Conservative Group Home: Searching For The Panic Room!

Does this look like a mob to you, Leader Cantor?

-by Noah

“If they don’t see us in the streets, where are they going to see us?”
-Eunice Cruz, Occupation Wall Street participant, New York, 10/8/2011

Consternation! Panic!

Republican reaction, Conservadem reaction, and to a very large extent, media reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, have some things in common: They are either missing the point entirely or they get the point and are scared and lashing out. Claims from the right about the media glorifying Occupy Wall Street, and, wanting them to stop the coverage aside; most of the media just doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend what the protesting is about, or support it. They sit there in their expensive haircuts, with all of their plastic surgery and plastic souls and just don’t get that America’s middle class has been thrown in a pool that only has a deep end and forced to tread water until they sink. If the victim in the pool tries to make it to the side, some asshole from Washington zaps them with a cattle prod while some Wall Street sleazebag steals their house. When the media doofus brigades ask “What are you rebelling against?” I long for Marlon Brando replying “Whadaya got?”

But, in reality, modern day Brandos should just put their fingers in the faces of the media morons and just say “people like you” in their very best calmly measured exorcist voice, with all due menace and then some. Then they should smile and take out a scissors and cut the little talking empty head’s ties or at least muss their expensive hairdos with a glob of crazy glue.



That said, I give some credit to the New York Times, an establishment oriented paper that I am no fan of, for actually changing its mind about Occupy Wall Street and even doing so publicly. That is something I can’t remember them ever doing before. In this case, early on, they were, like nearly all of the media, dismissive, but on Sunday the Times published a supportive editorial,which, among other positive things said:

The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising…They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery.

Talk about your ponzi schemes! Of course, the fact that a paper, that conservatives see as the work of some liberal devil worshiping consortium said the above, will only serve to whip most of them further into their frenzy of fear and hate for all who have dared to not be stinking rich. Some, however, like Forbes magazine’s Gene Marcial, who even openly bills himself as a Wall Street insider, have called for Washington leaders to meet with protesters and discuss possible solutions. For Forbes, co-option of the movement and another round of false promises from the same old Washington puppets and Wall Street puppet masters is the way to go. How’d that work out for the Native Americans of the 19th century?

Marcial obviously hopes that this approach would buy time and diffuse the movement by offering something that only the naïve would fall for once more. The Forbes approach would maintain the status quo and none of Marcial’s sleazebag buddies would lose their positions of power. That time has passed. We won’t get prosecutions, but that might make for a new beginning, at least in my book. Why no prosecutions? Well, for one thing, over the years, Congress has passed laws that govern their own actions, no matter how corrupt, and made bribery all nice and legal through a lobbying and campaign financing system that is the envy of dictatorships around the world. Just giving themselves pay raises every year wasn’t enough. The greed does not just extend to Wall Street.

Yes, the Conservatives are worried again. Plutocrats are panicking. So much so that they are tripping all over their $500 shoes to brand the 99% folks as a mob, rioters, bums, hippies, socialists, commies, cannibals, whatever, but, since when is a march with 200 professional unionized airplane pilots in uniform a mob? Are groups of teachers a mob? Groups of nurses? The next time a Conservative needs medical attention in a hospital, will they suddenly fear the unruly mob of nurses attending to them? Perhaps nurses should treat Republicans and their like in the way that Republicans understand and support: “Let him die!”

Context is often everything and the righties are frantically trying to put the Occupy Wall Street movement in their own demeaning paranoid context while dreaming of jack-booting it to death. They want to frame the perception. They’ve been bullies all their lives. They never thought anyone would hit back, but, really, is there any other effective way to deal with bullies? They are lucky it’s only a series of multi-city protest marches. If it were up to me, it would be a series of national General Strikes. I’d love watching conservatives keel over with apoplexy if pilots decided not to fly them and nurses decided not to administer IVs or painkiller to them. Or, how about a week where every gay person in the country decided to stay home? Hell, just have all the wine stewards and dominatrixes go on strike.

