Who Do You Love?

Can't help but wonder how Barbara feels about sounding just like the NY Daily News. As I've read different blog posts and watched the media response to OWS, I keep thinking about Greenwald's first post on the subject in which he speculated about what was behind all the progressive sniping of the protesters. 'Course the rightwingers motivation is easier to understand - not much mystery there. Anyway, as these protests pick up steam and spread, it's interesting to keep an eye on who says what. I saw a segment on BBC this morning in which a protester and some rightwing British gob from Manchester were intereviewed together. It was distressing to see that the protester guy was pretty lame, and I wondered if he was chosen for just that reason. I wish they had gotten this guy. But the Manchester tool couldn't have been more of an asshole, and at least I can say that the BBC interviewer challenged him fairly aggressively on some of his more blatant BS. I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't. The segment was marginally better, at least, than this kind of fare that our US media spews.

Anyway, I find my sympathies much more in line with Jared Bernstein who patiently explains:

Protest movements are often born of two interacting injustices: the lack of opportunity and the lack of accountability by the persons perceived to be blocking that opportunity.

Given the facts of the income distribution, the trends in real middle-class incomes and poverty, the failure of policy to do much to change these trends, the government bailouts of the only class that’s benefitted from the recovery so far, the absence of clear punishment/accountability for the financial and political institutions that helped inflate the debt bubble that continues to squeeze economies across the globe, and the dysfunctionality of the current political system (they’re arguing more about whether they can keep the lights on than whether they can help solve the economic problems), the more interesting question is what took so long for such protests to show up?

Exactly. And don't miss the link at the end of that post.

Then again, there's this.

UPDATE: And, um, this. The arrogance is pretty amazing, isn't it? These people have absolutely no fear at all that they will ever be held accountable. Ever. It's unthinkable to them.