Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Some people think the Occupy movement and the issues brought up by the protests is something new. I know I’ve been talking about corporatism and income inequality for many years. While archiving some past writings, I found an essay I wrote in 2003 which has ideas in it that wouldn’t seem out of place today – unfortunately.
On FOX “news” Sunday, the panel decided that the Occupy movement was un-American and maybe even Marxist but during the Tea Party protests FOX “news” fell over itself to promote them. There is no difference between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party protests – in that they both were an exercise of their right to protest for what they believe in. To say one is “un-American” and the other isn’t betrays FOX’s bias toward the 1%.
Michael Shermer is founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine “Skeptic”. He is a BIG NAME in the freethought community and is well known for debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. Shermer has been an advocate of Scientific skepticism – questioning the veracity of claims using the scientific method – except it seems for his own political views. Recently Shermer wrote a series of tweets praising an OpEd by David Brooks that complained about the Occupy movement. He (and Brooks) totally missed the point.
The first tweet shocked me because I really didn’t know that much about Shermer’s political views:
Saw an image on another site of the three Republican leaders in Congress together at a press conference – Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) – and it gave me an idea for an image that expresses my frustration with the obstructionist GOP. Enjoy!
Saturday was the big global protest day as part of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and in Columbus hundreds showed up at the steps of the Ohio State House to join in the event. The top news station in town WBNS 10tv had a surprising objective report allowing for a good bit of face and sign time as well as mentioning the other locations of protest in the almost 4 minute report at the top of the 11 PM newscast.