Community | October 20, 2011 | 62 comments

Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street ~~ Matt Taibbi

source: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-rush-limbaugh-is-freaking-out-about-...

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Got a flurry of emails yesterday after the inimitable Rush Limbaugh lumped me and Dylan Ratigan in with the behind-the-scenes power structure. Apparently Rush got hold of Breitbart’s story about the email list and decided to run with it:

RUSH: "Journalists have been advising the protesters – emails have been found. Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC and some guy named Matt Taibbi… Dylan Ratigan and Matt Taibbi are sending emails back and forth with organizers , telling them how to position their demands, how they can improve their coverage."

Here Rush paused before making his Sherlock Holmesian deduction from these facts:

RUSH: "This whole thing is a construct of the media-Democrat complex, industrial complex…"

I nearly fell over laughing when I heard this.

What the fuck is the Media-Democrat-Industrial Complex?

Has Rush been reading Noam Chomsky books on the side? Calling any group that includes me and Glenn Greenwald an “industrial complex” is extremely high-concept comedy.

We should have t-shirts made...

(Also, I love the phrase “emails have been found.” Actually, it was more like “a sleazy cyber-provocateur and amateur FBI informant stole the emails.” But who’s quibbling?)

Anyway, if you listen to the whole Rush segment, you can hear frustration and croaking, bullfroggish anxiety in his voice at the fact of so many different politicians capitulating, at least verbally, to OWS.

He’s sensing that politicians are seeing danger in the “99%” concept, and he's expressing dismay that everyone from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama is now trying hard to position himself as not being in the 1%.

This isn't evidence that mainstream politicians are caving to the movement, of course, but what it does show is that those same politicians are endorsing OWS rhetoric, and by extension tacitly admitting the basic truth of the great-many-versus-very-few protest narrative.

Rush chalks this up to a media deception, a mirage of TV images and “media-Democrat-industrial complex” manipulations designed to con the country into believing in the existence of a mass movement.

The reality, of course, is that people like Rush, Romney and Obama are all becoming cognizant of the deep frustrations that exist across the political spectrum and are growing desperate to prevent the powder keg from blowing completely – hence the intense effort to describe OWS as a top-down manipulation.

Of course the notion that this is all a media fabrication is ludicrous.

Dylan Ratigan didn’t invent four million people in foreclosure, he didn’t invent ten trillion dollars in bailouts, and he didn’t invent Wall Street’s $160 billion bonus pool the year after the crash of its own creation.

People out there do not need media figures to tell them how fucked things are, or how pissed they should be that the same bankers who caused the crash are now enjoying state-supported bonuses in the billions, while everyone else gets squeezed.

As someone who has been covering this stuff for three years, I can say with confidence that people across the country don’t need a push to be angry. They’re already there, and have been there for years.

Rush should go hang out outside a foreclosure court in his home state of Florida for a few hours, if he wants to see where the rising heat under these protests is coming from.

Anyway, the hysterical responses from the Rushes of the world are just more signs that these protests are working.

I never thought I’d see it, but some of the dukes and earls high up in America’s Great Tower of Bullshit are starting to blink a little bit. They seem genuinely freaked out that OWS doesn’t have leaders or a single set of demands, which in addition to being very encouraging is quite funny.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-rush-limbaugh-is-freakin...
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62 comments // Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street ~~ Matt Taibbi

  • ecoalex
    • 0
      ecoalex  

    • Power to the people! OWS is non partisan,this drives the pundits crazy,the old divide and conquer scheme isn't going to work this time.

      The plutocracy is scared,and clueless as to what to do.

    • 7 months ago
  • warman1138
    • 0
      warman1138  

    • Limbaugh defies description, a perpetual crap machine. He shouldn't exist but there he is, perpetually spewing crap. I am amazed and disgusted.

    • 7 months ago
  • Conniepae
    • +1
      Conniepae  

    • I would say the best way to stop corporations from buying our politicians would be to hit them where it hurts. Their wallets. Don't buy their products. Don't own their stock.

      I would say another place to focus, would be media who sit idly by while people lie! Don't stay on the channel. Leave and let them know why. Eventually they will once again, care more about profit, than politics. Supporting a particular party is wrong, regardless of party.

      I'm not saying stop letting people speak, but if it's not true, they should counter the spin with facts. Willfully giving a political party a platform to mislead Americans, 'IS' unacceptable! All too often, it takes a comedy channel and Jon Stewart to show the wrongs, which should have been covere by our media. That fact is both funny and sad!

    • 7 months ago
  • ithink
    • +1
      ithink  

    • Thats the beauty of this movement those old money boys at the top don,t know who is going to get hit first or from what direction it will come from.I can picture them on wall street running around in their offices in total terror on the verge of insanity.

