Occupy OKC

I’ve been trying to respond to each of The Oklahoman editorials, published on NewsOK.com, that criticize that Occupy Wall Street movement to highlight the sheer inanity and cluelessness of perhaps the most conservative newspaper in the country.

The newspaper, which is now owned by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, doesn’t “get” the Occupy movement, and it has undoubtedly spent thousands of words proving it. But what the newspaper lacks in basic cultural understanding it makes up for in ad hominem, demeaning attacks on people who basically want a decent economic future for themselves.

The newspaper’s lastest inane offering (“Occupy protests to the contrary, bigger isn’t always badder,” Jan. 17, 2012) essentially argues that monopoly companies such as Walmart are good for the country, and it’s only a “naive and sometimes stupid strain of populism,” i.e. the Occupy Movement, that would dare criticize them.

Here’s the telling paragraph in the commentary:

A local gadfly, speaking at an Occupy OKC rally late last year, evoked this idiocy in urging his audience to shop only at small, locally owned businesses “and stay out of big box stores that feed the 1 percent and wreck local economies.”

Note the words “gadfly” and “idiocy” and the previously cited “stupid strain of populism,” which shows the editorial must rely on name-calling and demeaning language in an effort to make a point, which is obviously strained. In the end, the editorial’s argument is archaic in its simplicity: Walmart good, protesters bad. The words in italic are a mimic of the editorial’s ending, which goes “Two stores good, 400 better.”

The criticism of Walmart has a long history, and I won’t spend much time rehashing the complaints, which center around the monopoly’s impact on communities around the country. The basic narrative, given by the company’s detractors, is that Walmart pushes out independent businesses in communities and pays extremely low wages. A good source of information for this type of criticism, which has cultural validity and is remarkable for its contemporary importance, is Walmart Watch. Here’s an example of the arguments presented on the site:

From small businesses to major chains, all grocery and retail establishments that compete with Walmart are impacted by the company. Competitors are often forced to lower wages and standards. By using a model based on low-wages, high-efficiency transportation, and imported goods, Walmart has a history of destroying once thriving downtowns across rural America.

That the local editorial didn’t refer significantly to the huge, historical body of Walmart criticism is fairly typical because the fallacy of omission is one of the newspaper’s best weapons in protecting the wealthiest 1 percent from any critique. But, once again, the newspaper misses the most salient point of the Occupy Movement, which is 99 percent of the country is essentially enslaved politically and economically by the top 1 percent. That’s an argument that’s been made here and across the country, and not just among Occupy protesters. The great wealth disparity in this country threatens democracy, and, paradoxically, capitalism itself.

So, given what the movement is really about, here’s some information unlikely to be found on The Oklahoman editorial page when it criticizes the “idiocy” of the “naïve” protesters and their “stupid strain of populism.” According to Wikipedia, the three children of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, using 2011 numbers, are worth the following: Alice Walton, $20.9 billion, S. Robson Walton, $21 billion and Jim Walton, $21.3 billion.

As of 2010, Anschutz, the new owner of The Oklahoman, is worth $7 billion, according to the site.

For weeks, the editorial page of The Oklahoman has mocked and sneered at the Occupy OKC participants and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement, employing demeaning, sarcastic right-wing rants to make its points.

On Wednesday, an editorial published on NewsOK.com (“Continued overnight stays in Kerr Park would only hurt Occupy OKC cause,” Dec. 14, 2011) about the local protesters dropped the silly snark, for the most part, and offered its sanctimonious advice for Occupy OKC: Leave the downtown Kerr Park encampment for the good of your cause.

Of course, the editorial was published as the Occupy OKC protesters were actually already breaking camp after a federal judge’s ruling that they had to leave the park at night because of city park regulations. The Occupy OKC argument was essentially that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes “the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . .”.

That The Oklahoman should now be a source of advice for the OWS movement is about as absurd as it gets. This is a media outlet that, at least in its editorials, has made it clear it favors the interests of big corporations and the wealthy—or the 1 percent—above anything else. This has been the newspaper’s modus operandi under the Gaylord family and now apparently under the ownership of Philip Anschutz.

Perhaps worse than the unwanted and self-serving advice, though, is the newspaper’s failure to even remotely understand the local and national protests, which are sure to continue through the winter and erupt in full force during the spring. That’s the fault line between establishment media outlets and the OWS movement. If the movement can’t be presented as a list of points in a press release, then corporate media outlets are going to marginalize it. But this is a beginning of a movement, here and elsewhere, that might never lend itself to the artificial rhetorical frames still widely practiced as “journalism.”

There are two points of misunderstanding in the most recent editorial about the OWS movement in The Oklahoman.

