NEW HAVEN -- Jack Fowler was not amused.
Or maybe he was. It's hard to say.
The publisher of the National Review was asked what he thought of the American flag being flown upside by protesters at Occupy New Haven on the city's historic Green. The flag has been inverted since Thanksgiving, but the city's daily newspaper, the New Haven Register, recently ran a story that sought comment on the "controversial" treatment of Old Glory.
Occupy New Haven is one of a dozen or so remaining encampments in the country. In November, police actions nationwide pushed protesters out of public parks and on to college campuses. Organizers of New Haven's settlement say the upside down flag symbolizes a country in distress. Economic injustice, crony capitalism, deep-pocketed influence peddling by Wall Street -- these have turned liberty and justice for all upside down, they say.
Fowler, who lives in nearby Milford, virtually sniffed and raised his eyebrows before telling the the Register that he expects that kind of thing from lefty ne'er-do-wells.
"I want the flag respected and treated well, but I'm not going to get my knickers in a wad because these people are engaging in another oddball stunt," he told the Register.
But one man's "oddball stunt" is another man's expression of patriotism.
"It means there is a state of emergency," Tommy "Doomsday," one of the occupiers who often speaks to the press, told the Register. "There is a state of emergency here in America."
Fowler, like many on the right, tried to invalidate the gravity of such claims by belittling them, calling the inverted American flag a kind of "street theater" -- all talk, no walk.
But his critique wasn't complete without some Kindergarten smash-mouth.
"It sounds like a legitimate way to show they are a bunch of doofuses," he added.
So Fowler doesn't take the Occupy Movement seriously.
It's a sideshow. A mere entertainment.
A funny thing, though. For being one of the most influential voices in conservative American politics (the magazine he operates was founded by the godfather of conservatism, William F. Buckley), Fowler sounds kind of out of touch. He's right, of course. Symbols (like an upside down American flag) aren't going to legitimize the movement. But he's wrong, too.
Legitimization has already happened.
In early October, U.S. Rep. Peter King of New York said Republicans can't give the Occupy Movement legitimacy, because if they do, the Occupy Movement will influence public policy just as social justice and anti-war movements did in the 1960s.
"We can't allow that to happen," he told talk radio host Laura Ingraham.
This week, a question that kept popping up at a conference of the Republican Governors Association in Florida was: "How do Republicans talk about Occupy Wall Street."
Even Frank Luntz, the arch-spin doctor of the Grand Old Party, was worried. "I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort," he told a conference audience. "I'm frightened to death."
According to Yahoo! News, Luntz told Republicans to avoid using words like "capitalism." "We're replacing it with either 'economic freedom' or 'free market,'" he said.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is talking about wealth inequality as political ammo next year. In 2008, Barack Obama was lambasted for explaining to Samuel Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber) that wealth redistribution is good for everybody. John McCain called him a socialist. But now the Democrat most in hock to Wall Street is following suit.
But according to Schumer's political adviser, whose strategy memo was quoted in the New York Times this week, "The Republican/Tea Party narrative about the economy has been superseded by a different narrative -- one that emphasizes the growing gap between those at the very top of the economic ladder and the rest of the country."
What narrative? You know the one -- we are the 99 percent.
Instead all the focus being on Washington, the focus in now on Wall Street, which is exactly where the GOP does not want you to focus. As Lutz suggested Republicans tell voters: "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington."
As for the flag, I visited Occupy New Haven on Thanksgiving. The first person I met took my hand in both of his and told me: "God bless you and God bless this great country of ours."
There was nothing theatrical about that.
Follow John Stoehr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnastoehr
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Vigilance
Do they really want ro see that happen?
Mohandas Gandhi
I wonder what would have happened in Mr. Fowler's tiny little brain if someone had come up to him, 'National Review' in hand, and asked Mr. Fowler for his autograph. "Really love your publication sir. Very interesting things in here."
OWS isn't a person, place or thing.
It's America.
We're all unique, but we are all the same.
Which reminds me of the weird stunts the Republicans in Congress have been executing for the last three + years in the name of Patriotism (their style, of course). I'll take the patriotism of OWS any day rather than the self-serving "patriotism" of the Republican hypocrites.
Admitting that their ideas have created more problems then they solved is something they simply can not do.
To see a legitimate grievence in the protests is to de-legitimize the conservative economic model.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109
Then, if you have any data that refutes ANY of this, I would be happy to hear it. Please provide sources.
Who owns Washington? Bought and paid for....by.....?
Follow the money.
Hint: It didn't grow on cherry trees in Washington.
As for what Jack Fowler has to say.......he is as unimportant as any of the other conservatives who pretend to be good Christian's, but who have stood in silence as this nations middle class has gone jobless, hungry, homeless and without healthcare.
What really scares these heartless republican conservatives is the motto of the Occupy Movement......We are the 99 and we are against the 1..........who wants a bet on those odd's?
I think that if you look at history, it is the step changes in communication ability that have resulted in radical changes in governance in society.
It was the invention of the printing press that wrenched away from the Church and the aristocracy their stranglehold on the dissemination of information. Until it became practical for information to be spread widely, cheaply, and relatively quickly, it was easy to limit the dissemination of information to only that which the 'authorities' wanted spread.
First the telegraph and telephone, then radio and TV, amplified the rapidity and lowered the cost of moving information. Now, the net has gone much, much farther in each category, to the point where communication is nearly instant worldwide, and nearly 'free'.
For authoritarians to hold power, it is critical for them to control what information goes where, so they can control what people think.
That is why you see such a scramble now, not only in places like China and the Arab world, but here in the US, to figure out how to control what information is put on the net, and who can put it there.
In the meantime, I would not bet the 99% against the 1% in the 18th Century communications environment, but we have a shot now. At least a shot.