National Review ran yet another dissection of the complete collapse of Detroit last week.

One of the key lessons – giving unions carte blanche neither bolsters middle-class wages nor general prosperity:

One lesson to learn from Detroit is that investing unions with coercive powers does not ensure future private-sector employment or the preservation of private-sector wages, despite liberal fairy tales to the contrary, nor do protectionist measures strengthen the long-term prospects of domestic firms competing in highly integrated global markets. We cannot legislate away comparative advantage or other facts of life. But the problem of unions’ coercing distortions in the private sector is at this point a relatively small one, given the decline of unionization outside of government. Organized labor being a fundamentally predatory enterprise, its attention has turned to the public sector, where there are fatter and more stable rents to be collected.

Also – taxing ones’ way to prosperity is merely the road to madness:

The second important lesson to be learned from Detroit is that there are hard limits on real tax increases, a fact that will be of more immediate significance in the national debate as our deficit and debt problems reach crisis stage. Even those of us who are relatively open to tax increases as a component of a long-term debt-reduction strategy must keep in mind that our current spending trend is putting us on an unsustainable course in which our outlays will far outpace our ability to collect taxes to pay for them, no matter where we set our theoretical tax rates.

Detroit was a cold Greece long, long ago.

 But tax rates are not the only incentive: Google is not going to set up shop in Somalia. Healthy governments create conditions that make it worth paying the taxes — which is to say, governments are a lot like participants in any other competitive market (with some obvious and important exceptions).

And one of the keys to that is that creating a “healthy government” isn’t much different than creating a “healthy teenager”, in health doesn’t’ mean “giving them everything they think they need”.

The benefits of being in Detroit used to be worth the costs, but in recent decades millions of people and thousands of enterprises large and small have decided that is no longer the case. It is not as though one cannot profitably manufacture automobiles in the United States — Toyota does — you just can’t do it very well in Detroit. No one with eyes in his head could honestly think that the services provided by the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan are worth the costs.

The lesson there:  while government is necessary to create the legal stability needed to do business of any kind, when government’s main mission becomes sustaining itself, it defeats that purpose.

The third lesson is moral. Detroit’s institutions have long been marked by corruption, venality, and self-serving. Healthy societies have high levels of trust. Who trusts Detroit?

Without some other overarching reason to stay there?  And in Detroit – without the location and markets of a New York (I’m thinking in the Dinkins era, of course) or the resources of a New Orleans or the weather of a Miami?  There’d be no reason.

What is true of Detroit is true of the country. Our national public sector not only is bloated and parasitic, it is less effective, less responsible, and less honest than that of many other developed countries, including New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and Germany. I am not an unreserved admirer of Transparency International’s global corruption-perceptions index, but I believe that it is in broad outline accurate. Liberals are inclined to learn the wrong lessons from the relative success of countries such as Canada or New Zealand, concluding that what we need is a bigger welfare state, government-run health care, etc.

And as it’s true for the nation, it’s true for Minnesota.

Who has spent the last year trying to expand the coercive power of Minnesota unions, by trying to unionize home daycare providers and expending boundless political capital on stopping the Right to Work amendment?

Whose entire substantive platform (other than “create chanting points for the Alliance for a Better Minnesota”) is “raise taxes?”

Whose administration is focused on obstructing efforts to curb corruption and safeguard the state voting system?

I’m not saying Mark Dayton is trying to be a Detroit-style governor.

I’m just saying that if he were, I can’t think of anything he’d be doing differently.

Maybe “get indicted for something”.  Other than that, I got nothing.

The sexual shenanigans of John Edwards, Elliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton and Andrew Weiner define the entire history of the Democratic Party. Everything about the Democrats – their beliefs, their policies, their legacy, the intellectual currents that led to the DFL being what it is today – all of it.  Every single aspect of Democrat life and thought in America is defined by affairs, hookers, harassing interns, and sending pictures of one’s wedding tackle.

More locally?  Jim Metzen’s drunk driving arrest is, in fact, the action that defines the DFL Party in Minnesota – all its activities, its policy positions, everything.

And at both levels, those incidents show the brazen hypocrisy of Democrats, in Minnesota and nationwide.

———-

Now, you might read the above, and say “Hey, wait! Those actions, by individuals and small groups, do not, in and of themselves, “define” an an entire party.  They’re the actions of individuals, which have had consequences”.

And you’d have a point.

And my point is, in response, you’d be a smarter person, more logical writer and more ethical columnist than the Strib’s Jon Tevlin.

Although it’s not like you couldn’t see this one coming:

A short history of the current Minnesota GOP, in their own words:

June 2009: Members of the GOP’s Central Committee elect Tony Sutton as chairman.

“Yeah, we’re in soul-searching phase, but I think we’re coming to the end of that,” Sutton said. “I think we’re starting to get our sea legs back. We have to get back to our philosophical roots, so when we talk about fiscal responsibility, we mean it. We have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. ”

June 2009: “We went way off track in the last eight years,” said Sutton. “The party of fiscal responsibility was spending money like crazy in Washington.”

Repeat through a series of quotes involving Tony Sutton and his predecessor, Ron Carey, talking about how they were in the midst of leaving the party in better financial shape than they found it.

And not just leadership.

June 2009: Rep. Steve Drazkowski runs for office, emphasizes his “rural values,” which included tax cuts, fiscal responsibility and gun rights.

And not just money.  No, Tevlin found examples of Republicans uttering the dreaded “V” word – Values.

March 2010: Sutton tells Minnesota Public Radio the GOP is trying to convince Tea Party members it’s returning to core values: “We’re going to have to do it through our actions, not just words. We had spent eight years of being the party of so-called fiscal responsibility, but were spending money like drunken sailors.”

The word is like catnip to partisan pundits from the left and media (pardon, as always, the redundancy), who love bagging on (other groups’) values, when individuals don’t live up to them.

But only when they’re the values of the right.

A columnist could find a rich vein of jape-worthy material on the left, of course.  One could mock the left’s bepspoke “commitment’ to “education”, while they and major benefactor, the teachers’ unions, preside over a system that is (at least in Democrat urban areas) collapsing in every area but budget.

A truly curious columnist could squeedge boundless yuks from a party that proclaims sensitivity to the poor, while marching in lock step behind policies that do nothing but keep them poor.

A talking (typing?) head might cavort and romp around the fact that the DFL keeps gays in line as voters by paying lip service to a concept that they, from their president on down, only rarely support when it’s their actual vote on the line, barring the odd flurry of lip service before elections.

A columnist with genuine interest in holding institutions accountable might note that there is a party whose “values” claim to support children on the one hand but kill millions of them a year on the other, and whose “support” for “the family” is manifested in policies that are destroying the family.

That same columnist might note that the DFL is in plenty of debt itself, even after farming out its messaging operation – the parts that the Strib, WCCO, KARE, the City Pages, the programming side of MPR, and the entire Sorosphere don’t cover, anyway – to the plutocrat-and-union-financed “Alliance for a Better Minnesota“, which essentially does all of the DFL’s PR work gratis.

But Jon Tevlin is none of those.  He was hired to do Nick Coleman’s old job; be the “bad cop” to Lori Sturdevant’s “good cop” on the Strib’s DFL narrative-buffing team.

And that narrative is that this…:

March 2011: Alex Conant, a spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, assesses the legacy: “Hopefully, Gov. Pawlenty’s record of fiscal responsibility and government reform will be a model for the future.”

…and this…:

March 2011: “I believe so much in that personal responsibility concept and that city officials must be masters of their own fate, as pleasant or unpleasant as it is,” said Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake.

…and this…:

February 2011: All 37 Senate Republicans send a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton that restated their complete opposition to his plan to raise $3.3 billion in taxes, mostly on the wealthy. “We do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.”

…are completely, utterly and irrevocably negated by this:

May 2011: The GOP misses the first of many rent payments on their headquarters.

April 2012: The GOP’s landlord files eviction papers against the GOP, saying it owes $111,000 in rent, which it hasn’t paid in a year.

…which serves as a blanket indictment of this…:

October 2011: Hennepin County Commissioner, national committeeman and fiscal “watchdog” Jeff Johnson writes in a blog about Occupy Wall Street: “I frankly get very annoyed at the propensity of some to blame our greatest problems on the free market or successful businessmen and women rather than on government policies and the politicians who have gotten us into this massive mess.

