I laugh at people, some of whom make a profession of cooking up movements in GOP think-tanks funded by oil billionaires and dressing them up to look like popular uprisings, and how they're desperately trying to characterize the Occupy Wall Street movement as rag-tag, losers jealous of other people's success and living out some 60's fantasy be-in. I don't know what the Occupy movement will be, and whether in a year we'll see its emerging direction as the work of genius or scoundrel. But I do know we're watching something we haven't seen before. And to the frustration of its targets, it's not going away. Nearly a month now for New York, and as you know now in Trenton and Jersey City.
DCCC just made a pretty cynical attempt to list-build off the Occupy Wall Street movement, with a broad campaign directing Democrats to sign in with their email addresses, and deliberately ignoring the fact that OWS organizers hold the Democratic Party responsible for Wall Streets plunders, too, and not just the Republicans. GOP forces just want to wedge Dems apart and try to make protesters look ridiculous.
But they're not ridiculous. Blessedly, they are not merely partisans of one political party trying to clobber another. And they are self-defining. Not even its allies, like AFL-CIO both nationally and in Jersey, are likely to define it. Nor should they.
One strong signal of OWS singularity is its organizational response to the stumbling block of rally communication. In New York and as #occupy spreads, participants often don't have microphones. In fact, sometimes the presence of an electronic sound system requires permits to use that public space. But reclaiming public space is part , and that's not something they always want to ask permission to do.
A solution: the human microphone. Somebody yells out "Mic check!" and the speaker is heard, in waves from the front to the back of the crowd. It's fragementary, and it can be a little chaotic (see the Michael Moore 'mic check' video after the jump). But it requires discipline its detractors say the movement lacks. And the community cooperation is extraordinary. Moving, even.
Watch this video shot Saturday by Matt Sledge and featuring an Egyptian activist drawing comparisons between this intentionally leaderless undertaking, and the revolution that inspired it, Arab Spring.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both New Jerseyans. Stewart grew up in Lawrenceville and Colbert lives in Montclair now. So, you knew neither one of them could stay away from Christie's big announcement, right?
Stewart first, Colbert after the jump. For your late-night viewing pleasure:
Last night's cold open of Saturday Night Live, with guest host Alec Baldwin as a rapidly winding-down Rick Perry, ends with a pointed shout-out to that shy butterfly, Chris Christie. Behold:
Maybe you've seen this already, or read the pullout quote half your constituency has already posted on their facebook.
But maybe you don't realize that what Elizabeth Warren said at a garden-variety campaign house party in Andover, Massachusetts is an infusion of right-thinking lifeblood that can be helpful to you as you speak to voters in your own campaigns, and as you consider how to battle the regressive policies of a GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives or a Governor with one eye on the White House.
This is progressive economics clearly and cleanly spoken. It's what we sent you to Washington, and to Trenton, for. Some of you should see this, some of you need to. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.
He's told columnists to "get a life" when they dare to ask him about political trips he fails to disclose on his public schedule. He's gone for yuk-yuks when reporters (actually the same journalist, Star-Ledger's Tom Moran) ask him about his confrontational attitude, derisively laughing at "thin-skinned" reporters. He likes to make fun of people, both the press and his constituents who dare to disagree with him in public.
Statehouse reporters are pretty tough characters. They don't need me defending them. But I wanted to post this brief video, captured by Star-Ledger's Nyier Abdou, because I can't stop looking at the Governor's angry face, and uppity attitude that anybody would dare to think that his political maneuvers are the public's business. Massive deflecting. Here's Christie's "You're not entitled to know everything I do" speech to reporters last night:
This evening, the President addressed a joint session of Congress to deliver a major speech on job creation. If you missed it, here's the video. After the jump, I'll post the full remarks as released to press before the speech. I'm catching up to the speech myself, so it's posted here without comment.
We're nearly a week out of Hurricane Irene and the GOP is strangling FEMA at the very time Eastern Seaboard states are crying for federal dollars. You heard some of this in the very different view of government between Sen. Dick Codey and Rep. Scott Garrett and from Senator Lautenberg.
Frank Pallone was on Rachel Maddow last night, with fill-in host (and until recently Princetonian) Melissa Harris-Perry, on this very topic:
After a morning spent briefing the Today Show, CNN and various other national news outlets, Gov. Christie did not make himself available to New Jersey reporters until a noon press conference at command center. All morning, as Star-Ledger's Ginger Gibson tweeted, the press was scrambling to get details on things that they were hearing Christie said on national TV, but couldn't get info from state officials. Lisa Fleisher, who covers the state house for Wall Street Journal pointed out via tweet that she couldn't get his appearance on Meet the Press on her dial. Because - of course - national programming was pre-empted by emergency coverage from the local stations.
