A Lonely Voice Of Reason Stands Up To Fox's Smears Of Occupy Wall Street
November 04, 2011 9:01 pm ET by Andy Newbold
During tonight's episode of Fox News' The Five, co-host Juan Williams repeatedly attempted to combat the off-the-wall smears of the Occupy Wall Street movement coming from his co-hosts.
First the hosts condemned Jesse Jackson for comparing the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Civil Rights movement. Greg Gutfeld described Jackson's comments as an example of "the usual suspects fading in relevance, salvaging careers, by exploiting class envy." Williams responded by saying that Jackson was "absolutely right" and pointed out that all great examples of social change in America had come about because of protests:
WILLIAMS: Yeah, he's absolutely right when you think about the idea that there's very little change in our country and any society without struggle, without people putting themselves out. You know, Dr. King used to talk about the idea of creative struggle, creative tension. That you would create situations with marches and protests and some cases even break the law. That's why King went to jail. You stop and think about things like the Vietnam War movement, you think about the feminist movement to get votes in this country.
When Gutfeld responded by calling Occupy Wall Street protesters "annoying," Williams retorted that if Gutfeld had been in Birmingham in the '60s, he would have labeled King a "northern agitator."
Bolling also claimed Occupy Wall Street had no "overall message, that's the problem." Williams had to add another dose of sanity to the discussion after that, pointing out that the overall concern of Occupy Wall Street is "income inequality" and that is a message that "a good number of Americans embrace."
Again, immediately after Williams finished his statement, he was attacked by his co-hosts for supporting violent people who, according to Gutfeld, are "reflective" of the overall movement.
Williams called out his fellow co-hosts for claiming that isolated events reflect the entire Occupy Wall Street movement:
WILLIAMS: I don't think those people are reflective of Occupy Wall Street movements all over this country. I mean Atlanta, Baltimore, it goes on and on. And you guys pick out one specific place with one specific -- and Kimberly talks about rapes and bad behavior as if you're condemning the whole movement.
Later, co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle then tried to claim that Occupy Wall Street is a socialist movement and Bolling attacked the movement for supporting income redistribution. Williams responded:
WILLIAMS: You guys say: "You know what, what's been going on in this country is just fine and dandy." [Co-host] Dana [Perino] rightly says we need to have changes, and Dana has her own set of prescriptions. We might disagree, but she has policy prescriptions. If these are folks who say, "let's have change; we're tired of the big guys who control the politicians, control Wall Street, looking out for themselves and screwing everybody else," you guys say: "Oh don't raise a fuss. Don't inconvenience us. Don't block traffic."
Gutfeld then interrupted to say Occupy Wall Street protesters should be more like the tea party who protested "peacefully with permits" adding "nobody got arrested, nobody got raped, nobody got assaulted."
Williams responded by pointing out the real reason why the other co-hosts were so eager to attack Occupy Wall Street:
WILLIAMS: The reasons you guys are so afraid of Occupy Wall Street is --
GUTFELD: Because they're violent.
WILLIAMS: -- because they have the power to change the national narrative and to elect not only Obama, but to elect Democrats in this country.
Bolling then claimed that Occupy Wall Street wanted to change the system away from capitalism. And Williams had to set him straight:
WILLIAMS: Nobody is suggesting there's anything better than capitalism.
BOLLING: No, they all are.
WILLIAMS: I'm a big capitalist. You're a capitalist, and those folks out there are capitalists.
BOLLING: Are not capitalists.
WILLIAMS: They are.
[crosstalk]
WILLIAMS: But let me tell you something. Those are capitalists. You know what?
BOLLING: Self-described non-capitalists.
WILLIAMS: Let me tell you something: There are some things like excesses to every structure. And when you have the bankers and the Wall Street guys gobbling at the trough like greedy pigs, then somebody should say something.
So, Fox again attempted to mock, smear, and vilify the Occupy Wall Street protesters in an effort to continue pushing the network's political agenda. But at least this time, Williams was there to provide a dose of reality.
This a new concept? Good luck with that one, guys.
This is the kind of thinking that explains how Republicans get elected.
Egan writes:
For more about Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous Consequences, Lardner and Smith, ed., click here.
If you're against income inequality, you must be for "income equality".
If you have a binary brain,, "income equality" means everybody gets the exact same amount of money.
And that means socialism.
And you're done thinking. You get to go misspell "socialism" on a homemade sign, and walk peacefully around a park like a barnyard animal.
A couple of them are actually countering the ideas of OWS with exactly what the protests are about.
On another note, bonfires sure can be scary when filmed from the right angle. I'll bet the Fox crew could go to a Boy Scout Jamboree or a beach party and get some footage to frighten the old folks.
