I’ve been listening to the right-wing media, such as Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, decry the Occupy Wall Street protests as “un-American” (yes, that would be the same Neil Cavuto who issued a warning to tea partiers of a liberal faction of “over caffeinated crashers” who were plotting diabolically to infiltrate tea party rallies). And yes, this would be the same Neil Cavuto who last month gave a forum to a tea partier who aggressively confronted President Obama, bragging that this tea partier is “the guy making waves from Iowa to Washington.”
- Neil Cavuto hosts a Tea Party Rally . . .
So, in the face of the Occupy Wall Street protests – which is basically, like the tea party claimed to be, simply fed up with the status quo - one would think that the right-wing media would herald its arrival, just like it did the Tea Party in 2008. But alas, Fox News and other right-wing media outlets are jealously protecting the Tea Party’s turf – just as it did in 2010 when the Coffee Party Movement came to life. As I reported for News Hounds at that time, the Coffee Party Movement was depicted as a George Soros-funded movement, while the Tea Party – despite the financial support of FreedomWorks, the Koch Brothers, American Solutions for Winning the Future and Americans for Prosperity – was depicted as a simple little “grassroots” organization.
Some things change, but most remain the same.
So of course, the fact that Fox News is not actually an arm of the GOP, but rather an arm of the fringe right-wingers known as the Tea Party, is old news. Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Greta van Susteren and others hosted tea party events - in fact, the network ran on-screen text that described the tea party protests as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.”
But as I’ve been watching and listening to the not-unexpected hypocrisy of the right, including O’Reilly’s comment that the OWS protesters are crackheads, Ann Coulter depicting them as having “demonic aspects,” and Sean Hannity telling a caller to his radio show that that the protesters “don’t believe in liberty . . . freedom,” something nagged at me. I covered Fox for News Hounds for a year and a half, and it was during the time that the Tea Party was being used launched by right-wing rich folks. And in the News Hounds archives, I discovered an article I’d written about the DontGo Movement.
Fox News itself, with the help of its multitude of teabagging guests, did its best to foment revolution against President Obama in 2009 – and it didn’t mind lending at least indirect support to one Eric Odom, leader of a pack of revolutionaries known as the DontGo Movement.
As I noted on both The Examiner and News Hounds in 2009:
“DontGo is a part of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition (NTPC – the Republicans love acronyms), which was formed on February 20, 2009, by DontGo Movement, Top Conservatives on Twitter, and Smart Girl Politics. It should be noted that the NTPC is heartily endorsed by and partnered with Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future. And about those three groups that formed the NTPC: DontGo is the we-are-right-wing-but-don’t-associate-us-with-Republicans group we’ll talk about more. The Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT, another beloved acronym) is a group that seems determined to rocket the Republicans into the technological world. But it’s kind of scary. At TCOT, “projects are led by Project Servant-Leaders (PS-Ls). We chose that term very intentionally to reflect the stewardship nature of leadership in our group. Our overall cause of restoring limited government, free markets, and conservative principles to the governance of the United States is a worthy one.” (I swear to God it said Servant-Leaders; I’m not making this up. Check out the cult-like similarities.) . . . The DontGo movement’s website has a blazing headline entitled,“Silent Majority No More! Revolution is Brewing.” And let’s take a look at some of the blogs of this organization that Fox News promotes and encourages via its support of the Tea Party movement:
“The good news is that people are waking up to the type of people who are running the show in DC, pushing hard against their policies can work and make a difference. The people in DC have no spines.”
“The question is what do we do next? The time for a revolution is not yet if they don’t repeal the bailouts.”
And this, under the heading “Where Do We Go From Here? A Discussion About Strategy:” “I have said before that in order for an insurrection to be successful you must have either a majority of the people in agreement with or sympathetic to your cause, or you must have arms equal to those against whom you rebel.”
“I’m all for doing more than just protests. In fact, I hope that this Tea Party rally is one of the very few. Demonstrations, with images of picket signs and their slogans, are just to easy for the left and the media to dismiss.”
Posted under a heading, “Tea Party BS:”
A proper protest requires government bringing police dogs and water cannons; there must be tear gas and riot gear. If one isn’t beat on and one doesn’t do some beating; if one doesn’t risk arrest and death, one isn’t properly protesting!
And in the same “Tea Party BS” forum about tear gas and riot gear (Fox might want to reconsider its Family Values thing):
“There’s nothing wrong with bringing kids to them either, they can sometimes send the most powerful message.” . . . If playing by the rules doesn’t work then maybe we would have to escalate.
The thought of doing physical harm to fellow Americans is distasteful to me, as it should be to all American patriots and lovers of liberty. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce Americans under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government… and generally such government doesn’t just walk away peacefully.
This is on DontGo’s website. This is scary shit. This is what Fox News is promoting, encouraging, and, in the case of FNC’s Glenn Beck, fund-raising for.”
The DontGo Movement claimed to be “non-partisan,” but every other group it closely associated itself with was hard-core right-wing and conservative; many of the blogs on its website were insurrection-directed against the current government, and DontGo was endorsed by the likes of Mary Katherine Ham and now GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
So, this is the OWS protesters’ rebuttal – if it’s revolution the right-wing media doesn’t like, throw DontGo in their faces. If it’s threats of violence the right-wing media doesn’t like, throw DontGo in their faces. If it’s OWS protesters bringing their children along to the rallies, throw DontGo in their faces.
Support the OWS protests or not, how about we not let the right-wingers recreate history?
