The sun is up and another glorious early Fall day is upon us here in Salt Lake City. Temperatures are back up and the sunshine has returned - what lovely weather for a protest occupation of Pioneer Park in solidarity with #OccupyWallStreet!
#OSLC (hub here , Twitter here and here , national Occupy Together hub here ) will be holding an assembly at 11 AM MST, followed by a march at high noon and a general assembly at 7:30 PM.
If you've noticed a lack of right-wing punditry regarding #OWS here, it's because I've been struggling with what coverage of these protests to include and what not to. I've tried to stay focused on the Salt Lake event, and have omitted most news coverage from sources here in the valley because they have been uniformly awful and uninformative, repeating the same talking points ("these wacky kids don't know WHY they're here, but Wall Street might not actually be totally cool and okay, so whaddya gonna do?") and snapping the same pictures of jugglers with dreadlocks and bongo players.
I can't speak to #OWS nationally, but Occupy Salt Lake is a diverse gathering of people from all walks of life with one thing in common - they're ticked off at the shoddy treatment they have received as a result of the collusion of government and big business, and are awake to the fact that the kleptocrats at the top of the American hill of skulls are not only the actual villains in this story, but are also far from invulnerable.
The diversity of the aforementioned walks of life from which Occupados come brings me to the first (and hopefully only) right-wing response I'd like to discuss.
World Net Daily is a conservative news and opinion website that ranks right up there with Free Republic or Stormfront as a far-right clearinghouse of vile garbage. WND has the distinction of being the progenitor and continuing headquarters of the "Barack Obama wasn't born in America so he can't really be President" delusion, a long-disproved conspiracy theory that still haunts the Republican base like an eerie wind howling through a dead cornfield.
Joseph Farah, who was a real journalist once upon a time, penned a column on Tuesday, 10/11/11, called "Tea party vs. Wall Street occupiers." It begins with his typical whiny bitching about the meanies in the liberal media, but he pretty quickly gets to his thesis, which is that the Tea Party was a movement with clear goals that were Constitutionally awesome and the Occupados are socialist scum who want Big Guvmint to crush human dignity. He also takes this little shot at the #OWS crowd and their supporters:
And who are the 'occupiers?' Have you heard them interviewed? Do any of them sound like they know what they're talking about?...Are they people of accomplishment? Do they have a work ethic? Are they the kind of salt-of-the-earth Americans you would like as neighbors?
Joseph, I'm glad you asked.
Tune in tomorrow to meet the occupiers.
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