You can tell Tevlin’s a professional.  He uses “scare quotes” to as a written substitude for giggling theatrically when saying “watchdog”, as if Jeff Johnson – who, a columnist with integrity would note, has led the effort to get the GOP’s budget house in order – were some profligate wastrel.

1. It’s election time.
2. The DFL, with no legislative achievements to talk about at any level, needs help.
3. So the Strib will get back on narrative patrol, no matter how they have to waterboard logic, fact, ethics or context to do it.

Expect a “Minnesota Poll” any day that shows Minnesotans think the GOP should sit this election out to sort out its finances.  I’d almost put money on it…

…but I’m way too fiscally responsible for that.

The “Million Mom March” – which, lately, draws fewer “moms” than pro-gun activists to its “events” – and “Citizens for a “Safer” Supine Minnesota, famous for never having once published a single fact in any of its press releases, and whose leader (and, let’s be honest, only member) Heather Martens has given this blog ten years of too-easy material, have had to “merge” (hahahahaha).  They are “Protect Minnesota“, now.

Rumor has it that they had to change the names in large part because their old names have become so utterly synonymous with dishonesty and providing false information.

This blog is happy and proud to have contributed to that.  And I dedicate its next ten years to extinguishing the group completely, preferably by humiliating them into an inescapable political shame spiral.

Although a little bird at the capitol tells me Heather Martens may be doing that herself; she reportedly approached a prominent Republican lawmaker with a model bill that was an attempt at a compromise on “Stand Your Ground”; Ms Martens claimed it had been approved by the NRA.

The lawmaker called the NRA.  They’d never heard of it, and did not approve.  Martens had lied, not that this surprises anyone who’s read this blog over the past ten years; if Heather Martens drops a hammer and claims it will hit the floor, don’t buy it until you hear the thump.

Just saying – it’s hard to humiliate an organization like “”Citizens for a “Safer” Supine Minnesota”…er, “Protect” Minnesota, when they do it so well themselves.

When I saw that Eric Black – formerly of the Strib, now at the Minnpost – had written a piece entitled “Redistricting maps give DFL advantage in legislative races, but …”, I went “uh oh”.

I mean, Eric Black is no leftyblogging bobblehead.  He’s one of the Deans Of Minnesota Political Journalism (although to be fair Minnesota Political Journalism has more deans than the MNSCU system).

And while I don’t want to frame the redistricting in especially partisan terms, the fact is that the maps didn’t really adequately reflect Minnesota’s most important current demographic trend – people fleeing the failed DFL-controlled Twin Cities and Duluth, and moving to areas that actually work, which are universally and without exception GOP-controlled.   They bent over backwards to maintain the Twin Cities’ control over Minnesota politics, especially at the Congressional level.

Now – before I get into Black’s actual piece, here – let’s go over a tiny little bit of the theory of journalism.

Print journos know that the number of people who actually read any given point in a story drops, almost geometrically, the further into the story you get.  If 1000 eyeballs scan the headline, 100 might read the opening paragraph or two.  Of those 100, 10 might plod through the middle.  If there’s a jump, or if it takes longer than a few minutes to plod through, barring some immediate personal interest, 1 might get to the end of the piece (the numbers are made-up, but they’re neither gratuitously far-off nor conceptually wrong).

So copy editors write headlines that try to lure as many eyeballs as possible into the story – and generations of editors have groused at reporters “don’t bury the lede” – because in print news (and its red-headed stepchild, online journalism), the first impression may be the only impression you get.

And with that headline and its key message- DFL ADVANTAGE!!!! – ringing in my mind, I tucked into the rest of the story:

When the new decennial map of Minnesota’s legislative districts was unveiled in late February, most neutral observers said the DFL had won the battle for a favorable map. But the degree of the DFL victory may have been understated. If the map is destiny (which it isn’t, but it can change the odds), the DFL may have a decent shot at taking back control of both houses of the Minnesota Legislature in the 2012 election.

The degree of DFL victory “may have been understated”.

That’s the lede.  And ledes are important for that portion of Minnesota’s population that reads past the headline – which, as we established in the headline, says the maps were a big win for the DFL (“but…”).

And who – other than those “neutral sources” – is behind this claim (and I’ll add emphasis):

DFL State Chair Ken Martin recently told me that the way his party scores the partisan lean of the new districts, the DFL has at least a slight advantage in 73 House districts and 34 Senate districts. If (a big “if” unless and until it happens) the DFL candidates were to prevail in those districts, it would give the party a substantial (73-61) majority in the House and a bare (34-33) single vote majority in the Senate.

So after a headline and a lede that proclaim that the DFL was the big winner, we get the source – Ken Martin.  The Chair of the DFL, after coming from “Win Minnesoita“, which is part of the DFL money shell-game that pays for all the DFL’s attack ads (and thus, all of its messaging, period).

That’s it.

So to the reader’s perception, the story really says THE DFL HAS A HUGE ADVANTAGE (according to the head of the DFL).

And we know this…

To be precise for the total political wonks in the audience, the DFL has developed a methodology that looks – precinct by precinct – at DFL votes across the last many elections. (As you can imagine, the partisan breakdown of a precinct can vary from year to year and from race to race within a given year.) The DFL method massages the numbers into what it called the DPI (Democratic Performance Index) of each precinct. And now that they know which precincts go with which state House and Senate districts, they can calculate which districts have a DPI of greater than 50 percent, which means that the DFL should have an advantage in winning and hold that seat.

…because the DFL did a bunch of math…

Before you get too excited (or upset, depending on your partisan preference) you should know that:

a) Martin didn’t release the map of the DFL-leaning districts nor the numbers on which the calculation is based, so skeptics cannot check his statement;

b) The Pioneer Press, which published a similar calculation, reached a significantly less favorable DFL number on the Senate map. (The Pi-Press analysis did indicate that the DFL has the map potential to take back control of the House and gain ground – but enough for control – in the Senate); and

c) Everyone that I interviewed for this post assured me that, while the map is important, it is neither the only nor even the most important thing.

…which was likely b*llsh*t, and even the media knows it.

But it’s worth, apparently, putting as an unvarnished headline and lede.

Why?

Because it’s one of the narratives the DFL wants spread far and wide; their success is inevitable.  Don’t ask why – they won’t tell you.  Just keep repeating it, Dems.  Just interenalize it, conservatives!

The DFL’s main hope this election is to drive down conservative enthusiasm – which slaughtered them two years ago – and try to create some sort of bandwagon effect on the left.

Prediction:  An upcoming Minnesota Poll or Humphrey Institute survey will show that A MAJORITY OF MINNESOTANS (from a sample that over-counts DFLers 3:2) APPROVE OF DAYTON’S JOB AS GOVERNOR.

To: Bruce Springsteen
From: Mitch Berg, Once And Always Fan
Re:  Janteloven.

Mr. Springsteen,

I’ve been a huge fan since I was a kid.  Since before I became a conservative, even.

When you’re a conservative Springsteen fan, you get used to the occasional churlish phumpher from some ideology-addled lib scold; “have any of you actually listened to Springsteen’s lyrics?”  To which I reply “yes – in a level of detail people like you only devote to stalking Michele Bachmann.  My question for you is, have you actually listened to the lyrics, especially on his first five or six albums, without passing them through your PC filter?”

They rarely answer.

But the fact remains that you, starting in about ’84, but escalating since 2004, have been slathering yourself and your music with politics – which, like most showbiz-lefty politics, is showy, shallow, shrill, and skin-deep.

