Nolan Finley, the editorial page editor for the Detroit News, is never a person I would expect to understand what it means to be unemployed, losing your home, or otherwise a victim of the banking collapse that resulted in the economic tar pit we find ourselves in today. He has proven, time and again, that he’s an staunch ally of the moneyed elites that have all the power, political and financial, in our country and has little positive to say about the remaining 99% of us.
But today’s editorial in The News is above and beyond Finley’s normal level of dispassion and callous disregard for the plight of the poor and unemployed in our state and country.
I can’t wait for the menagerie of malcontents who call themselves Occupy Wall Street to arrive in Detroit and other mainstream American cities.It will be good for real Americans to get a look at the folks President Barack Obama says represent their frustration with the condition of the country.
~SNIP~
Obama, asked about the budding movement last week, said he “sympathized” with Occupy Wall Street — not surprising, since they share a donor base.
And he opined that they are speaking for the great body of Americans who resent that some people have nice stuff and others don’t, and are counting on him to play Robin Hood.
It’s odd that such a small and predictable group could grab the president’s attention.
He didn’t seem to hear anything of value when tens of thousands of tea partiers were pouring into the streets to protest exploding deficits and Washington’s fiscal recklessness.
~SNIP~
I’m eager to see this freak show arrive in Detroit.
It’s hard to imagine what Finley is talking about when he says the Occupy protesters and President Obama “share a donor base”. It’s a nonsense statement meant to help the very rich feel better about the fact that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans, have had enough of paying the costs of the collapse of the financial sector and the global economic catastrophe it triggered while those that caused it have done quite well, thank you very much. The fact is that there are no “donors” to the Occupy Wall Street movement unless you are talking about folks sending food, water, blankets and other essentials to help. Where Finley finds the connection between people providing these donations of supplies to the political donors to Barack Obama is unknown. I’ll wager it’s south of his tailbone.
Finley’s description of Occupy protesters as a “freak show”, a “menagerie of malcontents” who “resent that some people have nice stuff” reveals his disdain for young people and those below him on the economic food chain. Their message that it’s time for the bankers to pay for their heinous crimes and for corporations to get out of our democratic processes is one that many tea partiers probably share. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than “the 1%” who don’t want the banks and bankers to face the music for their actions or who think it’s okay that corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. The derision implicit in the description of the criminal bankers who crashed our economy as “some people that have nice stuff” is reminiscent of the rich diners sipping champagne as they mocked the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the street below last week.
One can only assume that Finley has been sound asleep while President Obama has cut taxes for over 90% of Americans including multiple times for businesses. He can only have been in some sort of coma to miss the fact that deficit-reduction has been at the top of the list of most of what the president has done over the past year, even when it has been at his own political expense. How else can you explain such utter garp as a statement like “[H]e didn’t seem to hear anything of value when tens of thousands of tea partiers were pouring into the streets to protest exploding deficits and Washington’s fiscal recklessness”?
In other words, Nolan Finley is as out of touch with what’s happening in this country as an individual can be. The most amazing thing about it is that he is provided such a large megaphone with which he can prove it.
