Collective Actions

Even without the help of DHS or the FBI, a thorough 1932 job—

Soldiers guard leveled veterans' bonus march camp

David Atkins yesterday, on the NYPD clearance and media blackout—

Watching it unfold has had the same surreal feel as watching the early days of Tahrir Square. As big as the story of the clearing of the park is, one of the interesting side stories is also that all the major news networks, cable and otherwise, were silent...And as with Egypt, by far the best way to learn about events happening on the ground was via Twitter.

...

Media blackout? Check. Transportation shutdown? Check. Needless police brutality? Check. Mayor Mubarak is evidently in control of New York City, and pulled off this entire operation in early morning cover of darkness.

The reporting ban was eluded for a while by Josh Harkinson, who entered the park and reported for Mother Jones via twitter and video here and here.

With evictions going on in cities around the country, Digby quotes this, on Oakland mayor Jean Quan's apparent spilling the beans that city governments and federal authorities coordinated the bust-ups—

...Quan, speaking in an interview with the BBC ...casually mentioned that she was on a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities shortly before a wave of raids broke up Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country.

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

Digby notes—

I don't have the answers. But I do know that the Federal, state and local police agencies have a tremendous amount of capability and I have no doubt they have been clamoring for the chance to use it.

Later updates from Digby: more on apparent DHS and FBI involvement.

Lynn Parramore lays out six questions about that involvement.

Michael Shaw at Bag News Notes posts this—

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Shaw writes of this photo versus images from CNN—

Leading off this rough edit is last night's iconic photo of the White Shirts manhandling Occupier youth as Zuccotti was taken, along with eviction stills from CNN...

What we have here is a massive PR war — the battle for hearts and minds (and noses) —playing out between the protesters and the city in front of the media. So the question, when we get to the end of this 24-hour media cycle, will the Reuters photo win the action for Occupy? or, will the Mayor's gambit pay off? In other words, will more people sympathize with Bloomberg and the police action based on floods of grimy shots of NYC's sanitation force cleaning up the remains?

More Digby, about the role of the "culture war" media setup in deflating public approval of OWS—

...the "controversy" is a direct result of right wing lizard brain propaganda about Occupiers being sub-human beasts. The drumbeat has been loud and constant, particularly on local news, and it was almost inevitable that the notion would take hold among some people. Add to that the sight of heavily armed Robo Cops swarming all over our cities as if they were staging an assault on Falluja and people get nervous. That's not an accident either.

...this thing was bound to run along America's cultural fault line whether it set out to or not and in the end it will likely fall on one side of it... That doesn't mean it won't have the impact everyone seeks. It's just that the idea of the 99% vs the 1% is a great slogan and its certainly valid. But in our culture, we just don't divide that way. ...

Ronald Reagan: The Buck Stops... Anywhere Else

In the index to Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor,
sub-entries below the heading "Reagan, Ronald Wilson" include—

blames Carter
blames Congress
blames the media
blames miscellaneous others

Republican acceptance of "personal responsibility" being what it is, Slansky has the quotes to fit those sub-heads.

After the Tower Report is issued by the administration's hand-picked Iran-Contra investigative committee, Reagan's March 4, 1987 public response includes this rhetorical construction—

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

Slansky summarizes 12-minute speech and its use of the passive voice, whereby Reagan—

• Acknowledges that the Iran-Contra affair "happened on my watch"
• Says nobler aims of long-term peace "deteriorated…into trading arms for hostages"
• Calls the deal "a mistake" (though one that resulted from his excessive concern for the hostages).

As for his "management style," the problem was that "no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions," which led to his inability to recall approving the arms shipment. "I did approve it," says the President. "I just can't say specifically when." Lest anyone remain unnerved, he dads, "Rest assured, there's plenty of record-keeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

The White House mode of damage control was to distance Reagan from events—which only made him sound as disengaged as he was.

And the Iran-Contra speech seems like an odd foreshadowing of Reagan's "I've been told I have Alzheimer's" letter, of November 1994.

[Don't] Watch My Lips

Men With No Lips (Ronald Reagan, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan, James Baker)
Robbie Conal

November 1986: the first reports reach US news media—and the White House makes its first public statements. From Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

11/3 In Lebanon, the pro-Syrian magazine Al Shiraa reports that the US has secretly been pplying arms to Iran.