Like in your conversation with a Swedish radio station recently. Tim Blair writes:

The Boss goes all svag and hopplöst:

Bruce Springsteen wants to see the United States transformed into something closer to a Swedish-style welfare state, the rock legend said Thursday …When asked if he thought the United States should be changed into something closer to a Swedish-style welfare state, Springsteen responded enthusiastically …

Now, whenever “Springsteen music” comes up in conservative circles – as in Blair’s comment section – you get a slew of standard responses; “haters”, I believe the kids call ’em today.  You hear a lot of the same lines over and over:

• “Springsteen’s music sucks!” – Well, there’s no accounting for taste as a general rule, but…no.  That is objectively, empirically, physically false.
• “He’s got no talent” – Wrong again.  He’s a great guitar player, one of the greatest songwriters of the rock and roll era (only Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richard, Leiber/Stoller and a few others come close to the impact he’s had, commercially and artistically).  And you just try to arf out a tune, much less in tune, during a three-hour concert, even in your thirties, much less when you’re over sixty, like Bruce, much less without stripping your vocal cords bare and shooting them out your mouth with his “all lung-power” vocal technique?  You can’t do it, whoever you are.  No.  You can’t.  Any of those are talent.  Together, they an amazing combination.
• “Sprinsteen’s politics are dumb, and he should just shut up and sing” – Well, OK.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

Good example?  Blair points out Bruce’s paean to the fleabaggers:

It’s impossible to know what young Bruce would have made of the Occupy movement, but old Bruce is down with the deadbeats:

“The temper has changed. And people on the streets did it. Occupy Wall Street changed the national conversation …

“Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no push back at all saying this was outrageous – a basic theft that struck at the heart of what America was about, a complete disregard for the American sense of history and community.”

Springsteen is worth four times as much as Michael Moore, and he’s still bitching.

Sigh.

It is a simple fact that the “Holy Trinity” – Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town andThe River – are three of the greatest albums in the history of rock and roll.  There is no rational way of denying that.  Absolutely incandescent albums, crammed with moments that grab me and tens of millions of other people right in the liver, sometimes sending a shiver up my spine, others a smokey glimmer of understanding.  And not a partisan political moment in the bunch.  Not that that’d matter, necessarily – although they’d be a tangent that’d really make no sense on any of the records.  I mean, would “Backstreets” have been a better song had the estranged lovers been driven apart by evil capitalists?  Would “Rosalita” have been better if Bruce had gotten a big advance from the Carter campaign instead of the record company?   If what (what) Candy (Candy) wanted (wanted) was (was) his talking points list?

Of course not.

And Nebraska, Tunnel of Love, The Rising and The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle are all wonderful in their own right, full of things – stories, lessons, hooks, characters – that have accompanied me through good and bad times throughout my entire adult life, from junior high through 9/11.

And nothing’s going to change that.

But in your own amiably earnest way, you are turning into a thinner, less-grim, less-outrageous, but vastly wealthier Michael Moore.

It’s the dirty little secret for conservatives who are Bruce fans:  the more into politics he got, the less interesting his music became. Born in the USA was…good, with a few great moments. The relentlessly-political Ghost of Tom Joad got tiring.  And his work since The Rising?  Kinda rote and not that interesting, musically or thematically.

Ah. Bruce.  Sorry you’ve gone off the rails.  We’ll always have the Holy Trinity.

If the Minnesoa left has a boogieman in this cycle, it’s the “American Legislative Exchanage Conference”, better known as ALEC.

Founded and run by that other perennial boogieman of the hysterial left, Grover Norquist, ALEC pushes a conservative agenda by hosting get-togethers and suggesting legislation to – wait for it – legislators.  Mostly conservative ones.

Sort of like the AFLCIO, the Ntaional Rifle Association, National Education Association, and practically every other  organization that  pokes is nose into legislation at the state level.

For the past year, a phalanx of leftybloggers and regional media have been passing on the meme hat ALEC is somehow different.  More sinister.

Some have called ALEC a “lobbying” group – which is odd, inasmuch as legislators actually pay to join the group.

Now,the coverage “coverage” of ALEC throughout the lefty alt-media has been utterly uniform in what it mentions (model bills!) and also what it omits (paid memberships), to the point that I’d bet money that the entire campaign is being run by “Media Matters” or some other lefty spin organization.

Just a hunch, mind you.

I bring it up because Beth Hawkins piece earlier this  week about an ALEC initiative on education legislation which reads in its entirety like a news release from a lefty attack-PR firm…

…but omits a number of the key facts that one might expect a “reporter” to provide in covering a “story” – the who, what, when yadda yadda.

Last week, the Minnesota House of Representatives did not meet on Thursday or Friday. The state Senate held a handful of hearings Thursday, but was in recess Friday.

Which was terribly convenient for those members of the Republican caucuses who are also members of the secretive, controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which recently issued members this invitation to a confab where it was to roll out its 2012 legislative agenda:

 

You can plug your nose and read Hawkins’ piece for the details,such as they are.

Hawkins channels Sally Sorenson, snarking that the recess “was terribly convenient” for liegislators who are also ALEC members.

So – who went?

Anyone?

Hawkins tacitly admits she hasn’t a clue – and tries to fob her negligence as a reporter off on the legislators:

If you want to know whether your elected official was one, you will have better luck calling and asking as a constituent than reporters have had.

It’s striaght out of Jesse Ventura’s “Conspiracy Theory”; lack of evidence is, itself, evidence of a coverup!

“It’s complete BS”, said a source on Capitol Hill familiar with the issue.  The source was not aware of any legislators attending the event – “maybe one”, and that seemed like a long shot.

Read the piece.  See if you can find anything in it that doesn’t look like it came from a press release.

And then remember Berg’s Seventh Law of Liberal Projection:  “When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds”

The left is harping on ALEC because the the left’s pressure groups – “Alliance For A Better Minnesota”, “Win Minnesota”,and the various unions’ political arms – are about to launch a wave of smear and noise that dwarfs ALEC by many orders of magnitude.

It’s what the media – “alternative” and otherwise does; create whispering campaigns about conservative conspiracies to draw attention away from the real thing.

I’m open to other explanations.

“Occupy Minnesota” “protesters” disrupt a Henco Commission meeting by…

…well, basically, kicking their feet and sputtering like spoiled four-year-olds.

The footage above is by Bill Sorum at “The Uptake”, the lefty astroturf vidblog.  Sorum writes hilariously:

Since the occupation began on October 7, there have been a number of attempts to remove the protestors from The People’s Plaza ( also known as the Hennepin County Government Plaza).

No, Bill.  It’s known as Hennepin County Government Plaza.  A bunch of spoiled dilettantes are calling it People’s Plaza, but nobody that anyone in Henco voted for made that decision, so…no. It’s not People’s Plaza.

But since y’all are so concerned about First Amendment rights on the plaza, maybe Minnesota Concealed Carry Reform Now should have its next open carry picnic there.  Maybe this Sunday.  Because we’re all about rights, too.

To: “Ed Brayton” of “Free Thought Blogs”

From: Mitch Berg, “Right Wing Conspirator”

Re: Your Response Has Made Me Slam My Face Into My Palms So Many Times My Forehead Is Getting A Callous.

Ed,

I noticed in my pingbacks that you responded to my obit of the Minnesota “Independent” / Minnesota Monitor

Here’s the dumbest thing anyone has said so far about the transition that the American Independent News Network is undergoing. It’s the usual right-wing boogeyman being trotted out: “Soros pushes the ‘flush’ lever.” Sorry, but AINN had not received any funding from a Soros organization in years.

Maybe – and irrelevant.

For starters, Soros-funded organizations were involved with the franchise early in its existence; the deliciously-ironically-named “Center for Independent Media” got its start in a spare office at “Media Matters”, and you can’t get more Soros-backed than that.

Which is fine – Soros has First Amendment rights, too.  The problem was, for the first year or two of the blog’s existence, “editor” Robin Marty stonewalled and denied there was any connection – up until Eric Black confirmed, as he left the blog for the greener (fiscal) pastures at the MinnPost that yes, Soros was one of the sugardaddies that kept the lights on.

Beyond that, though, Mr. Brayton?  “Soros” is a sort of shorthand on the right for every “liberal with deep pockets” that is practicing checkbook advocacy, from Alita Messinger to Michael Moore to everyone in between. Sort of like “Fox News” is the lib’s code term for the left’s belief that the media is really conservative, or “ALEC” or “Koch Brothers” or “Richard Mellon Scaife” are the belief that conservative thought just has to be inorganic and merely a front for some sort of shadlowy Scrooges in the background.

These people really do think that anyone who has ever gotten money from any organization that Soros has given money to actually works for Soros and that he calls the shots — even if there hasn’t been any such funding relationship in a long time.

{Facepalm}

No, we really don’t “really do” think that.

What we do think is that, somehow, the Mindy – which has never run ads, but has always paid its “staff” the kind of money that no conservative blog with the Mindy’s middling-to-low traffic numbers ever gets – is getting its bills paid by someone who feels the need to underwrite “progressive” media.  Is it George Soros?  Or is it someone else?  For purposes of criticizing the liberal alt-media, it’s a distinction with only an academic difference.  y t

It’s just another way life on Planet Wingnuttia differs from the reality on this planet.

