It looks like Paul Mason’s witterings on the #Occupy movement are causing lots of concern. Here we have a take on his latest pronouncements from B-BBC’s Alan…
“Paul Mason is quite scary…this man is the editor of Newsnight…supposedly a flagship BBC current affairs programme, and yet the editor is reliving his student days….romancing the revolution.
The sheer idiocy of what he says is in fact probably beyond even what many a student drunk on Che Guevara and cheap beer would dare to utter. His main problem is that he believes the MSM doesn’t understand the protests….really? They understand all too well…they are the usual raggle taggle mob that appears to have a go at the ‘Man’ and whose agenda is pure anti-Establishment without any ideas of their own on how to put the economy back n the road.
‘My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.’ ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mason tells us that…
‘Though the place was swarming with media, including a hilarious spoof of a Fox News reporter wearing a flak jacket, the main complaint is that the media is ignoring them and does not understand them. This latter point I think is largely true.’
Mason likes to compare the protestors to the ‘Arab Springers’….what’s that old saying? ‘Careful what you wish for’ as the Egyptians and Co are finding out.
He also suggests this is all because of the internet encouraging a lovey dovey world harmony and single global ‘mind’…’But these protests are a powerful signal worldwide. Their mere existence shows that people are determined to “think globally” about routes out of this crisis – at a time when economics is driving politicians down the route of national solutions. However marginalised they are politically – and in some countries, above all America and Greece, they have broken out of marginalisation – it is still a fact: in 1931, as the remnants of Globalisation 1.0 collapsed, there were no mass international protests against austerity.’
For a Newsnight editor to have never heard of International Communism is strange….especially as so many of his work colleagues are advocates for that ideology….and has he not heard of the IMF etc?
It’s a new democratic movement…for the people by the people….four legs good two legs bad type of thing.
‘What is absolutely clear however, is what they are determined to do: it’s much bigger than any single-issue campaign or cause. They mean to limit the power of finance capital and build a more equal society, while rejecting the hierarchical methods of the parties that once claimed to do so. In this sense the movement is a kind of replacement social democracy; a mirror image of the besuited young people who populate the think tanks of Labour, the SPD, the US Democrats etc.’
and its interesting his final take on the situation…it’s the Banker’s fault, all of it…..’It poses the question “who pays for the banking crisis” very acutely. And large numbers of people are now realising it is going to be them, and more painfully, their children. ‘
No mention of Labour’s huge public sector job creation scheme which put millions on the government payroll and paid them out of borrowings which would be paid off by their children who will also be paying their parent’s, possibly grandparent’s, pensions as well as trying to make a living for themselves.
As to politicians failing to make things more equal….well the facts tell a different story….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/06/will_the_poor_always_be_with_u.html
Here in an interactive graph at the end of the report, the BBC’s very own anti-Tory exocet missile Mark Easton, self destructs and reveals that the evil capitalist Tories presided over a time when income began to be far more fairly distributed amongst the population…..
Seeing that lot dossing out in London has probably given Mason the biggest hard on in his life..well since he saw the Chippendales perfom probably.
What is about the BBC?
A few hundred universal rent a rabble and the BBC is there to give them all the prime time airtime they could dream of.
The rent a rabble consists of anarchists/SWPers/ecotards/UAF street thugs/middle class rabble without a clue upmarket wealthy and guilty of thier status.
The BBC obviously approves of them, loves and indentifies with their revolutionary ideals.
While I no longer dispute that the current protests in hundreds of cities around the world are “anti-capitalist” (as there are many banners condemning capitalism prominently displayed at them) or anti-carbon, I still maintain that they did not start out as anti-capitalist.
It was NOT originally a left wing movement. It was a non-left, non-right, non-corporati-elite movement. It was against all of the lying mainstream media, and all mainstream parties, who in any case are all complicit within the same corporatist corrupt elite. All of those making up the 1%.
This is why it took weeks for the mainstream media to cover them. Even then the media “did not understand the message” which was simply opposed to them and those corporate vested interests which fund them and pull their strings.
