Joshua Holland: The Stunning Victory That Occupy Wall Street Has Already Achieved

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/152860/the_stunning_victory_that_occupy_wall_street_has_already_achieved

Alternet
By Joshua Holland

The Stunning Victory That Occupy Wall Street Has Already Achieved

In just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street.

October 26, 2011  |     

Occupy Wall Street has already achieved a stunning victory – a victory that is easy to overlook, but impossible to overstate. In just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street: the lack of jobs -- and especially jobs with decent benefits -- spiraling inequality, cash-strapped American families' debt-loads, and the pernicious influence of money in politics that led us to this point.

To borrow the loosely defined terms that define the Occupy movement, these ordinary citizens have shifted the conversation away from what the “1 percent” -- the corporate right and its dedicated media, network of think-tanks and PR shops -- want to talk about and, notably, paid good money to get us to talk about.

Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street mogul and Nixon administration cabinet member, has reportedly dedicated a billion dollars of his fortune to the effort since the 1980s. How successful have he and his fellow travelers been? In 2009, the Washington Post came under fire for running an article – in its news section, not its opinion pages – written by Peterson's Fiscal Times, which the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting described as “a propaganda outlet … to promote cuts in Social Security and other entitlement programs.” (It was Peterson Foundation employees, among those from other outside groups, who staffed Obama's “bipartisan deficit commission.”) 

As I noted back in May, a study done by the National Journal that month quantified what the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, described as a “deficit feedback loop,” in which “the relentless bipartisan focus on the deficit convinces voters to be worried about it, which in turn leads lawmakers to spend still more time talking about it and less time talking about the economy.”

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[Skittles]

1. wow

EXCELLENT point

[Laelth]

2. k&r for OWS. n/t

-Laelth

[AverageJoe90]

3. This could be the spark for something exponentially bigger.

Let's hope all the infiltrators, agents provocateur, etc. aren't able to ruin it for us. We are the 99 percent!

[TBF]

4. That is how I view it as well -

finally a spark of resistance that is focused on class issues. The folks of Oakland did us proud last night. They are heroes to me.

[Hissyspit]

5. Kick nt

[Mister Ed]

6. They have negated millions and millions of dollars worth of right-wing propaganda. n/t

[Zorra]

8. We.

It's what We did.
:hi:

[lindysalsagal]

7. Someone at work asked me what the OWS was about.

Victory.

[fascisthunter]

9. everything takes time... this is NOT only what this movement has achieved

it has achieved, much, much more and it scares the shit out of the sociopaths who are vehemently against this movement.

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R