The New Yorker has just published a lengthy article on the early formation and leadership of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Entitled Pre-Occupied - The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street by Mattathias Schwartz. It's 13 pages, well written and fascinating. Well worth a read in its entirety here
What struck me was a collective impression of the leaders of the movement. I would probably personally like all of them. As a group, they would certainly make for a fascinating guest list for a dinner party!
However, I can also see how anybody with a desire to oppose progressive/populist values could easily have spun their reporting to make this group appear disturbing and perhaps subversive to middle-America.
More after the orange flourish......
So --- here are some of the early movers and shakers of the Occupy Wall Street movement according to the New Yorker.
Kalle Lasn founder of Adbusters
Lasn was born in Estonia....moved to Canada
OH MY! One of the key originators of this populist AMERICAN movement is a foreigner! OK OK --- I know that some republican presidential candidates don't know that Canada is a foreign country --- at least not when we are trying to import (suck up) their Tar Sands Oil. But Still.....
Lasn has long used the magazine as a platform for stridently criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and his most controversial moment came in 2004, when he wrote an essay on how Jews influence U.S. foreign policy.
I don't know if any of that is automatically anti-semitic -- but it could certainly be spun that way.
Micah White, Adbusters’ senior editor and Lasn’s closest collaborator.
White, who lives in Berkeley
(radical breeding ground and again a foreign country!) probably knows Markos (another point against Micah)
He associates with atheists (oh my oh my)
In high school, he founded an atheists’ club, over the objections of the principal. This led to an appearance on “Politically Incorrect,” and atheist organizations flew White to their conferences to give talks.
But now describes himself as
Though he describes himself as a “mystical anarchist",
(I don't know which is more interesting -- but I like this guy)
Justine Tunney,
she registered OccupyWallSt.org, which soon became the movement’s online headquarters.
and also... is a
transgender anarchist.
Two points for Justine -- and one additional point for being the "first-follower".
David Graeber, who is described as....
a fifty-year-old professor at the University of London and an anarchist theorist
Now we are adding intellectuals to the list along with the other foreign, atheist, anarchist, and transgender folk.
Next add to our list Marisa Holmes, another early leader...
a twenty-five-year-old anarchist and filmmaker.
anarchist AND filmmaker -- must be a "Hollywood" type -- probably communist as well -- and we all know how subversive they can be.
WOW -- foreign, atheist, anarchist, and transgender, intellectual, filmmakers. I am thoroughly fascinated. Who wants to be at the dinner party with these guests? I do.
BUT you all get my point --- anybody opposed to progressive/populist viewpoints would have had some good material to use when working up a little fear of the "other".
So my question to you all is.... How or why did the mainstream media chose to go with the "leaderless" meme instead of focusing on any or all of the above?
NOTE: The New Yorker article quoted above does not count -- since we all know that "real americuns" don't read that intellectual rag.
Also an interesting point -- since anarchist are mentioned several times -- The New Yorker article describes anarchists in the following way....
“dedicated to the eradication of any unjust or illegitimate system."
Sounds like a good definition of Christian to me!