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
-The U.S. Constitution- Amendment 1

Let’s hear some of the wisdom of these conservatives below. I’m sorry to say that we aren’t hearing much either way from Democrats. All I’ve heard, so far, from President Obama is that he understands people are frustrated. Ya think? I’ll get to Nancy Pelosi in a little bit. At least she gets it to some extent. At the same time, Republicans, as exemplified by Sen. Orin Hatch, are bizarrely and irrationally accusing the President of fomenting rebellion. Jeez, we knew 20 some years ago that Hatch was un-tethered from reality when he held up that copy of The Exorcist as he fought for the confirmation of none other than Clarence Thomas. It doesn’t get much more gone, gone, gone than that.

Says House Majority Leader Eric “Mr. #2” Cantor:

“I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs on Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And, believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

I don’t know if it’s possible to be more breathtaking in one’s hypocrisy and vileness than that. This man has made his fortune and his career setting Americans against Americans ($5,663,715 in legalistic bribes from the financial sector alone, more than any other Member of the House). He is the poster boy for the very concept, stuffing his pockets with corporate K Street bribes along the way. It gets even better: He made this statement at a so-called Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC. Guys like Cantor are special. They will be a ready supply of Masters thesis fodder for Psychiatric grad students and criminal justice students for a hundred years.

Where was Cantor when the teabag mobs were strapping on their iron on the other side of the Potomac back in 2010 or, spitting on African-American Congressmen for that matter.

Continuing the Republican use of the word ‘mob’, Rand Paul:

“As far as this Occupy Wall Street goes, you know, I see it as sort of like a Paris mob. I see the President’s rhetoric of envy inflaming the public and saying, 'Go get yours because rich people don’t deserve it'."

He delivered this steaming pile on, where else, FOX Business. This says more about the psyche of Rand Paul than anything else. He apparently thinks in terms of envy and inflaming the public, concepts that certainly did not appear in the President’s comments. As for “rich people don’t deserve it,” to quote William Money in a scene that actually was violent, in the classic Unforgiven, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

Paul is clearly hoping to incite looting when he says-

“I see it as inflaming this Paris mob that I hope doesn’t result in a lawlessness where they say, ‘Well, gosh, those nice iPads through the window should be mine and why don’t I throw a brick Though the window to get them because rich people don’t deserve to have them when I can’t have them'.”

I guess that in Rand Paul’s world looters say “gosh.” But, really, most of the people in what he and his twisted ilk call a mob already have an iPad and, again, deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it. Earth to Rand: The lawlessness has already occurred. That’s why people are protesting. Is this Mr. Senator 1% too thick to get it? You bet.

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As usual, the Conservadems like Harry Reid and the rest seem either too afraid to say anything for fear of losing out on the gravy train of corporate “campaign contributions,” don’t know what to say, or are cowardly acquiescing to the false pictures of mobs and hippies and would be ransackers and Mansons that their fellow conservatives are painting.

At least Nancy Pelosi managed to express some outrage at Eric Cantor when she asked exactly what I have been thinking:

“I didn’t hear him say anything when the Tea Party was out demonstrating, actually spitting on members of Congress right here in the Capitol and he and his colleagues were putting signs in windows encouraging them.”

I know there was a time when I never expected such a direct and righteousc omment from Nancy Pelosi. I won’t regard it as a new leaf or anything, but it is a ray of sunshine.

We also need more Democrats like Alan Grayson who, as Howie recently pointed out, had something to say to a nasty little tumor named PJ O’Rourke. We also need more Socialists like Bernie Sanders but that’s not what this post is focusing on. It’s focusing on the kind of people who plague our very existence; the kind of people who would happily see us return to medieval times when Kings where few, drunk on their greed, and everybody else knew their place and cowered in it.