Ginger asked about the concerns of people who weren't able to see their governor on national TV. His reply to her?
I can deal with a tired governor. But I think Christie has found a brand new way to be contemptuous. Particularly after a morning when he made sure to get all his star-turns in on national television, this is less than should be expected of him.
I missed this when it first aired and it's great. Jon Stewart on the downgrade of New Jersey's credit rating a few days ago. The Fitch Ratings Agency better run. We got us an Aquarium.
Frank Luntz: Chris Christie is "basically a blue-collar Republican". That might be news to some blue-collar New Jerseyans I know. Luntz, via Crooks & Liars:
Our Ledger friends ask whether the good people of New Jersey will even want Verizon workers in their houses ever again after witnessing them in the act of striking. Witnessing what? S-L reports the FBI is investigating 90 acts of 'sabotage'. That's 90 'incidents' over 9 days of striking, in states from Massachusetts to Virginia, with 45,000 people out on strike. Really?
Strikes are a challenging business for both sides as S-L notes in their first paragraph (then promptly forgets). Their story deals only with striker behavior. And they have to pull from the entire Eastern Seabord for alleged stories of BB guns, blocked trucks, and cut cables. They, like many right-wing websites, are particularly scandalized by a worker "using his young daughter as a roadblock for Verizon trucks". I thought you should see that video. Does she look scared to you? Maybe she knows the well-financed PR assault her Daddy's up against.
What about what may be bad actions of scabs? Did S-L even consider the longstanding union-busting tradition of management sabotaging equipment so that striking workers are blamed? No. (Let alone snafus like managers rusty at dangerous 'hands-on' work [apparently] doing stuff like blowing transformers).
A few things for S-L to consider:
$258 million: compensation for Verizon's top 5 execs over the past 4 years
$6 billion: Verizon's annualized profits for 2011
$6,800: increased health care costs to each worker if Verizon wins
This isn't about getting rich off this company. Top Verizon execs have that covered. It's about retaining living wage jobs; that's what unions are supposedto do. The company's asking for about 100 give-backs including freezing pensions, cutting paid holidays, and exporting jobs to foreign companies.
Where's Star-Ledger's outrage at that? The people on strike are the people who built Verizon, literally. Verizon's claiming their back's against the wall because the market's transitioning from land-lines to wireless. Investment experts say even if Verizon succeeds in cutting worker benefits there's no guarantee it will stop their market share loss in landline. And the union makes the case its workers helped build Verizon's highly-profitable wireless side, which is not unionized. So why not support workers earning a living wage, and trying to keep their jobs in America?
So, difficult as strikes are - we get that, S-L - maybe you've overplayed the inconvenience to this company its workers built, that wants to shave worker benefits to rake in even more money. And maybe you haven't noticed many of its customers support the strike.
Jump for a video on the strike from the workers' side:
When DSWright told me he was posting what Matt Damon said in defense of teachers at the SOS - Save Our Schools - March in D.C. over the weekend (the diary just below this one), I didn't realize he was posting the speech Damon gave on the stage. Which was very, very good, and I had never seen before. Damon:
The next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that's been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has never literally never taught anyone anything ... please, please, please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you. We thank you. And we will always have your back.
Now, that's how you talk about people who devote their labors to children. But it's not the video I thought DSWright was posting. I thought he was giving you the clip of what Damon said in the VIP tent behind the stage (mild profanity). When he got a simple-minded question from a hairstyle with a microphone (sorry - sexist, not sorry - true) and another one from the cameraman with her. Here you go:
A few minutes ago, we ran the Saturday speech of Sen. Bob Menendez, whose re-election looms in 2012. Here, now, is Sen. Frank Lautenberg, speaking on the Senate floor on the same day on the debt ceiling debate:
I missed it live but got about 10 emails during Sen. Bob Menendez' speech on the Senate floor Saturday night, that it was very good, and needed to be said. As the debt deal rollicks to a rocky end, we now have video of that speech. We'll have video of Senator Lautenberg's speech this weekend, next. Here is Senator Menendez:
Apparently, Jay Leno has a long-running feature on his show, in which he compares his head size to the noggins of others to see: Is his head bigger than mine? This week, it was Gov. Christie's turn to be head-checked by Leno. Though, in the whose-head-is-bigger game, the results might be different if by 'big head' Leno was comparing ego.
Soon after yesterday's NJ Senate session, engineered to get Republican legislators on the record item by item dismantling programs and funding many New Jerseyans must depend on, senators Steve Sweeney, Dick Codey (current and past Senate presidents) and Linda Greenstein sat down for an interview before 101.5's microphones. And somebody turned the video camera on.
