All or nothing when talking values and money

In this week's editorial, David Brooks either misses the point or hopes to talk around it.

He argues that the Occupy protest movement targets the wrong type of inequality. To make his argument, Brooks organizes inequality into two varieties conveniently named Blue and Red. According to Brooks, Blue inequality--the target of the Occupy movement--consists of the wealth gap between the elite business/finance sector and everyone else. Red inequality consists of the opportunity and values gap between college graduates and those who never make it to college.

The differences between college grads and non-college grads, Brooks says, are "inequalities of family structure, child rearing patterns and educational attainment". Besides making the sweeping generalization that college graduates are better at raising children and run better homes, Brooks makes the common mistake of separating values and economics and then emphasizing one at the expense of the other. The poor need stable, good paying jobs to support a family the way Brooks wants them to. Liberals tend to overemphasize the economics of poverty, while Conservatives focus on values.

Towards his conclusion, Brooks writes that Blue inequality is "not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the nation’s stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent." With jobs being outsourced or eliminated due to downsizing, and with workers' wages stagnant while CEO pay skyrockets, Brooks is naive to think that if only the poor married before having children, their conditions would improve and opportunity would follow.

Squashing Dissent

The CNN article "Tear gas used on Occupy protesters in Oakland" quotes police statements released after violent attempts to squash Occupy Wall Street protests. The article does not (1) investigate these statements, (2) include counter statements by protestors or neutral observers, nor does it (3) discuss relevant questions about whether demonstrators needed or acquired permits for their events. This article represents a lot of modern mainstream coverage and is decidedly not journalism. It shows how media outlets function primarily as loudspeakers for establishments, both government and private industry.

OK, maybe every statement can't be checked. That's understandable. But at least say so in the article because a lot of people trust authorities, especially the police, and these people accept official statements as gospel.

My favorite part: The article concludes with this:

Oakland and Atlanta are two of many cities worldwide dealing with the Occupy Wall Street protests, the leaderless movement that started in New York in September.

Dealing with?

Current narrative on Occupy Wallstreet

The media narrative on Occupy Wall Street says the participants have no clearly defined unifying goal or policy objective. By contrast we're shown the Tea Party who want smaller government and less taxes. Nevermind that "smaller government" and "less taxes" are amazingly broad demands that, if actually instituted, would result in changes that the Tea Party would not support, including cuts to the military, cuts to US farm and oil subsidies, and cuts to Social Security and Medicare (presumably, once unknowing senior Tea Party members are made aware these are government-run programs, some would change their mind).

Occupy Wall Street's thematic conceptual equivalent to "smaller government" and "less taxes" is probably "inequality" because this key word holds much meaning for the protestors: Inequality of wealth distribution (the poor get poorer and the rich get mega-rich), inequality of bailout-giving (big banks get 'em, homeowners and college loanees don't), inequality of criminal prosecutions (white collar crimes are often ignored, crimes of the poor cause prisons to spill over), and so on.

If the narrative is true that Occupy Wall Street lacks a cohesive, meaningful message, then it is equally true of the Tea Party. In fact, as the Tea Party grew in number, its aims became even more diverse, including Obama citizenship-deniers, health care reform opponents, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, veterans, seniors, libertarians, the rich and the poor. Yet they were celebrated in the media for allegedly lacking leadership and being a true-blue grass roots movement. The same benefit of the doubt is denied Occupy Wall Street.

Speech Act

In Snyder vs. Phelps the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Westboro Baptist Church members' right to protest at a military funeral. In this case, "at" means something like 1,000 yards away and possibly in accordance with other locally devised and enforced rules. The issue was evaluated by the Justices in terms of  free speech, and whether the speech was injurious or injury was only the fallout.

I agree with the majority. The protesters intended to hijack one rhetorical situation--a military funeral--and introduce a second rhetorical situation in which state policy is the target. They did not silence or prevent the funeral. And while their speech act insults the mourners, the inflammatory signage is tactical first and foremost.

The policy under attack concerns gays serving in the military. The soldier being buried was not a homosexual. What if he had been? Could the protesters' intent to injure then be more easily argued?