    • 7 months ago
  • wolfess
  • Leen61
  • chew_chew
  • remanns
  • Toughth
    • +2
      Toughth  

    • The probable Limbaugh implosion could have a devistating effect in the city he lives in. After all that is enough misinformation that if it gets squeezed into an area of a wallnut could cause every conservitive in the USA to short out in the misinformation pulse.

    • 7 months ago
  • chew_chew
  • DanCastro
    • +3
      DanCastro  

    • "MDIC", I like it! Can you imagine the fear of those who know they cheated US and that we are finally waking up to that fact? Buy Maaloox stock, sure to go through the roof as ulcers start to act up like a motha fucka! ;-)

    • 7 months ago
  • FoosMaster
    • +3
      FoosMaster  

    • The people that are scared of OWS are complaining that it is a leaderless movement because if there was one person or a small group of people that were the Leaders then they could attack those few with their paid-off police or just merely set them up with bribes and if they don't take them then make it look like they did to destroy their reputations with the larger group. As it is they have no clear target. ;-)

      Support OWS!!!

    • 7 months ago
  • zoomy1
    • +2
      zoomy1  
    • FoosMaster:

      OWS is a moving target, and they're used to dealing with stationary targets.
      It's making them crazy because they don't have one stationary target that they can get a bead on, so all they can do is lash out at the entire movement, and it makes them look stupid.

    • 7 months ago
  • wolfess
  • wolfess
    • +5
      wolfess  

    • OMGoddess! I never thought I'd ever have to do this ... we all need to thank the badyear blimp for giving us 99%ers some well-deserved publicity :-)! Keep up the good work you fat fukk!

    • 7 months ago
  • GRC54
    • +4
      GRC54  

    • Linberger makes such a nice target. I always said someone should stick a pin in him and watch him blow around a room like a deflating balloon. Matt Tiabbi is graceful in his comment about the Comedian. I would have been way nastier in my report of that fat deef drug addicted under aged girl chasing Viagra chewing Bag of Shit.
      No offense to our deaf citizens.

    • 7 months ago
  • zoomy1
  • SIBob
    • +4
      SIBob  
    • Image

    • I’m starting to get behind this idea of a leaderless movement. The media is chomping at the bit in an effort to uncover some hidden conspirators, but there are none. This thing is being driven by all of us, the faceless discontented mob, and that scares the hell out of them. Where the Tea Party was put up with begrudgingly, with very little, if any, criticism, the OWS movement is forcing the taking of sides. Nobody in the public eye wants to be seen as outside the 99%, so many of the formerly enthusiastic free market types are treading lightly. They know the numbers don’t lie, and if they make themselves too big of a political target, the mob will turn on them and devour what is left of their political careers. Governor Andrew Cuomo got a surprise the other night, as he was accepting his Huffington award, at the protesters outside, so this venom is directed at nonperforming Democrats, as well as the whole Republican Party. Instead of trickle-down it will be trickle-left, as the reality sets in, and the wishy-washy politicians realign themselves. There will, of course, always be a few who remain stubbornly committed to right-wing ideals. http://sibob.org/wordpress/

    • 7 months ago
  • remanns
  • Gravity_Man
    • +2
      Gravity_Man  

    • North America renamed New Atlantis, date as yet to be released pending notification of relatives also unfortunately similarly drowned like rats... into a deep even e-mails cannot reach.

    • 7 months ago
  • MrCreosote
  • remanns
  • JustZ
  • Mark701
    • +11
      Mark701  

    • Limbaugh is freaked out for one reason, money. At last count he was raking in 50 million a year. That doesn't put him in the top 1% but the top 0.1% , possibly the top 0.01%. Same thing with Hannity et al, all multimillionaires many times over. OWS is a direct threat to the power structure that feeds pigs like him. In short, he fears he is losing control of the "ditto heads" who take his word as gospel. I mean lets face it, are the people who listen to this gas bag going to relate to things like the "Media-Democrat-Industrial Complex" or the fact the bank is taking their home? There comes a point were even stupid people sense what's really going on.

    • 7 months ago
  • budsnews
    • +11
      budsnews  

    • Pigs like Limpballs don't fear protester demands,just protesters.The idea that concerned Americans may wake from their slumber scares cowards like him,Hannity.The look on Becky's face is priceless these days,angry protesters play into his every fear.