First, the editorial claims Occupy OKC participants “do indeed have a right to ‘stand up for what they believe in a public space.’ But the First Amendment doesn't say that other rules or laws don't apply.”

But the First Amendment also doesn’t say the right to peaceably assemble IS subject to all “other rules or laws.” Kerr Park’s hours are not, to be obvious, specifically a part of the constitution. The key word here is “peaceably.” One basis of the Occupy movement is to occupy, to be redundant, in both an actual and symbolic sense. It says, We claim this space because it’s ours as citizens. We’re going to live here. We want a voice in making “other rules or laws.” Of course, the temporary or even permanent suspension of some “other rules or laws” is valid when there are pressing social concerns presented peacefully by a widespread, national movement.

It’s difficult to imagine that our country’s forefathers would have considered a small park’s hours of operation more important than peaceful protest.

Second, the editorial asks why the protesters chose Kerr Park and not some other public space. The answer to that, at least from my perspective, seems obvious. The park was donated to the city by the long-gone Kerr-McGee Corporation, a once prominent oil and gas company in Oklahoma City that was sold in 2006 and became part of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in Houston. In a sense, because of the nomenclature, a historical, now non-existent corporation “occupies” the park 24 hours a day. What better place to protest the outsized role corporate money and influence plays in our political system?

As I’ve written before, once the Oil Age comes to an end, companies like Kerr-McGee will seem like a blip on the city’s and state’s history. Let’s hope that the expression of valid protest and the exercise of free speech will live on and that maybe one day Kerr Park will be known as Occupy Park.

The Oklahoman editorial writers have become obsessed with deriding and mocking the Occupy OKC protests and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement, which means we know the local demonstrators have accomplished something positive here.

Two editorials this week that were published on NewsOK.com collectively refer to the local protesters as “clowns” and their downtown camp site in Kerr Park as one of the OWS’s “Porta-Potty embattlements." But the mocking only highlights the fact that the local oligarchy here, or what the OWS movement calls the “1 percent,” is worried about major structural change in our economic system that now privileges the wealthy at the expense of 99 percent of Americans. The movement reminds us that the growing wealth disparity in this country is not sustainable.

The two editorials published so far this week—and there will probably be more—follow several editorials published over the last several weeks that sarcastically denigrate the occupiers but absolutely fail to address the issue of economic injustice that has been the central theme in OWS protests throughout the country.

In an editorial (“Many goals of Occupy campers have been accomplished,” Nov. 29, 2011) published Tuesday, the newspaper makes the inane argument that the election of President Barack Obama and “Democratic Congresses” have made the movement fait accompli. In other words, why should anyone protest since, well, to use just one of the newspaper’s strange examples, the government recently stopped a merger between two large corporations?

The absurdity of this tortuous argument cannot be overstated nor the obvious fact that the newspaper’s editorial writers are simply baffled by the OWS movement and its meaning. The editorial also contained the “Porta-Potty embattlements” reference as if the protesters should be laughed because they go to the bathroom in portable facilities. It simply makes no sense.

Another editorial (“Enough already—Occupy OKC campers need a reality check,” Dec. 1, 2011) published today refers to the protesters as “clowns” and their location as a “silly encampment.” Its main point seems to be that the city has done so much for the occupiers, who simply don’t appreciate it. Here’s the last paragraph:

Truth is, the city never had to allow these clowns to stay even one night in Kerr Park, but did so in a spirit of cooperation — for two months. For that it has gotten only derision in return. Enough is enough.

Truth is, Kerr Park is public property. Truth is, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sanctions “the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . .” Truth is, The Oklahoman should be a champion of the First Amendment, which also guarantees freedom of the press, but it apparently isn’t. This is what The Oklahoman is saying: ”Enough already” with this First Amendment stuff.

What The Oklahoman and the oligarchy it supports are worried about is that OWS demonstrators, in the face of potential police brutality, are risking injury and major discomfort in getting arrested as they stand up for, among other things, economic justice, decent jobs and a chance to go to college without ruinous debt. American history is filled with successful protest movements in which people “occupied” or took over space and then were demonized by the establishment and arrested. Some past protesters were beaten; some were killed in their cause. Today, police overreact with pepper spray or other forms of modern brutality. It may work for a moment, but it never works in the long-term, and those who sanction, allow or remain silent about brutality always end up on the wrong side of history.

Occupy OKC has been asked by the city to stop using Kerr Park as a camping spot, and it remains to be seen if arrests will be made and how the local police will handle the issue. Throughout the country, cities have been arresting protesters in what can only be described as a concerted effort by the American oligarchy and its authoritarian sycophants to stop the movement, but it’s not going away anytime soon here or elsewhere.

Can you imagine what the streets will be like next spring and summer in an election year?