11/4 Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, says that former NSC adviser Robert McFarlane and four other Americans, carrying Irish passports and posing as members of a flight crew, recently tyraveled to Iran on a secret diplomatic mission to trade military equipment for Iran's help in curbing terrorism. Rafsanjani says the men brought a Bible signed by President Reagan and a cake in the shape a key, which was said to be "a key to open US-Iran relations."

11/13 "For 18 months now, we have had under way a secret diplomatic initiative to Iran. That initiative was undertaken for the simplest and best of reasons: to renew a relationship with tlle nation of Iran; to bring an honorable end to the bloody six-year war between Iran and Iraq; to eliminate state-sponsored terrorism and subversion, and to effect the safe return of all hostages."
—President Reagan addressing the nation on the Iran arms deal, hoping that if he mentions he hostages last, people won't think their release was the prime motivation for the deal

"Now, my fellow Americans, there is an old saying that nothing spreads so quickly as a rumor. So I thought it was time to speak with you directly-to tell you first-hand about our dealings with Iran. As Will Rogers once said, 'Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.' So let's get to the facts."
—President Reagan preparing to embellish the truth

"During the course of our secret discussions, I authorized the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran.... These modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a single cargo plane.... We did not—repeat—did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we."
—President Reagan claiming that the arms for hostages swap wasn't really a swap because we didn't give them too much stuff, and besides, the stuff we did give them hardly counts as weapons

11/21 The shredding machine in White House aide Oliver North's office jams.

11/25 A grim President Reagan appears in the White House briefing room to say he "was not fully informed on the nature of one of the activities" undertaken as an off-shoot of the Iran arms deal. He announces that National Security Adviser John Poindexter has resigned and NSC staffer Oliver North has been fired, then introduces Ed Meese to explain why.

"Certain monies which were received in the transaction between representatives of Israel and representatives of Iran were taken and made available to the forces in Central America which are opposing the Sandinista government there," says Meese. "We don't know the exact amount yet. Our estimate is that it is somewhere between $10 and $30 million.... The President knew nothing about it."

As Meese talks, his head is positioned in front of the White House logo (THE WHITE HOUSE/ WASHINGTON) in such a way that the only letters that can be seen on TV spell out WHITE WASHING.

Later, Reagan calls North and tells him, "This is going to make a great movie one day."

11/26 "Does the bank president know whether a teller in the bank is fiddling around with the books? No."
—Donald Regan explaining why his total ignorance of the diversion of funds to the contras is completely justified

Then in 1987:

1/26 The Tower Commission interviews President Reagan... Though he is said by a source to lack a "highly detailed recollection," he acknowledges having authorized the sale of arms to Iran in August 1985. This corroborates Robert McFarlane's testimony and directly contradicts Donald Regan's.

2/11 President Reagan tells the Tower Commission that after discussing it with Donald Regan, he now remembers that he did not authorize the arms sale in advance. Commission members are disheartened when, while reciting his recollection from a staff-supplied memo, he mistakenly reads his stage directions aloud.

2/24 "I'd like to ask one question of everybody. Everybody that can remember what they were doing on August 8 of 1985, raise your hand. I think it's possible to forget. Nobody's raised any hands."
—President Reagan, who would have gotten a different response from reporters had he asked, more pertinently, "Everybody that would remember approving the sale of arms to an enemy nation, raise your hand"

3/10 Asked about the Iran-contra scandal at a photo opportunity, President Reagan feigns laryngitis. "I lost my voice," he says, grinning. "I can't talk."

3/11 Asked again about Iran-contra, President Reagan again feigns laryngitis. "I've lost my voice," he says. Explains [press secretary] Marlin Fitzwater, "This is a new tactic of his."

The Post-Abdominal Surgery Comedy Rating Scale

"Ow! Don't make me laugh!"New York Federal Art Project, 1939
Library of Congress WPA poster archive

Yes, I do relate to the mask on the right, at the moment...

Post-op laughing is to be avoided: it causes awful stomach pain, as I knew from Clever Sister's previous multiple surgeries. Those started when she was in her teens; the technology then made hers more ghastly experiences than what I'm having, since laparoscopic procedures a few days ago.

I spent the first couple nights at CS' place, where she went all out to nurse me. Her effort to keep me distracted included some comedy DVDs—fortunately, not all that hilarious.

