Bank Warns Employees About OWS

Far be it from me to accuse Gandhi of missing a note, but in the case of the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests, the Mahatma's famous quote appears to be lacking a few essential words. "First they ignore you," he said, "then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

That's not quite correct.

Certainly, the OWS protests began with a great whistling silence from the "mainstream" news media. It is only because of the resources available to the average person in this marvelous technological age we live in that word of the protest ever reached beyond its original location.

Thanks to cell phones, video cameras, digital recorders, and of course, the internet - all wielded by patriot citizens - reports, images and video of the protest began to dribble out via Twitter, Facebook and a variety of blogs and alternative news media sites like Truthout. But from the "mainstream" news, there was nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

Eventually, however, the OWS protest broke through the "mainstream" news blackout, thanks in no small part to commentators like Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Once the "mainstream" news outlets finally deigned to lower themselves to report on the rabble down on Wall Street, their tone and tenor fairly oozed contempt. The New York Times, bastion of the status quo, published an article describing each and every participant of the OWS protest as a moonbeam-riding fuzzbrain, someone reeking of patchouli who couldn't string a coherent thought together if their life depended on it...which was followed up immediately by a barrage of reports defending cops who hosed down defenseless women penned in behind nylon barriers with pepper spray, because those cops were doing exactly, precisely the right thing. Or something.

This, as usual, from the same "mainstream" news media that didn't have any problem with the gun-toting "patriots" of the Tea Party and their catastrophically-spelled signs. Well, then again, the Tea Party has corporate sponsorship, while the OWS protesters are doing this on their own. It pays - literally - to have friends in high places.

Similar disdain was heaped upon the OWS protest from every corner of the "mainstream" news realm, most especially from Fox News and the long reach of conservative talk radio. These protesters are bums, hippies, losers, anarchists, idiots, communists and fools, a drumbeat which has continued to this very day.

So.

First they ignore you: check.

Then they ridicule you: check.

According to Gandhi, the next step comes when they fight you, but here is the spot where his marvelous wisdom could use a bit of enhancement.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you...

Then they get scared.

And they are scared, now. You can smell it. The criticism being leveled at the OWS movement has gotten far harsher in the last several days. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently deployed the old chestnut about "class warfare" to describe the protest. Rep. Eric Cantor doubled down on Romney's rhetoric with some of his own: "If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans."

That's pretty rich right there, don't you think? Fellows like Cantor have made turning American against American their bread and butter for the last ten years..."You're with us or against us"...but I digress.

Fact: OWS has bloomed in more than a dozen major cities all across the country. It stopped being a protest a while ago. It's a movement now.