But only if you ignore all context.  Which is just another way life on Planet Progressive Alt-Media differs from the reality on this…oh, wait, you already used that.

Oh, and he also says that the organization has “always been a hothouse flower – something that couldn’t exist without massive outside support.” Well, yeah. That’s how non-profit journalism works. It’s how the entire non-profit sector works, including a million different conservative foundations. Few non-profits would exist without lots of outside support. How terribly shocking.

Right, the faux vapors are cute, and all, but the point is that non-profits generally exist for a reason – to promote the sale and use of ketchup, or to lobby for flax farmers, or to reach an audience.  Many of us wondered what was that attending purpose to the MinnMon / Mindy franchise over the past six years of being floated – in relative luxury, if you’re a mid-level blogger like, well, me.  Its demise is just one data point toward the conclusion that “we were right to wonder”.

The commenters at the Minnesota Post do even worse.

[Wait – didn’t you say that I wrote the “the dumbest thing” ever said on the subject? How many superlatives can you give in one posting? – Ed]

And another, Mike Izon, gets even dumber:

It’s because of the lawsuit. They know they will lose and you can’t get money from a news organization that isn’t making money anyways.

The lawsuit he is referring to is the one filed by nutball extraordinaire Bradlee Dean against AINN and Rachel Maddow. And I laughed out loud at the idea that there are people out there deluded enough to think that has anything to do with the decision to close down some of the AINN sites. I’ll have more on that in a separate post.

Do keep us posted.

That is all.

John Nolte notes that  the media is frantically backing and filling and trying to remove all record that the Obama administration ever supported the “Occupy” movement:

Two months ago, the White House, Democrats, and the MSM were all sure that the #OccupyWallStreet movement would save them in 2012. With thousands of astro-turfed morons in the streets raging against Wall Street, Obama’s allies hoped to use said morons to create a silver lining in the economic cloud he himself created.

Obama’s goal was pretty simple; create (indirectly, through the unions that’ve been paying the freight for these “protests” all along) a sense that there was a mass movement protesting against the anonymous forces that were keeping the little guy down (but not, of course, the Obama administraiton, which had uncontested control of Congress for two years).

The hope was that by repeating this message incessantly, enough voters could be convinced that Wall Street, and by extension, evil Republicans, were to blame for our chronic unemployment, record deficits, and stillborn economic growth. President Obama who?

 And Obama jumped on the “movement”- his movement – from the beginning:

Now, of course, “Occupy” is rapidly becoming about as popular as Nickelback with voters.  And the AP is dutifully doing damage control for the President they desperately want to keep in office:

And it looks as thought the Associated Press has decided to start the memory-holing with the following:

“Democrats See Minefield in Occupy Protests

NEW YORK (AP) — The Republican Party and the tea party seemed to be a natural political pairing. But what may have seemed like another politically beneficial alliance — Democrats and Occupy Wall Street — hasn’t happened.”

Insert record scratch here.

Sorry AP, but the only reason Democrats see a minefield is because they’re standing in it.

Nolte helpfully exhumes some history that the Dems would rather have disappear – stories of Dems jumping on the Occupy bandwagon:

…House Democrats. And look, the story about House Democrats endorsing Occupy is an AP story!

…Top Democrats.

…Nancy Pelosi.

…A President named Obama, who said of Occupy, “We are on their side.”

…The SEIU.

The association between the Democrats and the “nazi-endorsed rat-infested rape camps” needs to pop up again next October.

When your friend deserts you, it’s bad.

When your self-proclaimed founder jams you under the bus like she’s wedging one last trash bag into the dumpster?

U.S. Senate hopeful and Harvard Law prof Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed she laid the “intellectual foundation” for the Occupy Wall Street movement, is jilting the anti-corporate proteges in her own Ivy League yard, refusing to sign a petition in support of Occupy Harvard.

Warren, who declined to speak to the Herald, is focused on her campaign, said spokesman Kyle Sullivan.

“Elizabeth hasn’t signed the petition, but she’s been standing up to Wall Street and the big banks [bla bla bla – Ed.],” said Sullivan in a statement.

I think it’s time for conservatives to step up and help “Occupy” to survive.

They’re going to be an electoral bonanza for us next year, at this rate.

I know that I’ve pretty much given up trying to keep up with all the stories of the violence and depravity at the various “Occupy” sites around the country over at my “Climate Of Hate” page; there’s just been too much for what is supposed to be a series of capsule summaries of individual events.  “Occupy” has turned, with a nod to “Iowa Hawk”, into “Rat-infested Nazi-endorsed rape camps”.

The folks at Verum Serum have been trying to keep up with it all.  Will they keep it going?  Who knows:  It could be a full time job.

Their list, so far (go to the original article for links to sources):

Arson

• Occupy Fort Collins – Member arrested, $10 million in damage
• Occupy Portland –  Member arrested for throwing Molotov Cocktail
• Occupy Seattle – Suspicious fire at Bank of America 2.7 miles from camp
• Occupy Portland – Three men arrested with homemade grenades

Assault/Threats

• Occupy SF – 12 assaults in 24 hours
• Occupy LA – 4 assaults including two with knives
• Occupy Philly – Man punches woman in the face
• Occupy LA – Two assaults including setting someone on fire
• Occupy Berkeley – Police respond to three assault calls per night
• Occupy Wall Street – Three men threaten the life of a sexual assault victim
• Occupy Lawrence – Punch thrown
• Occupy Orlando – Knife fight sends man to hospital
• Occupy Portland – Multiple assaults within a 24 hr. period
• Occupy Toledo – Man assaults police officer after arrest
• Occupy San Diego – Woman assaults cameraman
• Occupy Victoria – Man dumps urine on city worker
• Occupy Vancouver – Two police officers bitten during near riot
• Occupy Oakland – Death threats
• Occupy Austin – Man in Joker make-up arrested for brandishing knife
• Occupy Oakland – Man sets his dog on reporter
• Occupy Oakland – Man pulls a knife in camp
• Occupy Wall Street – Photographer assaulted

Drugs/Dealing

• Occupy Boston – Two drug busts in a week
• Occupy Boston – Another drug arrest
• Occupy Boston – Heroin dealers busted were living with 6 year old boy directly behind welcome tent
• Occupy Portland – First hand account “Drugs. Selling…Heroin. Meth.”
• Occupy Portland – Video of open drug use in the camp
• Occupy Portland – “I get high“

Fraud

• National Lawyer’s Guild member Ari Douglas pretends to be run over by a police scooter

Illness/Death

• Occupy Santa Cruz – Ringworm outbreak
• Occupy Atlanta – TB outbreak
• Occupy Wall Street – Zuccotti lung outbreak
• Occupy New Orleans – Man discovered in tent had been dead 2 days
• Occupy Portland – Body lice outbreak

Murder

• Occupy Oakland – Fatal shooting

Public disturbance

• Occupy Dallas – Protesters block bank entrance, 23 arrested
• Occupy Vancouver – Mob with bullhorn enters bank
• Occupy Wall Street – Protesters block bank entrance, four arrested
• Occupier takes a bathroom break in the street
• Occupy Vancouver – Occupiers disrupt debate, threaten riot when asked to leave
• Occupy Long Beach – Group disrupts city council meeting
• Occupy Boston – Three arrested for occupying Burger King
• Occupy Oakland – Yelling and nonsense at Burger King
• Occupy DC – Group storms AFP event, traps attendees inside

Rape/Sexual Assault

• Occupy Philly – Man arrested for alleged rape
• Occupy Wall Street – Two sexual assaults unreported to police
• Occupy Wall Street – Man arrested for sexual assault, suspect in rape
• Occupy Dallas – Sex offender allegedly rapes 14 year old
• Occupy Ottawa – Sexual assaults go unreported to police
• Occupy Lawrence – Sexual assault reported
• Occupy Toronto – Foot sniffer arrested
• Occupy Seattle – Man exposes himself to young girls
• Occupy Portland – Sexual assault
• Occupy Wall Street – Drunk gropes women in Zuccotti Park
• Occupy Cleveland – Rape reported after an overnight stay
• Occupy Glasgow – Possible gang rape
• Occupy Baltimore – Multiple reports of harassment
• Occupy Chicago – Man arrested for child porn
• Occupy LA – Man charged with exposing himself to a child

