further, the OWS knows that one of the most terrible things that is destroying our democracy is the money it takes to run for office. Much discussion has been had to Getthemoneyout.com out of politics, and if that means that the union, can’t support a certain candidate or other, let it be.
First two suggestions for Occupy: Don’t eschew something just because it’s legal. There’s something magnificent about getting a license and filing the Washington mall. Where MLK gave his I Have A Dream speech. Don’t we have a dream too? Income equality. Fair taxation. Regulation. Social programs. Elect people who believe in those. Another is do silent vigils. in NC during the Vietnam War we stood silently along a street holding signs, side by side, not blocking any entrances or exits, not standing in flower beds, playing no drums. Answering questions when asked. I see it happening along Park Avenue in New York, on Connecticut in DC. No violence. It would take a while for the cops to have the balls to arrest us for loitering and would stupid.
Item two: What a bore that (some) think “little old ladies” the dregs of society, most vulnerable, unattractive, so irrelevant. (Sexually so politically?). Sorry. Not even that. An eighty six year old friend’s heading south for a weekend of sex with a man she doesn’t like. Then returns to make calls for Obama. Was Eleanor Roosevelt a “little old lady”? Nothing the right does surprises me, but they picked the wrong target in San Francisco. More important is making it widely known that Roger Ailles, Republican operative, runs Fox. Murdoch is afraid of him. No need to hack phones, make it all up out of whole cloth. I LIKE being a little old lady. Used to be gorgeous, so isolated. To not have guys crawling all over me. Now I talk to everyone, about politics, anything to anyone in New York, a friendly city. I was in the Civil Rights Movement in the South as were many white Southerners. You don’t hear about us because it allows you to feel all racism was and is in the South. Tomorrow, I’m going to a march by the NAACP in Manhattan protesting “Jim Crow racist laws” to restrict voting. That’s what the NY Times called the law, when first proposed in a Southern state. Same law in Wisconsin, no “Jim Crow”, no “racist”. Now in New York, no mention of either. Though they have acknowledged we’re “Not as Diverse as We Thought”. Harlem is majority white now. Manhattan lily white. To integrate Zuccotti park required a march from the Bronx of blacks and hispanics, a long way. A friend was in Savannah, Georgia, recently, and went to Occupy Savannah. It was integrated, smiling, beautiful biracial couples everywhere. Notice how the media, including this, focus on bicoastal cities and with a few Denvers and Minneapolises thrown in. Nothing in the South. Flyover country plus a few others. The South is still the scapegoat of the Nation, so no need to go there and film. Google Occupy Chapel Hill or Charlotte, Nashville, Mebane, Greenville. Etc. Easier to think the racists are down there. Most segregated city in the US in Detroit. Second Milwaukee, third New York City.
Young women, don’t let sexist men scare you with talk of “little old ladies”. We reach our full power when we lose our sexual power, and finally know who REALLY likes us and who’s just after our ass.
C-Jay, it is fact that Breitbart is a scam artist.
It could even be considered poor journalism not to mention that fact.
Even in his part of the article Breitbart makes up whatever he can think of to discredit people trying to stop foreclosures.
Hes a scam artist of the highest order and hes been able to do it for far too long.
C-Jay, you see the words “scam artist” in the post? You see how they are colored? That means a link that you can click, to get some crucial facts about Andrew Breitbart.
“Right wing scam artist Andrew Breitbart”?Interesting way to set the tone there guys.Would it ever even occur to you to simply introduce a man by name only? Now if you would of said dirty -filthy,little socialistic Obama soldiers also known as the occupy crowd, we would of at least had a fair slinging of mud -going in both directions.But as with every liberal thought speak it always begins with a sideways insult included in the introduction.Examples are too numerous to even comment on.You can’t stop.It is who you are.Lib training.Think as you do of our scam artist supreme.Barrack Obama.My lord will this be his moniker as well?
As far as poor folks moving into private properties now being left vacant……Wow is this the change we can believe in?Look at the core area Obama started in.The first place he was given sway over the peoples purse and social planning.Same wreckage.Remember New york in the seventies?If it was up to the libs of the time things would never have changed.You still wouldn’t be able to walk in areas that now have millions of shoppers.Things that seem pragmatic and so necessary at the time are instead the spill over of liberal nanny state policies.And any time you try to address those policies you are seen as not caring.So as Obama world hampers the re ignition of our economy,we see an up side?More foreclosures …more free stuff just laying around?Maybe the woman in the article who has two kids, can have two more.I mean soon she will have free healthcare.We got food stamps.Now a free home.You talk about regulations on everything under the sun except personal responsibility. The occupy crowd IS absolutely acing as an arm of Obama.Fermenting class warfare.This is not some charitable organization.The term OCCUPY should tell you all you need to know.
April you seem a great lady.But can you not see the failings in this movement?
Nice work, Carol. Right on, April. Both of you, of course, are crass and uncaring “fermenters” of class-warfare. Have either of you “fermented” any class-warfare lately, as per the troll? It’s like whiskey, only smoother, and you don’t get a hangover! The trolls are right about the name-calling of the simpleton-racist-liar Breitbart–to clear up any confusion, he simply should have been called “that dumb fuck” Breitbart.
Followed by “that dumb fuck barrack obama”…that dumb fuck Joe Biden….that dumb Fuckess hillary clinton….that dumb fuck (just fill in any brainwashed lib)
So does all this make me an honorary lib for a day?
As far as class warfare…….What do you call a guy who came from an average family,chose a direction in life, and worked his ass off to accomplish it.Paid off all his own bills,gave to charity,and accomplished all his dreams to become a happy wealthy man(paying massive taxes along the way)?Enemy number one!
Looks like Breitbart was right. The entire “Occupy This or That” was nothing but a thinly veiled Democrat operation, and the public saw through it pretty easily.
So your entire body of evidence that Andrew Breitbart is a “scam” is because he was somehow affiliated with James O’Keefe and you are upset that James O’Keefe did not dress up like a pimp in his ACORN video? LOL So is this what passes today for “liberal investigative journalism”? No wonders you guys were so giddy when Andrew passed away – he made you guys look like the fools you truly are.