No

by Joseph Arrington

Created on: December 09, 2011

Though the question “Is public opinion turning against the Occupy Wall Street movement?” seems simple enough, it instead creates a minefield of questions in response. Within the movement there are a lot of moving parts. Having chucked the “form a group, appoint a leader, list demands” mindset, which often fails so many groups, in favor of working under consensus and confronting issues as they arise, placed all members on the same page and the same level. Occupy Wall Street has found itself kicked repeatedly for peripheral or non-existent issues about small factions or individual group members, incidental or unrelated to the group itself. Most notably, without a single figurehead or panel to point to, one that approves or disapproves of actions carried out in the name of Occupy Wall Street, there has been a crisis of identity in the press regarding actions carried out by group members, but not brought up to, voted on, or sanctioned by the group being portrayed as actions of the group.

In short, Sandusky is accused of sexually abusing children, not Penn State. While it is true, however, that Penn state is facing a lot of flack for their actions, or the lack thereof, that kept Sandusky in the position to do so, and horribly failing these children, that is not sexual abuse. The buildings and grounds, the students, the faculty, the books in the library, and the food in the cafeteria do not stand accused of sexually abusing this child, one man does. But in many instances the same token has not applied to Occupy Wall Street.

Why is that?

News media which is mostly controlled by, and relentlessly molly-coddling to, the 1% of Americans with enormous wealth, is familiar with striking at any group, on command, by attacking its smaller segment of representatives. The face of any group will invariably contain people with skeletons in their closets. Dig long, deep, and hard enough, you'll find those skeletons. Which is what our nation's news media is geared to do, not debate the ideas being presented by a group, attack the presenters. Instead of informing the public of the group, its ideas, and fostering intellectual debate, one picks off the weakest members they can find, does a little research or question and answer, then presents the issues of a few as the issues of the many. Pats the back all around, and back to trolling for the next attention-grabbing headline.

Except the “kill the messenger” routine of news media landed with a thud when applied to Occupy Wall Street. Just as one is able to find horrible people within the movement, one is also able to find shining examples of great people. And with everyone in the group being on the same level, it becomes harder to cast the entire group in one light or another. In this case, instead of actually approaching the issue with the tools of journalism, news media tried again using skirt issues a la tabloid sensationalism by focusing on the “problems” the group was creating: “whether or not people should occupy public/private spaces,” “what actions are acceptable to evict them from those spaces,” “how much is it costing the municipality to police and clean up after those occupiers,” “what is the time limit on our freedom of speech rights?”

And for the most part, another thud. Yes, some did become preoccupied (Occupy Your Thoughts, if you will) with the questions news media raised. Some, but not most, and certainly not all. No, many in American and the rest of the world just sighed, put down their newspapers, turned off the television, and took to the Internet to provide the real story. They avoided the big names, anything that represented corporate journalism in their book, and turned to the bloggers, amateurs, and even Occupy Wall Street's own journalism efforts, to get the real story. Not most Americans or most of the world, but enough. Enough to see that the picture being crammed down their throats of the movement was a poorly drawn caricature based on a true story.

At this stage, most of the major players in news media have jumped ship on Occupy Wall Street, rather than continue to try to generate a sensational headline out of it. It doesn't bleed, so it just doesn't lead. Whether being tossed aside like yesterday's newspaper will harm or help Occupy Wall Street remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the traditional tactics of news media at gutting a story, ripping out the body in search of the juicy morsels of scandal, perversion, indecency, irony, and ineptitude, doesn't work against a group without traditional leadership.

But the question, “Is public opinion turning against the Occupy Wall Street movement?” remains unanswered here. For the same reason it remains unanswered for the majority of Americans, they have a couple questions.

“What is Occupy Wall Street about?”
“Am I really part of the 99%?”

One must only ask themselves a few simple questions to see where their true feelings are. Do I feel that, despite deceiving investors, selling toxic investments, betting against those, requiring a government bailout, the executives within financial institutions should remain blameless, excessively compensated, and receive a bonus for their work? Can I really understand how banks required a loan half the size of our national debt to keep from collapsing? Am I able to reconcile that welfare assistance for people is supposedly bad social policy, but bailing out banks rife with corruption and malfeasance is okay? Do I really think that “hardworking Americans” should describe people who make tremendous salaries but do very little “heavy lifting” in terms of work, instead of describing those who do the work?

Or, to sum it up in a 30 second soundbite, “Can I accept being a second-class citizen in perpetual servitude to corporate personhood as the new 'American Dream'?”

Ninety-nine percent of people should be answering, emphatically and angrily screaming really, “NO” to the above questions. So, “Is public opinion is turning against Occupy Wall Street?” No. The preceding questions are what really matter, what Occupy Wall Street is about and whether there is a 99% that agrees with them. If nothing else, this may be one of the last nails in news media's coffin, the last great gaffe and circus before we put our reverence of traditional media to bed.

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