Sedition

• Occupy DC – Let’s have a coup by taking over the military
• Ted Rall wants occupiers to choose the path of violence
• Occupy DC – Mike Malloy incites crowd to cheer for President Bush’s execution

Suicide/Overdose

• Occupy Burlington – Man kills himself with handgun
• Occupy Salt Lake City – Man found dead with syringe in his tent
• Occupy Vancouver – Young woman dies of cocaine and heroine overdose
• Occupy OKC – Young man with history of drug abuse found dead

Theft

• Occupy Portland – Theft is ongoing
• Occupy Boston – Store owner suffers 4 break-ins since camp began

Vandalism

• Occupy Eureka – Protesters use local bank as a toilet
• Occupy Portland – Two banks vandalized, promises of more to come
• Occupy Oakland – Bank windows broken, Whole Foods vandalized, broken windows
• Occupy Boston – Banks vandalized with anarchist, OWS graffiti
• Occupy Portland – Spike in vandalism near camp
• Occupy SF: ATMs being smeared with feces
• Occupy Santa Fe: Banks vandalized with OWS-themed graffiti
• Occupy San Diego – Vendors cart vandalized with bodily fluids
• Occupy graffiti found on PA governor’s mansion

I can think of a few they left out; where’s the guy crapping on the police car in NYC?

SCENE:  Mitch, watching the morning news and blogging.

MITCH: Hey – what’s that?

MITCH’S AUDIENCE, IN RESPONSE, AS ONE: What’s what?

MITCH: Listen…

MAIRA1: We hear nothing.

MITCH: Exactly.  We’ve gone through an entire local newscast without a single reference to “Occupy Minnesota”‘s antics!

MAIRA1: Wow.  That is weird.

MITCH: Right!?

Conor Fredersdorf, writing at the Atlantic, says something I’ve been saying since long before I started this blog; it’s time to ditch the 20th century American notion of “objective” journalism.

He does it in defense of a part-time NPR staffer who was fired for appearing, with a sign, at an “Occupy” rally.  To old-school journalists, that’s a big no-no, at least ostensibly; in theory, the ideal was that journalists be above it all – to “report from nowhere”.

Fredersdorf’s idea is familiar to anyone who follows European-style journalism – where reporters, and outlets’, opinions aren’t necessarily no-go territory, but where reporting is fair and accurate and, opinions aside, balanced:

That ought to be the pitch that newspapers and public radio stations make to their audience. It might go something like this: “Yes, the field of journalism attracts more liberals than conservatives, more Occupy Wall Street participants than Tea Party ralliers, more urban dwellers than rural Americans, more college graduates than people without degrees, more Democrats than Republicans, more English majors than math majors, more secular people than religious people — and although we value diversity of thought, experience and world view on our staff, the core of our value proposition is that we’re accurate in our reporting, fair-minded in setting forth arguments and perspectives even when we don’t agree with them, transparent about who we are, attune to our biases and constantly trying to account for them, and insistent that we be judged by our output, not our political or religious or ideological identity, or what we do on weekends. Judge us by our work, and if you challenge it in good faith we’ll engage you.”

Well, that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

I mean, in theory I’m right there with him – at least for purposes the future of American journnalism.

The problem is, for purposes of describing how jiournalism theoretically works today, every part of the proposition is false.  The media – especially in the Twin Cities – does not value diversity in the newsroom.   There is no honesty about bias – when Nick Coleman can do a program on an Air America affiliate but yet still get praised as an “old-school gumshoe reporter”, where the Minnesota Poll and the Humphrey Institute polls can traffic in decades of inaccuracy whose pro-DFL bias is only thinly plausibly deniable, what’s the point?

And if Fredersdorf wants the media to be judged by its output – well, there’s a problem there, too. We’re talking about a media that worked overtime to examine (at best) and demonize the Tea Party, while bearing the “Occupy” movement along with gauzy soft focus.  They go over conservatives’ backgrounds with fine-toothed combs (except as re checking facts and providing sources), but let Barack Obama skate to the White House without a peep about his inexperience and background.  And they fabricated one very big story about George W. Bush.

And since Fredersdoff brought it up – why, yes – I’d love to bring my “good faith” challenges to the regional media over the way they tortured the facts for a full week in the Evanovich shooting story to support a “gotta be careful about those gun owners!” narrative.  Or on how Rochelle Olson reported, back in 2006, on Alan Fine’s “domestic abuse” arrest, taking care to excise every fact from her “output” that would have diverted from the narrative that he, Keth Ellison’s challenger, had a blotted record.

Who in the Twin Cities media would like to start “engaging” with “good faith challenges”?  Or is this something you’ll all just fob off on your ombudspeople for a careful whitewashing?

It may seem like a good idea to avoid the “perception of bias” by insisting that media employees hide who they are from the audience. Perhaps it was once even tenable. It no longer is. To build your credibility on viewlessness is to concede, every time an employee of yours is shown to be a sentient, opinionated person, that your credibility has taken a hit. To tout and enforce your viewlessness is to hold your own reputation hostage to reality; it makes your credibility, the most valuable thing you have, vulnerable to every staffer’s Tweet, or incriminating Facebook photograph, or inane James O’Keefe hidden video sting operation. She claims to be neutral, but look, while out at a dinner with friends we caught her on camera saying that she thinks Obama is a better president than was Bush. See! She was hiding her liberal views from us all along!

Who is even fooled at this point?

Nobody who actually reads the Twin Cities media, to name one.

The American public understands who makes up the press corps, or more likely, has an exaggerated idea of how liberal it is precisely because the lack of transparency and pose of viewlessness seems conspiratorial.

 

That, and the fact that the breaches in “viewlessness” always, inevitably,l every single time, break to the left.

Is any reader of this article shocked or even mildly surprised that a Brooklyn-based freelance Web journalist working part time at a New York City public radio station held up a cardboard sign during an Occupy Wall Street protest? If that totally banal and predictable event is the thing that gets you upset as a journalistic manager, if you think that it is the threat to your program’s credibility, you misunderstand the present media landscape.

And there Fredersdorff has a point.  The problem is a lot bigger than some NPR web prole carrying a sign at an “Occupy” rally.

But Fredersdorff has what I think is a deeply naive faith that the current mainstream media has the integrity to “engage” with anyone but itself.

To my liberal readers: I’ll send you on your way to “FACTCHECK” me on the total number of actual vioent incidents at every Tea Party (not dubious associations made by people dying to pin anything they can find to the Tea Party) in the past three years.

It will come to much, much less than has happened in Denver in the past 48 hours.

About eight officers scuffled with a group of protesters, according to The Denver Post, and police confirmed to the newspaper that they used pepper spray and either rubber bullets or pepper balls to break up the crowd.

Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said protesters knocked an officer off his motorcycle and other officers were kicked by demonstrators.

Murray said seven protesters were arrested, including two for assault and one for disobedience. He said some demonstrators had received medical treatment on the scene, but no one had been taken to a hospital.

Now, the real point is this: remember when every dodgy, questionable (and questionably) racist sign, expression of pique, dubiously-linked incident or dodgy endorsement was evidence that the Tea Party was proof that the conservative movement was racist?

Here’s the tally so far, according to John Nolte at Big Government. 