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Next up is a media jackass named Erin Burnett over at CNN, aka FOX-lite. Burnett is now famous for her condescension and lying directed at a protester about the TARP program. All this was on her CNN debut. Can’t wait to see what else she has in store. She was such a joke on CNBC that even a righty punk like Joe Scarborough couldn’t seem to stomach her whenever she was a visiting parasite on his horrifically mindless MSNBC morning show. Burnett has a rich history of utter buffoonery available for viewing on youtube. It’s like watching a one woman Three Stooges. All she needs to do is poke herself in the eye and she’ll have the whole thing down pat.

Burnett: “Do you know that taxpayers actually made money on the Wall Street bailout.”

Protester: “I was not aware of that.”

Burnett: “They did. No on GM, but they did on the Wall Street part of the bailout. Does that make you feel any different?”

Protester: “Well, I would have to do more research…”

Burnett: “If I were right, it might.”

The problem is two fold. One. She isn’t right, and, two, the protesting isn’t simply about any bailouts. As for GM, it wasn’t entirely a bailout. It was partially a loan and is being paid back, with interest! The rest of the money will eventually find its way back to the Treasury through a plan of public stock offerings. Burnett went on to claim that the bank bailout “made money for the American taxpayers, right now to the tune of $10 billion dollars.” Well, it’s made money for those who got the bailout but have you received a check or any mysterious deposits in you bank account? Oh, I know, we’re all going to be told we can deduct our share of the $10 billion from our taxes next April. That must be it. No?

Burnett goes on to double down on GM. Right. Other right wing factoids you may be interested in is the “fact” that, as Ronald Reagan once famously said, trees cause more pollution than cars do by filling the air with carbon monoxide-like chemicals. Hey, when ya don’t have facts on your side, just make a few up. Hell CNN and FOX will even pay you to spew ‘em daily just like that wonderful Sarah Palin! I even hear they found WMDs in Iraq!

If this wackadoodle Burnett worked for the Russians, she’d be still claiming that baseball was invented in Russia.

Who is this new objective reporter and commentator from CNN? She is a former Vice President of Citigroup. She started her career as a financial analyst dealing with securities and worldwide banking at Goldman Sachs. She is engaged to Citigroup executive David Rubulotta. Does that sound like CNN sent an objective, fair and balanced reporter down to the protests in her limo for some fair and balanced reporting? No? Didn’t think so. But, this is a prime example of where the larger part of the media has been going with the Occupy Wall Street story. Burnett is nothing but a propagandist and an apologist for some of the worst our society has to offer. People who claim to have conversed with Bigfoot in Latin have more credibility, at least with sane people. Cenk Uygur sets her straight in the following clip.



Bill-O continues his descent into the ever-darkening levels of his madness. As usual, he’s frantically ranting about bums and hippies and socialism and how protesters need to take a bath. He’s a fossil from the 1960s. His panic is palpable. He looks physically ill as he goes on and on. There isn’t a loofah in the world that can cleanse his mind. Whatever it is that’s in his brain, it is in so deep that it’s inoperable. He even has the look of a man who knows it but is helpless in its grasp.

Here’s NY Republikook Rep. Peter King on Laura Ingraham’s radio show on Friday. King speaks like he’s a Chinese totalitarian observing the masses in Tiananmen Square in China back in 1989.

“It’s really important for us not to give any legitimacy to these people in the streets…we can’t allow more coverage of Occupy Wall Street, or they will win.”

This comes from a goon that has, shall we say, “reputed ties to the IRA.”

Glenn Beck and his insane clown posse, clearly still out on day passes, recently claimed on his show that Occupy Wall Street is “calling for killing and cannibalizing the rich.” Hmmm. Well now, I could easily envision Beck rotating slowly on a spit at a luau, with a pineapple, or two jammed in his mouth, but, we’d have to be mighty hungry… Yet, if the conservatives keep on with their war against the middle class, maybe his words will turn out to be prophetic after all. Look at it this way, if people can’t get a job to feed their children, what else is a good parent to do? It’s a matter of personal responsibility, isn’t it Glenn? Surely any conservative can understand that. They certainly talk about it enough. I’ll take a kebab, please!

