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

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