As I realized I do need to avoid laughing, I remembered one of CS' previous gruesome surgeries. She was on her way home from some days in a California hospital on November 5, 1994. A big part of the history was that CS had been forced to live through many years of severe pain, with no medical acknowledgement of the problem—until the first dire emergency had landed her in an operating room.

It was 6 PM that November day. I waited to speak to my brother-in-law and, unable to focus on anything, I switched on the tube; it happened, just as evening news began. Lead story: the public announcement that Reagan had Alzheimer's.

Despite CS' having to suffer the ride over potholed roads of already decaying infrastructure—just as I did, almost twenty years of public disinvestment later—they got home safely, and the call came.

I had to tell brother-in-law, "I don't want to make CS laugh, but: I just had the news on, the big story was Reagan has Alzheimer's—and CS thinks it took her a long time to be diagnosed!"

He laughed and repeated it to CS. I could hear her in the background: "Ha, ha! Ouch! Don't make me laugh! Ha,ha! Ouch!..."

Brother-in-law added: having lived in CA when Reagan was governor, he saw plenty of signs then.

For me, in November 2011: post-surgery smiling, unlike laughing, does no harm. When I could manage to check, there was at least some news to smile about—election results from Ohio and elsewhere; from Mississippi, somewhat.

Trying to keep the patient distracted, CS picked up a copy of The Onion, which had been very funny the last couple of weeks. The pre-Halloween issue's Record Year For Abortion Restrictions, and terrifying tales of the economy, told by dead-itorial writer, Paul "Bearer" Krugman, had me laughing out loud. As did the following week's Remains Of Ancient Race Of Job Creators Found In Rust Belt.

Mercifully, under my circumstances, this week's material wasn't that good.

Though, just as I was about to put the thing down, I spotted this, to bring on the post-op pain.

And this.

N(ice) P(olite) R(epublicans)

The revolution will not be, etc.—NPR, home of Cokie and the like, axes this host, for the wrong kind of political activity—

The problem, says Simeone, is, "I'm not an NPR journalist. I am not paid by NPR. I don't do news. I don't do analysis. And I have never talked about the occupation movement on the air. I do this entirely in my free time."

...

"I've never hid my views and my opinions have never leeched into what I do on NPR. People can listen to all my shows. When I was talking about 'Tosca,' I could have talked about the relevance today of Cavaradossi, the tenor who is a political prisoner and who is tortured. I didn't mention it. It's a show about opera, for God's sake."

And a freelance web producer of a WNYC show gets the same treatment.

Yes, NPR's coverage continues to comfort the comfortable.

And there are credulous fans who fall for the branding.

Nevertheless, I caught a couple of Morning Edition segments this week where I almost enjoyed the lameness of pandering, considering the way reality is being leaked by other means, these days.

One was from the always irritating Eleanor Beardsley. I've heard her in the past when, her voice full of disdain, she "reports" on stories like a French transit workers' strike that not only shut down Paris—the déclassé unionists temporarily deprived her of her nanny's services!

This week, it was a Wednesday segment about Sarkozy's reaction to the Greek referendum. In her patrician, looking down the nose manner—

...opposition figures in France seemed delighted by news of the referendum, calling it a victory for the people. Desperate to beat Sarkozy in the presidential election next May, they hailed Greek resistance to its European managers.

"They've only been thinking about taking care of the euro and not the Greek people — so they're getting what they paid for," said Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of a coalition of far-left parties.

The far right also spun the news to fit its views.

I don't know the background of the "coalition of far-left parties," but it's is the usual hack punditry that attributes any position to "just politics," while presenting left and right as equally cynical.

On Thursday, there was this: "Harvard Economics Students Protest Perceived Bias." Students walked out on poor Greg Mankiw, former Bush advisor, now advising Romney...

I don't think I imagined an ill-concealed panic in Mankiw's voice, as he raced through his academic name-dropping and his talking points. The latter included the usual "we haven't been producing enough educated people to keep up with the increasing demand for high skilled workers."

So, what are all those unemployed indebted advanced degree holders posting "I am the 99 percent" photos, and camping around the country—chopped liver?

Mankiw claims, amusingly, that "some of the evidence that we've seen suggest that incomes at the top have fallen disproportionately relative to the middle."