    • 7 months ago
  • kvb1
    • +11
      kvb1  

    • The scariest thing for the Right and the corporate structure is that there are no leaders. There is no one they can go after to spin this on. The fact that there are so many groups with issues also presents a problem as they can not focus the discussion on a few talking points. They have to resort to things like "mob", "don't know what they want" etc. However, the 99% know that the issues are huge, and cover a lot of ground. That they only way to make this work is to stick with it, continue to focus on the inequity of the wealth in this country and keep the focus on the rich.

    • 7 months ago
  • SpecialAgent86
  • GENERALNATTY
  • remanns
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +8
      Wyley_Wombat  

    • This line says it all

      "They seem genuinely freaked out that OWS doesn’t have leaders or a single set of demands, which in addition to being very encouraging is quite funny."

      This means the re_Pig noise machine cannot put the movement in a box and label it.. They have to speak in full sentences rather than three word sound bytes and this is an enormous source of frustration, because their audience, unused to thinking, can't digest full sentences. Once again, they will be forced to eat themselves, doing our job for us.

    • 7 months ago
  • HellenaHandbasket
  • percipi224
    • +4
      percipi224  
    • Wyley_Wombat:

      of course they are freaked out....the horizontal model is leaderless to keep them from killing them, swift boating, birthing or sex scandalling them out of existence. there is your conspiracy, no leader so they can't pick him/her off put them in jail or disappear them. kill them outright. So they focus on weakening our govt. (which I say they have succeeded) or kill it outright so there is no one to address grievances too. We don't know who the leaders are of the corporatacracy so we can pick them off either, they laugh at us. derision is their tool in trade.

    • 7 months ago
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • savroD
  • HellenaHandbasket
  • Littlewolf
  • HellenaHandbasket
  • cmdinc
  • SpecialAgent86
  • oldpol2
  • cmdinc
  • SpecialAgent86
  • Andover
  • tverdell
    • -7
      tverdell  

    • Limbaugh was right on one point.

      There aren't enough protesters. In a city the size of NY, there should be a million people.

      A few thousand or even 10,000 is pretty sad.

      I hear a lot of chatter on the Internet about OWS rah-rah, but obviously not enough people think it's important enough to go their local rally. Outside of NYC, the numbers are even more pathetic.

    • 7 months ago
  • AugusteLumiere
  • MrCreosote
  • remanns
    • +2
      remanns  
    • tverdell:

      Thats pretty much my gut assessment of the numbers involved.

      Its a fine symbolic gesture , but the nature of things probably IS NOT about to topple.

      Now, with time,......and about one hundred times that many people marching about for ten times this long . . . .

    • 7 months ago
  • remanns
    • +2
      remanns  
    • tverdell:

      Damn,.....I did not realize HOW rudely "hit n run back-stab craven cowardly assassinvoted" you had been ! Boooooooooooo on all the boorish wuss voters who -Vd you from behind a c u r r e n t curtain. Boooooooooooooooo again. Get some balls,....and some class people; ANNOTATE/sign your damn votes !

      ( NO,....not the 1% type o' class,.....try to be 99% better ! )

    • 7 months ago
  • OlBlue
    • +2
      OlBlue  
    • remanns:

      Agree completely. Can't believe the down votes. Maybe his comments hit too close to home. He is 100% correct in his assessment. If people think that things will change based on the numbers and actions to date, they are sadly mistaken. I don't usually say when I voted something up/down (don't see the need) but I voted his post, and yours up.

    • 7 months ago
  • OlBlue
  • remanns
    • +3
      remanns  
    • OlBlue:

      Why,...thank you sir !

      ( Annotating votes keeps lazy mob mass "downing" from happening as frequently,....at least without SOME explanations attached to the act. It also seems to be basically the honorable thing to do. I try to be sure to do it even for " +^d s " ( up votes ),....but if one is going to "dis", I think its even more important. )

      Soooooooooo, anyway,......+^d !

    • 7 months ago
  • bike10
  • cherry5000
  • MrCreosote
  • Littlewolf
  • Anonmaly
    • -5
      Anonmaly  

    • Hmmm, could care less...

      What happens to be a little more concerning, the fact that wind-bags (Lush Rimjob, Herman Cain, you name it) take up more space on c u r r e n t than policy makers that are only escalating the very unpopular policies of the last administration...

    • 7 months ago
  • OlBlue
    • 0
      OlBlue  
    • Anonmaly:

      True, but they are easy, high profile targets. Indeed, we should talk more about the policy makers although Limbaugh and the baggers can make or break politicians. Let's talk Cantor, Boehner, McConnell, Ryan, Kasich, Scott, King, Issa, etc. There's plenty there!

    • 7 months ago
  • grammabet
  • AugusteLumiere
  • artemis6
  • AugusteLumiere
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