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The Daily News takes a stand in favor of the Occupy movement...

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

...on October 3, 2011. I remember being thrilled by this front page, and being told by a very, very high-ranking editor of this paper that if the Daily News was going to cover this story, that we should take a position on it -- and that the decision was we were glad that someone finally had the guts to stand up against inequality in America.

If it was time for such a movement on Oct. 3, it's still time for such a movement now. The Occupy Wall Street movement has been incredibly successful in changing the debate in this country, away from knee-jerk austerity and toward pressing issues such as jobs and student debt; thanks to the collapse of the two-party system, they've got people focused on direct action like moving their money out of big banks, and they've shattered the notion of today's 20-somethings as only video-game addled couch potatoes. But inequality persists.

Call me crazy, but I always thought when support something you stick with the strategy even as you feverishly debate its tactics. What's both interesting and discouraging about the Occupy movement is that the occupying tactic that worked so well in the short term -- by keeping their righteous cause in the news day after day after day -- has worked poorly in the long run. A movement that's open to the 99 Percent means that it's open to a small band of provacateurs like anarchists -- and also to a portion of the 99 Pencent that continues to grow in opportunity-less America; The homeless. I'm surprised that so few people have pointed out that we do such a lousy job of taking care of the homeless in this country that it fell on the generosity of these protesters to feed them and keep them warm. But the openness of the Occupy camps have invited in a lot of trouble, especially in places like New York where the cops make sure that unsavory elements knew where Zuccotti Park was.

I actually agree with a major portion of what the Daily News editorized today -- I, too, think it's time for the Occupyers to leave Dillworth Plaza, and what I'd like to see over the course of the winter is a) a token encampment of politically motivated founders of the movement, much like the Olympic flame continues to burn when the Games are on hiatus b) a focus on direct action like the recent Move Your Money day and c) continued emphasis on homeless outreach, since government and the provate sector clearly can't give these souls the help they deserve. Here is what a sensible position sounds like from someone who is steadfast in supporting the 99 Percent:

We declare "victory" and throw a party… a festival… a potlatch… a jubilee… a grand gesture to celebrate, commemorate, rejoice in how far we've come, the comrades we've made, the glorious days ahead. Imagine, on a Saturday yet to be announced, perhaps our movement's three month anniversary on December 17, in every #OCCUPY in the world, we reclaim the streets for a weekend of triumphant hilarity and joyous revelry.
We dance like we've never danced before and invite the world to join us.
Then we clean up, scale back and most of us go indoors while the die-hards hold the camps. We use the winter to brainstorm, network, build momentum so that we may emerge rejuvenated with fresh tactics, philosophies, and a myriad projects ready to rumble next Spring.
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Earlier today, I made a reference to the Daily News editorial, and I was unfair in the way I handled it -- I want to do something I probably don't do often enough here, which is apologize. In particular, I was wrong in how I characterized how the editorial was researched -- there was a lot of old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, including first-hand visits to Dilworth Plaza. That's the kind of diligence that over the years has won the DN editorial staff a Pulitzer a while back and made them a Pulitzer finalist more recently. I was also unfair to question their rock-solid support for the First Amendment --any quarrel I have them is simply over interpretation.

So I want to make clear my vast respect for them before I repeat that I still find the editorial highly disappointing -- it just didn't sound like something coming from a paper that has claimed to supports the the goals of the Occupy movement. There was too little credit what the movement has accomplished, too little acknowledgement that the real issue is not so much who hijacked a tent city at City Hall as the 1 Percent that has hijacked American politics -- and so let's talk about how the original Occupyers can do their much-needed job better. Any position short of that, given the Daily News' earlier stance, is a flip-flop worthy of Mitt Romney.

It also really bothered me that on the front page, the call to end the Dilworth occupation was under the headine of "Power." Power? Really, Daily News? In my personal opinion, the only use of "Power" on the front page of the paper should be in, "speaking truth to..." This sure sounds like an endorsement of power. I know our paper said our focus going forward will be "Power," "Gossip," and "Sports." I would lose the "Power" heading and add "Powerless," because that's who needs a voice in this city, a voice like the Daily News.

It was just this year that the paper changed its slogan to "The People's Paper."

A true People's Paper can't have it both ways.

UPDATE: Tomorrow's front page is 10X worse -- but it's too exhausting to say anything more about this. I'll let Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck talk about it -- they'll love it.