1. NY: 10/1/2011 — Police Arrest More Than 700 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge
2. Madison, WI: 10-27-2011 — Madison Occupiers Lose Permit Due to Public Masturbation
3. Phoenix: 10/28/2011 — Flier at Occupy Phoenix Asks, “When Should You Shoot a Cop?”
4. NY: 10/18/2011 — Thieves Preying on Fellow Protesters
5. NY: 10/9/2011 — Stinking up Wall Street: Protesters Accused of Living in Filth as Shocking Pictures Show One Demonstrator Defecating on a POLICE CAR
6. NY: 10/7/2011 — Occupiers Rush Police … More
7. Cleveland: 10/18/2011 —  ‘Occupy Cleveland’ Protester Alleges She Was Raped
8. NY: 10/10/2011 — ‘Increasingly Debauched’: Are Sex, Drugs & Poor Sanitation Eclipsing Occupy Wall Street?
9. Seattle: 10/18/2011 — Man Accused of Exposing Self to Children Arrested
10. 10/12/2011 — Iran Supports ‘Occupy Wall Street’
11. Portland: 10/16/2011 – #OccupyPortland Protester Desecrates Memorial To U.S. War Dead
12. Portland: 10/15/2011 — #OccupyPortland Protesters Sing “F*** The USA”
13. Chicago: 10/17/2011 — COMMUNIST LEADER Cheered at Occupy Chicago
14. 10/15/2011 — American Nazi Party Endorses Occupy Wall Street‘s ’Courage,‘ Tells Members to Support Protests and Fight ’Judeo-Capitalist Banksters’
15. Boston: 10/14/2011 — Coast Guard member spit on near Occupy Boston tents
16. Boston: 10/11/2011 — Boston Police Arrest Over 100 from Occupy Boston
17. New York: 10/11/2011 — “You Can Have Sex with Animals.”
18. New York: 10/15/2011 — Harassing Police with Accusations of Phony Injuries
19. New York: 10/9/2011 –  ‘Occupy Wallstreet’ Protesters Steal from Local Businesses
20. New York: 10/25/2011 — Three Men Threatened to Kill 24-Year-Old Occupy Wall Street Protester for Reporting Rape
21. Baltimore:  10/18/2011 — #OccupyBaltimore Discourages Sexual Assault Victims from Contacting Police
22. Portland: 10/27/2011 — Occupy Portland’s Attempt At Wealth Redistribution Ends In Theft
23. Los Angeles: 10/14/2011 – Anti-Semitic Protester at Occupy Wall Street
24. 10/27/2011 — A Death Threat From an Occupy Wall Street Protester
25. 10/27/2011 – Anti-Semitic Tweet From Occupier or Sympathizer
26. Boston: 10/20/2011 — Occupy Boston Doesn’t Want Police Involved in Rape
27. New York:  10/5/2011: Anti-Semitic Occupier Screams About Jews, Israel
28. New York: 10/4/2011 — Occupier Taunts Jewish Man
29. Boston: 10/2011 — Occupiers Block Street
30. New York: 10/2011 — Occupier Tries to Steal Police Officer’s Gun
31. New York: 10/27/2011 — Occupiers Block Traffic, Get Arrested
32. Oakland: 10/27/2011 — Occupiers Throw Garbage at Police
33. Oakland:  10/19/2011 — Abusive #OccupyOakland Protesters Ban Media from Tent City
34. Eugene, OR: 10/19/2011 — Occupiers Displace Farmers’ Market Threatening Hundreds of Jobs
35. Portland, OR:  10/18/2011 — Capitalist Offering Jobs at Occupy Portland Finds Few Takers
36. NY:  10/20/2011 — #OccupyWallStreet Threatens Businesses, Patrons
37. NY: 10/14/2011 — Violence Breaks Out During #OccupyWallStreet March Toward Stock Exchange
38. NY: 10/14/2011 — Protesters March On Wall Street, Scuffle With Cops
39. Oakland: 10/19/2011 — #OccupyOakland Protesters Threaten Reporter
40. Oakland: 10/26/2011 — Occupiers Scuffle with Police
41. Oakland: 10/24/2011 — Protesters Storm, Vandalize, Shut Down Chase Bank
42. Dayton, OH: 10/22/2011 — Protester: ‘F*ck The Military, F*ck Your Flag, And F*ck The Police’
43. Chicago: 10/14/2011 –  Protesters’ Message At #OccupyChicago Rally: ‘Destroy Israel’
44. NY: 10/23/2011 — #OccupyWallStreet Supporter Rants Against Israel, Jews
45. NY: 10/22/2011 — #Occupy Kid: ‘Burn Wall Street, Burn!’
46. NY: 10/21/2011 — New Yorkers Fed Up With Noisy, Defecating Protesters
47. Oakland:  10/21/2011 — Occupy Oakland Evicted After Reports Of Crime And Intimidation
48. Oakland: 10/19/2011 — #OccupyOakland Out of Control: Rats, Graffiti, Vandalism, Sexual Harassment, Public Sex and Urination
49. Chicago: 10/26/2011 –  Occupiers Under Investigation by FBI for Links to Terrorism
50. Cleveland: 10/29/2011 — Rape Reported at Occupy Cleveland
51. Dallas: 10/24/2011 — Police Investigating Possible Sexual Assault Of Teen At Occupy Dallas
52. Bloomington, IN: 10/26/2011 — Man Claims Occupy Bloomington Protesters Drugged, Handcuffed Him
53. NY: 10/10/2011 — Sex, Drugs and Hiding from the Law at Wall Street Protests
54. Glasgow: 10/26/2011 — Woman Gang-Raped
55. Boston: 10/23/2011 — Occupy Boston Protesters Arrested For Dealing Heroin – With 6 Year-Old in Tent
56. Portland: 10/16/2011 –  Sex Offender Registers Occupy Portland Camp as Address
57. Denver: 10/15/2011 — Occupy Denver Demonstrator Accused of Groping TV Photographer
58. Lawrence, KS: 10/25/2011 — Sexual Assault Reported at Occupy Camp
59. Minneapolis, MN:  Bricks, Rocks, ‘Riot Supplies’ Discovered by Police
60. Phoenix, AZ:  10/27/2011 — Neo-Nazis Patrol “Occupy Phoenix” With AR-15′s
61. Chicago: 10/26/2011 — Occupy Chicago Invades City Hall
62. 10/26/2011 — ACORN, Occupy Email Talks About Assault on Banks
63. 10/26/2011 –  OccupyWallStreet Strategy for Reports of Violence Against Cops
64. Chicago: 10/26/2011 — Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist Bill Ayers Wows Occupiers
65. Chicago:  10/25/2011 — Ayers Coaches  #OccupyChicago, Callsg for School ‘Occupations’
66. 10/26/2011/ — Occupy Protests Have Jewish Leaders Concerned
67. Wash DC: 10/27/2011 –  OccupyDC Leftists Provoke Police – Hang Flag on Top of DC Statue
68. Albuquerque, NM:  10/26/2011 — Occupy Squatters Riot With Police
69. San Diego: 10/25/2011 — Flag Used as Chew Toy by Occupier’s Dog
70. Oakland: 10/25/2011 — Occupiers Throw Bottles at Police
71. NY: 10/27/2011 — Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Rush Limbaugh Is Bigger Threat Than Al-Qaeda
72. 10/27/2011 — Occupy Wall Street Launching First Nationwide General Strike in America Since 1946
73. NY: 10/28/2011 — Fox 5 News Reporter Assaulted at OWS
74. 10/28/2001 — Total Occupy Arrests Made Thus Far: 2750
75. Nashville: 10/28/2011 — 30 Arrests Made at Wall St. Protest
76. NY: 10/20/2011 — Former Marine Tries to Taunt Police into Violence
77. NY: 1023/2011 — Islamist Group Joins with Occupy Wall Street
78. Los Angeles:  10/13/2011 — Roundup of Overt Occupy anti-Semitism
79. NY: 10/12/2011 — There are No Anti-Semites at Occupy Wall Street. Except for This Guy
80. Missoula, MT: 10/20/2011 — Drunk 11-Year-Old At Occupy Missoula, Adult Arrested
81. Oakland: 10/28/2011 — Bounty Out On Police Officer?
82. Manchester, NH: 10/28/2011 – Woman charged with pimping teen recruited at Occupy NH rally
83. San Diego: 10/28/2011 – 40 Occupiers arrested
84. Boston: 10/24/2011 — Occupy Boston Vandalism of Banks
85. Boston: 10/25/2011 – Store Owner Suffers 4 Break Ins Since Occupy Boston Began
86. Portland: 10/28/2011 — Portland Police: Buckets of Excrement Scattered Around #OccupyPortland Camp
87. Seattle: 10/20/2011 — Two Possible Occupiers Charged With Assault
88. Seattle: 10/18/2011 — Armed Felon Arrested at Occupy Seattle
89. Seattle: 10/18/2011 — A Tent Fight and (At Least) One Arrest at Occupy Seattle
90. Seattle: 10/17/2011 — Over 50 Cops Clear Westlake Occupation, Make Eight Arrests
91. Seattle: 10/13/2011 — Cops Arrest Several Occupy Protesters
92. Seattle: 10/13/2011 — Chanting Protesters Surround Police After Officers Arrest Two
93. Denver: 10/29/2011 — Protesters Clash with Police at OWS Denver
94. Austin: 10/13/2011 – Occupy Austin protesters arrested for blocking cleaning Crews
95. Calgary, CN: 10/28/2011 — Occupiers do $40,000 in Property Damage
96. Cincinnati, OH: 10/21/2011 — 23 Arrested, Remains of  protests fill two dumpsters
97. Sacramento: 10/19/2011 – 9 arrested in ‘Occupy Sacramento’ protest
98. Sacramento: 10/13/2011 – Four More Occupy Sacramento Demonstrators Arrested
99. Austin, TX: 10/22/2011 – Man Arrested After Knife Incident at Occupy Austin Camp
100. Nashville: 10/29/2011 — Tenn. Protesters Arrested For 2nd Straight Night

To:  “Occupy…” in all your various and seemingly indistinguishable forms.
From: Mitch Berg – one of the 53%
Re: You Blew It.

