Thanks to a hit piece by one of those Beltway pseudo-"bipartisans" we can now state conclusively what many of us have long suspected: Occupy Wall Street speaks for the American majority. We've got the polling numbers to prove it. We now know where the real center lies.
It's easy to understand why people like Douglas Schoen are lining up to attack OWS. It shines a spotlight on their cardboard centrism - that think-tank designed, artificially-inseminated, vat-grown corporate ideology so widely rejected by the public at large. OWS represents the real American consensus, and that has them running scared.
But Schoen's Wall Street Journal editorial falls so far short of the mark that it elicits only a soft sense of pity. It illustrates nothing except the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of those out-of-step Democrats who sell themselves to conservatism under the 'centrist' or 'Third Way' banner.
Oh, wait. It also provides enough data to undermine his entire argument - and possibly his entire ideology. Before we look at the numbers we should take a closer look at these "centrists" and why they're trying to kill Occupy Wall Street.
How to Succeed in Centrism Conservatism Without Really Trying
Douglas Schoen is an excellent case study in the right-wing careerism that masquerades as 'centrism' in Washington today. The formula's simple: First get yourself some Democratic Party credentials. That's easy enough to do inside the party's corporate wing. Next, get a gig with one of conservative media outlets. And after that, start making proclamations 'against type' about how corporate-driven conservatism is the true heart of America. That's when the cash really starts rolling in. Then, like any good syndicate, the centrist Cosa Nostra will tell you it's time to return the favor with a hit job or two.
Schoen followed this easy-cash formula to a T (or "Tea"). Democratic Party credential? Check. He did polling for Bill Clinton, then the company he cofounded with Mark Penn went to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign. Cushy gig with a conservative media outlet? Check. He's a Fox News "analyst." Proclamation "against type"? Check. He co-wrote a book with Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen calledMad As Hell: How the Tea Party is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System.
Unfortunately for Schoen, the premise of their book required him to promote at least four massive falsehoods. The first was that Fox News is, in fact, "fair and balanced," and the second was that Fox did not aggressively promote the Tea Party. (Karl Frisch of Media Matters decimates these two claims.) The third was that the Tea Party was a spontaneous citizen uprising, not a heavily orchestrated corporate and Koch-founded process directed by Republican operatives. (See here and here, for starters.) The fourth falsehood is the claim that the Tea Party represents the views of most Americans. We'll get to that one shortly.
As for that final rite of "centrism" - the hit job - Mr. Schoen's editorial demonstrates that he'll happily don the ankle holster and squeeze off a round from his derringer whenever the signal's given. Luckily for the country, we're dealing with the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Red Dawn
Mr. Schoen warns that "President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement--and it may cost them the 2012 election." He bases this statement on a survey of demonstrators which he says was conducted by an associate of his. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide either the questionnaire used or the raw data, so we're forced to settle for vague Red-baiting assertions instead of hard information. Fortunately, as with his Fox/Tea Party claims, he quickly undermines his own claims.
Summoning visions of 1970, when Democrats were undone by association with anti-war "hippies," Schoen writes that "the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people--and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform."
What, exactly, are those values? "What binds a large majority of the protesters together ...," Schoen writes, "is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas."
In other words, they're Commies.
Now We Can Prove It: Occupy Wall Street Speaks for America
But the only actual policy positions Schoen mentions are these:
"Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement--no matter the cost. (emphasis mine) By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but 58% oppose raising taxes for everybody, with only 36% in favor. And by a close margin, protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%)."
Here are the highlights:
The public agrees with OWS on health care: 65% of protesters believe government should guarantee health care for all. In the last major poll on the subject, 64% of voters said the same thing.
The public agrees with OWS on taxes: 77% of OWS participants want to raise taxes on the wealthy; according to the Marist polling organization, 68% of all voters - including 68% of independents - agree with them.
The public agrees with OWS on a secure retirement: 65% of protesters think the government should guarantee a secure retirement. 70% of all voters - including 73% of independents - agree with them.
Schoen may have tried to hide or skew his information, but he's given us enough to know that the demonstrators are smack dab in the mainstream of American public opinion. Their tax views are supported by an overwhelming majority of the public. Their views receive the overwhelming support of independents and are often supported by a majority of Republicans too.
And what about that Tea Party that Schoen's been pushing as the "new center" in American politics? Does the public agree with them, too? Er, not so much. The latest CNN poll shows that 53% of Americans disapprove of the Tea Party movement and only 28% approve. Those are the lowest numbers since the pollsters began tracking Tea Party popularity last year.
Oops. Looks like Schoen and Rasmussen will need to write a new book.
(One other thing: That CNN poll also shows that Hillary Clinton is still the country's most popular public figure. Just think what she might have accomplished if she hadn't used the firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland to run her last campaign.)
The Real Center
No wonder the faux-centrist/"Third Way" crowd hates OWS. The protests put the lie to phony notion that the "center" agrees with the corporate-funded policies they espouse. And they illustrate the fact that the real "center" holds opinions that are usually stigmatized as "progressive" inside the Beltway . Douglas Schoen characterizes those opinions as "a deep commitment to left-wing policies" --
-- that are frequently supported by most Republicans. A few more revelations like this and their whole scam will be exposed. That's why we're seeing the glint of hatchets swinging in the Potomac sun.
Schoen represents that partnership of pampered elites that is Beltway Bipartisanship, but the OWS protesters represents real bipartisanship. They speak for the genuine American majority, that movement that speaks for the people who have been misused, abused, and refused by powerful insider from both parties.