Then, speaking of food, there’s Herman Cain: He’s not about painting a picture of looting or cannibalism. Instead, he’s all about some sort of elaborate, dastardly, conspiracy, allegedly brilliantly devised by a White House that can’t even beat John Boehner when they have 80% of the public behind them and Speaker Boehner appears to have just downed his sixth martini in ten minutes.

“I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration…Don’t blame Wall Street. Don’t blame the big banks if you don’t have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!”

Right, Mr. “let them eat pizza” man! You don’t have facts! At last, an almost honest Republican! Incredibly, but not all that surprisingly, this man’s approval ratings keep going up and up among Republican voters. They feed on the wacko factor-- and just eat up his pathetic little minstrel show.

The thing that seems interesting to me about blaming President Obama for all this is that Republicans seem to be helping Obama by reverse marketing him as someone who is in the corner of the protestors and those that feel taken advantage of, or robbed by “the system.” That’s pretty ironic when you consider that both Obama and his predecessor gave a king’s ransom (literally) to the Wall Street manipulators and speculators and Goldman Sachs was arguably his biggest campaign contributor. Even Obama’s hated health care reform gave zillions to the insurance companies and their stock went up as soon as the bill was passed. Still, the mindless repugs are tying Obama to a movement that is growing exponentially every week. The Repugs have gotten so nihilistic in their hate for Obama that they risk destroying what’s left of themselves, not that that would be an entirely bad thing. More on this later.

Meanwhile, Earth to Herman and to all those who refuse to get it: It’s not about being rich. It’s about quality of life and even survival. On Sunday’s Face The Nation, Cain even went so far as to say of the protests

“Part of it is jealousy. I stand by that…My parents never said that we hope the rich lose something so that we can get something.”

Yeah. I got mine, Jack! Cain manages to articulate the typical conservative mind set that in order for those lower on the economic ladder to gain, the ivory tower folks have to lose. This mind set reveals itself every time there is a discussion about worker rights, medical benefits, safety regulations, you name it; even voting rights. Of course, no one on Face The Nation pointed out that it was the Wall Street people who not only took the money, they took the dreams of others along with it.

Rush Limbaugh has called the protesters a “parade of human debris.” Meanwhile, on FOX & FIENDS, Trump’s wacky hair helmet compels him to say it’s all about dating. Trumps words are pure gold to Republicans, especially after his birther nonsense. But, before he said that the protests are about dating, he was careful to mention that his previous utterance of this highly intellectual talking point had been picked up by others. To the constantly self-promoting Donald, the attention HE and his inane utterances get is the most important thing. He claims he doesn’t know what people are down at Wall Street for anyway. Everything is so rosey for everybody; everybody that matters, that is. “Human debris”???

To conservatives, if you’re not a mega-millionaire, that’s what you are. “Human debris.” You are a means to an end to be discarded without the pension you earned and saved for. That pension disappeared in a shell game and the money from it is probably now sitting driveways in Short Hills and Greenwich, or in off-shore bank accounts. They will laugh and call you losers but this approach of derision will only serve to increase the numbers of demonstrators. In both New York and Chicago, banksters and hedgefund types are continuing their arrogance by displaying “We Are The One Percent” signs in their windows; taunting in an attempt to rub their wanton greed and unpunished crimes in our faces. The American Standard has already had a provocateur infiltrate a demonstration in Washington. Expect more and worse.

