Keith and Joshua Holland of AlterNet, author of “The 15 Biggest Lies about the Economy,” examine conservative claims that the Occupy movement is being driven, in part, by anti-Semitism.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Meanwhile, of course, as you have noticed, the right wing seems to have woken up to some of the power of Occupy Wall Street. It’s responding by smearing the movement calling protesters “violent and anti-Semitic and racist.”
In our third story tonight — conservatives lash out, starting with Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, insisting the media is overlooking, what she calls “the protesters’ rampant anti-Semitism.” She wrote, “In the millions of pixels devoted to the radical Occupy Wall Streeters, virtually nothing has been said about its anti-Semitic elements.” Possibly because there aren’t any. As proof of these elements, she points to a sensational new ad which — no surprise — was conceived by Republican insiders.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN #1: The small, ethnic Jewish population in this country, they have a firm grip on America’s media, finances.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN #2: Why are our leaders turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic, anti-Israel attacks? Tell President Obama and Leader Pelosi to stand up to the mob. Hate is not an American value.
OLBERMANN: The board of the Emergency Committee for Israel, which created that ad, is made up of leading conservatives including William Kristol. And The group has got the majority of its funding from New York hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb, who last year compared President Obama’s Wall Street supporters to “battered wives.” Right-wing pontificators now doing their best to spread the smears. Rush Limbaugh actually contending that the 99 percent movement is — the title is — in fact coded anti-Semitism.
(Excerpt from video clip) RUSH LIMBAUGH: Occupy Wall Street now, 99 percent, that leaves one percent, roughly the percentage of Jews in the population, too. And Wall Street and bankers have been anti-Semitic code for Jews.
OLBERMANN: Rush was assured there would be no math. Joining Limbaugh in the “this is the first time I have ever claimed to be defending a minority group” is Republican strategist Karl Rove. In a Wall Street Journal editorial he writes, “It’s a series of events populated by a weird cast of disaffected characters ranging from anarchists and anti-Semites to socialists and LaRouchies.”
Today, The Wall Street Journal followed that up by publishing results of a study that found nearly a third of protesters would “support violence to advance their agenda.” And the pollster responsible for that analysis? Doug Schoen, one of the great sell-outs of the century — and the last one — one of the lost souls who goes on Fox and claims to be a Democratic analyst and who has also conducted ”strategic research for a long list of corporate clients, including Citibank,” one of the companies that’s come under a little criticism from the protesters.
Joining me now for analysis of this, Joshua Holland, senior writer and editor at AlterNet and author of “The 15 Biggest Lies about the Economy.” Thank you for your time tonight, sir.
JOSHUA HOLLAND: Thanks for having me, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Ruben pushing the same message. And now it’s sort of being echoing back with the castrati — Mark Levin on radio and Rush Limbaugh. This is a standard of Republican echo chamber. We’ll get to watch all elements of it. Correct?
HOLLAND: It is, but I’ve rarely seen them so inflamed. I mean, it’s hilarious to see Jennifer Rubin saying this is a story that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention because, of course, the right-wing media has been all over it. And it’s been pretty much ubiquitous.
OLBERMANN: What is the evidence supposedly, I mean, given that Occupy Wall Street still fills an — amazing when you see it — amazingly small space. It really is about four or five times the size of the studio that I’m sitting in, which isn’t very big to begin with, and in it hundreds of people showed up for a Yom Kippur service the other day. I mean what was that suppose to be? A diversion from the true anti-Semitism?
HOLLAND: Well, they were covering it up. Look, the thing is that you can go down to a group of people, of Americans, a regular grassroots people who don’t have media training — and I don’t care if it’s a Shriners convention or a GOP convention — and you can find some freaks, and you can find people who harbor odious ideologies. And if you select those few people and then focus on them, you’re creating a dishonest narrative. It’s nut picking, it’s cherry picking a story to create a narrative.
I went down to my local Occupy action in San Francisco and I spoke to some people who are extremely cogent and had sophisticated economic analyses and knew exactly what they wanted. They weren’t representative of everybody down there. So, it would be dishonest for me to say every protester shared that view, but they were just as representative as the few people that Jennifer Rubin is choosing to focus on. It’s intentionally dishonest.
OLBERMANN: And it’d be as diverse as a Republican debate, probably, in terms of intellect and the nuts involved in the process. Do you think — looking at this — is this directed at anybody besides those who already believe this is true? My old line that I love is “for people who like this sort of stuff, this is the sort of stuff they like.” Is it just reinforcement?
HOLLAND: Well, I think it’s an intentional effort to drive a wedge between the working class, who’ve seen their economic security devastated, and the activist groups who are trying to, you know, bring attention to these issues that have been long ignored. Occupy Wall Street has already had a great impact because we are talking about inequality, we’re talking about unemployment. We are talking about youth unemployment. The right wants to talk about the deficit and pretend those things don’t exist. So, you know, we are refocusing. We’re seeing the conversation refocused by these protesters. And that’s a great and valuable public service already.
OLBERMANN: Just to be clear, I wasn’t claiming authorship for people who like this sort of stuff. That was Lincoln originally. I just stole it from Lincoln.
HOLLAND: Don’t steal from Lincoln.
OLBERMANN: You have to steal from somebody. All told, does this strike you as another part of, also, the conservative shadow strategy? In the Bush presidency, he was criticized as being illegitimate because of the 2000 election. So, Obama is then painted as an illegitimate president. And then Bush acted unconstitutionally regarding domestic spying. So Obama was acting unconstitutionally about fill in the blank. The tea party was called out for racist undertone, therefore you have to find something similar about Occupy Wall Street?
HOLLAND: I think that that’s part of it. I mean, we had polling about tea partiers’ views about race. So, we weren’t just selecting the nut jobs in those crowds, although I would say that there were legitimate gripes that those people’s views were amplified more than they might have been. But I do think that there’s some turnaround. And they’re saying, “Look, we can smear the left and we can call them the real racists,” which is a long-term conservative project anyway.
OLBERMANN: Joshua Holland of AlterNet, author of “The 15 Biggest Lies about the Economy.” Great, thanks for your time, sir.
HOLLAND: Thanks for having me, Keith.
