Did you see it? Today on the MSM,

[nadinbrzezinski]

specifically on MSNBC...

They were discussing OWS... and yes, talking head said... "The Tea Party is the Far right and those in the FAR LEFT are Occupy Wall Street. MAINSTREAM AMERICA is in the CENTER."

Well then, when all else has failed, let's go for some old fashioned red baiting.

Ah yes, this is one way you know OWS is having an effect. Sorry if I had to chuckle and hard. It was like I was reading ancient papers before the Turner Raids...

[Hardrada]

1. I have never understood why people think there is a center nowadays.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. It is a media narrative

it is a fantasy... and it really does not exist.. in fact, if you ask people things like single payer health care, over 70% want it... public schools funded, yup... and so it goes. The country IS quite liberal thank you very much, but media and their allies need to control the population.

[PETRUS]

2. And how could we describe the politics of GE and Comcast?

(I believe they are the owners of MSNBC.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yup, but it was like... 'thing familiar

when all has failed. OWS grows... in spite of all.

[PETRUS]

6. Yes.

From a Forbes article (of all places) that someone posted recently:

"...the Occupy Wall Street participants seem to be growing (at least if we track rally participants and arrests!). There are more events, in more cities with each one seeming to bring in larger audiences. Despite increadibly weak traditional “managemenet” OWS is growing participants, which are remarkably diverse. And apparently willing to accept criminal prosecution for their involvement!

People from all ethnicities and age groups – and even income levels – are becoming involved in OWS. It is no longer a “bunch of out of work college kids” as we see more picturs of retirees, blue collar workers, blacks, whites, asians and latinos. Each new police initiative gives us more pictures of people being pepper-sprayed, billyclubbed and dragged away that leads readers to say “that looks a lot like my (cousin, aunt, grandma, uncle, father, etc.)"



(Apparently that's not the center.)

Take *that*, MSM.

[lonestarnot]

3. Must be writers for South Park.

[mmonk]

7. Missed it but you know I'm not surprised.

[snot]

8. Nevermind that there are Teapartiers participating in OWS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. which is fine with me

I have witnessed hard core tea partiers and hard core "leftists" actually have a civilized discussion as Americans... and agree...

That is what they fear.

Oh and in one of them I ended up taking out the Constitution, they wanted to clarify a point of discussion. (they were both wrong actually).

But they did not scream at each other and GASP, were willing to LOOK AT THE SOURCE.

[snot]

20. Agreed.

[patrice]

9. That's un-informed. The largest identifiable group in our occupation is Ron Paul supporters. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Depends on the group, some yes, most no

[RZM]

11. I don't see what's so bad about that assessment

It's not perfect. But look at DU. DU would probably qualify as as the 'far left' and it is very much behind OWS. The Freepers would qualify as as the 'far right' and they support the Tea Party. Most people are somewhere in between.

What's so bad about that assessment?

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I'd have to ask for a definition of far left

DU is not even close to far left. In fact the US does not have an organized left, let alone a FAR LEFT.

Of course I am talking from the POV of political science.

And what is wrong with it, is that this is yet another example of carefully crafted PROPAGANDA, which our media is pretty dang good about.

For the record the US is not a conservative country, it is a liberal country... it just does not know it.

But WANTING single payer Health care (over 70%) of the people, IS LIBERAL.

[RZM]

16. Well whatever. DU is most definitely a slice of the left in this country

Is it 'far left?' I don't know for sure. But it's certainly solidly on the left. I don't think that's in dispute at all.

And support for single payer depends on how you word it. From the polls I've seen, it's probably more like 60 percent (which is still a very healthy majority).

What is the far left in your world? Because whatever that is, you can probably find them here.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. It is left according to whom?

I am serious on that. I've known some REAL lefties. There are some here, but we also have quite a LARGE slice of blue dogs.

And the country IS LIBERAL... in the CLASSICAL sense of the word, not whatever Luntz has made of it.

But serious, if you think this place if left... I rest my case.

And if you still deny that the media is a large part of the propaganda apparatus and that red baiting is actually OLDER than Marx... again, I rest my case.

[Hardrada]

18. We haven't had a real Left since the Palmer Raids.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. You and I know that

and the New Left had some sparks. But that's about it.

[Hardrada]

22. It was too long a time between any radicalized era for any sociopolitical continuity

in the Left. Too great a gap from the Wobblies to the SDS. And the Eighties created a barrier between the Sixties and now and the 20 somethings of the Eighties were sent on a bypass away from History.

[LooseWilly]

23. I think the majority of DU is just SLIGHTLY left-of-center... the left here is fringe-ified

To say that DU is "solidly on the left" is, in my view, to have no concept of the left.

To say that DU is "solidly on the left" is, in my view, to display oneself as someone who probably thinks that Chris Matthews is "left" (he isn't... he's solidly in the center).

I definitely dispute that DU is "solidly on the left". If DU were solidly on the left, then there would be a consensus that banks who can't show title for the mortgages they bought in bundles... not only can't foreclose on them but can't even continue to collect mortgage payments— those homebuyers should be treated as lottery winners and be granted their homes under the rule "possession is 9/10ths of the law", given the lack of proper chain of title. —That is NOT a consensus opinion here at DU, and that in itself is enough to prove that DU is not a left-leaning site.

DU is a centrist site. The centrists here complain to no end about the leftists who bother them (and aren't "fact based"). If you think DU is a leftist site, then you're pretty much a right of center thinker who's been left behind by the Republican rush to the far right... though you are free to think of yourself as left of center, progressive, or even as a space alien cowboy who's too enlightened to engage in cattle mutilations... that's your bag buddy and I have no interest in raining on your parade.

If one is a leftist, one would not worry about the bottom line of the banks who might suffer when their bundled mortgages unravel and become donations due to a broken chain of titles... because the banks are doing record profits and they'll survive (and if a few more fail, fuck 'em...), better to worry about the people and putting money in their pockets which will actually be circulated, rather than sucked into the investment hole that is Wall St., whose stock prices, dividend payments, splitting payouts, etc. all just become an incestuous fund that gets passed around back and forth by the investor class without ever risking being grubbied up by contact with the people actually working in most of the corporations whose stock is being traded and the profits of whose labor is being distributed in the form of preferred dividends taxed at a preferential capital gains tax rate when collected by said investor class.

[unkachuck]

12. the corporate MSM....

....will never acknowledge us or our ideas as competitive, to do so would be to elevate us and our ideas to their level and give us power and credibility they don't want us to have....

....the corporations, banksters and the wealthy honestly believe they can screw over millions upon millions of people and have their system remain unchanged....

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Alas a new media machine is taking baby steps

:-)

And that is part of the solution actually.

[AntiFascist]

21. I keep thinking about the LA Riots....

There were those who wanted to interpret it as a leftist uprising, but really it was mostly just disadvantaged people who were outraged at the unjustice of the situation (the acquittal of cops who severely beat a black man on videotape). OWS may carry more of a political message, but it is really more about economic justice than it is left versus right. Painting it as the "Far Left" is the primary way in which the MSM will try to divide the movement.