Murdoch organ the New York Post wrote an editorial yesterday calling for Mayor Bloomberg to mobilize the NYPD to forcibly remove the OWS protesters at Liberty Plaza Park.
I wrote them back to tell them what horrible people they are. I know it probably won’t change their minds, or make it into print, but it sure helped me to relieve some anger. The letter in full is below the fold
Dear Sir or Madam,
I read your editorial, “Time to throw the bums out”. It is obvious from this editorial that you have contempt and disdain for the protestors, the constitution, and the people of this country. But that’s not why I am writing – as a Murdoch-owned publication, that’s standard practice. I writing to you about this piece for a different reason:
It is full of lies.
You wrote, “No one has greater respect for the First Amendment than this paper.” This is a blatant and sickening lie. People with respect for the first amendment do not complain when others exercise the rights enumerated under it. Instead, you desire people’s constitutionally-protected right to assemble and speak to be curtailed because you find the protestors in Liberty Plaza Park a “nuisance.” Let’s be clear: the freedom to exercise constitutional rights is more important than any of the complaints you bring up about OWS.
You wrote, “What began as a credible protest against bank bailouts, crony capitalism and the like has, in large measure, been hijacked by crazies and criminals.” When the OWS protests began you did not portray them as “a credible protest against bank bailouts, crony capitalism and the like” but rather as “crazies and criminals”. That has been your agenda from the start. But OWS is no more full of “crazies and criminals” now than it was before – they exist, but are in a clear minority.
Both the above-quoted sentences are part of the tapestry of a larger lie, which is that you have covered this matter evenhandedly and responsibly. From the beginning your paper has been set on portraying the OWS movement as a radical fringe movement, marginalizing them as much as possible to prevent having to deal with their critique of our political economy. The fact is that, as a press organ that makes up a small part of a worldwide media conglomerate, your institutional biases are obviously in favor of the corporatocracy and its ugly hijacking of capitalism. As such, it is no surprise you rail against normal people with the temerity to call out corporate greed.
The way that you have perverted the legacy of Dorothy Schiff is so horrendous that if anyone of your employees had any integrity they would have quite long ago. I do not think it would be possible for me to hold you, collectively, in higher disdain.
McCain? Strong ethical standards? Seriously. For himself, for his whole life, the bar has just been so low. Rolling Stone did a biography that was just amazing a couple of years back.
Actually, yes. I have done work for poor people. Poor people hire each other to do their work when the economy is booming and there’s more work than time. Think: lawn mowing, painting, dog-walking, baby-sitting. That’s how money moves up in the economy, from the bottom to the top, not by rich people waving $100 bills and then sticking them back in their wallets. So you can see the notion that poor people don’t hire each other is just a lie that you never thought about before parroting before, entirely untrue. More on Colorado Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
“Surprising”? Why would anybody be surprised that Ann Coulter would compare protesters to Nazis? It’s just how her mind works. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
No, it is not clear at all that the money collected from secret donors for an organization like this can be used to affect the electoral process. While lawyers who work for those on the right have interpreted the “insignificant” amount of donations that can be so used to mean “less than 50%”, it appears that the IRS might take a different position on it. The Citizens United ruling does not concern this particular type of organization, for which almost all of the money collected is supposed to be used for “social welfare”.
If they lose their status (some have actually never received approval, I can think of one that was recently disallowed because they never bothered to apply), it could be a disaster. Either all the donations would have to count as earned income on which the organization would pay taxes, or they could convert to another type and suddenly all the donors would be made public. It was a mistake for any of them to proceed as though approval was a foregone conclusion. More on Campaign Finance Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Walker was no doubt convinced by right wing propaganda that union-busting and pension-elimination were strategies that would send businesses flocking to the state. He hammered that through and it is clear it had the opposite effect. Wisconsin’s economy is failing faster than other states that have not done this.
So the plan is to trick companies from other states to move to WI and then send his unemployed to other states to take their jobs.
I signed a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate and President Barack Obama, which says:
“Forgiving the student loan debt of all Americans will have an immediate stimulative effect on our economy. With the stroke of the President’s pen, millions of Americans would suddenly have hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of extra dollars in their pockets each and every month with which to spend on ailing sectors of the economy. As consumer spending increases, businesses will begin to hire, jobs will be created and a new era of innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity will be ushered in for all.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, strongly encourage Congress and the President to support H. Res 365, introduced by Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-MI), seeking student loan forgiveness as a means of economic stimulus.”