The original intention was to protest against corporatism. The unbridled corruption as governments become the bought and paid for puppets of corporations. They were protesting against private banks getting bailed out by the government (the tax-payer) whilst other capitalist, private businesses run by ordinary hard working people were not. It is the corruption of corporatism, where the state and corporations merge to extract money from tax payers, which is what the original protests were triggered by. Capitalism was NOT the enemy.
However, as the “tea party movement” was co-opted by the Republicans, the “Occupy movement” has now been taken over by left wing groups, from left wing media only presenting one left wing message from the protest, to unions to eco-mentalists and all manner of left wing protest groups. Many of the late arriving protesters are now calling for overt communism.
Now that the left wing protest groups have co-opted the Occupy movement, the media have a cogent message which they can broadcast. It fits into their “divide and conquer, left vs right conditioning. Their agenda remains intact.
It is for this reason that these protests will fail. I have friends in the USA who were at the forefront of these protests and they have now left them.
I watched, with a mixture of sadness and ironic amusement, a video of one of the protesters claiming that this movement will not be co-opted, claiming that it is for all of the 99% and then he proceeded to launch into an anti-republican diatribe without likewise calling out the democrats, who (he must have failed to notice) have been in power for 3 years. He was plainly a democrat shill. The Democrats are using these protests as a way to prop up a badly failing President.
What started as an understandable protest against the private banks being bailed out with tax-payer money and the associated criminal frauds of those banks being swept under the carpet, has been co-opted and turned into a left wing protest. Under a capitalist system, those banks would have rightly failed. Under corporatism, the governments have screwed their people to keep the banks afloat, with the complicit help of the Democrats, Republicans and all the mainstream media.
The divide and conquer has succeeded and this protest has failed.
Sadly, as more and more lefties, with their anti-capitalist banners, turn up, then they will fail to realise that they are part of the reason why it has failed.
This is why it took weeks for the mainstream media to cover them.
Not so. There was coverage immediately. The copy-cat protests propped up so quickly because of the media coverage.
However, as the “tea party movement” was co-opted by the Republicans, the “Occupy movement
I think you have that backwards. They tried, sure. Dick Armey formed a national group to fund certain Tea Party activities, and other establishment figures like Gingrich tried ride the wave to the lead. But in fact the Tea Party movement co-opted the Republican Party. Changed the tone, changed the face of a large portion of it. If the Republican Party had co-opted the movement, Christine O’Donnell would never have been a candidateTo say that the Republican establishment took over the Tea Party movement is simply false.
Media coverage of “events”.
In 1992 I joined seven other bedraggled citizens to see Paddy Ashdown at an election stop at a windy playing field in Lewes, Sussex. He decanted from a helicopter which landed 300 yards away pursued by a gaggle of reporters, cameras and minders, waved to an imaginary crowd in the opposite direction to where we stood and then went on to make a “speech” to a dozen of the faithful who had gathered around him. The eight of us rushed across the field where he was speaking but were held back by the Lib-Dem party hacks who asked hackish questions for a couple of minutes. Then Ashdown disappeared into a local school before he was driven to helicopter which took took off again full of the journalists who were following him. The entire visit was around 45 minutes – a total sham acted out for the media. It made the 9 o’clock news – complete with a hack question and answer.
In 2010 I attended a Tea Party rally in Roswell GA, one of many being held that day. There were around 1500 people present. It was good-natured, lively (there was no mention of Obama) and the guest was Herman Cain. He spoke for 15 minutes and then mingled, meeting people and discussing issues and fending off criticism. There was no media present and it was not given even a paragraph in the local press, national or international media.
I was recalling these two experiences a few days ago and wondering how many other such happenings must I endure before I admit to myself the media is simply a LIE. In the last few weeks we’ve seen the nature of reporting towards the “endearing” Occupy Wall Street movement made up of the professional protesting class and endorsed by both the US communists and neo-Nazis. Perhaps a Tea party member has to defecate against a cop car before drawing (the wrong kind) of attention from Mark Mardell and Katty Kay.