Also, that "rising inequality is really a long-term...like a 40-year trend since the 1970s." [Trans: Jimmy Carter's to blame.]

If victories are possible over those who fund the blathering mouthpieces of academia and media, those will be hard-won.

But I think this from Thomas Ferguson, speaking at Occupy Boston, is on the mark—

You are powerfully influencing American politics just by directing attention to the 1% and big money's hold on American politics. It is a message that makes the establishments of both political parties and the mass media tremble, lest it transmit to the rest the citizenry, which is well aware that something is rotten, but not always sure exactly what is causing it.

...in its short existence, Occupy Wall Street has highlighted the problems of money and politics in a way no other force in American society has. You have put your finger on the pivotal issue of our time, which is whether democracy in America can survive.

The Reagan Movie: Leading Lady

That Reagan Girl; quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

3/19 [1983] "Let me tell you a true story about a boy we'll call Charlie. He was only 14 and he was burned out on marijuana.... One day, when his little sister wouldn't steal some money for him to go and buy some more drugs, he brutally beat her. The real truth is there's no such thing as soft drugs or hard drugs. All drugs are dumb.... Don't end up another Charlie."
—Nancy Reagan—image fully transformed from vapid society dame to caring anti-drug crusader—appearing as herself on NBC's Diff'rent Strokes

9/9 [1985] Nancy Reagan tapes her first rock video, singing a chorus of an anti-drug song called "Stop the Madness."

8/9 [1986] President Reagan sets a statesman-like example by submitting a sample of his urine for drug testing. George Bush, oddly enough, does the same.

8/13 The parents of 13-year-old Deanna Young of Orange County, California, are arrested after the girl shows up at the police station with a bag of marijuana, pills and cocaine from their home. Says Nancy Reagan, must have loved her parents a great deal. I hope they realize just how much she loves them."
The story becomes the subject of a bidding war in Hollywood.
•
Nancy Reagan's friend Mary Martin suggests that perhaps the First Lady should avoid seeing her current play, Legends, since it contains a hash brownie scene. Sure enough, it is announced the next day that a "scheduling conflict" will prevent the Reagans from attending the show.

9/4 "When the chapter on how America won the war on drugs is written, the Reagans' speech is sure to be viewed as a turning point."
—White House announcement of an upcoming anti-drug speech amusingly billed as the Reagans' first "joint address"

9/14 Sitting on a couch in the White House living quarters, the Reagans urge a "national crusade" against the "cancer of drugs." Afterward, the President—who will cut funding for drug programs as soon as the election is over—squeezes his wife's hand reassuringly.

1/13 [1987] "It wasn't a sustaining issue. It was the epitome of the fad issue, a classic really. It came and went in three weeks, max."
—GOP consultant Lee Atwater on the Reagans' anti-drug campaign

November 1981: Cats Out Of Bags

A few bits of business during one month in the first Reagan administration, from Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

11/10 President Reagan elicits hoots of laughter at his fifth press conference when he says of his constantly feuding aides, "There is no bickering or backstabbing going on. We're a very happy group."

As he leaves, Lesley Stahl holds up a copy of the just-out Atlantic Monthly featuring William Greider's article "The Education of David Stockman," in which the chatty Budget Director:

• Admits, "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers"
• Acknowledges that supply-side economics "was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate"
• Says of the Reagan tax bill, "Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront? The hogs were really feeding."

Is the President aware of this article? He is not.

11/12 "My visit to the Oval Office for lunch with the President was more in the nature of a visit to the woodshed after supper.... He was not happy about the way this has developed—and properly so."
—David Stockman describing his crow-eating lunch with President Reagan, who blames the whole flap on the media

11/13 "This house belongs to all Americans, and I want it to be something of which they can be proud."
—Nancy Reagan showing off her $1 million White House redecoration—funded by tax-deductible donations—to Architectural Digest, which is then forbidden to release any of its photos to the general news media

11/18 President Reagan receives the annual White House turkey, which upstages him by squawking and flapping its wings madly. Not to be outdone , the President recalls a Thanksgiving long ago: he was carving a turkey, noticed what seemed to be blood oozing from it, assumed the bird was undercooked then realized he had sliced open his thumb. Everyone laughs.

11/23 President Reagan vetoes a stopgap spending bill, thus forcing the federal government—for the first time in history—to temporarily shut down. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."