It was a lesson on how they should behave themselves.
If I recall correctly he called them "cattle" and "cows" and the people with the money who owned them were "farmers" and "town folk".
I ran a google on it but could not find the video of those few shows
" Our revolution was better because it was invented by and approved of by the authorities"
He needs to come to grips with himself on why he is concerned/afraid when he sees a group of people praying in a different way than he does. I am not a muslim.
If it is because of 911, he is unreasonable.
South Parks OWS
"Fair and balanced" is Orwellian and absolutely disturbing.
I know I say this too much but Eric Bolling is a complete knuckle-dragger. I can't believe Faux gives him a national platform. He just isn't impressive at all and cheapens the conservative brand.
I'd say that is something significant...cannot wait to hear what happens on move your money day.
You are far too stupid for anyone to take your baseless assertions seriously. Pesky brainwashed MORONS like you just spew whatever you are told to think
See comments on the NY Times Story Why Science Majors Change Their Minds .
Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian scores $17 million profit on her faux wedding!
The truth is the the wingnuts are scared to death of the OWS movement so they will do anything they can to smear them--say that they are "violent", "lazy" and "communists." The wingnut hold on America is cracking and they know it.
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Occupy Wall Street is not about Jesse Jackson, it's a leaderless people powered movement for democracy.
And it's not about "income equality" or redistribution, it's about fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.
The guy cited in the item as being a "voice of reason" is instead nothing but a Fox hack whose job is to misinform you about what Occupy Wall Street is, and to misinterpret it as being variously about Jesse Jackson (a controversial and even disliked and mistrusted public showboat) and also about "income equality" and the redistribution of wealth.
It's not about that, and the Fox hack in question is not a "voice of reason", he's every bit as much a shill for corporate and Republican interests as are the rest of the Fox lineup... he's a house ape.
THUMBS UP, THUMBS UP, THUMBS UP . .
I participated in the Haiphong protest in Gainesville in 1972 and I have written letters to my local newspaper in support of marijuana legalization and other liberal issues. It's clearn which side I'm on. Is this why traditional employers have nothing for me?
I rarely agree with either of these folks, and doubt it will come up as often as it should.
But sometimes...Sometimes...The real person breaks through. I hope the rest of the fox news folks have such a person inside.
Sometimes, its hard to see. And sometimes, it happens so fast and so hard, that it leaves me astonished.
Theres a lot to disagree with OWS about -- I say that as someone who supports it fully; very rarely are things perfect. There are very legitimate problems, or at least, things that could be legitimate problems, within OWS. Rape and violence are NOT among them.
And im glad the humanity in Williams let him fight back against the ceaseless, baseless attacks of his cohosts.
Its hard to remember...very hard. But this is a good reminder, that deep inside, these are still human beings.
Conspiracy theories aside, I fully agree with you that it's good to remember that these are still human beings. It's the only way to maintain a constructive approach when engaging someone with a very different point of view.
Other sexual assaults have been rumored to occur in Zuccotti Park, prompting the movement's General Assembly to release a statement condemning the attacks and offering support to the survivors.
"OWS exists within a broader culture where sexual assault is egregiously common: someone in the US is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes, most assaults are never reported, and most rapists are never held to account," the statement reads. "We are creating and sharing strategies that educate and transform our community into a culture of consent, safety, and well-being. At OWS, these strategies currently include support circles, counseling, consent trainings, safer sleeping spaces, self-defense trainings, community watch, awareness campaigns, and other evolving community-based processes to address harm."
Now for Ms. Gullyfoul. Her repeated assertions about "rapes and 3,000 incidents" can only be interpreted as a ploy to rile up enough hatred at the protestors to cause some Reichwhiner to snap and open fire on the crowd. Come to think of it, the efforts to portray the protestors as rapists and sexual deviants is straight out of the civil rights movement in the 60s. Whether or not she's smart enough to know; she is responding to the OWS movement exactly the way that her Reichwing foremothers reacted to the civil rights movement.
Read up on the old Soviet internal media and this is exactly what they did. Faux Noise is just Pravda and Tass.
They don't need to "rile up enough hatred", they merely need to smear the OWS movement so people don't want to associate with OWS. By the time the low information voters are told the truth they won't trust it because they've been conditioned.
I finally found this from WPIX 11. It looks like this dude isn't even an OWS protestor....just a random perv. Unfortunately for OWS, FOX & their ilk ramp this up, and Bloomberg tries to use it as an excuse to get rid of the protestors.
If it is true that the OWS protestors just chased this guy away and 'handled it internally', that's suspicious, but judging by the way the NYPD and the NY mayor's office has been handling the protestors lately, I can understand their suspicion, and trying to avoid the police.