A sign I saw in Washington DC’s Freedom Plaza read “The Beginning is Near!”. It’s obviously a play on the paranoids’ “the end is near” theme.. but it was wrong.
The Beginning is HERE!
This morning on the show, I told about my trip to DC to participate in the Take Back the American Dream conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, Rebuild the Dream, and MoveOn.org, plus the Stop the Machine – Create a New World October2011.org occupation of Freedom Plaza. I was straddling both worlds of the progressive movement to change this country for the better…
I spoke with Greg Basta of NYCC (New York Communities for Change) , who has been working with the folks at Occupy Wall Street to help grow the movement, and bring organizations to help grow the movement. Follow some of the actions planned in NYC in the coming week on their facebook page: facebook.com/beyondMay12.
I also got hold of Kevin Zeese, one of the October2011 organizers, still at Freedom Plaza in DC, intent on continuing the occupation, even after their permits expired last night at 10pm. We spoke about the peaceful protest, Thursday’s events and march (in which I participated), the agent provocateur who created the conflict at the Air & Space Museum on Saturday, and what they’re planning going forward. I also asked him about their fear of being “co-opted” by establishment progressives.
Although I don’t agree with Kevin on that last part, I am quite supportive of what they are doing. I just believe there’s room for all of us on this side in this fight for what’s right.
In hour two, Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars joined me for our weekly “Fools on the Hill” segment, in which we recap the Sunday (and other) talking head shows. This week, she brought us this:
One of the things that I find so disheartening about living in this country at this particular time is the triumph of stupidity over knowledge. There’s a whole lot of stupidity happening on the Sunday shows and sadly, the media—whom the public expects to inform—contributes to the stupidity constantly.
For example, David Gregory proves his complete lack of worth as host of Meet the Press in an interview with Paul Ryan. Ryan pulled some interesting facts out of his P90Xed posterior—that the House has passed “dozens” of jobs legislation that the Senate refuses to consider— which makes no sense if you think about it even a little, yet David Gregory completely abdicated his responsibility to exercise a little journalistic skills and ask Ryan to explain.
Sometime the truth isn’t what even the media wants to hear. On the new Fox Channel show “The Five”, they agreed that it’s just terrible that Sesame Street has created a new Muppet character to introduce the concept of food insecurity in a prime time special. I mean, who wants children to be aware that some of their classmates may be going to bed hungry and malnourished? That might make them empathetic and they’ll be less likely to be Fox News viewers.
As the Perrys and Palins fall by the wayside in the Republican primary race, the other candidates are jockeying around, trying to find frontrunner Mitt Romney’s weakness. It appears that Romney’s faith may be that Achilles’ heel. After Pastor Robert Jeffress told John King that he couldn’t—as a God-fearing Christian—support a Mormon candidate like Mitt Romney, because Mormonism “is a cult,” Candy Crowley used that as a launching off point to question fellow candidates Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann if they agreed that Romney was not a Christian. Way to kneecap your candidate ahead of the general election, folks.
Surprisingly, the only host that actually practiced some halfway decent journalism was Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday. “ Wallace asked Rick Santorum about his pledge to revoke the revoking of DADT. Wallace reads a quote to Santorum about “using the military for a social experiment” and asks him if he agrees with the sentiment. Santorum says that he basically does and then Wallace tells him it’s a quote from a 1941 treatise regarding racial integration. Santorum then has to backtrack and say that the difference is that homosexuality is a “learned behavior”. Uh huh…all science to the contrary, but hey, let’s not let that bother us.
Finally, we had one of our own on the news shows this week…finally. Jesse LaGreca, better known as Ministry of Truth on DailyKos, was on “This Week” to give his perspective on the Occupy Wall Street protests. And he stood toe to toe with the inane stupidity that is Village wisdom from George Will and made him and the whole status quo protectors look pathetic. If we have enough time, Van Jones and Naomi Klein were on “Up with Chris Hayes” to discuss the Occupy Wall Street protests and for all their talk of lack of message clarity, Jones reminds DC and Wall Street that the protesters have the MORAL clarity.