Fox news smears occupy protestor

[Cinjin]

That's It! I'm moving to Denmark!

[Jaysyn]

Some more interesting info on the smearing OWS front.

Lobbying Firm's Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street

[Milky Tea]

It's not uncommon for the media to hold report stories in a manner which reflects their idealogical position more than reality. One of the reasons that I've largely given up buying any news papers and only watch the BBC with a degree of scepticism and dismay at the poor quality of reporting. The BBC's interviews are particularly dire because when the opportunity arises they tend to shy away from asking difficult questions and allow the person they are interviewing to avoid those difficult questions they do ask.

The only thing I find worth reading in the UK is Private Eye. It's by no means free from idealogical bias but it's satire is pretty good and they manage dig up quite a bit of dirt on politicians and corporations.

[Mister Agenda]

My friend Jon was murdered last week. He was active in Occupy Savannah. A local conservative blogger immediately connected his death to the movement, and the predictable comments about drug deals gone wrong and the protestors are little better than animals ensued. Now the fact is that Jon was walking home from a friend's house during the wee hours of the morning and got robbed and shot. It wasn't the best neighborhood. He was about seven miles from the protest. It had nothing to do with Occupy or drugs or protestors; except maybe in the sense that he might not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time if he hadn't been doing his activist thing. That's at least one commentator who picked up the ball and ran with it on the slimmest of suppositions. Take stories like this one with a generous helping of salt is my advice.

[Jaysyn]

My friend Jon was murdered last week.

Very sorry to hear that Mr. A.

I just did a little reading & searching. The guy who wrote that blog is an opportunistic shithead. I hope he gets abducted by aliens.

[Autumnlicious]

My friend Jon was murdered last week. He was active in Occupy Savannah. A local conservative blogger immediately connected his death to the movement, and the predictable comments about drug deals gone wrong and the protestors are little better than animals ensued. Now the fact is that Jon was walking home from a friend's house during the wee hours of the morning and got robbed and shot. It wasn't the best neighborhood. He was about seven miles from the protest. It had nothing to do with Occupy or drugs or protestors; except maybe in the sense that he might not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time if he hadn't been doing his activist thing. That's at least one commentator who picked up the ball and ran with it on the slimmest of suppositions. Take stories like this one with a generous helping of salt is my advice.

My current 'conspiracy theory' is that the Koch brothers and their shell entities are paying people via something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk to post comments on popular liberal news sites and blogs, because the general consensus and discourse utterly changed to something different within the first four weeks of OWS.

Now you can visit the San Francisco Chronicle, click on one article about OWS, find angry, vile and totally incoherent people blaming OWS for 'not getting a damn job', 'leeches' and the like, then click on another article (also about OWS) and find the OWS-fan club.

For the record, the OWS-fan club (posters I've lumped in the group) was the de facto "voice" for SFGate.com. Now it's... bi-polar, as if two distinctly different sets of people are posting,. Definitely not the usual crop of readers/commentators of the past few years.

[paintpooper]

My friend Jon was murdered last week. He was active in Occupy Savannah. A local conservative blogger immediately connected his death to the movement, and the predictable comments about drug deals gone wrong and the protestors are little better than animals ensued. Now the fact is that Jon was walking home from a friend's house during the wee hours of the morning and got robbed and shot. It wasn't the best neighborhood. He was about seven miles from the protest. It had nothing to do with Occupy or drugs or protestors; except maybe in the sense that he might not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time if he hadn't been doing his activist thing. That's at least one commentator who picked up the ball and ran with it on the slimmest of suppositions. Take stories like this one with a generous helping of salt is my advice.

My current 'conspiracy theory' is that the Koch brothers and their shell entities are paying people via something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk to post comments on popular liberal news sites and blogs, because the general consensus and discourse utterly changed to something different within the first four weeks of OWS.

Now you can visit the San Francisco Chronicle, click on one article about OWS, find angry, vile and totally incoherent people blaming OWS for 'not getting a damn job', 'leeches' and the like, then click on another article (also about OWS) and find the OWS-fan club.

For the record, the OWS-fan club (posters I've lumped in the group) was the de facto "voice" for SFGate.com. Now it's... bi-polar, as if two distinctly different sets of people are posting,. Definitely not the usual crop of readers/commentators of the past few years.

If it seems obvious then it is probably true, nothing happens for no reason.
"conspiracy"... nah more like rational, intelligent thinking, and putting small pieces together to find the ultimate truth.

[reverendjeremiah]

In America you have to be very cautious admiting you are a liberal. It could mean losing your job and many other harsh consequences.

Yep. Quite similar to admitting that you're an atheist.

That is true in most (but not all) American areas.

BUT

In my union I am well known as an atheist. I am also politically active in that union and typically draw 75%+ of the vote when I run for union official positions. When on the job, people seek me out for information on many topics because most people consider me to be quite smart.

I shake my head when they say this and instead claim that "I am merely a font of trivial information." to witch they almost always get a good laugh out of.

Being openly and unashamedly atheist in the union, and being an elected official, has given some non-religious types in my union the courage to approach me on the subject. Some will approach me while I am alone and admit that they see eye to eye with me on religion. And they are of all ages. This current job of mine has a 65 year old man boldly and laughingly agreeing with me that atheism is the correct world view.

This man is also VERY intelligent, and enjoys discussin ALL topics (are you suprised?)

I havent been actually keeping records, but I would say that any where between 1 in 10, and sometimes 1 in 20 of my fellow union brothers and sisters are some form of atheist, agnostic, or deism on the jobs I work on.

I hope that gives some people hope on this forum.

My advice? Pick and choose your fights and know when to ease the facts out at the right time.

[Anymouse]

My friend Jon was murdered last week.

Very sorry to hear that Mr. A.
I just did a little reading & searching. The guy who wrote that blog is an opportunistic shithead. I hope he gets abducted by aliens.

Well, "opportunistic shithead" as you called him has updated his blog with the comment below, but still manages to smear him even as he admits the error.

UPDATE (11/16 8:42 am EST): Savannah police have now clarified this morning to Big Government via telephone that the shooting of Occupy Savannah activist Jonathan Brazell is being investigated as an ordinary robbery, due partly to the fact that it occurred at a significant distance from the protest site itself.

***

Social media has been the principal vehicle of communication for the #Occupy movement. Through Facebook and Twitter, the loosely-knit band of anarchists, communists and leftist agitators have coordinated their actions and disseminated news to supporters around the world. There has also been a very dark side, but we’ll leave that aside for now.

[Mister Agenda]

My friend Jon was murdered last week.

Very sorry to hear that Mr. A.

I just did a little reading & searching. The guy who wrote that blog is an opportunistic shithead. I hope he gets abducted by aliens.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I was upset about it, but feeling better now. That blogger did, grudgingly and with no elaboration, put a disclaimer on his article. Better than nothing, I suppose. Thanks for posting the link.