Ironically, Sweeney muses on the Governor's power, even with a reach of several hundred miles away on vacation. NJ GOP was in lockstep, except for Jennifer Beck's return to at least a surface pro-women stance, joining the Democrats' attempt to override Christie's cutting out of funds for women's health and family planning programs. Codey complains about the gamesmanship of Christie's cutting his own budget, after the legislature returned it to him intact. Greenstein, for me, was the most effective, recalling some of the revolting things Republicans said on the Senate floor yesterday. That was Day #1 of this effort. Day #2 was scheduled to start 10am today, and is running late.
Deciminyan will be live-Tweeting it all day at @bluejersey.
We've talked here before about the Governor's use of new media. As concept, I have little problem with it, if it engages people who communicate that way (in fact, it's a good idea). The problem has always been how Christie uses it: not to inform citizens, but to propagandize himself. Like a brand.
But even I'm amazed by this video posted both at the Christie administration's official YouTube page and at Christie's facebook fan site, which reads like campaign literature ("BRINGING FISCAL SANITY TO TRENTON"). We've seen Christie use YouTube to confront people who dared to disagree with him, or to try to humiliate teachers.
But this is different. Grander. Sweeping, even. For one thing, the militaristic music crescendoing behind Christie's firm and certain voice. The scope, underscored by the phraseology: "The Big Things". Gigantic national flag behind him. Glimpses of a large crowd applauding him. Word jumble at the :58 second mark: "Leaders. Growth. Health Compromise". By the :51 mark, the voices singing behind his sound like the music of angels. It's all too ... much.
I wanted to post this for a few reasons:
1. Your tax dollars are paying for this.
2. This video is a departure, and uptick, in Christie persuasive material.
3. The first YouTube comment past the featured one, made today by user justinalpertesq, is jaw-dropping:
Sorry, folks. This isht is just effin scary. Ms. Riefenstahl, nice to see you working again.
(screen capture, below)
Ah, I can hear it now, the clamor of objection that Blue Jersey played the Nazi card. Let me be very clear. Chris Shelton's Trenton rally speech invoking Hitler was undisciplined, but it was not without some truth. Weakening unions was among Hitler's first steps to power. But this isn't about that. Not about whether Christie's a Nazi (he's not). It's about the methods employed to create Christie aura, even the whiff of destiny this skillful clip - produced on your tax dime- suggests. This what you want done with your money? Christie's sense of himself as the kind of larger-than-life figure so effectively driven home here strikes me as seriously over-inflated. It's just ... wow.
Screen shot of the YouTube comment, after the jump
We have 2 Quotes of the Day today, both from Rachel Maddow's commentary last night, on Sweeney, in a segment called Democrats Doing it wrong in New Jersey. The first laments NJ's sad-assed Democratic performance of the last few weeks, compared to a more heroic midwest state:
New Jersey, you are not Wisconsin.
And as for Christie punking Sweeney and the block of Dems who voted with him, and his 'fightin' words' about Christie after that, Maddow says this:
The time for fighting, generally, is between the opening bell and the closing one. You can fight and win, you can fight and lose but lose forward like Wisconsin Democrats did, fighting like hell and thereby inspiring the people that they fight for. But if you instead assume the fetal position during the fight (inaudible) and then come up fighting once it's all over, the technical term for that is "too late". On union rights or on any of what are supposed to be core Democratic Party principles, if you surrender and you still get beaten up, you're doing it wrong.
Here's the video:
Couldn't scrub the short ad. Just deal with it. Vid clocks in at 8:01, with what's behind the Minnesota budget. shut-down leading, the fight for right in Wisconsin, and the failure to fight for right in NJ. Want to skip right to NJ? Skip to the 4:55 mark.
For your late-night viewing pleasure, here's a clip from Tuesday morning when Rachel Maddow guested on the Today Show, in case you missed it (I did). We get Maddow summing up the 2012 presidential contenders, wannabes and shouldn't be's, and she gets to our governor at around the 1:50 mark. Maddow says Christie is auditioning for VP, and doing a great job of selling what he has to sell. And what is that?
We've been running the ThinkEqual ads all day. They're the work of Jack Bohrer and Juan Melli, who wrote them and got them shot. They're a take-off on Apple's PC guy vs. Mac guy ads. Our blonde's like Mac Guy. Everything's easy breezy. Our brunette's PC Guy. It's all complicated, and the fact she's got to constantly explain what a civil union is to other people, like in a bar, gets in her way.
This ad's my favorite. The last one filmed in a very long day, the bartenders' misunderstanding of her CU was improvised, and everybody's laughter nearly ruined the shot. Juan makes a cameo appearance as one of the bar guys. I'll post the last one late tonight.
