Jesse LaGreca appeared this past week-end on ABC's This Week. At one point he was badgered by Christiane Anampour about what the focus of the OWS was, what do you want, what's the point of what you are doing, what is your platform, etc.? This is where he blew his chance to REALLY take the corporate MSM to task for its general coverage and to extend his answer to the point that George Will wouldn't have had a chance to ask his typical, tight-ass, wingnut question that did nothing to advance the discussion, as is usual for his pin-headed discourse.
Jesse would have been far better served by simply answering,
"Well, Christiane, in the first place the Occupy groups are not a faux political party like the Tea Baggers. That question of yours is exactly the type of pin-headed question that gets no where and achieves nothing of substance. You in the corporate media want everything reduced to a DEMAND! Why? Because if it bleeds, it ledes. You people aren't into discussion. That "discussion" you have been having has been all about confrontation, not trying to find solutions. You can only exist, you believe, if you can gin up a frothy confrontation to take pictures of, preferably with blood and tear gas and broken bones, which Michael Bloomberg did his best to provide for you these past dozen days or so.
"The people in all the 'Occupy' movements across the country aren't a political party. They are not AstroTurf like the Tea Baggers. These are real life people who are sick and tired of having corporate America having its way with them. These are real people who are sick and tired of having politicians mouth pablum to them about the "Great American Working Man/Woman" all the while making secret deals with corporate America to add additional layers of impunity and immunity and our tax Dollars to their bottom lines and bribing the politicians with so-called campaign contributions. And these are real live people who are sick and tired of having you, the corporate media, whose bosses are all on the same exclusive golf courses or in the same exclusive clubs or on the same exclusive islands telling your bosses what you can and can't report on, so you report on all your happy face stories that mean absolutely nothing. And if you think that there is no proof of the last, I would point you to the Cenk Uygur fiasco at MSNBC.
"But you guys at the corporate media get the vapors over a fake group, built by Dick Armey and his lobbying staff and paid for by the Koch Brothers, never bothering to look under the skirts for fear that you might piss off a big advertiser. For example, Georgia Pacific, a wholly owned Koch Brothers entity, needs to sell lots of paper towel and toilet paper to keep the Koch's corporate mega-jet in fuel and catering. And they advertise heavily, in their various brands, on ABC. Do you really want us to believe that ABC would go after a truly investigative story on the Koch Brothers and their various nefarious schemes with all that advertising on the line.
"What those people out there want was what was set up under FDR, a true working man's republic. That system of governance built the largest middle-class the world has ever seen. And in the in the late 1960's, an attack began on that system, to fleece the middle class and destroy the working man's ability to exist. And oh yes, I know how you in the corporate bought and paid for press are going to spin that. Oh, they are racist, because they want things rolled back to pre-civil rights progressive movement. No, that's not what we are about. This has nothing to do with civil rights. It is about economic justice for EVERYONE in this country. What we are about is the beginning of the manipulation of the economic system to kill the middle class in the US and make an oligarchic 1% uber-rich and 99% poor. You know, like any and every third world country you can name.
"If we were compelled to put a name to what we want, it would be that we want fairness and social justice in the economic system and an egalitarian political system where a person making $20,000/yr has just as much chance at being president as any of the 'untouchables' on Wall Street.
"Yeah, that is vague. Intentionally so, because we are tired of having anything we say about our cause immediately taken out of context and turning truth to lie as you in the corporate press are so adroit at doing. This one will rock you. We would really like a truly working FCC, with authority to regulate cable telecommunications, so that the Corporate Media like you, best re-hire its fact checkers and use a little more intellectual honesty in your reporting. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Mr. Ailes."
Yes I know this is terribly unfair to Jesse, because I have had 24 hours to think about this and plan an this "response." And never let it be said that I don't wholeheartedly approve of Jesse's answer. Because, being jumped on with a question like that and having not advance notice that it was coming, he did extremely well, and like a cat, always landed on his feet. And His answer to the question that I have dissected was excellent. I just was hoping that he could monopolize the rest of the time so that George Will couldn't ask his aristocratic, effete, pseudo-intellectual question that was more speech than question.