http://www.alternet.org/story/152860/the_stunning_victory_that_occupy_wall_street_has_already_achievedAlternet
By Joshua Holland
The Stunning Victory That Occupy Wall Street Has Already Achieved
In just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street.October 26, 2011 |
Occupy Wall Street has already achieved a stunning victory – a victory that is easy to overlook, but impossible to overstate. In just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street: the lack of jobs -- and especially jobs with decent benefits -- spiraling inequality, cash-strapped American families' debt-loads, and the pernicious influence of money in politics that led us to this point.
To borrow the loosely defined terms that define the Occupy movement, these ordinary citizens have shifted the conversation away from what the “1 percent” -- the corporate right and its dedicated media, network of think-tanks and PR shops -- want to talk about and, notably, paid good money to get us to talk about.
Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street mogul and Nixon administration cabinet member, has reportedly dedicated a billion dollars of his fortune to the effort since the 1980s. How successful have he and his fellow travelers been? In 2009, the Washington Post came under fire for running an article – in its news section, not its opinion pages – written by Peterson's Fiscal Times, which the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting described as “a propaganda outlet … to promote cuts in Social Security and other entitlement programs.” (It was Peterson Foundation employees, among those from other outside groups, who staffed Obama's “bipartisan deficit commission.”)
As I noted back in May, a study done by the National Journal that month quantified what the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, described as a “deficit feedback loop,” in which “the relentless bipartisan focus on the deficit convinces voters to be worried about it, which in turn leads lawmakers to spend still more time talking about it and less time talking about the economy.”
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