Yesterday while I was following the #OccupyVancouver twitter feed, I noticed something strange happening. The hashtag was hijacked by unrelated, idiotic counter arguments to Occupy (not necessarily those belonging to Occupy Vancouver) signs showing up in photographs published on the internet and in the media.
The names of the tweeters and retweeters were immediately recognizable as the reliable crew of blogging tory disinformation campaigners from Toronto and Alberta, blazingcatfur and Dr. Roy among them. Of course the tweets made little if no sense – they were there merely to disrupt and annoy. (Luckily, Occupy Vancouverites were made of sterner stuff and did not feed the trolls.)
It was a sad sight as I envisioned these middle-aged men furiously typing anything to try to delegitimize the Occupy movement driven largely by young people, or as one right winger so enviously put it “mostly beautiful 20-year-olds”.
But that’s just a small sample of the lengths to which the right is investing in trying to destroy the credibility of a bunch of non-violent people from all religions, all ethnic persuasions, all races, all ages, all political stripes, all sexes trying to do the right thing for its country and people under the Occupy banner.
Yesterday, the anti-Occupy forces showed there is no depth to which they will descend by playing the anti-Semitism card. At the current time, the US blogging aggregate Memeorandum is featuring the following breathless headline from Israel Today: “Israelis worried by anti-Semitic flavor of ‘Occupy Wall St.’ protests”. Just look at all the gullible rightbloggers so desperately linking to the story.
Where did Israel Today find this information? Out of the tens of thousands – more like hundreds of thousands – of signs and declarations by Occupy attendees, a tiny fraction have expressed anti-Semitic sentiments. Not nearly the percentage of racist signs evident at Tea Party gatherings, especially in its wild west infancy.
But it’s enough for these frustrated rightbloggers and their attentive media to grab on to and paint the entire movement as anti-Semitic. Just wait until Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, CNN and other right-leaning forces gather to spread this meme.
(Oh, and about the accusation that George Soros – a Jew – is funding the Occupy movement so popular among the right wing (including Reuters) last week, fuggedaboutit! First it was Soros, then it was the KKK, then the Communists, now it’s anti-Semitism. Anything to diminish what is obviously a popular and truly grass roots movement among everyday people.)
Should we be worried that anti-Semitism has popped up its ugly head amongst our message? Of course. It’s deeply worrisome. That it would happen is not the problem – individual wackos turn up at every gathering, whether it is right or left.
The problem is that, and we don’t know this, if we have not argued these exceptions to take down the signs, to take their hatred elsewhere. Perhaps that is what happened – we don’t know. We just have right-wing publications – not the hallmark of honesty and fair play – to tell us their version. The bigger problem is that the media will sense blood and come prowling. This is going to get ugly.
It’s sad it’s true but it’s also emblematic of a well-fed, well-funded group of middle-aged people aghast that a movement has arisen from ground up, without bureaucracy or a bible of rules, to challenge their hold on our government, finances and mores. This is not sponsored, it is not bent on profits; it is thoroughly indecipherable to them.
And they are fighting back using any means in their power. They have infiltrated the Occupy movement, stealing emails and narcing them to the cops. They are working overtime to attribute nefarious reasons to why the movement is happening. They are witnessing people arising, without violence, without astroturf funding, against a corrupt, deeply unfair system of conducting business and finances. It’s unfathomable. No money needed. Just people power.
It’s is driving them to distraction. Watch out – an extreme far-right group that is motivated to destroy their perceived enemies will descend to any depths. This fighting back of the wealthy, the frustrated authoritarians, the class who thinks of themselves victims despite holding all the cards, is a formidable one. But it is no match for the people. We will Occupy their world. We’ve already done a number on their heads.
This is not a right vs. left issue. It’s not even a haves vs have-nots issue. It’s about levelling the playing field. When you have 1% of the population in the USA whose only interests are wealth and power at the expense of the rest of us, the environment and good governance, you have the makings of an uprising. Revolutions have been waged for lesser struggles.