Schoen speaks as if this were 1970 revisited, but the players have changes places. Occupy Wall Street speaks for this year's Silent Majority - the 99% who have been disenfranchised by the corporate-driven political environment that spawned and feeds Mr. Schoen and his ilk. The moment for the triangulated tactics of the Schoen crowd has passed. The real center is waking up. It's corporatist policies, not the politics of protest, that will hurt a party's electoral chances today.
Politically speaking, they're the hippies now.
The President and his party wouldn't be foolish to adopt the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street. It would be foolish to think this movement can be co-opted by words that aren't followed up with action. But the most foolish act of all would be to listen to compromised advice from a cadre of failed insiders who are quickly being left behind by the irreversible and irresistible flow of history.
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
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LARGE MONEY your jig is up.
Unfortunately, when ownership of mass media finds itself in the hands of very few individuals, as it is today, objectivity is usually the first casualty. And even when it flies in the face of the facts, if repeated often enough to enough people, even a lie can become accepted as truth. Truth has become very illusive in the main stream media these days. We are not used to the phrase, let the buyer beware, being applicable to the news. We live in a new world where absolutely everything has a price tag, even the truth.
It's only purpose is to give cover to self-interested commentary disguised as wisdom and punditry.
By the way, it was Jim Hightower who came up with that quote? I always thought it will Will Rogers and ended with "... and road kill"...
Of course most Americans agree with the concept of universal healthcare and a secure retirement. UNTIL THEY'RE TOLD HOW MUCH IT WOULD COST! You can't ask touchy-feel good questions like that and decouple them from the cost. Ask someone if they're in favor of Unicorns and they'll undoubtedly answer yes until you tell them you have to drill a hole in a horse's forehead to insert the horn and they'll quickly change their mind.
(my emphasis)
I think it's only in your America - circumscribed by your mind and the minds of others like you - that such views hold sway over the majority.
Happily, for the rest of us, the real America is not a country of sociopaths...
We limit MD payments to help those poor in America. Why do educators get top Salaries?. Shouldn't they take a 50% pay cut for the Good of the Nation also? Should NOT all in congress first be forced to give up everything they earned in excess of a million dollars?
ALL Americans want successful retired persons, and people cared for in time of need. Our youth doesn't want just that now. They want everything their parents own today, because they got a college education, and thus are now better than their parents via default, not accomplishments
Out Government is responsible for the will of the People, NOT the private needs of the people. Our Constitution dictates a level playing field, and equal opportunities for ALL, Not equal Outputs based on liberal philosophies, and entitlements.
Our Constitution mandated a head tax, not sliding scale prices for the same services, based on Race, ethic persuasion, and or Social Statuses. Those ideologies came Via Marxism–Leninism, not Washington and Lincoln
where has ONE prominent liberal espoused EQUAL OUTPUTS.
what TOP salaries do you assume edumacators make ??? maybe if you'd gone to school you might have a better grasp of the facktz.
only teacontortionistas have the audacity to presume to speak for everyone. and it seems the WILL of the people is to have single payer healthcare and tax the bujezus out of the obscenely rich, who are NOT creating the jobs they were supposed to be creating over the past decade
while obviously not a democrat, you sir, are still a j@ck@ss
Now we've passed that stage and are now mandating separate prices for the same services ...
I care less if they regulate Wall Street; I don't care if they refuse to hire because of excessive regulations either. To each their own via constitutional privileges
I'm NOT in LOVE WALL STREET, however I'm profusely free markets and one size fits all with Constitutional Principle. No One is above the law, and NO one is below the law
I absolutely agree with balance and sane solutions, however that hasn't been possible in decades with the progressive entitlements crowds
I don't consider taxing the top 1% more, anymore more ethical than past segregations, and illegal Mexican's Free education for border crossings NOW
I have severe problems with 9% of Americans with substance abuse problems getting a lifetime free ride.
How does one Constitutionally concretize wealth equality for ALL, when multi-millions insist dinner plates and appetites are acceptable fair shared sacrifices
How does one concretize taking from the successful, because they failed, and thus others have more than them?
However, from time to time the elites get too greedy and squeeze the middle and bottom too hard, threatening our very existence, to which we must respond for our own survival. So we do.
You are beginning to see that response. God help the world, if people get angry enough to recreate the French Revolution on a global scale, but it could well happen. It would be truly ugly. The elites should be scared $hitless, because, once it starts, they can't stop it.
And it has already started.
This, of course, only applies to Mittens... who may actually be more liberal than Obama in some ways (trade policy immediately comes to mind).
Cain and Not-Able (whoever that happens to be this week) will never win anyway, so they don't matter....
If wanting to undo this injustice and restore our democracy is indicative of a commitment to left-wing policies then, by Mr. Schoen's definition, it looks like 99% of us are committed to left-wing policies - like one person, one vote, economic opportunity for all and a government which is responsive to the needs and will of the people.
We are a big country we need a big government, unfortunately many of the people in charge are beholden to the banksters.
not too many people have the capital to start up a business to compete w/ BP or any other number of industries which can cause massive damage to millions should something go wrong.
so exactly WHAT regulations do you mean?
It's just so bizarre that people who no doubt make hundreds of consumer choices each day can come here and declare there is no free market. but maybe that's you problem, you still live in your parents basement and don't have to make any consumer choices because mommy does it all for you.
Or do you mean the choice between a host of different moneylending corporations, all of which know they can charge exorbitant interest because all the rest are doing it as well? Do you mean the choice between this or that clothing brand, when virtually all of them make use of underpaid overseas labor? How is it a choice when there are only two options, or when all of the options are so similar that I can't tell them apart anymore?
Fix it or you will be gone, one way or another.
That is the real message of OWS.
Outside of that, yup, Americans want those socialist policies you so despise--not because they want something free--but because they want economic justice. I know, you don't understand the term "economic justice"