Dear Occupant:

I’m Mitch Berg.  Most of you who are huddled down at Government Center – sorry, I just can’t call it “People’s Plaza” – right now probably think of me as “the enemy”, on one level or another.  But I’m a guy who works for a living, and pays taxes (oh, lord) and is not “too big to fail” and who reacted to the bailouts on Wall Street with the same anger – albeit not the same response – that you folks had.

And a call from my old friend Tom Swift on my show a week or so ago got me to thinking.

Tom pointed out that the “Occupy” movement had the potential to be every bit as big a deal as the Tea Party – if they had stuck with themes that really resonate with actual Americans; the revulsion with government (of whichever party) picking winners and losers, pouring public money into bailing out banks that then sat on the money (for whatever reason), and the roots of the foreclosure crisis, which is hurting the responsible just as much as the wanton these days.

But y’all blew it.  As Dave Ramsey notes, rather than protest around and about a clear message – like the Tea Party, which for a movement with no cohesive leadership is very “on-message”, as they say – the “Occupy” movement, says Ramsey, is…well, just a big fuzzy cloud:

The beauty of being vague is that anyone who has any emotion can get caught up in the excitement and join your crusade. They’ll just get mad at something and assume that you’re both mad about the same thing. Put a few hundred of these people together, and boom. You’ve got a crowd, a headline and a lot of attention … but no message.

And Ramsey isn’t one of those people telling you Occupiers to take a shower and get a job, necessarily:

A lot of people on Twitter are saying I totally agree with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demands and goals. The only problem is that I have no idea what their demands and goals are. And neither does anyone else. If all you ever do is stomp around, yell and hold up signs protesting a million different things, sure you’ll get some attention, but over time, you’ll just look foolish. You end up coming across like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

This is what’s happening to the OWS movement. They’re being discredited because no one has stepped forward and really stated what it is they’re after. The whole group is just coming across like a bunch of jacked-up, jobless, wannabe hippies. That’s not going to change anything in this country. You’ve got to state your goals clearly if you want to accomplish something.

And that’s the big difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy party; the Tea Party got angry about something and seized on protest (and lots and lots of action) in response. Seriously, everybody can sum up in one sentence why the Tea Party exists, even some of its less-dim detractors.

But the Occupiers seemed to protest first, and try to figure out why later.  At a General Assembly meeting.

To:  “Occupy Wall Street” in all its nationwide manifestations
From: Mitch Berg – one of the 99%
Re: Your Voice

Dear Occupiers,

You know that Obama, with his “too big to fail” and his Predator attacks and his caving in to the Neocons, is just another DINO.

You are looking for a candidate who gives your movement voice. And I think you have found her!

Lexington doctor Jill Stein launched a bid to become the Green Party’s presidential nominee today, saying the Occupy Wall Street movement shows voters are frustrated with President Obama’s stewardship of the economy.

Why settle for just a pale imitator who wants to co-opt the passion you bring to the table?

Why compromise?   Haven’t you all had to compromise enough already?

Obama still gets more money from Wall Street than all GOP candidates put together:

Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data.

Obama’s key advantage over the GOP field is the ability to collect bigger checks because he raises money for both his own campaign committee and for the Democratic National Committee, which will aid in his reelection effort.

As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago.

So – will “Occupy Wall Street” move its masses (I slay me) to DC?  Or are they really just a Potemkin protest run by the Democrats?

Remember back in 2009?  When the Tea Party rally came to Saint Paul, did its business, set about the task of changing Minnesota and the US, and paid their own bills – which, naturally, launched a round of conspiracy theories as to who paid for the materials and porta-potties and so forth?

Well, “Occupy MN” certainly hopes you don’t.  The weeks-long excellent adventure for college “progressives” and superannuated hippies has cost you, the over-taxed Minneapolis and Henco taxpayer (and let’s be honest, probably the rest of us too)  a quarter of a million dollars

The cost of Occupy Minnesota protests is starting to add up for Minneapolis police. Tuesday afternoon, Sgt. William Palmer says the total cost to the Minneapolis Police Department is closing in $100,000.

Palmer says the city has had to pay $43,500 for approximately 726 hours of overtime. “While the MPD has worked proactively to reduce overtime this year, these hours were unavoidable,” said a statement from Minneapolis police.

Additionally, Minneapolis police say approximately 1,245 hours have been spent in the planning and support of the protest prior to the overtime. The cost for this time is approximately $56,000, according to numbers released by Minneapolis Police Department.

Minneapolis is broke, remember?

And Henco is on the hook too:

These costs are only for the Minneapolis Police Department.

Hennepin County officials said Tuesday their costs for supervision and management is $152,295.

Let’s start chanting.

“They Are The One-Hundredth Of A Percent Of The 99%!”

I’ve asked myself – when I’m not busy lampooning the demonstrations and their overkill media coverage – why are the Twin Cities media covering “Occupy Twin Cities” as lavishly as they are?

FInally, Jason DeRusha from WCCO asks the same question:

Reg Chapman and I were talking in the newsroom last night about how the coverage of the protest itself probably should stop fairly soon. Frankly, the fact that crowds haven’t really mushroomed tells us something about Minnesotans. Perhaps we’re not really the protesting type; perhaps this crowd of protestors doesn’t resonate with the middle class working people who are upset about Wall Street, mortgages, bank fees, etc [Ding ding ding – Ed]; perhaps it’s getting cold.

I think we oughtta run with the “Doesn’t Resonate” bit.

On the NARN show over the weekend, “Swiftee”, my old friend and conservative gadfly to the stars, made a great point when he called in; the Flea Party could have been a mass phenomenon, had it stuck with being for corporate perfidy what the Tea Party was to big government.  Let’s face it; the Tea Party’s roots are in revulsion at the government picking winners and losers and deciding which private enterprises are “too big to fail”.

The Flea Party blew it, of course; what could have been a outlet for a lot of legitimate outrage and concern on the part of Middle America either turned into a “progressive” platform or was never intended to be anything but.  And by “progressive”, I mean the worst side of “progressive”-ism; the groupthink, the chanting, the nods back to the miasma of the early seventies that still make a lot of Americans above the age of 45 queasy.

And from a newsman’s perspective – as I noted in my video from “People’s Plaza” on Saturday – there’s really no there there, if you leave either your barely-covered ideology or the news guy’s natural desire to be there with a camera when the molotov cocktails start flying and the hats and bats come out, or at least something qualifying as news happens. Which, it seems clear, isn’t likely to happen.

But the bigger issue is that the crowd is smallish, and there just isn’t news happening.

Face it – retreaded hippies and SEIU members and college activists chanting and making demands isn’t even dog bites man; it’s dog licks dog.

And in fact, that’s where I’m inspired by [a bit of viewer email he’d gotten]. Because we stop covering the protests or protestors doesn’t mean we stop covering the issue that motivated the original Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City.

What are the economic questions you want answered?

Question – and I’m not trying to be snarky, but I largely stopped watching most mainstream TV news years ago: what economic questions have you (WCCO and the larger media, not DeRusha personally, although the question is aimed at him) covered?

The role of the government intervention in creating the housing bubble?

The role of Obamacare and the administration’s mania for regulation in stalling hiring?

The real effect of three years of people chanting “tax the rich”, with a nudge and a wink and a “this is change you can believe in!” from sitting administrations in DC and Saint Paul, has had on entrepreneurship and expansion?