Something is wrong, my friends, very wrong.
“Not so. There was coverage immediately. The copy-cat protests propped up so quickly because of the media coverage.”
There was a lot of coverage on twitter, facebook, and lots of youtube video on alternative news sites, but the mainstream media was doing it’s level best to ignore the protest at first. What little coverage it achieved was misleading and critical stating “Even the protesters do not know what they are protesting about”
It had not attained widespread coverage until the media could show “anti capitalist” banners prominently and set the tone of the coverage to mislead and co-opt the movement.
As for the Tea Party, as I recall that movement at the time, (and I was a strong supporter in the first few weeks) it was an independent movement which was getting behind Ron Paul, and many groups got together to host “tea parties” to raise awareness and give food parcels to people who wer less well off, and then there was a “Tea party money bomb” online to raise cash for Ron Paul’s Presidential campain. Then the Republicans stole the label to co-opt the movement as a more patriotic form of republicanism. The anti-war, ‘keep ourselves to ourselves’ and ‘trade with everyone, war with no-one’ message was ejected by those “tea party republicans” like Beck and Palin who would still love to go to war with Iran. This was close in time to the Nov 5th money bomb campaign too in which Ron Paul’s campain made more money online in one day, solely from small individual donations from ordinary Americans, than any other Presidential candidate had in history.
Are you trying to tell me that Palin, A “tea party” darling, is following the original “tea party” policies? Palin is anti war? Anti “entangling alliances?” You must be having a larf!
A good post, this is how I see it. A movement borne of anger, from the loins of the internet, that the media didn’t quite know how to handle.
The media need a term of reference; they need to frame it in their terms. It is a pity that the usual suspects with their ignorance of the real issues (debt, poltiical and corporate corruption, a humoungous bubble that needs to pop) are being seen to latch onto, usurp and therefore diminish this awakening.
I don’t think this was meant to be left or right, merely people saying enough is enough.
I mean how long can tptb ignore the people they are supposed to represent; how long can the blatant disregard go on?
Launch of Autumn season on the BBC….
With the Labour Party somewhat in repose, electorially speaking, minority based ‘angry protests’ are now the main thrust of the BBC’s unofficial opposition.
Until such time as their licence fee partners can pull their act together sufficiently to win an election (with a massive leg up promised from the Beeb) like it or not we will now be served a cold diet of the following:
No end of fake charity shock reports on the baked bean counting honest deserving poor.
Outbreaks of extreme shopping criminal gang flash mobs (ie the ‘angry’ disposssed reclaiming their taxes – not that they’ve paid any)
Sitting pretty ex-pat Irish planning law deniers (ie ‘angry’ victims of ethnic cleansing) Who will be the last to go home in 2012 we wonder? The Essex travellers or the Cuban Paralympic learning difficulty net ball team?
Gap year excluded teenage pseudo-Trots. Youth unemployment? 5 million immigrants, free health care, education (x 3) with a minimum hourly wage for youngsters equal to that (as per BBC figures) of a skilled IT engineer in India or China anyone?
What’s that I see on the horizon? No end of willing volunteers running up the gangplank to sign on with the HMS GB Poverty Well, God bless her and all who sail in her!
Be interesting how much all the BBC monkeys claim in expenses for littering St Pauls etc.
No doubt there`ll be some whacking big donations to the Cathedral to explain it as well.
Still-Beeboid shall tweet unto his civil partners nephew and call it news…the word on the street…the cry of the casbah even!
The rest of us will have to wade through the sileage.
The BBCs concerns now are only their ability to massage and manipulate licensed rebellions of their choosing…no mention of TV licenses, the useless EU, UN or bankrupting evils of socialism or its sock puppet of NuLabor.
Simply a dream catcher of identity grievance pinheads on the make and take…and the BBC howls in positive feedback whilst the rest of us resolve not to give them a peek into anything important or of meaning.
Shut them down!