It’s no coincidence that the same Republicans and other forms of conservative cretania, who see nothing wrong with taunting in grade school, go on to taunt and bully people all their lives. The Bank of America even chose this particular time to impose a $5.00 monthly fee on Debit Cards; tone-deaf and proud of it! In your face, Mr. Public! In your face! So what if I can’t even prove that I own your house. I’m taking it anyway! By the way, are those your kids? These financial world morlocks are so confident and so arrogant in their Republican air of self-superiority that they are self-destructively fanning the flames that may one day consume them. Sigh. Idiots just can’t learn from history. If the guillotines come again, maybe Rush and the Donald will come to comprehend this in their final seconds but I doubt it. If it’s a mob they want then let’s just order up some baskets. I claim first dibs on Trump’s scalp. I’ll gladly use it to clean out the litter box.

Occupy the Hamptons!

You can almost see these sub-standard versions of humanity sweating as they desperately try to color the Occupy Wall Street movement in an increasingly bad light . The air of panic is palpable. Watching Bill-O losing it on a nightly basis is almost like watching a nasty car crash over and over again. You can even judge the righteousness of the protesters indignation by the loudness and the mania of the putdowns from the crazies on the right.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg is virtually tearing himself in half trying to navigate both sides of the issue. He may even end up seeing his own building occupied. He is Mr. Richie Rich and he realizes how much money the Wall Street financial people bring to the city, but, he also is just smart enough to realize which way the wind is blowing. He’s smart enough to know that his ability to govern lies in his popularity with the voters more than it does even with most politicians. In his career, he’s been a Democrat, a Republican, and now professes to be an Independent. He’s always tried to have it every way at once. He never could choose one and sick with it. Soon, he may hus disavowing his pledge to only serve two terms and his circumvention of New York’s term limit rules. Have all these people put all their chips on a system that got them where they are but is now becoming unviable?

Expect the former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the crank who, for some totally out to lunch reason, the corporate media bills as America’s Mayor, to weigh in soon. You know he’s dying to be asked. He’s always got his people out their vying for TV face time for their boss. Expect him to somehow, however illogically, to tie it into 9/11 when, in fact, the more apt parallel would be related to his much-needed and successful prosecution of the Gotti Crime Family back in the 1980s. After all, who siphoned off more money from us: the Mafia from Howard Beech or the Mafia in the buildings that make up Wall Street? Who was/is the bigger cancer sickening our society?

Of all conservatives, Republicans, who are charging head long as hard as they can to the furthest reaches of the right, are proof positive that you really can fill yourself with so much hate that eventually you’ll become blind or just direct it where it belongs; at yourself. What happens if the movement grows so large that it affects elections? Right now, the Occupy Wall Street movement is certainly not a pro-Obama movement but what happens if attaching the movement to President Obama is a successful marketing ploy and it backfires after having become extremely popular? Just as the Tea Pary movement helped the Republicans make gains in 2010, could the Republican efforts to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement more than undo those gains in 2012 or 2014? Confusion just may be their epitaph. The conservative element in our society sees anyone who isn’t rich as a rabble, a mob, a “parade of human debris,” not fit to even look upon on their custom tailored visages or the gated communities that they would be imprisoned in an ideal world. As the numbers of disenchanted grow, the conservative way of dealing with this movement appears to be massively self-defeating. This works for me! Thank you! Democrats may not be committed enough or able enough to beat you but it sure looks like you can become so frenzied that you can beat yourselves.

In the universe of my imagination, soon, the conservatives of both parties will take the next step in their suicidal mission of self-destruction and will be setting up Walk-In Cuisinarts in their own offices and just walking in, never to be seen again. Yeah, I know. Dream on, Noah. Note to Republicans: The Walk-In is available in a home model, too, and features a variety of primary and pastel colors to choose from, including a lovely patriotic Red, White, And Blue. The only downside is that it can only be disposed of at a toxic landfill site after use, but, hey, the mess you leave behind is never your problem, right? Meanwhile, I’ve got a luau to get to.

I wonder who they are
The men who really run this land
And I wonder why they run it
With such a thoughtless hand

What are their names
And on what streets do they live?
I’d like to ride right over
This afternoon and give

Them a piece of my mind
About peace for mankind
Peace is not an awful lot
To ask

- David Crosby