They’d all be great starts.

If you want that kind of coverage, you need to make your voice heard.

Well, there you go!

That, and tell Esme Murphy to stop painting the toenails of DFL politicians on the air.

Not sure why this bit – from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” – popped to mind:

It just sprang to mind. Just like…pow:

By the time they got to Woodstock, they were half a million strong. But by the time they assembled on Freedom Plaza on Tuesday morning to plan the day’s civil disobedience, they numbered only 53.

 

Attempting to emulate the Occupy Wall Street protests, Washington activists and some out-of-town guests set themselves the lofty goal of occupying the Hart Senate Office Building. “We are there to shut the place down!” organizer David Swanson told his small band of followers.

Or, for that matter, this one – from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”:

Honest.  No idea whatsoever why it jumped to mind:   

But how to do this with only a few dozen demonstrators? Well, Swanson said, they could push all the buttons on the elevators — the way naughty children sometimes do in apartment buildings. “There are people who are wanting to go into the elevators and fill them and not get out and push all the buttons,” he said. “If you like that, do it.”

This set off a lengthy debate in Freedom Plaza, at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street NW, as activists came to the microphone to argue the pros and cons of elevator disruption.

“Let’s face it, our numbers are not enough to shut this building down,” said the representative from Veterans for Peace. “I think pushing elevator buttons is stupid.”

You go and read the whole thing while I figure out why those who movie clips came to mind.

While at the “Occupy Minnesota” “rally” over the weekend, I saw a few signs saying that “Labor Creates Wealth”.

Now, I’ve got nothing against labor.  I work for a living; without someone to build things to sell, capital and management will be more or less out to dry.

But does labor create wealth?

For those of you who believe this, I’m going to propose an experiment.

1. Do some work.  Any work at all.  Dig a ditch, draw a painting, ride a bike from downtown to downtown, bake a tray of cookies, write a blog post, play guitar in the skyway, build a dog house, make your bed, it doesn’t matter.  Just do some…labor.
2. Check to see if you have gotten any “wealth” – money, food, lodging, coffee beans, green stamps, trading cards, coupons, strings of beads – by simple dint of having labored.

 I’m guessing “no”.  And without wanting to spoil the experiment, I’m going to speculate on exactly why. 

Without someone willing to pay you something for that “labor”, the “labor” you did in #1 above was just something you did for fun (hopefully; I mean, you didn’t really expect to be paid, did you?)

And who is it that finds someone who needs, and is willing to pay for, a ditch or a drawing or for you to ride your bike, or is hungry for cookies or your insight or your music, or needs a dog house?

Management.

Now, you could very well be your own manager – it happens all the time.

And unless you dig with your hands, draw with your blood, inherited a bike, conjure flour and sugar and chocolate chips and butter and heat from pure mind power, can ethically blog from the library, imitate a guitar with your voice, or pound nails with your face, someone needs to “invest” in a shovel, a pencil, a bike, ingredients and a stove and gas, a computer, a guitar, and a hammer and some wood, in the hopes that they’ll generate a “return” on the investment – money or food or lodging or whatever you get for your labor.  Again – you could be the investor!   But without someone – you, your mom, a venture capitalist, or a bank listed on the NYSE – to “invest” in making sure you have the tools you need to make sure your labor produces something to take to market, you’ll be, well, pounding nails with your face, as it were.

It’s called “Capital”.

I went to “Occupy Minnesota” yesterday, around noonish

And I recorded a video.

Yes, the camera work is bad; the city is occupied, so I had to be careful.

UPDATE: I’m informed that a leftyblogger has brought out video of the last Tax Day Tea Party Rally, by way of comparison.

Which just goes to show you that reading leftyblogs is its own…well, if not “punishment”, it’s at least it’s kinda self-limiting on its own, if you observe even the most rudimentary logic.

I mean, it was in the low thirties at 8AM on April 16 – as opposed to 80-something at noon on a gorgeous Sunday. Heck, even the leftyblogger who’s doing the tittering, who usually shows up with his video camera to try to mock Tea Party attendees, skipped it.

And we’re not talking about the Tea Party – which, to the left and media (pardon the redundancy) bounces back and forth between “irrelevant and pathetic” and “singly responsible for everything that’s in the Democrats’ way”, often at the same time.  We’re not talking about “Occupy Wall Street”, which has gotten absolutely slavish coverage from all the media (for its message of “the media are ignoring us!”).  If the Tea Party is a risible nonentity – which is what the leftyblogger in question usually would have you believe – then his point is a dog bites man story.

The fact that “Occupy Minnesota” is a joke, however, flies in the face of the repeated assurances from media at all levels, though, that this really really is bigger than the Tea Party.

Get back to us when they’ve completely swayed the 2012 election.

And don’t please hold your breath.

Tea Partiers:  Leaving the world a little cleaner than they found it.

Occupy Wall Streeters: Filthy spoiled pigs:

The owners of the park – a private park whose compact with the city allows anyone to be there atany time – released a statement that says…:

…“because the protestors refuse to cooperate…the park has not been cleaned since Friday, September 16th and as a result, sanitary conditions have reached unacceptable levels.”

“They’re just making life miserable for the working guy,” bar owner Mike Keane told CBS 2′s Dave Carlin

I wonder how the “Hippies For Obama” rally went?

When Van Jones yapped about the “American Autumn”, I’m sure he didn’t bank on Mark Steyn running with the analogy;

In case you don’t get it, that’s the American version of the “Arab Spring.” Steve Jobs might have advised Van Jones he has a branding problem. Spring is the season of new life, young buds and so forth. Autumn is leaves turning brown and fluttering to the ground in a big dead heap. Even in my great state of New Hampshire, where autumn is pretty darn impressive, we understand what that blaze of red and orange leaves means: They burn brightest before they fall and die, and the world turns chill and bare and hard.

So Van Jones may be on to something! American Autumn. The days dwindle down to a precious few, like in whatever that old book was called, The Summer and Fall of the Roman Empire.

I get the feeling an awful lot of the attendees at “Occupy Minnesota” treated America as a recycling project; if you’re done witn it, try to find a way to re-use it…

But better yet is his description of the “protesters” themselves…:

If you’ll forgive a plug for my latest sell-out to my corporate masters, in my new book I quote H. G. Wells’s Victorian Time Traveler after encountering far in the future the soft, effete Eloi: “These people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made.” And yet he saw “no workshops” or sign of any industry at all. “They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.” The Time Traveler might have felt much the same upon landing in Liberty Square in the early 21st century, except for the bit about bathing: It’s increasingly hard in America to “see how things are kept going,” but it’s pretty clear that the members of “Occupy Wall Street” have no plans to contribute to keeping things going. Like Michael Oher using his iPhone to announce his ignorance of Steve Jobs, in the autumn of the republic the beneficiaries of American innovation seem not only utterly disconnected from but actively contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts.

Contempt for the creative class?

Yeah, Steyn’s got a point.

“Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) – and this weekend’s “Occupy Our People’s Plaza In Extremism” (OOPSIE) – are taking their orders from the Democrat hierarchy:

The front page of the http://occupywallst.org/ proudly announces that numerous union groups will be present in New York today to join demonstrators in marches taking place this afternoon.

“Together we will protest this great injustice. We stand in solidarity with the honest workers of….MoveOn.org,” states the website, as well as listing numerous other organizations.

What is MoveOn.org?

MoveOn.org is a lobbying organization that routinely backs Democratic candidates. The group aggressively supported Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign and is now “Perhaps the lead lobby organization for his policies….apart from Obama’s own Organizing for America,” reports Source Watch.

At about this point, some “progressive” will chime in “but but but the Tea Party was controlled by the GOP”.  Nah. I mean, there was all sorts of cross talk – like, me, among many many much bigger and more important people – and plenty of Tea Partiers, Conservatives and Republicans, individually and as groups, shared beliefs and goals.  There’s overlap, to be sure.  But the Tea Party scared, and challenged, the mainstream GOP in a way similar to the Ron Paul challenge in 2008, only many, many times bigger.  The Tea Party changed the GOP – not the other way around.

All the reeking hippies and college bobbleheads and union slackers and MoveOn.org yentas and Code Pink harpies in New York and, this weekend, in Minneapolis?  They’ve got it exactly the other way around.

And it’s going to be fu-u-u-un pointing it out to them.