OccupyLSX OccupyLSX Do you support #OccupyLSX? Guardian poll gives us 87.2% approval ratings (!) – not far off that magic 99% 😀guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/… #ows
So… a tweet from the Graun, about a poll in the Graun ‘gives’ a percentage of Graun blog posters that almost gets to the claimed % of the country ‘behind’ this.
That hashtag also shows Ms. Penny to be in her element.
Enough to surmise that Mr. Mason is going to be Humberting double time down there lickedy split to use the nation’s most trusted broadcaster to tell the public how ‘we’ all support this, as ‘they’ speak for us.
Unique.
Like the Nokabolakov reference, My Site. ‘Humberting’, excellent.
😉
BBC-NUJ’s Comrade MASON behaves like the bankers he so despises.
Just as the bankers expect to be publicly financed so that they can do their own thing, so Mason expects the same for himself.
So many of these “protesters” seem troubled by “unequal distribution of wealth” They don’t seem to get it. Wealth is the reward for those who make or do something others will pay money for. Poverty is the right of those who do neither.
Some people have a bigger slice of pie than others. Mum Mum it’s not fair. No darling, anything other than that is not fair.
They also forgetthat the single greatest redistribution of wealth in favour of the working class in the history of the UK was by Mrs Thatcher with her “Right to Buy” . Oh dear. Suck on that Jeremy Hardy and Billy Bragg.
How politically biased can BBC-NUJ get?
This pathetic, intellectually insulting set-up, with 3 ‘Occupiers’ views versus 1 non-occupier, will be most applauded by Beeboids and their Madrassa of Journalism :
What a phoney set-up. And it happens frequently, BBC-NUJ, as you must cynically know.
Here is how we are insulted yet again. Where’s the apology?
“Occupy London: Your views”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15337279
Perhaps BBC-NUJ statistician M. EASTON would like to assess the statistical bias of this ‘survey’.
All this stupidity only makes it more likely that when the reaction comes it will that more draconian and as far from Mason’s dreams as one could imagine.
The protestors represent nobody except themselves.
I don’t know whether this interesting piece from Harry’s Place on Mason’s far left revolutionary activities has been posted before:-
http://hurryupharry.org/2008/09/22/is-newsnights-economics-editor-a-swper/
The idea of appointing a fringe left wing activist as economics editor would be regarded as a hilarious joke in a serious news operation anywhere else in the world – except perhaps North Korea.
‘I am suprised that Newsnight’s Economic editor – of all things! – feels comfortable participating in SWP events.’
Plotting, however, seems pretty much on the career path description.
‘Cranmer’:-“The misdirected folly of Occupy London”
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/10/misdirected-folly-of-occupy-london.html
I cannot seem to tell the difference between the BBC coverage of Occupy Wall St and RT’s and Press TV.At least I do not have to pay for the latter. The only occupying force would appear to be the BBC. I seem to remember Evelyn Waugh on Face to Face making reference to BBC left wing bias 45 years ago.The BBC is truly a Vile Body.
BBC-NUJ’s Comrade MASON, Father of the NUJ Chapel at ‘Newsnight’, supports ‘Occupy’ protesters, as does Iran regime, despite or because of their illegality and their violence.
“The Ayatollah Supports Occupy Wall Street”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-ayatollah-supports-occupy-wall-street/
“Littlejohn: It’s wealth creators that should protest, not layabouts ”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2050223/Occupy-London-Stock-Exchange-Its-protesting.html#ixzz1b9Ex0CQQ
How predictable: Tweeter Comrade MASON, fully occupied with ‘Occupy’, at our expense:
Still trying to spin his revolutionary yarn, ‘Newsnight’s NUJ rep:
“Paul Mason will be reporting on the spread of the Occupy Wall Street protest to London, where St Paul’s cathedral has become an unexpected focal point in the debate over the future of capitalism.”
Ah, will MASON appear in a mask, like his chum ASSANGE, and like Assange voice a chant for his flock of groupies?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2011/10/tuesday_18_october_2011.html